@@JamesDidatothis seems to be the opposite of what the prior comment suggests. In another note, I would agree that the readiness potential is not the seat of free will and Sapolsky’s argument against free will is a rinse and repeat of each and every researchers worldview imposed on the basicality of the experience of free will as being an illusion. There is no scientific experiment to defeat the subjective experience of free will. There is no degree of prior causal determination to necessarily disprove free will. Especially when it is part of our lives in such a way that to live our lives as if determinism were true would be the equivalent of giving up. Which would ironically be a choice.
Our consciousness of our activities could be much more dynamic, complex, and variable than we realize. It will be interesting to see how things turn out when tests become more consequential for those being tested.
under hypnosis, does anything different happen in brain than when not under hypnosis? are any areas of brain suppressed under hypnosis, which might be areas of awareness or agency?
That’s what they’re trying to find out. This experiment eliminates the activity called the readiness potential from being different for conscious and subconscious actions, but they discuss in the interview that there must be some difference somewhere.
If the science thinks free will is in the EEG signal not subject who has free will which they cancel as a consequence of mind programming, then its the answer. And if not, then EEG has nothing to do with the free will
I agree with Dr. Wheatley there at the end, the Libet signal is supposed to have a prior causal history before 'In statu nascendi', because otherwise it's Delboeuf hypno-complaisance
The part of consciousness that make the decision is not the same part that communicates. It doesn't mean that the decision was made unconsciously. It shown by multiple experiments that different part of neocortex are responsible for different types of consciousness.
Her colleague at Dartmouth, Dr. Peter Tse absolutely disagrees with her and wrote a book called Criterial Causation to show where free will truly lies. Similar to what you commented. I would go so far as to say that 80-85% of what we do is based on prior determinations or habit. Dr. Charles Duhigg in the Power of Habit suggests this. But simply because a great deal of what we do is determined does not mean we are determined. It may mean that we free our brains for higher activities by automating certain tasks and actions. Swinburne has a great argument against this as well regarding the ironic desire of the test subject to be honest in the admission of when they felt the conscious desire to do the menial task. This alone invalidates the test…. Even with the introduction of hypnosis.
@@MrLJT1 his intellect is underwhelming!? What does that even mean other than you need more pretense to be convinced that basic experience and first order intuition is false? His argument is salient and clear. Criterial causation utterly removes any importance to the Libet experiment or any of its variations to show menial tasks and non-essential movements are not the locus of free will. It can’t be clearer. Even in this interview the suggestion that non-menial tasks where there are real consequences are absolutely essential to the research but they are nowhere near this… meaning this science is meaningless. Which is precisely what Tse argues. But your comment that is intellect is underwhelming is absurd.
In neuroscience, there are 3 subjective levels of awareness: autonomous, subconscious, conscious. The first two almost always supersede the later one in time domain, however, conscious awareness can program in an intention to the point of aligning bodily actions with and even superseding the intrinsic-embedded states. Some yogis, Buddhists, marshal artists and other mindfulness experts are know for that. Try to run your tests on that group, and without hypnosis.
If the past, present and future are all occurring at the same time. The experiment may suggest not free will for actions of the person. The possibility of everything including the test had to occur is something we may not be able to test.
some people might say that's a big 'if' having said that, I subscribe to the B theory of time (and am also a materialist). quite possibly physics will put this problem to bed long before these type of psychological studies get anywhere near understanding consciousness.
does readiness potential association with decision making have something to do with free will, even without conscious awareness? can have free will without consciousness?
Hypnosis conveys sleepiness. Has there been any study on the contrast between wakeful and sleeping state neuro-transmission or a similar kind for our reference? Thanks.
Maybe the sense of free will is correlated to how much what we predict we will do is correlated to what we actually do. In that case, the readiness potential is correlated to suggestions our brain makes of what we should do and the process of carrying out that action. We sense free will by predicting that our brain will let the action happen, or that it will prevent the action from being carried out. In the case of letting the action happen, the sense of free will is correlated to our capacity of predicting that the brain would indeed carry out that action. If the brain makes something happen that we didn’t consciously predict it would make happen, we feel like we lost our sense of free will. We also get a sense of agency from predicting that the brain would prevent the action from occuring. There must be two layers to the predictive mechanism. What the brain predicts will occur, which is what it bases the decision to act or not act on. And then there must be what we predict that our brain will predict and hence how it will act. By allowing the brain to carry out its predictive mechanisms but turning off the meta-predictive mechanisms, we let the brain carry out the action, but prevent the brain from predicting what it itself will do. We somewhat remove self-awareness or self-understanding from the brain. So it carries out the action, but doesn’t understand the why it took the action, and hence, does not attribute a sense of ownership or will to that action, because perhaps the sense of free-will is tied to accurately predicting what our brain will do, with our sense of control being more tied with the unconscious prediction of our brain accurately predicting outcomes of actions and picking the right actions to take.
“The pure present is an ungraspable advance of the past devouring the future. In truth, all sensation is already memory.” Henri Bergson (Matter and Memory) is correct. The conscious mind does not experience the present. There is no present. The mind experiences (or is the experiences) of recent states of the brain, and the experienced sequence is dependent on the various pathways and processes.
@@EveryHappening Yes, that’s right. Think of an electron emitting a photon. Is the photon ever partially “in” the electron and partially out? All the macroscopic entities and processes which are our way of understanding or summarising the vast complexity of the world are ultimately made up of what Weizsäcker called “ur alternatives”, primitive binary decisions.
@@richardatkinson4710 I’m not sure you are able to use current quantum models to explain our experiences of time or the conscious awareness of the present considering how utterly atrocious the interpretations are. When retro causality is in play with many quantum physicists despite its absolute incoherence in both present experience and the necessity of logic. So forgive me if the subatomic particle world is not the source of how I explain reality. Soon, it won’t be for you either.
@@EveryHappening Funnily enough, I completely agree with you. I used a quantum event (one of Feynman’s 3 processes in QED) as a familiar example, assuming it might make the point. But the interpretations are all over the place. My own view is that QM is not the fundamental level of reality; but I still expect (indeed, all the more strongly) that the fundamental process is an either/or choice or “switch”. The digital computer may be the best conceptual model (especially since it avoids positing space-time or causality - “all” you need is a series of bits, raw information say; well, not quite all…)
@@EveryHappening Whoops - sorry. I replied, but it seems to have gone down the Memory Hole. I agreed with you. The electron example was just a placeholder for any either/or process. There is no in-between. Like you (?) I do not think the Standard Theory is fundamental.
You're contradicting yourself. We make decisions. Decisions don’t just happen on their own. Our thoughts and actions are not just random, spontaneous outbursts. They happen for reasons, i.e., they have causes, thus are determined. Thoughts are either determined by internal/external prior causes (principle of sufficient reason/ cause and effect) in which you do not control them, or they are random (quantum indeterminacy)/ a mixture of both, in either case you do not control them. Every particle (further divisible to the wave function or possibly strings) in the universe, obeys the laws of physics, and your brain which constitutes of matter and energy is no different; following the 4 fundamental forces, in which you do not control that was set off at a brute fact (the big bang) or infinite regression.
@@archangelarielle262As far as we know quantum interactions are inherently random. How do you think any of our actions would be predetermined if at the most fundamental level, interactions are random.
