Abstract
Benjamin Libet contends both that “the brain ‘decides’ to initiate or, at least, prepare to initiate [certain actions] before there is any reportable subjective awareness that such a decision has taken place” and that “If the ‘act now’ process is initiated unconsciously, then conscious free will is not doing it.” Elsewhere, I have argued that the claims I just reported are not justified by the data Libet and others offer in support of them. Here I review some of the problems one encounters in attempting to move from Libet’s data to his conclusions.
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Notes
- 1.
Elsewhere, Libet writes: “the brain has begun the specific preparatory processes for the voluntary act well before the subject is even aware of any wish or intention to act” (1992, p. 263).
- 2.
For a useful discussion of what the initiation of an action might amount to and of connections among action initiation, Libet’s data, and free will, see Bayne (2011).
- 3.
Try to imagine that you intend to eat some pie now while also intending not to eat it now. What would you do? Would you reach for it with one hand and grab the reaching hand with your other hand? People who suffer from anarchic hand syndrome sometimes display behavior of this kind. Spence and Frith suggest that these people “have conscious ‘intentions to act’ [that] are thwarted by … ‘intentions’ to which the patient does not experience conscious access” (1999, p. 24).
- 4.
Kilner et al. produce evidence that, as they put it, “the readiness potential (RP)—an electrophysiological marker of motor preparation—is present when one is observing someone else’s action” (2004, p. 1299).
- 5.
I did not suggest that the estimates are influenced only by events that follow action. For evidence that the estimates are also influenced by events that precede action, see Haggard (2011, pp. 19–22).
- 6.
Would subjects’ conscious, silent “now!”s actually express proximal decisions? Perhaps not. To see why, consider an imaginary experiment in which subjects are instructed to count—consciously and silently—from 1 to 3 and to press a button just after they consciously say “3” to themselves. Presumably, these instructions would be no less effective at eliciting pressings than the “now!” instructions. In this experiment, the subjects are treating a conscious event—the conscious “3”-saying—as a go signal. (When they say “3,” they are not at all uncertain about what to do, and they make no decision then to press.) Possibly, in a study in which subjects are given the “now!” instructions, they would not actually make proximal decisions to press but would instead consciously simulate deciding and use the conscious simulation event as a go signal. However, the possibility of simulation is not a special problem for studies featuring the “now!”-saying instructions. In Libet’s own studies, some subjects may be treating a conscious experience—for example, their initial consciousness of an urge to flex—as a go signal (see Keller & Heckhausen, 1990, p. 352).
- 7.
Parts of this article derive from Mele, 2009. This article was made possible through the support of a grant from the John Templeton Foundation. The opinions expressed in this publication are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views of the John Templeton Foundation. I am grateful to an audience at a Social Trends Institute Experts Meeting (Barcelona, October, 2010) for comments on a presentation of this article.
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Mele, A.R. (2013). Free Will and Neuroscience: Revisiting Libet’s Studies. In: Suarez, A., Adams, P. (eds) Is Science Compatible with Free Will?. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-5212-6_13
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