The Neuroskeptic has a post up about an experiment which seems to contradict the famous Libet experiment: Random Brain Waves Save Free Will? – Neuroskeptic | DiscoverMagazine.com.
I’ve personally never found the Libet experiment particularly compelling when it comes to free will arguments, but many do.
Related articles
- The Hand-Waver’s Guide to The Brain (jfnet.wordpress.com)
- The Neuroskeptic on Pre-Registering Experiments (kolber.typepad.com)
- Free Will (patrickwatts7.wordpress.com)
SelfAwarePatterns 
Interesting, I thought Libet’s work had been supported and elaborated on by “Unconscious Determinants of Free Decisions in the Human Brain”, Soon, Brass, Heinze & Haynes 2008, but here they’re proposing that RP is nothing more than “… random, spontaneous background changes in the brain …”?
Regardless, just as quantum *probabilities* don’t save free will, I don’t see *random* brain waves doing it either. Additionally, RP is but one of 10 reasons to question the validity of our common notions of free will per ‘Free Will Is Un-natural’, Bargh 2008.
LikeLike
I agree. Classic free will (will free of God or the workings of the universe) requires dualism. Once you give that up, it’s not really possible to salvage that classic understanding.
There is a valid argument about whether the term ‘free will’ has productive usage outside of that classic understanding. But that’s another matter.
LikeLike
I like the way Parker Whittle put it:
“… free will may be little more than a bedtime story our brain tells us to make us sleep better at night.”
‘We are monkeys, pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps…’, bootstrapmonkey.com
Excellent choice ‘SAP’! Free will … if there were ever an elephant in the room …
LikeLike