Do humans truly have Free Will?
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- Опубликовано: 8 сен 2013
- While filming for the PBS special, "Brains on Trial with Alan Alda," Alan visited Dr. Thalia Wheatley, Assistant Professor of Psychology and Brain Sciences at Dartmouth College.
Dr. Wheatley's research investigates how people understand and react to other human beings and how the brain evolved to handle the computations underlying this social intelligence.
Here they discuss the notion of Free Will and whether or not humans have any. Alan performs a well-known test in the study of free will: The Libet Experiment.
For more videos and other content, go to: brainsontrial.com/ 
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who else here from philosophy class?
basically. i liked and agreed with determinism in my philo class a few years ago. and was looking it up again
Yep, I am.
Yep….
She says: " I want you to do...."
Then, how could you have a freewill?
Because he had the choice of when.
One problem with the Libit experiment; it tells us how the human brain works, but is does not tell us why the human brain makes decisions that are either rational or irrational. Nor does it have any effect on how decisions are made in the absence of coercion, which is the best term for free will.
I think we can get the answer when we dig deep into the process of evolution through which our species has gone through. Nevertheless, this is highly complex but exciting to demystify all function of the human brain. One day we'll know everything from "Before the Big Bang to human brain".
There are facts and there are beliefs. Many people cannot tell the difference.
"We have control" only if you ignore the sensory environment we are embedded in. Then, free will becomes a cyclical, reciprocal partnership between us and our immediate sensory matrix and not a simplistic linear progression.
I just love this discussion and topic. Joyous :)
you are free to pick from a restricted amount of options. The amount is so broad though, so we cannot measure it. That is the reason, we call it infinite and therefore free will
I have often noticed that I had no recollection of how I had gotten from A to B, that my body had moved while I was busy elsewhere.
Conciousness is present before, during and after the decision - thought happens.
This beautiful experiment shows that our thoughts don't actually make the decision. It comes from no thought. But conciousness is fully present in no thought. Thoughts start, not conciousness.
To identify thought with conciousness is the bigger, unchecked mistake that the vast majority of scientists and humans make.
Really loved this experiment - as it actually shows everything comes beyond the surface mind. To attribute the source of what happens to a material object called the brain is just other thoughts which have nothing to do with reality.
The source, reality, no - mind or Conciousness is not graspable through thought. Only you, Conciousness know yourself as you are ♡
Did you think to compose and, later, edit this comment?
Realizing the logical truth of no free will is the simple part. The interesting implication of this experiment is it seems to suggest thoughts may originate from an external source.
Sounds like what dan dennet is saying: we don't have free will, we are entirely determined but that determined fate includes evitability, so to have your fate determined doesn't in fact mean your fate or future is inevitable.
at the end she said "we can make choices.....we have control" - who is "we" in that equation?
"we" could ultimately be some atomic soul-thing, but that is in so much contradiction with what we see around us - anywherein12seconds.tumblr.com/post/144008206676/when-mind-and-brain-play-peekaboo-alcohol-is-just. instead everything in Nature points in the following sane and healthy direction - anywherein12seconds.tumblr.com/post/140980641056/conscious-flow-state-a-modern-identity-of-the
how is the experiment debunked?
It is ironic that she did make an incorrect statement, and that she facially exuded discomfort with what appeared to be a "social" mannerism of agreeing for peace - when in actuality I believe she believes "we" (as is commonly understood to be 'we') are NOT in control". "She" was in fact NOT "in control" of her actions when she made that statement, or any of the prior statements in the video. Her brain just naturally arrived at that point.
our physical brain
@@madisampi2770 Our physical brain, which is a consequence of genetics over which 'we' had no control, our environment - likewise, and every interaction we have ever had - likewise again.
So where is the free will?
The decision to press that buttom was primed in his brain. So the grafric showed us that we indeed have free will. If free will is define as having the power to alter/chose our actions.