@@gregoriusmike Reread my comment, I've already answered, that if everything is truly random, you do not control it. I'll go into more detail: Libertarian free will proponents insist that their choices are made for reasons, but also that those reasons do not determine their choices. Or that those reasons are not themselves determined, but also not a matter of chance, this is a contradiction. If it’s a false trichotomy, then what are the other options? Agent causation (of the soul)? But again, does something cause the agent to act, or does the agent act for no reason? Even if you have an immaterial soul, it only makes sense to say that soul is making decisions if its actions are causally determined by prior soul-states. Otherwise, its actions are uncaused, and uncaused events are, by definition, random. If you are acting randomly, that’s not really decision making. It’s only if your actions are done for reasons which cause those actions that you’re really making decisions. You’re not making decisions if you’re just doing things for no reason. A mixture of chance and determinism? Part of the decision-making process involves causal influences, and the rest has no prior cause. This doesn't solve it. Free will, described by its advocates imply a person has control over their decisions. If my decisions are predetermined; how do I have control over them? If my decisions have no cause, and occur for no reason, then how can I control them? What does it mean to say that “we are free and in control of what facts and ideas the mind focuses on”? When I choose to focus on an idea, does something cause me to choose to focus on that idea? If the answer is yes, then I'm not really in control of that act of focusing. If the answer is no, and there is nothing that determines what I will choose to focus on, the act of focusing on anything is no different from a chance event, which by definition are not controlled by anything. So, does something cause a person to focus and think, or does the person’s choice to think and focus happen for no reason? Or is it partly causally influenced and partly chance? I don’t see how responsibility or control fits into any of these options, and I don’t see what other options there are. True randomness would mean, there is no discernible laws of physics or logic. There would be no predictable patterns in nature, and phenomena would occur randomly and spontaneously. There would be no coherence. For example, in a world devoid of cause and effect, technology and engineering would be impossible. Machines would operate randomly and unpredictably, with no way to control or manipulate their behaviour. Buildings might collapse for no apparent reason, and for no reason change into materials with different properties with no consistency. Or, without any inferred causation, human interactions and societal structures would be chaotic and nonsensical. Actions would have no discernible consequences, making it impossible to learn from past experiences or plan for the future. Biological organisms would not follow any predictable patterns of growth, development, or behaviour. Cells might divide at random rates, leading to grotesque and unpredictable mutations. Cells might even not be cells, turning into race cars made of rainbows and lollipops. Organisms might exhibit characteristics that defy evolutionary principles. For instance, a plant might spontaneously grow wings and fly away, or an animal might suddenly transform into a different species without any environmental triggers. Regardless, our brains may be too warm, wet, and fuzzy for quantum effects to scale up to the level of chemical interactions involved in cognition. Decoherence: Quantum coherence, the state where a system exists in multiple possibilities simultaneously, is fragile and easily disrupted by interactions with the environment. In the warm, wet environment of the brain, quantum states are thought to decohere (lose their coherence) very quickly, on timescales much faster than typical neural processes. This rapid decoherence suggests quantum effects wouldn't have time to influence brain function significantly. Building upon the decoherence argument, the brain lacks the specialized structures and mechanisms necessary to maintain and manipulate quantum states consistently. Even if quantum effects occur in the brain, utilizing them for computation or information processing might be impractical. The energy and control demand for manipulating quantum states efficiently may be incompatible with the biological limitations of the brain.
@1GTX1 Not sure if we could prove such a thing. Randomness is what we have observed with quantum physics so far, maybe we'll find out more, and what seems random now will become predictable or maybe not. Can't say if the universe cares if it's random or not.
‘It doesn’t seem like you need an experience of consciously deciding in the moment to create an action…’ I could’ve told them that for free! I constantly turn the steering wheel of my car without consciously deciding to do it 😄
The experiment is designed around the fact that we do things unconsciously all the time, that's a given, it's specifically to determine if the readiness potential is different in the case of conscious and unconscious actions. They found that it isn't. Nobody knew that before. Even in the case of things we 'know' or think that we do, the scientific approach depends on not just taking our expectations for granted. Can it be demonstrated unambiguously in controlled conditions? If so, we should do that, and then we can move on to the next steps..
How can anyone make a non-consequential decision by exercising free will? If there are no consequences, then the choice would feel arbitrary and the subconscious would make the choice based on criteria of which we are not consciously aware. I do not believe I can make a random choice without the aid of an external source of randomness. I suspect that conscious choice, if it exists, requires context.
While hypnosis is not considered "nonsense," it remains a complex and nuanced field that warrants careful consideration and application. Scientific research supports its efficacy in specific therapeutic circumstances, such as pain management and anxiety reduction. However, skepticism persists regarding its broader applications and the potential for misuse. The understanding of the neural basis of hypnosis and its effects on consciousness continues to be an active area of research.
@@altair-x I gave a succinct response are you the jew shrink. And no it’s not so generated I typed this the best I could. I would rather have relationship with one of my millennial highschool teacher than deal with this addax
Sense of Agency is a Reaction to an Act that has happened or even a preposition for an Act. It's not a TRUE reality. Multiple mini action potential lead to one full act - like a Heart beat. So agency itself could be multiple. That's where trained activity works. It's like intuition. A measurement changes reality, like a photon. That's reactive. Nature is reactive, so are we. We can only "Know" things. We can't really cause individually anything.
If we can’t understand everything and we only have so many minutes and hours in a day, we have to divert our attention to some activity to “understand”. The object of our study will be a value judgement based on prior criteria which is decided by choice. Also, No one has what is known as maximal autonomy where we are in control of every possible contributing factor to choice. That is usually the strawman used by people like Harris or Sapolsky to argue we don’t have free will. They argue that since we don’t have total control over every factor influencing our choice, we have no free will. That is ludicrous and a total mischaracterization of free will and serves to disprove free will rather than prove determinism.
This study probably eliminates the idea that free will is a feeling. Nothing else. She keeps stressing on the sense of feeling free to will. That doesnt necessitate free will doesnt exist.
@simonhibbs887 Well consciousness is not something that has been clearly defined. Different scientists have differing definitions. Just watch all episodes in this very channel itself. Noone agrees to one defintion...though there is overlap. Some would say concious and "feeling" are the same thing. Others would say feeling is part of being concious...but not the totality on being concious.
All this is heading towards confirming consciousness is an emergent property of the brain. When that happens, it will be obvious consciousness plays no role in decisions and is only there for the ride. And the neural network of the brain is doing all the work. ALL the work. So what does "free will" even mean in that scenario?
If consciousness is an emergent property of the brain. that would make it extremely costly, to costly in fact. It is would be weird for natural selection to keep such wasteful and costly byproduct
@@medhurstt Oh consciousness is costly alright. the mechanisms behind it are going to be very costly. Being able to not only be aware of one's surroundings, but to experience it too with all of our senses, aren't going to be free. The brain is the most energy draining organ in the human body. So all of its processes, activities and functions are going to drain alot of energy.
@@medhurstt There's no way that something as complex, diverse and subjective as consciousness, is just a byproduct or a side-effect. The fact that we can consciously experience pain, pleasure, discomfort, etc. Is proof that there's more to consciousness. If free will is an illusion and consciousnes a emergent property. why then does our bodies signal our consciousness when it is in pain for example? I mean if the unconsciousness is the one to make all the decisions, then our bodies should only signal it, not our consciousness. This isn't something that can be explained by the fast food to go answer that is the emergent property idea. No this is far more complex than that.
Could democracy work in a free will society !!!!??? We have the higher source of "guidance" that navigate our "worldly life" and it must directing us to "afterlife"..peace be upon you'll out there and assalamualaiqum wmt
So they were just switching between whether mind is reporting something or not. Big deal. Just watch advertising and you can notice false reports for body to react or not react. This is just reporting and it has nothing to do with free will
Alfred Mele's book, “Why science hasn't disproved free will” is a good read. There is this phenomenon of bringing your philosophical assumptions when you do science, and then you interpret scientific results to fit those assumptions. So many scientists make that mistake.
A sophist hypocrite you are. You only every comment on other people and works all the while haven't any genuine research yourself. An embarrassments to any science you are.
What I want to know is what is the impetus, and the desire in wanting to believe, or I wouldn't even say believe, I would say in wanting to assert that there's no free will? It's so morbid, and so absurd, that it boggles the mind. The only thing that comes to mind, and I would submit that it's extremely dark and morbid, as far as this apparent attraction for so many to the seemingly preposterous idea that there's no free will, and that what we think we experience as free will is an illusion, etc.... is the desire to be rid of responsibility for your actions. That being the world-shaking implication of this assertion, that if there's no free will then perforce we have no responsibility for what we do, inescapably. And thus we shouldn't feel guilty, nor need we make any endeavor to change our ways. Which is a terribly profound and deeply appalling philosophical and moral prospect. Fortunately the idea is so absurd, and outright nonsensical, that notwithstanding this sort of research there's absolutely no evidence to suggest that it's all an illusion.... and that as a practical matter all people go about their lives as if perceived free will is very real, and fair or unfair, they do get the rewards for their effective choices and actions, as well as suffer the penalties for their foolish, ignorant or aggressive behaviors, and very much act accordingly, as if their lives depended on it. Which indeed they do. And it's that keen awareness, and appreciation of cause and effect, as put into practice everywhere by regular, constant exercise one's individual free will, that defines all animal life, especially human beings with our big brains, and our exceptionally expansive capacity of free will. But just the same, the appeal of the darkly seductive notion that it's not really our own natural, innocent volition that we do in fact guide and control such as it feels like we do, and is instead merely the presumed perpetual flow and movement of time and space and matter as put into motion and existence by whoever our creator.... really seems irresistible to some people. That's the only thing I can think of. Human beings are exceedingly wont to believe what they want to believe, as the saying goes. And then furiously work out some sort of plausible explanation to validate it. And science is definitely not some impregnable defense against that impulse. If anything, as this preoccupation with the 'readiness potential' would indicate, science is being wielded, knowingly and deliberately, to actively discredit the very idea of free will, one brick at a time. Can't say I'm too impressed....
