Free Will
by BradfordShallow analysis is a common bedfellow of attempts to link science to stealth metaphysics. The stealth metaphysics considered here is the issue of free will. Denialists- materialists who maintain that free will is but an illusion- on occasion invoke a study showing brain activity in a specified brain region prior to the moment an individual expresses a decision. Patterns of brain activity consistent with the choice made can be evident seconds prior to the moment an individual actually commits to a decision. That data is used to support the contention that physical brain dynamics, preceeding a decision, determine the decision and allow the individual to falsely think that he or she has chosen between available options.
So what's wrong with the preceeding analysis? One striking aspect of denialist thinking is its vagueness. We have no neural mappings allowing us to distinguish between opting for a banana instead of an apple. We lack the details needed to link pre-decision process thinking to precise brain conditions. Materialists will assert that desires and decisions are reducible to states of a physical system. But they lack detailed knowledge not just of the range of possible relevant physical states, but also of the thoughts correlating to different physical states. Free will denialists all too frequently mask their metaphysics in sciency garb.
December 28th, 2008 at 8:10 pm
I think you misunderstand the relevant research. They can predict (though not with certainty) which decision the person will make—before the person is aware of that decision. In other words, they have sufficient details to link the incipient decision to the brain conditions.
Comment by Zachriel — December 28, 2008 @ 8:10 pm
December 28th, 2008 at 9:26 pm
Quoting from Zach's link:
The outcome of a decision can be encoded prior to awareness. Not a surprising find as other research has documented decision processing while sleeping. Subconscious. Can occur while awake as well. The confusion lies not with me but with those who confuse the subconscious or lack of conscious awareness with evidence for an absence of free will. What is absent are a great many details needed to connect the dots before one can formulate a plausible argument relating data to determinism.
Comment by Bradford — December 28, 2008 @ 9:26 pm
December 28th, 2008 at 10:30 pm
Generally, consciousness is considered the seat of free-will. If autonomic functions of the brain make the decisions, then clearly the experience of free-will isn't what it seems to be.
However, the results show only a partial correlation. Presumably, the consciousness acts as a final check on the subconscious impulse.
Comment by Zachriel — December 28, 2008 @ 10:30 pm
December 28th, 2008 at 11:13 pm
Zachriel:
This conforms to the general theme of the thread i.e. insufficient understanding. I believe the data equally well supports the notion that the conscious and unconscious act in concert- a cooperative rather than subordinate relationship. The influence of sleep on the conscious mind is profound. Obviously decisions are expressed while awake but that does not in itself reveal comparative inputs of different mind states.
Comment by Bradford — December 28, 2008 @ 11:13 pm
December 29th, 2008 at 1:30 am
Zach:
I am not convinced that what is being measured here is subconscious decision-making, rather than processing and calculating. While we can measure 'activity' in the brain, there is no state-map for anything beyond that. Seems to me that if there are neural correlates of consciousness – physical mechanisms that enable the functions of consciousness – we could reasonably expect the processing/calculations to be going on prior actions taken and/or reasons formulated, even a feedback on awareness to be verbally reported to someone else.
Honestly, I don't see why anyone would be boggled by brain activity underlying conscious decision-making unless they either don't believe there is such a thing as consciousness, or believe that consciousness doesn't require brain activity to express. Which is it for you, Zach?
Comment by Joy — December 29, 2008 @ 1:30 am
December 29th, 2008 at 9:02 am
There *is* a correlation between brain states and the decision, and scientists can predict the decision *before* the individual even knows a decision has been made. Yet the individual believes his conscious mind made the decision freely and after conscious consideration, rather than merely ratifying a decision made by the subconcious.
Yes, that would be the usual scientific view of how the brain works.
Comment by Zachriel — December 29, 2008 @ 9:02 am
December 29th, 2008 at 11:21 am
Zach:
You offer an article you know most or all of us cannot access, with a ridiculously ambiguous abstract that makes nothing clear, and expect we'll kow-tow to your personal slant on what that ambiguous abstract says. That's garbage. Surely you wouldn't just have gone googling for something you could play with (or you'd have supplied Libet, most likely), thus you must have access to the entire paper.