Points to fact that we don't have freewill which is line with Advaita Vedanta lecture by Sarvapriyananda swami
Do you choose your next thought, your next impulse? Or does the thought or impulse. come to you, unsolicited?
this explanation doesn't seem to exclude free will
Roger Nevez did he choose to have his brain activity to ramp up before his decision? That basically would mean he would have to decide before he decides which makes no sense. You dont decide to decide, you just decide and how do you do that? Where does that decision come from? Well it comes from cellular activity which you have no control of
@@markdelej he knew that he must press the button consiously..that means consiousness was never absent of this process..in fact if he wouldnt know consiously what to do he wouldnt press the button in the first place..is at least dumb to think that this is a proof of absence os some degree of free will (of course we are not entirely free)
Giwrgos Androutsos when a baseball player hits a fastball it has been shown that the player doesnt have enough time to consciously know the ball is coming before they swing and hit it. Consciousness cant react quick enough so it is subconscious systems that hit the ball. Same thing if you drive a car and someone walks out in front of you and you instinctively swerve. Your body can do all of its actions subconsciously. Just think of people when they sleep walk, they can talk, walk, everything. People have sleep walked and driven cars, talked to people, even murdered people and climbed buildings while being unconscious of the whole thing.
First of all he can predict where the ball will go..a baseball player knows before the hitting of the ball that the ball will come, so is a vague conclusion that unconscious acted.. secondable i know this experiments and tennis players claim that they see the ball.. dont forget that even if you reject the prediction of the ball there are scientific experiments that proove the backwards in time effect in the brain..time is not what you think it is..and the brain can predict things that will happen in our "future". im not a supporter of free will...our wills are coming from nowhere, im just saying that these experiments of libet are full of vagueness. They support that A (consiousnes) didnt make the choise and B (unconscious) made it. But how can someone assume that if A was there at the RP rising then B made the decision? The person knew from the beggining what to do he was aware of it. Planning was there all the time. If some experiment can prove that without consious planning a tendency comes from nowhere then indeed B made the decision and not A. I personally believe this is true. B is responsible for tendencies and our wants..i think something else for example, and suddenly i have a desire for coffee without any previous consious plan..libet experiment doesnt examine this...
Depends on the definition of 'us' in 'we have free will'. If we are the body or the identity we do not have free will. If 'we' are brain(or the soul if it actually exists) we do have free will. She formulated this quite nicely at the end
“ we can make choices and we can deliberate.. we are in control” at the end.. wait what? Isnt this whole argument against free will that we aren’t in control?
"We have control " no! That last lart undermined everything. What is control?
We don’t have free will because every action is precipitated by a million/billion/trillion previous actions or non actions. Alan Alda being there that day was the result of millions of previous moments that kept pushing him forward. If that morning, there was a freak storm maybe it wouldn’t have happened. If he’d eaten something the night before and been sick - it wouldn’t have happened. His interest in this topic because of some previous moment of being exposed to neuroscience or philosophy, his interaction with the producers or whoever wanted to make this clip the result of countless previous causes and conditions. The experiment simply shows the mind coming in after to try and explain an action that is the result of countless previous actions and countless things that didn’t happen either. When we truly see we are not the masterminds of our lives that we think we are - we can then loosen our painful grip on trying to control that which we are not controlling anyway and be with each moment as it is.
Thank you for this video.🙏
Obviously, he's been thinking about pressing the button permanently from the moment when the run starts, or even from the moment when the experimenter explains him what to do. When I tried this for myself, I was clearly aware of the thought of going to press the button starting at the moment I understood how the experiment is about to work. I may pretend to myself and to others not to think about it, but I can assure you that I definitely did think about it, and consciously so - maybe weak, but it's been there all the time. So it's clear that there must have been brain activity ongoing many seconds before the actual moment in time that he claims to be the actual decision time. It's thus a naive and foolish idea that he has to wait for and "be surprised by" a thought to pop up in his mind to tell him to press the button. The Libet experiment is fundamentally flawed conceptually!
I don't think the Libet experiment is targeting the conscious awareness that the subject will be pressing the button in the near future. It is a given that the subject knows they will be pressing the button. Rather, the experiment is focusing on the subject's perception of specifically when they decided to press the button.