@@Joeyjojoshabbadoo Do you think people only believe things they like to think are true? That nobody just follows the evidence? As it happens I’m a compatibilist so I think we do have free will in the sense of personal agency, and therefore causal responsibility. I don’t believe in libertarian concept if free will because there’s no evidence for any such phenomenon in nature. It’s not because I prefer to believe so, for me beliefs aren’t beauty contests, they’re based on the strength of the evidence and arguments.
@@Joeyjojoshabbadoo I agree, there is a lot at stake when it comes to free will. The denial of free will directly threatens moral responsibility. I don't think many people even think of the consequences or implications of their theoretical commitments, and they often miss the point regarding the axiology of free will. I don't quite understand why anyone would want free will to not be real. Either they lack sound value judgment or as I said they haven't even considered the implications, and they just argue for the sake of arguing or being right while their overall actions tell a different story.
(7:00) *TW: **_"You don't need the subjective experience of being the decider in order to do a volitional action."_* ... All of which is predicated on actions that are *pre-programmed* into the test subjects via hypnosis. I just now set my alarm clock to go off at 4:00 AM Tuesday morning. When it goes off, I won't realize it until it actually happens. According to this experiment, I am not the "decider" of when the alarm clock goes off. ... It will be going off on its own volition. This is what you get when science seeks a desired outcome.
They're measuring the relationship between the readiness potential and the sense of agency at the point of action. In your case it would be when you set the alarm, because that's when you are choosing the action.
@@simonhibbs887 *"In your case it would be when you set the alarm, because that's when you are choosing the action."* ... And in the experiment, it would be when the hypnotist programs the squeeze command into the test subject. It's the same thing in principle. I can stick bread in the toaster and not know when it will pop up ... but I know that it will eventually pop up, and I am the agent that's making the toast, ... _not the toaster._
@@0-by-1_Publishing_LLC In this case the toaster is a human being. So you think these human actions, performed while conscious, are a deterministic result of preconditions? I'll make a determinist physicalist of you yet! 😀
@@simonhibbs887 *"In this case the toaster is a human being."* ... That is correct! And the toaster-human had two fresh slices of "squeeze commands" previously inserted into it by an agent other than the toaster. ... Once again, it's "agency via proxy." You can't hijack a person's agency using a surrogate agent and then claim no agency is present. Any way you look at it, agency is present. *"So, you think these human actions, performed while conscious, are a deterministic result of preconditions?"* ... In this case, the hypnotist assumed the role of the test subject's own identity (agency) by previously programming the squeeze command into him/her. Had the hypnotists never been a factor, there would be no difference in the outcomes. And as I've stated numerous times, "Existence" is a mixture of *predetermined conditions* (obstacles) and *free-willed responses* (navigation of obstacles). Neither "Hard Determinism" or "Libertarian Free Will" can exist solely as a standalone construct. *"I'll make a determinist physicalist of you yet! "* ... if you do, it'll be against my will! 😁
@@0-by-1_Publishing_LLC To get to the point though, what they’re trying to do is find the neurological difference between choices we are consciously aware of making, and ones we are not. In this experiment they didn’t find it, but it seems like the must be one. This interview is from a few years ago and a lot of advances have been made since then with the latest generation of fMRI scanners, so we’ll see.
Volution is necessary for inibition, duns Scotus has told this long time ago, Suzannah Herculano-Houzel also did explain this, Hameroff, and many others. As for action potential, many other functional behavior do not demand anything but a living being. Polarization will occur, axons are there and they may or may not discharge consciously, unconciously and under several circunstances completely disordered and manifestly "broken" ways. The first conclusion is no conclusion at all, as much as I like Thalia Wheatley and respect the beauty of her work, free will is absolutely not about this and this conclusion is from many perspectives, expected. Several neural metrics one can monitor while under anesthesia won't differ from a concious person and the very same person with consciousness completely suspended.
This inquiry is one that the results have no bearring. The answer, either being yes or no, changes nothing. Placing before our minds "we have no freewill, we are doomed" is a very self defeating criterion. Man can react or refrain. With experience and a disciplined mind man can be proactive or remain reserved. Man does have a Will. In chess all plays and moves are ultimately determined. Man is subject to the laws and karma's of his choices and actions. To be free of karma ones needs be free of self willing. Long as man has a conditioned will like desire there he incurs karmq. True freewill i can only imagine would be free of any will. Man has will. Some, who claim to acknowledge God, speak about the Will of the Father; likely related to Providence. Man and his will merging into the great Will of the father is an interesting discussion for they who are worthy. Ultimately the will of man can not be any other than the cosmic will but of a slight due to condition - everything that proceeds from the Primordial Cause ultimately there will be a dissolution back to the primogenial Cause. This is the great Will of all wills. We're not exactly free from being subject especially to the body. Long as we Will we can not be free from karma(action: cause and effect). To be free of karma, i.e., no longer incurring bad effects, like the great Buddha taught we must remain and rest at the center in between the extremeties of the pendulum swim; which ever side you push or resist it must counteract. It doesn't matter what one thinks anout his own will. Wise is one who seeks to merge himself into the will of the Father.
How would you feel if you were muslim and you discovered Allah doesn't exist? Would you feel ashamed because some people deceived you and made you pray 5 times a day making a fool of you? How would you feel if this feeling was for eternity? When we die the truth would be discovered to know if we were right or wrong, if Allah exists or not. With atheism nothing matters, if reality was like atheists say reality is nothing really matters. If atheism was the truth it wouldn't matter if we are good or bad people, it wouldn't matter if we die young or old, it wouldn't matter if we have children or not, if atheism was the truth what would you live for? Fortunately atheism is not the truth because God is necessary because from nothing can not be created something. To end Islam and the war you have to ask for proof that the Quran was memorized. It doesn't matter if you are muslim, you have to make yourself respect. Would you be happy just because you are muslim to discover the Quran was never memorized and the group you belong to lied to you? I know it is not easy to escape out of a cult, but it is worth it. The true God is Spinoza's God. To not waste this loving poem I say atheism is a logical fallacy that assumes God is the religious idea of the creator of the creation to conclude wrongly no creator exists because a particular idea of God doesn’t exist. Trust me. Emergency. Thank you.
There is no true free-will only the illusion of such. If each definable moment has existed, in sequence, since the beginning of the universe, including each action, then there no free-will. The fact that we can only anticipate in the moment, the action or the results of the action is because we cannot definitively see the future action and future result. Not because it doesn’t yet exist, in reality, but because we can only perceive the present and remember the past.
If there is no free will, explain the existence of pain. Pain influences the will, if there was no will, pain would be superfluous and not exist, but pain does exist, hence there is indeed free will.
Hi ronhudson3730, should we assume there was no free will associated with the typing of your comment? Seems there's gotta be something there besides just the universe clicking along deterministically state-by-state through time.
If there is no free-will, we need to revise our judicial system since no free-will implies no conscious decision hence no legal responsibility. Meanwhile, time is an illusion: The only thing we can observe directly is physical movement in space. The measurement of time is invariably based on physical movement, whether it is of the sun or of a mechanical device.
@@steve_____K307nope, it was cosmically ordained by an infinite number of factors driving this inexorable compulsion to say there is no free will. It is the most obvious conclusion to make where I abandon all first person experiences and consider my minds basic intuition as wholly unreliable while simultaneously trusting that same mind to reliably provide higher ordered reasoning telling me my lower reasoning or intuition is wrong. It makes total sense.
@@johnhoward6201 Yeah, that's the weird thing regarding the "no free will" argument. If we have no free will and that the unconsciousness is making all the decisions. why do we then consciously experience sensations such as pain, pleasure, etc. Our body is signaling our conscious mind. But why would it do that if it is the unconsciousness that makes all of the decisions? Wouldn't it make more sense if our body only signaled the unconscious mind? so that the stress from feeling pain wouldn't occur?
the concept of "free will" can be easily refuted with a simple thought experiment... when was the last time you "chose" the next thought that appeared in your mind? because the correct answer is never, free will does not exist.