Go ahead and cite verbatim the precise passages in that paper that establish a specifically identified (in all test subjects) DECISION state that would verify what you are claiming. Otherwise, I'll just tell you that I can predict a decision without the use of any electrodes, CTs or MRIs at all. I do that very easily just by asking a question you are bound (by volunteering for the experiment) to respond to with a decision between options.
Hardly impressive, and establishes precisely nothing about the nature of free will.
Comment by Joy — December 29, 2008 @ 11:21 am
December 29th, 2008 at 11:41 am
Joy,
How about simply asking Zachriel to email you the paper? I'm sure he'll be glad to help you.
Comment by olegt — December 29, 2008 @ 11:41 am
December 29th, 2008 at 12:26 pm
I didn't cite the article. Bradford did so, albeit indirectly. I had to look it up anyway to see what he was talking about, so I was just trying to help by providing a link to the actual research paper.
angelmail @ zachriel.com
Meanwhile, here's a couple of press releases.
Comment by Zachriel — December 29, 2008 @ 12:26 pm
December 29th, 2008 at 1:10 pm
Zachriel:
There is also a process to decision making which, depending on the nature of the matter being decided, can last over a considerable time period during which information is gathered and evaluated. That is being overlooked for the most part.
Comment by Bradford — December 29, 2008 @ 1:10 pm
December 29th, 2008 at 1:16 pm
Incidentally, it is helpful to identify the nature of what it is that is being decided. Most people have set preferences for things like food, clothing, favorite sports teams etc. Predicting a choice in these circumstances is trivial.
Comment by Bradford — December 29, 2008 @ 1:16 pm
December 29th, 2008 at 2:20 pm
Raevmo sent the pdfs. From page 3 of the report:
…The temporal ordering of information suggests a tentative causal model of information flow, where the earliest unconscious precursors of the motor decision originated in frontopolar cortex, from where they influenced the buildup of decision-related information in the precuneus and later in SMA, where it remained unconscious for up to a few seconds. This substantially extends a previous work that has shown that BA10 is involved in storage of conscious action plans and shifts in strategy following negative feedback. Thus, a network of high-level control areas can begin to shape an upcoming decision long before it enters awareness.
Hmmm… all this for a 'test' of whether to push a right-hand button or a left-hand button, timed to a guesstimate report from the subject of 'when' the decision was made. Again, I find this to be an entirely unsurprising result that in no way establishes the "illusionary" nature of consciousness or free will, nor applies in any meaningful way to the decisions (primarily motor) made on a routine basis throughout people's day to day lives.
Say you're standing on the corner waiting to cross a street, light is red. You're in a hurry and you decide to cross against the light if said crossing can be accomplished safely. You look both ways, nobody's coming, so you hurry across the street and get to your appointment on time, do NOT get busted for crossing against the light.
If the decision to cross against the light was already made 20 seconds before you thought of doing it, and your motor response programmed 10 seconds before you knew what you were doing, you'd have been hit by that bus. Why bother to look both ways? Heck, if it took 20 seconds, the light would have been green!
Looks to me like someone's reading way too much into this dumb-dumb experiment. But then again, I do suppose they have to think up reasons to use those nifty, expensive fMRI machines for something in order to justify the cost. Might as well use them to attempt to establish a preconceived conclusion.
Predetermined? Why, no scientist worth his or her salt would design a test to 'prove' a predetermined conclusion! Or, maybe scientists suffer more of a predetermined lag-time than most other people per their subjective conscious abilities and choices. Right there on page 1 the authors state…
Why, if they went ahead and added their presumed predetermination lag to the subjects' report on when the decision was made, they might have ended up with the scant milliseconds they considered 'too close for comfort' in the Libet study. Whatever.
I wonder what they'd have come up with if any of the subjects had pre-determined from the start to be contrary (just for fun). So that if the impulse was to press the right-hand button, s/he instead pressed the left. And visa versa.