To make this distinction clearer, lets look at a more realistic scenario. Say that someone goes on a hunting trip. When they have their sights trained on a bird, they consciously know that they will be pulling the trigger soon. But just knowing this doesn't make the hunter consciously aware of *when* they will pull the trigger. As they look at the bird, they are subconsciously calculating when the best time to shoot is. And yes this _is_ a subconscious process. It would be much too slow to conduct a logical train analyzing the bird's movement to decide if you can hit it. Instead, this is done through intuition and instinct. At some point, the hunter will consciously initiate the action of pulling the trigger. What the Libet experiment shows is that there is considerable subconscious activity ramping up towards the hunter's conscious decision to pull the trigger. The awareness that the trigger will be pulled doesn't disprove the existence of the subconscious activity that led to the decision to pull the trigger.
This isn't a perfect example as the hunter is reacting to external stimuli whereas the Libet experiment has the subjects try to act spontaneously. However this scenario illustrates that knowing you will press the button doesn't make your decision to press the button a purely conscious one.
Exactly, this experiment is ridiculously stupid
Some of the smartest people who have ever lived on planet earth have been debating this question forever. Some questions are unanswerable by anything other than opinion. If there is no proof on either side then conclusions are nothing more than opinions. And every one of us is convinced OUR opinions are the only right ones.
So why is it that the computer couldn't record when the button was pressed? Why the pressure on the subject to understand when the decision occurred? Is this pressure to prevent the decision to not be truly spontaneous?
What seems very false about this is that subject is instructed to make a single action which must be inevitable, and that he must concentrate on "knowing" that moment so that he can self-record it. Obviously this implies the ramping of brain activity displayed in the video. The ramp of activity could be understood as "time pressure to accomplish" the stated action, enhanced by staring at a 1-second clock while counting. This is reminiscent of mesmerism experiments so popular at the end of the 19th century.
Dr. Wheatley is repeating over and over like a mantra, that our expectations do not correspond to "what we know about how the brain works". The, "ghost in the machine", she talks about could easily be a precalculated delay between the decision point and the act based on, a favorite code, or say, the Fibonacci series. Her incomprehensibility regarding this point ("Science is dis about that...") shows a non-evidence based unwillingness to regard her own theory as falsifiable. At the end Alda seemingly has to force her to acknowledge that the brain is a combative system capable of achieving non-predictable results, and that her point is only that free will is not what we "think" it is, and that we still, "have control". It makes me wonder who is more confused, the people who think they, "have free will," or her?
"So why is it that the computer couldn't record when the button was pressed? Why the pressure on the subject to understand when the decision occurred? Is this pressure to prevent the decision to not be truly spontaneous?"
EXACTLY what I asked above!!
I looked,but I don't see it.. Are you a troll?
They aren't asking him to record when the button was pressed, I'm pretty sure their computer does track that. They're asking him to write down the time that he realized he was going to press the button, not necessarily when he hit it.
We have free will, but not the absolute and magical kind.
My body has free will. Mostly I agree with it.
This test measures the moment we become aware of the choice our subconiousbmind wants to impulsively do though... not whether or not our conscious mind what's to make a choice or not. All the time our subconscious is blabbering on irrationally about random things and this builds up to an impulse that in this case is when to push a button; this experiment measures when our subconcious has came up with an impulsive choice and our conscious mind becomes aware of the impulse it wishes to happen. He is not asked to press the button when he wants to but when he gets the random impulse to. Usually when our conscious mind becomes aware of an impulse (an impulse is a decision made by the subconscious irrationally) that we can evaluate and either conclude we would like to do this or veto it or draw our attention away from the world to deliberate for longer over whether or not to. The choice they make in the end would be them making a choice of what they would wish to do that they decided ultimately consciously and the end result will have been a result of them using their free will to choose this. Like a group of employees squabbling and then sending their boss a letter of their final conclusion. The boss can choose to follow through, disagree or think more about it using reason.
"that we can evaluate and either conclude we would like to do this or veto it or draw our attention away from the world to deliberate for longer over whether or not to."
What you do with that impulse/irrational decision is also just more noise provided by your subconscious. When you're "choosing" whether you wanna do it or veto it or whatever, where are those thoughts or impulses coming from?
It's because it's the soul making decision before the brain does.