It's an oversimplification. Have you ever made plans, thought about the options and made a decision? Have you then ever reviewed those plans later on? It's possible obviously... Free will is not as narrow as not being to always control every next thought that comes into your head. We can shape our future over time to a degree. However it doesn't mean we can do anything as if by magic or mean we can undo the past be we can always try revise our plans and make changes
@@gregoriusmike think about what I said a little more carefully. what you're describing is the subjective feeling of agency (free will). yes, humans can think and plan, but the "choice-ness" of these thoughts is illusory. one's current thought (active mental state) is only and always a function of the totality of all prior thoughts (mental states), memories, neural wiring and/or other unknown molecular-level influences, and active environment. it's actually pretty simple to understand... in a human mind, there is no possibility for a "self" that is unconstrained by laws of physics plus molecular-scale processes that are beyond your control... how could there be? the perceived "self" is the end result of microscopic, biological, neural processes; it's enabled by cellular activities that "you" have no control over because "you" exist downstream, not upstream, from these processes. these processes are what IMPLEMENT "you" in fact. that doesn't mean that our subjective feeling of free will isn't important, or that one cannot be held accountable for their actions, but it does mean that the so-called "free will" concept is incoherent. it can't even be described in a non-contradictory way.
@@gregoriusmike think about what I said a little more carefully. or here's another way to look at it... consciousness derives from molecular-scale, cellular, neural processes that are beyond your control, and thus "you" exist downstream, not upstream, from these processes. the concept of "free will" is therefore incoherent, and cannot even be described in a non-contradictory way. what you are describing is merely the subjective feeling of agency. you can call it "free will" if you must, and I admit it's a convenient abstraction, but the "free" aspect is massively misleading, because there is no freedom whatsoever when it comes to your current mental state, thoughts, decisions, actions, etc.
"FREE WILL" comes from the BODY. It does NOT come from the brain. The brain works 4 the Body -- at least it's supposed to. The Brain is NOT the ultimate Boss. The body is the ultimate boss. My guess is that "Free Will" starts from the lower spinal cord or the intestines.
Hi lucianmaximus4741, so the paragraph you typed didn't come from your brain/mind but rather something down by the lower spinal cord or the intestines? I think you'll find that a hard sell.
"Big Questions in Free Will?" Thalia Wheatly IGNORED the fact that it takes FREE WILL of the Subject to choose to be hypnotized and to choose to accept hypnotic suggestions before any "readiness baloney" can be implanted... otherwise, hypnotism won't work... ...and she also IGNORED the fact that an "UNCONSCIOUS Hypnotist" can not possibly hypnotize. This simply means that it requires CONSCIOUSNESS to choose to hypnotize any WILLING Subject and to choose to give hypnotic suggestions... In other words, the Experiment is a waste of time & tax dollars - a total GARBAGE ! By the way, why not ask Thalia Wheatly who gives her the "readiness baloney" to hypnotize ? NONE ! Can't you see now how fraudulent this experiment is? Here is the TRUTH : Science' experiments can not eliminate supernatural Free Will, it is just impossible because it is not part of the physical world but originated from the Spiritual World... ..on the other hand, it is the WILL that can freely eliminate "material science baloney" by having faith in a loving God that physical laws have no control... ...again, the reason is because Free Will is not the property of matter but the supernatural power of your "free aware immortal soul" as free split of the Holy Spirit that these Godless Materialists hated because of their addiction to "No Sense of Accountabiliy" as just animal bodies with no free will to choose... FACT ! The idea of "readiness potential", that Thalia Wheatley mentioned here, arose due to the existence of Natural Instinct designed by our loving Creator, that allows the aware soul to discover its limited power or control of the physical brain and to learn how to use it in acting on whatever choice that the soul freely decides to make for its benefit and/or survival in dealing with this Physical World... ...compared to humans, the difference is animals have no free souls, unable to choose to discover and learn so to make free choices to progress, that is why animals never change, and can not be held accountable... this is also the reason why Godless Materialist love to define their whole being as just animals so to escape accountability as just amoral monkys... ..this initial discovering and learning of the Physical World, through natural instincts, starts when the soul enters the physical being any time from conception to birth.. We also can WILLFULLY CHOOSE to self-implant "readiness potential" inside our brain to be prepared to deal with any unforseen trouble... the effect would be developing skills, habits, et al...
If the theory is that X can cause Y, it only takes one fully accounted demonstration of an X causing a Y to prove it. This is a very, very tiny step forward, but neuroscience is extremely tricky research.
@@simonhibbs887 --- Not really, rules are rules, exceptions, single instances of something, i.e. that “can cause”, are not rules and exceptions do not negate or replace established rules. One of the most foundational basic rules upon which human reality exists is the “fact” of libertarian free-will; no libertarian free-will, no human existence containing any meaning whatsoever.
@@JohnQPublic11 For meaning to human existence, it only takes that human persons are the cause of human actions. I think the human person is physical, presumably you think they are non-physical. Nevertheless there is a human person, and they are the cause of their choices. Libertarian free will throws this away by saying that there is no cause of human choices, no reliable sense in which our actions reflect any persistent reliable causal aspect of our character. In libertarian free will a moral, law abiding conscientious person cannot be relied on to act morally, or lawfully, or conscientiously. They can act otherwise at any moment for no causal reason. Determinism takes the accounts we give for the reasons we made our considered choices seriously. It also establishes a clear line of moral responsibility from the character of the person to their moral actions.
@@simonhibbs887 --- Interesting, clever and humorous, exactly how an atheist, secular, communist thinks; redefine determinism as “free-will”. lol! YOU >>> “it only takes that human persons are the cause of human actions” ME >>> Wait! You are a determinist; determinists believe all of their actions are a direct result of every previous determined action, no different than an amoeba reacting to its local environment, now you are wanting to claim you are an independent sentient [old definition] being acting with “free-will”. An amoeba is the “cause” of its actions; that doesn’t mean they have free-will. You need to get your story straight. YOU >>> “Libertarian free will throws this away by saying that there is no cause of human choices” ME >>> No, libertarian free-will believes our decisions are considered, and that we are capable of making contrary choices; secular evolutionary determinists like you believe their choices are hard determined, without the ability to make contrary choices. YOU >>> “In libertarian free will a moral, law abiding conscientious person cannot be relied on to act morally, or lawfully, or conscientiously.” ME >>> No, the exact opposite is true; I think you are trolling me. YOU >>> “Determinism takes the accounts we give for the reasons we made our considered choices seriously. It also establishes a clear line of moral responsibility from the character of the person to their moral actions.” ME >>> lol! Clever, but its classic communist thinking. There are no considered choices or moral responsibility on determinism. Claiming our libertarian free-will worldview as the communist secular evolutionary determinist worldview is not going to fly. You‘ll have to try harder.
Is the title of this channel supposed to be ironic, the more I listen to these people waffle on about nothing I feel like I'm getting Further From The Truth
Great interview. Interesting work. Curious to see the next steps in these experiments.
The whole conversation doesn’t matter.
They are arguing about a point that whether true or false, wouldn’t prove the existence of free will.
Agreed. I think Robert Sapolsky pretty much put this to rest with his book "Determined". I'm reading it a second time because it was that damn good.
@@JamesDidatothis seems to be the opposite of what the prior comment suggests. In another note, I would agree that the readiness potential is not the seat of free will and Sapolsky’s argument against free will is a rinse and repeat of each and every researchers worldview imposed on the basicality of the experience of free will as being an illusion. There is no scientific experiment to defeat the subjective experience of free will. There is no degree of prior causal determination to necessarily disprove free will. Especially when it is part of our lives in such a way that to live our lives as if determinism were true would be the equivalent of giving up. Which would ironically be a choice.
Kuhns work. He is the scientist 🤣
She’s just explaining her work. At the end she says the same thing as you so you should have watched the whole video.
Excellent, thank you!
very interesting.
excellent questions !
Our consciousness of our activities could be much more dynamic, complex, and variable than we realize. It will be interesting to see how things turn out when tests become more consequential for those being tested.
under hypnosis, does anything different happen in brain than when not under hypnosis? are any areas of brain suppressed under hypnosis, which might be areas of awareness or agency?
That’s what they’re trying to find out. This experiment eliminates the activity called the readiness potential from being different for conscious and subconscious actions, but they discuss in the interview that there must be some difference somewhere.
I am not sure using hypnosis helps get definitive research results
I thought hypnosis was considered nonsense
Hypnosis controls attention. You can will something to happen but be UNAWARE of your agency.
If the science thinks free will is in the EEG signal not subject who has free will which they cancel as a consequence of mind programming, then its the answer. And if not, then EEG has nothing to do with the free will
You were predestined to be unsure.