Comment by Joy — December 29, 2008 @ 2:20 pm
December 29th, 2008 at 3:22 pm
Joy,
One problem – possibly inescapable – with the test is that conscious decisions took place far in advance of the actual measurement: The subjects agreed to take part in the test, agreed to follow the instructions – including an agreement to press a button – etc. Completely disentangling conscious awareness and choices from a 'free' action is a hurdle to say the least.
And even before grappling with questions like that (keep in mind that Bureaugard, Schwartz and others would argue that unconscious activity can be purposefully shaped by conscious focus – so unconscious activity can still be in the service of actual 'free will'), I'm surprised no one has pointed out that the correlation in this test was apparently ~60%. Not that that's completely damning, above chance as it is (Why, it's in the neighborhood of Rupert Sheldrake's results!), but it seems pertinent.
Comment by nullasalus — December 29, 2008 @ 3:22 pm
December 29th, 2008 at 4:14 pm
nullasalus:
LOl!!! Oh, come on nullasalus! This experiment PROVES there's no such thing as free will, and that consciousness itself is entirely an illusion created by the actually conscious (but not conscious) neurons to make the body believe it's something other than just a functional robot for 'Selfish Neurons'! Everybody knows that!!!
[/snark]
Comment by Joy — December 29, 2008 @ 4:14 pm
December 30th, 2008 at 5:08 pm
Bradford, could you explain what free will is, and how it happens. And, I trust, no vagueness in your explanation!
Comment by The Pixie Again — December 30, 2008 @ 5:08 pm
December 30th, 2008 at 5:24 pm
Free will is the capacity to choose among different options. The choice is not determined by neural events which would make the choice of options illusory and determinism an accurate lens through which to view the process.
Comment by Bradford — December 30, 2008 @ 5:24 pm
January 1st, 2009 at 9:25 pm
Angus Menuge discusses this same issue in his book, Agents Under Fire. In a chapter entitled “Strong Agent Reductionism” (SAR) he writes: “According to SAR, all that nature exhibits is the appearance of intentionality. The problem is that the very idea of an appearance, even an illusory one, presupposes the reality of intentionality. To harbor the illusion that p is to hold the false belief that p, and to do so is to be in an intentional state. In addition to insist that this only appears to be the case simply won’t do, because this appearance yet again implicates intentionality and also because what we are trying to understand here is the appearance itself; thus, “we cannot make the appearance-reality because the appearance is the reality.” What needs explaining are such things as seemings, so it gets us nowhere to say that there only seem to be seemings…” (p53)
Strong Agent Reductionism is that belief that mind, consciousness, intentionality and free will can be reduced to purely physical and deterministic explanations. But such a belief is based on the metaphysical assumption that the physical world is all that exists, all that ever has existed, or all that ever will exist. That belief itself is something that cannot be proven empirically nor is it something that is logically self evident. It must be assumed to be true to be believed. In other words, to deny intentionality you must intentionally deny that something like intentionality exists. That is self refuting.
Comment by JOHN_A_DESIGNER — January 1, 2009 @ 9:25 pm
January 1st, 2009 at 9:35 pm
Logic cannot tell us what is true but it can tell us what cannot be true therefore the opposite of non intentionality ie intentionality is true.
Vivid
Comment by Vividbleau — January 1, 2009 @ 9:35 pm
January 2nd, 2009 at 12:41 am
To paraphrase Lewis, it is difficult to see how the idea of blindness could come to exist in a universe where there is no light.
Comment by kornbelt888 — January 2, 2009 @ 12:41 am
January 5th, 2009 at 4:28 am
Could subconscious thought be the precursor to conscious thought and actions, obviously there is only a certain of space available for memory and a duplication of memory would be a waste of valuable space. ever done something and had the feeling as soon as your action stared that it is/was a mistake, these actions could be ones that you have made consciously against the "advice" of the subconscious. I have read and seen reports where elite athletes predetermine the line and bounce of a ball delivered at 150ks + and make a shot accordingly. Tests have shown that conscious thought has no time to make such decisions. Perhaps previous experience and training predetermine subconscious decision making.
Comment by mikead33 — January 5, 2009 @ 4:28 am