“The sum total of everything going on in the brain” at a subconscious level he/she says is free will. So, how did he put together the ‘sum total’ in the brain in the first place, if it was not done consciously but unconsciously? This statement is an oxymoron or a contradiction of terms, and therefore invalid. It still leaves us with the conundrum that there is no free will.
Thalia is describing the Hebrew word 'nephesh', or soul. This word shows that we don't 'have' a will, we are a will, a mind, heart, soul, desire, life, lust, and creation. Conscious knowledge is one facet of who, and what, we are (made 'in the image of God').
All these years I thought it was Allen Alda who was funny. Now I know the funny happens before and Alda is only a delivery man.
This experiment feels ... off. It feels too random and arbitrary almost. The conductor of the experiment herself struggled to explain it to the participant. I don't know how valid these results can be, honestly.
Alda pretty much torpedoed the basis of the Libet Experiment. His actions didn't come nanoseconds or microseconds after he decided to hit the key. The decision and the movement were simultaneous. What this suggests is that the ramp up of brain activity is the *thinking* about the decision (not the actual deciding) and the delay between the decision and the button push is simply measuring reaction time.
Not guilty your honour
It doesn't really matter whether the decision was made unconsciously, prior to awareness. It was in fact Alan Alda's own brain that chose when to push the button. So it still qualifies as an act of free will. Now, if someone held a gun to his head and said, "Push it now!", it would not be an act of free will. Is there anyone who cannot see this obvious fact?
Marvin Edwards thank you! 👍
Hello again, Marvin, John here ;) If someone put a gun to his head, and his brain decided to push the button, that wouldn't change the fact that he made the decision unconsciously, so you seem to have invented a false dichotomy there between free will and no free will. The sorts of processes leading to his decisions when not coerced are fundamentally no different from those when he is, they're just an extreme example of social pressures, so they appear to be of a different category and therefore seem to be a nice neat place to divide things up and save free will from its fate, it seems to me. He's got the pressure to continue to take part in an experiment with the cameras on him, not look a dick by deciding to object that it's nonsense, or that he's just remembered he was supposed to meet someone, or a million and one other things.
If you think "it doesn't matter whether the decision was made unconsciously", you haven't understood what's important about free will. If you sleep-walk through life, imagining that you have agency, while your brain, outside of your control, decides things for you, it doesn't matter? As long as nobody puts a gun to your head? I do hope you're re-thinking all this.
Of course it matters. How do you make a conscious decision without knowing that you made the decision, unless the decision was made for you by something else?
@@lettersquash Free will makes a meaningful distinction between what the brain decides to do on its own versus what the brain decides to do when another brain points a gun at it and says, "Hand over your wallet, or I'll blow off your head!"
Why do you wish to erase the distinction?
@@marvinedwards737 Hello again! You know, we really don't have to go through all this again after all these years! But what the heck. What on earth is this concept "what the brain decides to do on its own"? Does it not process all manner of inputs all the time? When does it make a decision "on its own"? You failed to acknowledge that a gun to one's head is just an extreme kind of influence, but the brain is responding to all sorts of other influences when it makes any decision. Or do you imagine it's that easy? - "Free will is what we do when nobody is holding a gun to our head." It's your definition, just not mine.
Before I was even born, I decided I should create my soul, and so, my freewill chose my existence? 'Ye must be born again'! Does God decide, or do we? God's will is that we hear Him, submitting our will to His, in the freedom He gives to believe on His Son.
Well I don't believe your God exists and I hope that you used that 1 year to get out of this dellusion
@@normalguy8550
Have you read God's Book of letters and promises? Surely you don't believe that creation created itself out of nothing!!! There is a crass belief like that, you know. When God spared my life over and over, I knew He was there (Ps.149:4).
@@michaelstanley4698 The thing is I don't know how the universe came to be but unlike you I don't claim that the universe was created by a all-powerful all knowing invisible imaginary God.
I am really saddened by the fact that people can fall into cult-like just because of the circumstances of their birth
@@normalguy8550
So you think that I, knowing that I deserved Hell, and wanting to live and not die, that when I prayed, an 'imaginary' God gave me my breath back, and a couple times my mind back???!!!!! That's more far fetched than any thing I've ever heard!