I agree with Dr. Wheatley there at the end, the Libet signal is supposed to have a prior causal history before 'In statu nascendi', because otherwise it's Delboeuf hypno-complaisance
The part of consciousness that make the decision is not the same part that communicates. It doesn't mean that the decision was made unconsciously. It shown by multiple experiments that different part of neocortex are responsible for different types of consciousness.
Her colleague at Dartmouth, Dr. Peter Tse absolutely disagrees with her and wrote a book called Criterial Causation to show where free will truly lies. Similar to what you commented. I would go so far as to say that 80-85% of what we do is based on prior determinations or habit. Dr. Charles Duhigg in the Power of Habit suggests this. But simply because a great deal of what we do is determined does not mean we are determined. It may mean that we free our brains for higher activities by automating certain tasks and actions. Swinburne has a great argument against this as well regarding the ironic desire of the test subject to be honest in the admission of when they felt the conscious desire to do the menial task. This alone invalidates the test…. Even with the introduction of hypnosis.
@@EveryHappening I find Tse's intellect to be rather underwhelming and his arguments unconvincing.
@@MrLJT1 his intellect is underwhelming!? What does that even mean other than you need more pretense to be convinced that basic experience and first order intuition is false? His argument is salient and clear. Criterial causation utterly removes any importance to the Libet experiment or any of its variations to show menial tasks and non-essential movements are not the locus of free will. It can’t be clearer. Even in this interview the suggestion that non-menial tasks where there are real consequences are absolutely essential to the research but they are nowhere near this… meaning this science is meaningless. Which is precisely what Tse argues. But your comment that is intellect is underwhelming is absurd.
In neuroscience, there are 3 subjective levels of awareness: autonomous, subconscious, conscious. The first two almost always supersede the later one in time domain, however, conscious awareness can program in an intention to the point of aligning bodily actions with and even superseding the intrinsic-embedded states. Some yogis, Buddhists, marshal artists and other mindfulness experts are know for that. Try to run your tests on that group, and without hypnosis.
I dont see any link between the experiment (hypnosis) and the big question re free will.....may be I need to re-watch 🙂
could there be something happening in brain before the readiness potential for an action?
conscious experience might have role that can be part of or separate from action with readiness potential?
If the past, present and future are all occurring at the same time. The experiment may suggest not free will for actions of the person. The possibility of everything including the test had to occur is something we may not be able to test.
some people might say that's a big 'if'
having said that, I subscribe to the B theory of time (and am also a materialist).
quite possibly physics will put this problem to bed long before these type of psychological studies get anywhere near understanding consciousness.
does readiness potential association with decision making have something to do with free will, even without conscious awareness? can have free will without consciousness?
Hypnosis conveys sleepiness. Has there been any study on the contrast between wakeful and sleeping state neuro-transmission or a similar kind for our reference? Thanks.
Maybe the sense of free will is correlated to how much what we predict we will do is correlated to what we actually do. In that case, the readiness potential is correlated to suggestions our brain makes of what we should do and the process of carrying out that action. We sense free will by predicting that our brain will let the action happen, or that it will prevent the action from being carried out. In the case of letting the action happen, the sense of free will is correlated to our capacity of predicting that the brain would indeed carry out that action. If the brain makes something happen that we didn’t consciously predict it would make happen, we feel like we lost our sense of free will. We also get a sense of agency from predicting that the brain would prevent the action from occuring. There must be two layers to the predictive mechanism. What the brain predicts will occur, which is what it bases the decision to act or not act on. And then there must be what we predict that our brain will predict and hence how it will act. By allowing the brain to carry out its predictive mechanisms but turning off the meta-predictive mechanisms, we let the brain carry out the action, but prevent the brain from predicting what it itself will do. We somewhat remove self-awareness or self-understanding from the brain. So it carries out the action, but doesn’t understand the why it took the action, and hence, does not attribute a sense of ownership or will to that action, because perhaps the sense of free-will is tied to accurately predicting what our brain will do, with our sense of control being more tied with the unconscious prediction of our brain accurately predicting outcomes of actions and picking the right actions to take.
“The pure present is an ungraspable advance of the past devouring the future. In truth, all sensation is already memory.” Henri Bergson (Matter and Memory) is correct. The conscious mind does not experience the present. There is no present. The mind experiences (or is the experiences) of recent states of the brain, and the experienced sequence is dependent on the various pathways and processes.
I wonder when you recorded that comment then… always in the past but never in the present I suppose.
@@EveryHappening Yes, that’s right. Think of an electron emitting a photon. Is the photon ever partially “in” the electron and partially out? All the macroscopic entities and processes which are our way of understanding or summarising the vast complexity of the world are ultimately made up of what Weizsäcker called “ur alternatives”, primitive binary decisions.
@@richardatkinson4710 I’m not sure you are able to use current quantum models to explain our experiences of time or the conscious awareness of the present considering how utterly atrocious the interpretations are. When retro causality is in play with many quantum physicists despite its absolute incoherence in both present experience and the necessity of logic. So forgive me if the subatomic particle world is not the source of how I explain reality. Soon, it won’t be for you either.
@@EveryHappening Funnily enough, I completely agree with you. I used a quantum event (one of Feynman’s 3 processes in QED) as a familiar example, assuming it might make the point. But the interpretations are all over the place. My own view is that QM is not the fundamental level of reality; but I still expect (indeed, all the more strongly) that the fundamental process is an either/or choice or “switch”. The digital computer may be the best conceptual model (especially since it avoids positing space-time or causality - “all” you need is a series of bits, raw information say; well, not quite all…)
@@EveryHappening Whoops - sorry. I replied, but it seems to have gone down the Memory Hole. I agreed with you. The electron example was just a placeholder for any either/or process. There is no in-between. Like you (?) I do not think the Standard Theory is fundamental.
Free will is planning ahead
Manifest that destiny
You're contradicting yourself. We make decisions. Decisions don’t just happen on their own. Our thoughts and actions are not just random, spontaneous outbursts. They happen for reasons, i.e., they have causes, thus are determined.
Thoughts are either determined by internal/external prior causes (principle of sufficient reason/ cause and effect) in which you do not control them, or they are random (quantum indeterminacy)/ a mixture of both, in either case you do not control them.
Every particle (further divisible to the wave function or possibly strings) in the universe, obeys the laws of physics, and your brain which constitutes of matter and energy is no different; following the 4 fundamental forces, in which you do not control that was set off at a brute fact (the big bang) or infinite regression.
@@archangelarielle262As far as we know quantum interactions are inherently random. How do you think any of our actions would be predetermined if at the most fundamental level, interactions are random.
@@gregoriusmike Reread my comment, I've already answered, that if everything is truly random, you do not control it.
I'll go into more detail: Libertarian free will proponents insist that their choices are made for reasons, but also that those reasons do not determine their choices. Or that those reasons are not themselves determined, but also not a matter of chance, this is a contradiction.
If it’s a false trichotomy, then what are the other options? Agent causation (of the soul)? But again, does something cause the agent to act, or does the agent act for no reason?
Even if you have an immaterial soul, it only makes sense to say that soul is making decisions if its actions are causally determined by prior soul-states. Otherwise, its actions are uncaused, and uncaused events are, by definition, random. If you are acting randomly, that’s not really decision making. It’s only if your actions are done for reasons which cause those actions that you’re really making decisions. You’re not making decisions if you’re just doing things for no reason.
A mixture of chance and determinism? Part of the decision-making process involves causal influences, and the rest has no prior cause. This doesn't solve it. Free will, described by its advocates imply a person has control over their decisions. If my decisions are predetermined; how do I have control over them? If my decisions have no cause, and occur for no reason, then how can I control them?
What does it mean to say that “we are free and in control of what facts and ideas the mind focuses on”? When I choose to focus on an idea, does something cause me to choose to focus on that idea? If the answer is yes, then I'm not really in control of that act of focusing. If the answer is no, and there is nothing that determines what I will choose to focus on, the act of focusing on anything is no different from a chance event, which by definition are not controlled by anything.
So, does something cause a person to focus and think, or does the person’s choice to think and focus happen for no reason? Or is it partly causally influenced and partly chance? I don’t see how responsibility or control fits into any of these options, and I don’t see what other options there are.
True randomness would mean, there is no discernible laws of physics or logic. There would be no predictable patterns in nature, and phenomena would occur randomly and spontaneously. There would be no coherence.
For example, in a world devoid of cause and effect, technology and engineering would be impossible. Machines would operate randomly and unpredictably, with no way to control or manipulate their behaviour. Buildings might collapse for no apparent reason, and for no reason change into materials with different properties with no consistency.
Or, without any inferred causation, human interactions and societal structures would be chaotic and nonsensical. Actions would have no discernible consequences, making it impossible to learn from past experiences or plan for the future.
Biological organisms would not follow any predictable patterns of growth, development, or behaviour. Cells might divide at random rates, leading to grotesque and unpredictable mutations. Cells might even not be cells, turning into race cars made of rainbows and lollipops. Organisms might exhibit characteristics that defy evolutionary principles. For instance, a plant might spontaneously grow wings and fly away, or an animal might suddenly transform into a different species without any environmental triggers.
Regardless, our brains may be too warm, wet, and fuzzy for quantum effects to scale up to the level of chemical interactions involved in cognition. Decoherence: Quantum coherence, the state where a system exists in multiple possibilities simultaneously, is fragile and easily disrupted by interactions with the environment. In the warm, wet environment of the brain, quantum states are thought to decohere (lose their coherence) very quickly, on timescales much faster than typical neural processes. This rapid decoherence suggests quantum effects wouldn't have time to influence brain function significantly. Building upon the decoherence argument, the brain lacks the specialized structures and mechanisms necessary to maintain and manipulate quantum states consistently.
Even if quantum effects occur in the brain, utilizing them for computation or information processing might be impractical. The energy and control demand for manipulating quantum states efficiently may be incompatible with the biological limitations of the brain.
@@gregoriusmikeHow would you even prove that there is such a thing as ''random'' in nature.
@1GTX1 Not sure if we could prove such a thing. Randomness is what we have observed with quantum physics so far, maybe we'll find out more, and what seems random now will become predictable or maybe not. Can't say if the universe cares if it's random or not.
‘It doesn’t seem like you need an experience of consciously deciding in the moment to create an action…’ I could’ve told them that for free! I constantly turn the steering wheel of my car without consciously deciding to do it 😄
The experiment is designed around the fact that we do things unconsciously all the time, that's a given, it's specifically to determine if the readiness potential is different in the case of conscious and unconscious actions. They found that it isn't. Nobody knew that before. Even in the case of things we 'know' or think that we do, the scientific approach depends on not just taking our expectations for granted. Can it be demonstrated unambiguously in controlled conditions? If so, we should do that, and then we can move on to the next steps..
How can anyone make a non-consequential decision by exercising free will? If there are no consequences, then the choice would feel arbitrary and the subconscious would make the choice based on criteria of which we are not consciously aware. I do not believe I can make a random choice without the aid of an external source of randomness. I suspect that conscious choice, if it exists, requires context.
Why are people keep using the readiness potential, when it was debunked by Aaron schurger a while ago?
While hypnosis is not considered "nonsense," it remains a complex and nuanced field that warrants careful consideration and application. Scientific research supports its efficacy in specific therapeutic circumstances, such as pain management and anxiety reduction. However, skepticism persists regarding its broader applications and the potential for misuse. The understanding of the neural basis of hypnosis and its effects on consciousness continues to be an active area of research.
@@Catholictomherbert This is ai generated isn't it?
@@altair-x I gave a succinct response are you the jew shrink. And no it’s not so generated I typed this the best I could. I would rather have relationship with one of my millennial highschool teacher than deal with this addax
I don’t think it was exactly debunked…but the effect of averaging was clarified…Still, we’d rather have finer methods than EEG as she and you suggest.
If hypnotizing works as accepted as fact here, why are such results not looked at for people claiming alien abductions? Double standard?
Sense of Agency is a Reaction to an Act that has happened or even a preposition for an Act. It's not a TRUE reality. Multiple mini action potential lead to one full act - like a Heart beat. So agency itself could be multiple. That's where trained activity works. It's like intuition. A measurement changes reality, like a photon. That's reactive. Nature is reactive, so are we. We can only "Know" things. We can't really cause individually anything.
If humans by nature desire understanding, then no-one has complete Free Will.
If we can’t understand everything and we only have so many minutes and hours in a day, we have to divert our attention to some activity to “understand”. The object of our study will be a value judgement based on prior criteria which is decided by choice. Also, No one has what is known as maximal autonomy where we are in control of every possible contributing factor to choice. That is usually the strawman used by people like Harris or Sapolsky to argue we don’t have free will. They argue that since we don’t have total control over every factor influencing our choice, we have no free will. That is ludicrous and a total mischaracterization of free will and serves to disprove free will rather than prove determinism.
Self awareness is equivalent to free will.
you're mixing agency and free will
Where’s your sunglasses?
This study probably eliminates the idea that free will is a feeling. Nothing else. She keeps stressing on the sense of feeling free to will. That doesnt necessitate free will doesnt exist.
Yeah, that's exactly what she's saying, we don't have to be conscious of chosen actions.
@simonhibbs887 Well consciousness is not something that has been clearly defined. Different scientists have differing definitions. Just watch all episodes in this very channel itself. Noone agrees to one defintion...though there is overlap.
Some would say concious and "feeling" are the same thing. Others would say feeling is part of being concious...but not the totality on being concious.
All this is heading towards confirming consciousness is an emergent property of the brain. When that happens, it will be obvious consciousness plays no role in decisions and is only there for the ride. And the neural network of the brain is doing all the work. ALL the work. So what does "free will" even mean in that scenario?
If consciousness is an emergent property of the brain. that would make it extremely costly, to costly in fact. It is would be weird for natural selection to keep such wasteful and costly byproduct
@altair-x Why? Consciousness would have no cost. Brain function still underlies the goals of survival and reproduction.
@@medhurstt Oh consciousness is costly alright. the mechanisms behind it are going to be very costly. Being able to not only be aware of one's surroundings, but to experience it too with all of our senses, aren't going to be free. The brain is the most energy draining organ in the human body. So all of its processes, activities and functions are going to drain alot of energy.
@altair-x yes, but for the purposes of survival and reproduction. Consciousness would come along for free as an emergent property.
@@medhurstt There's no way that something as complex, diverse and subjective as consciousness, is just a byproduct or a side-effect.
The fact that we can consciously experience pain, pleasure, discomfort, etc. Is proof that there's more to consciousness.
If free will is an illusion and consciousnes a emergent property. why then does our bodies signal our consciousness when it is in pain for example? I mean if the unconsciousness is the one to make all the decisions, then our bodies should only signal it, not our consciousness.
This isn't something that can be explained by the fast food to go answer that is the emergent property idea. No this is far more complex than that.
I have a friend who is always a decider
Could democracy work in a free will society !!!!??? We have the higher source of "guidance" that navigate our "worldly life" and it must directing us to "afterlife"..peace be upon you'll out there and assalamualaiqum wmt
is it a conditioned behavior like all other seemingly "automatic" behaviors.....?
So they were just switching between whether mind is reporting something or not. Big deal. Just watch advertising and you can notice false reports for body to react or not react. This is just reporting and it has nothing to do with free will
Yeah.
Free will.
It is or it isn't,
it does not matter.
It's free or not
we see its results.
This universe must be
d@stroyed.
Alfred Mele's book, “Why science hasn't disproved free will” is a good read.
There is this phenomenon of bringing your philosophical assumptions when you do science, and then you interpret scientific results to fit those assumptions.
So many scientists make that mistake.
Yep, it's a constant struggle. Humans are terrible witnesses and bias is extremely hard to eliminate even under carefully prepared conditions.
A sophist hypocrite you are. You only every comment on other people and works all the while haven't any genuine research yourself.
An embarrassments to any science you are.
What I want to know is what is the impetus, and the desire in wanting to believe, or I wouldn't even say believe, I would say in wanting to assert that there's no free will? It's so morbid, and so absurd, that it boggles the mind.
The only thing that comes to mind, and I would submit that it's extremely dark and morbid, as far as this apparent attraction for so many to the seemingly preposterous idea that there's no free will, and that what we think we experience as free will is an illusion, etc.... is the desire to be rid of responsibility for your actions. That being the world-shaking implication of this assertion, that if there's no free will then perforce we have no responsibility for what we do, inescapably. And thus we shouldn't feel guilty, nor need we make any endeavor to change our ways. Which is a terribly profound and deeply appalling philosophical and moral prospect. Fortunately the idea is so absurd, and outright nonsensical, that notwithstanding this sort of research there's absolutely no evidence to suggest that it's all an illusion.... and that as a practical matter all people go about their lives as if perceived free will is very real, and fair or unfair, they do get the rewards for their effective choices and actions, as well as suffer the penalties for their foolish, ignorant or aggressive behaviors, and very much act accordingly, as if their lives depended on it. Which indeed they do. And it's that keen awareness, and appreciation of cause and effect, as put into practice everywhere by regular, constant exercise one's individual free will, that defines all animal life, especially human beings with our big brains, and our exceptionally expansive capacity of free will. But just the same, the appeal of the darkly seductive notion that it's not really our own natural, innocent volition that we do in fact guide and control such as it feels like we do, and is instead merely the presumed perpetual flow and movement of time and space and matter as put into motion and existence by whoever our creator.... really seems irresistible to some people.