When I see a painting, it's obvious to me that it didn't paint itself. I've seen some great buildings, but any fool knows they did not pop out of a Box!
My life has been an ungodly adventure, until He convinced me of His grace, and my 'need' to be saved. I never knew what love was before, my friend, in spite of girlfriends, family, etc.
@@michaelstanley4698 The Intelligent design argument is deeply flawed and here's why :
Just because the universe shares one particular trait with an object (here being the painting) doesn't mean that it also shares another trait with the same objet ( here being the painter/maker).
Comparing the universe with a painting also isn't fair as we both know that paintings are made by painters, you have seen paintings being made however can you make the same claim about the universe ? I don't really think so as you basically have no evidence to support your claims.
We don't know how the universe came to be but it would be presumptious to claim that the tooth fairy created it.
I am happy that religion gave you meaning and as long as you don't blindly follow your "God", I have nothing against that and I would have no reason to judge your lifestyle, however if you get your moral code from a 2000 year old book filled with inconsistencies and unscientific knowledge then I'm going to have to interject.
Nope!!!!!!!
God supposedly gave us free will -so he/she gave us nothing!
she is cute
This experiment is ridiculously flawed
Wrong concept of free will, red herring. See ayn rand
Yes, humans have free will, not 100% total free will but free will nevertheless
Rubbish ;)
God gave us free will as part of our very makeup. Since he knew the way our minds and emotions would work, he knew that we would be happiest with free will.
To go with the gift of free will, God gave us the ability to think, weigh matters, make decisions, and know right from wrong. (Hebrews 5:14) Thus, free will was to be based on intelligent choice. We were not made like mindless robots having no will of their own. Nor were we created to act out of instinct as were the animals. Instead, our marvelous brain was designed to work in harmony with our freedom of choice.
However, did God purpose for free will to be without limits? Imagine a busy city without any traffic laws, where everybody could drive in any direction at any speed. Would you want to drive under those conditions? No, that would be traffic anarchy and would surely result in many accidents.
So too with God’s gift of free will. Unlimited freedom would mean anarchy in society. There have to be laws to guide human activities. God’s Word says: “Behave like free men, and never use your freedom as an excuse for wickedness.” (1 Peter 2:16) God wants free will to be regulated for the common good. He purposed for us to have, not total freedom, but relative freedom, subject to the rule of law.
Whose laws were we designed to obey? Another part of the text at 1 Peter 2:16 states: “You are slaves of no one except God.” This does not mean an oppressive slavery, but, rather, it means that we were designed to be happiest when in subjection to God’s laws. (Matthew 22:35-40) His laws, more than any laws devised by humans, provide the best guide. (Isaiah 48:17)
We were created to be happiest when subject to God’s laws for human behavior. It is similar to being subject to God’s physical laws. For instance, if we ignore the law of gravity and jump off a high place, we will be injured or killed. If we ignore the internal laws of our body and stop eating food, drinking water, or breathing air, we will die.
As surely as we were created with the need to submit to God’s physical laws, we were created with the need to submit to God’s moral and social laws. (Matthew 4:4) Humans were not created to be independent of their Maker and be successful. The prophet Jeremiah says: “It does not belong to man who is walking even to direct his step.”(Jeremiah 10:23, 24) So in every way humans were created to live under God’s rulership, not their own.
Huh? but doesn't the experiment show that free will seems to be an illusion?
+Strong Heart By "god", I assume you mean Math, right? Math is God. There are not "sentient" gods.
Learn to consider OTHER opinions such as atheism, antinatalism, animal rights veganism.
Theists are so butthurt & angry that they don't get to silence atheists.
The Ultimate Reductionist antinatalism and veganism are just as much fictional stories so fuck right off lol
Everyone has free will, to do the will of satan or God, consequences to follow. Most people love sin more than righteousness... and like it or not, you reap what you sow in the end. Thalia and her kind will lie for profit and lead you straight to hell where they will join you prior to God's judgement day on sin and the eternal lake of fire with satan for sinners. Nothing you think or say will change that one bit, just like you can't prevent your appointment with death God has waiting for you... the same God who made you lovingly in his image for a life with him that you constantly rejected.
There are facts and there are beliefs. Many people cannot tell the difference.