That's the only thing I can think of. Human beings are exceedingly wont to believe what they want to believe, as the saying goes. And then furiously work out some sort of plausible explanation to validate it. And science is definitely not some impregnable defense against that impulse. If anything, as this preoccupation with the 'readiness potential' would indicate, science is being wielded, knowingly and deliberately, to actively discredit the very idea of free will, one brick at a time. Can't say I'm too impressed....
@@Joeyjojoshabbadoo Do you think people only believe things they like to think are true? That nobody just follows the evidence?
As it happens I’m a compatibilist so I think we do have free will in the sense of personal agency, and therefore causal responsibility. I don’t believe in libertarian concept if free will because there’s no evidence for any such phenomenon in nature. It’s not because I prefer to believe so, for me beliefs aren’t beauty contests, they’re based on the strength of the evidence and arguments.
@@Joeyjojoshabbadoo I agree, there is a lot at stake when it comes to free will. The denial of free will directly threatens moral responsibility.
I don't think many people even think of the consequences or implications of their theoretical commitments, and they often miss the point regarding the axiology of free will. I don't quite understand why anyone would want free will to not be real. Either they lack sound value judgment or as I said they haven't even considered the implications, and they just argue for the sake of arguing or being right while their overall actions tell a different story.
Closer to True 😂😂😂😂
Can't you have that same discussion in a windy parking lot?
(7:00) *TW: **_"You don't need the subjective experience of being the decider in order to do a volitional action."_* ... All of which is predicated on actions that are *pre-programmed* into the test subjects via hypnosis.
I just now set my alarm clock to go off at 4:00 AM Tuesday morning. When it goes off, I won't realize it until it actually happens. According to this experiment, I am not the "decider" of when the alarm clock goes off. ... It will be going off on its own volition.
This is what you get when science seeks a desired outcome.
They're measuring the relationship between the readiness potential and the sense of agency at the point of action. In your case it would be when you set the alarm, because that's when you are choosing the action.
@@simonhibbs887 *"In your case it would be when you set the alarm, because that's when you are choosing the action."*
... And in the experiment, it would be when the hypnotist programs the squeeze command into the test subject. It's the same thing in principle.
I can stick bread in the toaster and not know when it will pop up ... but I know that it will eventually pop up, and I am the agent that's making the toast, ... _not the toaster._
@@0-by-1_Publishing_LLC In this case the toaster is a human being. So you think these human actions, performed while conscious, are a deterministic result of preconditions? I'll make a determinist physicalist of you yet! 😀
@@simonhibbs887 *"In this case the toaster is a human being."*
... That is correct! And the toaster-human had two fresh slices of "squeeze commands" previously inserted into it by an agent other than the toaster. ... Once again, it's "agency via proxy."
You can't hijack a person's agency using a surrogate agent and then claim no agency is present. Any way you look at it, agency is present.
*"So, you think these human actions, performed while conscious, are a deterministic result of preconditions?"*
... In this case, the hypnotist assumed the role of the test subject's own identity (agency) by previously programming the squeeze command into him/her. Had the hypnotists never been a factor, there would be no difference in the outcomes.
And as I've stated numerous times, "Existence" is a mixture of *predetermined conditions* (obstacles) and *free-willed responses* (navigation of obstacles). Neither "Hard Determinism" or "Libertarian Free Will" can exist solely as a standalone construct.
*"I'll make a determinist physicalist of you yet! "*
... if you do, it'll be against my will! 😁
@@0-by-1_Publishing_LLC To get to the point though, what they’re trying to do is find the neurological difference between choices we are consciously aware of making, and ones we are not. In this experiment they didn’t find it, but it seems like the must be one. This interview is from a few years ago and a lot of advances have been made since then with the latest generation of fMRI scanners, so we’ll see.
Gematria444:360=1.23*MONAD
If Einstein is right, that we could travel into the future, then we don't have free will. Big if, but fact if so
Volution is necessary for inibition, duns Scotus has told this long time ago, Suzannah Herculano-Houzel also did explain this, Hameroff, and many others. As for action potential, many other functional behavior do not demand anything but a living being. Polarization will occur, axons are there and they may or may not discharge consciously, unconciously and under several circunstances completely disordered and manifestly "broken" ways. The first conclusion is no conclusion at all, as much as I like Thalia Wheatley and respect the beauty of her work, free will is absolutely not about this and this conclusion is from many perspectives, expected. Several neural metrics one can monitor while under anesthesia won't differ from a concious person and the very same person with consciousness completely suspended.
This inquiry is one that the results have no bearring. The answer, either being yes or no, changes nothing. Placing before our minds "we have no freewill, we are doomed" is a very self defeating criterion.
Man can react or refrain. With experience and a disciplined mind man can be proactive or remain reserved. Man does have a Will. In chess all plays and moves are ultimately determined. Man is subject to the laws and karma's of his choices and actions. To be free of karma ones needs be free of self willing. Long as man has a conditioned will like desire there he incurs karmq.
True freewill i can only imagine would be free of any will. Man has will. Some, who claim to acknowledge God, speak about the Will of the Father; likely related to Providence. Man and his will merging into the great Will of the father is an interesting discussion for they who are worthy. Ultimately the will of man can not be any other than the cosmic will but of a slight due to condition - everything that proceeds from the Primordial Cause ultimately there will be a dissolution back to the primogenial Cause. This is the great Will of all wills.
We're not exactly free from being subject especially to the body. Long as we Will we can not be free from karma(action: cause and effect). To be free of karma, i.e., no longer incurring bad effects, like the great Buddha taught we must remain and rest at the center in between the extremeties of the pendulum swim; which ever side you push or resist it must counteract.
It doesn't matter what one thinks anout his own will. Wise is one who seeks to merge himself into the will of the Father.
Nothing is free there’s always a price to pay 😂
Sometimes you have it. Sometimes you don't.
How would you feel if you were muslim and you discovered Allah doesn't exist? Would you feel ashamed because some people deceived you and made you pray 5 times a day making a fool of you? How would you feel if this feeling was for eternity? When we die the truth would be discovered to know if we were right or wrong, if Allah exists or not. With atheism nothing matters, if reality was like atheists say reality is nothing really matters. If atheism was the truth it wouldn't matter if we are good or bad people, it wouldn't matter if we die young or old, it wouldn't matter if we have children or not, if atheism was the truth what would you live for? Fortunately atheism is not the truth because God is necessary because from nothing can not be created something. To end Islam and the war you have to ask for proof that the Quran was memorized. It doesn't matter if you are muslim, you have to make yourself respect. Would you be happy just because you are muslim to discover the Quran was never memorized and the group you belong to lied to you? I know it is not easy to escape out of a cult, but it is worth it. The true God is Spinoza's God. To not waste this loving poem I say atheism is a logical fallacy that assumes God is the religious idea of the creator of the creation to conclude wrongly no creator exists because a particular idea of God doesn’t exist. Trust me. Emergency. Thank you.
There is no true free-will only the illusion of such. If each definable moment has existed, in sequence, since the beginning of the universe, including each action, then there no free-will. The fact that we can only anticipate in the moment, the action or the results of the action is because we cannot definitively see the future action and future result. Not because it doesn’t yet exist, in reality, but because we can only perceive the present and remember the past.
If there is no free will, explain the existence of pain. Pain influences the will, if there was no will, pain would be superfluous and not exist, but pain does exist, hence there is indeed free will.
Hi ronhudson3730, should we assume there was no free will associated with the typing of your comment? Seems there's gotta be something there besides just the universe clicking along deterministically state-by-state through time.
If there is no free-will, we need to revise our judicial system since no free-will implies no conscious decision hence no legal responsibility. Meanwhile, time is an illusion: The only thing we can observe directly is physical movement in space. The measurement of time is invariably based on physical movement, whether it is of the sun or of a mechanical device.
@@steve_____K307nope, it was cosmically ordained by an infinite number of factors driving this inexorable compulsion to say there is no free will. It is the most obvious conclusion to make where I abandon all first person experiences and consider my minds basic intuition as wholly unreliable while simultaneously trusting that same mind to reliably provide higher ordered reasoning telling me my lower reasoning or intuition is wrong. It makes total sense.
@@johnhoward6201 Yeah, that's the weird thing regarding the "no free will" argument. If we have no free will and that the unconsciousness is making all the decisions. why do we then consciously experience sensations such as pain, pleasure, etc. Our body is signaling our conscious mind. But why would it do that if it is the unconsciousness that makes all of the decisions? Wouldn't it make more sense if our body only signaled the unconscious mind? so that the stress from feeling pain wouldn't occur?
the concept of "free will" can be easily refuted with a simple thought experiment... when was the last time you "chose" the next thought that appeared in your mind? because the correct answer is never, free will does not exist.
It's an oversimplification. Have you ever made plans, thought about the options and made a decision? Have you then ever reviewed those plans later on? It's possible obviously...
Free will is not as narrow as not being to always control every next thought that comes into your head. We can shape our future over time to a degree. However it doesn't mean we can do anything as if by magic or mean we can undo the past be we can always try revise our plans and make changes
@@gregoriusmike think about what I said a little more carefully. what you're describing is the subjective feeling of agency (free will). yes, humans can think and plan, but the "choice-ness" of these thoughts is illusory. one's current thought (active mental state) is only and always a function of the totality of all prior thoughts (mental states), memories, neural wiring and/or other unknown molecular-level influences, and active environment.
it's actually pretty simple to understand... in a human mind, there is no possibility for a "self" that is unconstrained by laws of physics plus molecular-scale processes that are beyond your control... how could there be? the perceived "self" is the end result of microscopic, biological, neural processes; it's enabled by cellular activities that "you" have no control over because "you" exist downstream, not upstream, from these processes. these processes are what IMPLEMENT "you" in fact. that doesn't mean that our subjective feeling of free will isn't important, or that one cannot be held accountable for their actions, but it does mean that the so-called "free will" concept is incoherent. it can't even be described in a non-contradictory way.
@@gregoriusmike think about what I said a little more carefully. or here's another way to look at it... consciousness derives from molecular-scale, cellular, neural processes that are beyond your control, and thus "you" exist downstream, not upstream, from these processes. the concept of "free will" is therefore incoherent, and cannot even be described in a non-contradictory way. what you are describing is merely the subjective feeling of agency. you can call it "free will" if you must, and I admit it's a convenient abstraction, but the "free" aspect is massively misleading, because there is no freedom whatsoever when it comes to your current mental state, thoughts, decisions, actions, etc.
preaching a hypothesis as fact are we?
@@altair-x it’s just logic dude
"FREE WILL" comes from the BODY. It does NOT come from the brain. The brain works 4 the Body -- at least it's supposed to. The Brain is NOT the ultimate Boss. The body is the ultimate boss. My guess is that "Free Will" starts from the lower spinal cord or the intestines.
That would mean spinal or gut injuries would impair a person's fee will.
Hi lucianmaximus4741, so the paragraph you typed didn't come from your brain/mind but rather something down by the lower spinal cord or the intestines? I think you'll find that a hard sell.
brain didn't not work.. 😂😂
@@LuuLuong-bn8iy nothing nothing
@lucianmaximus4741 yeah, bud somethink vs something
"Big Questions in Free Will?"
Thalia Wheatly IGNORED the fact that it takes FREE WILL of the Subject to choose to be hypnotized and to choose to accept hypnotic suggestions before any "readiness baloney" can be implanted... otherwise, hypnotism won't work...
...and she also IGNORED the fact that an "UNCONSCIOUS Hypnotist" can not possibly hypnotize. This simply means that it requires CONSCIOUSNESS to choose to hypnotize any WILLING Subject and to choose to give hypnotic suggestions... In other words, the Experiment is a waste of time & tax dollars - a total GARBAGE !
By the way, why not ask Thalia Wheatly who gives her the "readiness baloney" to hypnotize ? NONE ! Can't you see now how fraudulent this experiment is?
Here is the TRUTH :
Science' experiments can not eliminate supernatural Free Will, it is just impossible because it is not part of the physical world but originated from the Spiritual World...
..on the other hand, it is the WILL that can freely eliminate "material science baloney" by having faith in a loving God that physical laws have no control...
...again, the reason is because Free Will is not the property of matter but the supernatural power of your "free aware immortal soul" as free split of the Holy Spirit that these Godless Materialists hated because of their addiction to "No Sense of Accountabiliy" as just animal bodies with no free will to choose... FACT !
The idea of "readiness potential", that Thalia Wheatley mentioned here, arose due to the existence of Natural Instinct designed by our loving Creator, that allows the aware soul to discover its limited power or control of the physical brain and to learn how to use it in acting on whatever choice that the soul freely decides to make for its benefit and/or survival in dealing with this Physical World...
...compared to humans, the difference is animals have no free souls, unable to choose to discover and learn so to make free choices to progress, that is why animals never change, and can not be held accountable... this is also the reason why Godless Materialist love to define their whole being as just animals so to escape accountability as just amoral monkys...
..this initial discovering and learning of the Physical World, through natural instincts, starts when the soul enters the physical being any time from conception to birth..
We also can WILLFULLY CHOOSE to self-implant "readiness potential" inside our brain to be prepared to deal with any unforseen trouble... the effect would be developing skills, habits, et al...
Will free 😂😂😂
Will free 😂😂😂😂
Free Assange 🕊
Please keep that tool of Russian Intelligence locked up.
Hypnosis, really?
Ah, the old you only need one implausible ambiguous example to prove something theory! lol!
If the theory is that X can cause Y, it only takes one fully accounted demonstration of an X causing a Y to prove it. This is a very, very tiny step forward, but neuroscience is extremely tricky research.
@@simonhibbs887 --- Not really, rules are rules, exceptions, single instances of something, i.e. that “can cause”, are not rules and exceptions do not negate or replace established rules. One of the most foundational basic rules upon which human reality exists is the “fact” of libertarian free-will; no libertarian free-will, no human existence containing any meaning whatsoever.
@@JohnQPublic11 For meaning to human existence, it only takes that human persons are the cause of human actions. I think the human person is physical, presumably you think they are non-physical. Nevertheless there is a human person, and they are the cause of their choices.
Libertarian free will throws this away by saying that there is no cause of human choices, no reliable sense in which our actions reflect any persistent reliable causal aspect of our character. In libertarian free will a moral, law abiding conscientious person cannot be relied on to act morally, or lawfully, or conscientiously. They can act otherwise at any moment for no causal reason.
Determinism takes the accounts we give for the reasons we made our considered choices seriously. It also establishes a clear line of moral responsibility from the character of the person to their moral actions.
@@simonhibbs887 --- Interesting, clever and humorous, exactly how an atheist, secular, communist thinks; redefine determinism as “free-will”. lol!
YOU >>> “it only takes that human persons are the cause of human actions”
ME >>> Wait! You are a determinist; determinists believe all of their actions are a direct result of every previous determined action, no different than an amoeba reacting to its local environment, now you are wanting to claim you are an independent sentient [old definition] being acting with “free-will”. An amoeba is the “cause” of its actions; that doesn’t mean they have free-will.
You need to get your story straight.
YOU >>> “Libertarian free will throws this away by saying that there is no cause of human choices”
ME >>> No, libertarian free-will believes our decisions are considered, and that we are capable of making contrary choices; secular evolutionary determinists like you believe their choices are hard determined, without the ability to make contrary choices.
YOU >>> “In libertarian free will a moral, law abiding conscientious person cannot be relied on to act morally, or lawfully, or conscientiously.”
ME >>> No, the exact opposite is true; I think you are trolling me.
YOU >>> “Determinism takes the accounts we give for the reasons we made our considered choices seriously. It also establishes a clear line of moral responsibility from the character of the person to their moral actions.”
ME >>> lol! Clever, but its classic communist thinking. There are no considered choices or moral responsibility on determinism. Claiming our libertarian free-will worldview as the communist secular evolutionary determinist worldview is not going to fly.
You‘ll have to try harder.
The ole censorship police can't handle the truth.
Could this be similar to how Allists "know" their beliefs are true, but can't tell you how they know (that isn't yet another opinion)? 🤔
Is the title of this channel supposed to be ironic, the more I listen to these people waffle on about nothing I feel like I'm getting Further From The Truth
You definitely don't have it after you're dead. That should tell us something. 😅
Did we before birth; and during life did we have it?
This is nonsense
Can scientists conduct an experiment to test subjects the moment they make moral or immoral choices?