Posted: Jan 05, 2017 8:12 pm
GrahamH wrote:Fenrir wrote:archibald wrote:
In one of the experiments I linked to, the researcher found that the brain makes a decision before (up to 7 seconds before) the brain's owner becomes aware of it, to the extent that the researchers can predict, significantly above chance, what the brain's owner will do before he or she either does it or is conscious of having decided to do it.
That appears to undermine the idea of free will, and I would love to hear how it does not.
I don't see how this undermines the possibility of free will. Just because I am not conscious of making a decision does not mean I did not. Much is happening below the surface, so what if I'm not directly aware of it?
Unless you cobsider my subconscious as not part of me.
Some people make much of "conscious choosing", even to the extent that they take it as obvious that we have free will because we have this experience of making a choice. If the choice is made before consciousness of choosing that concept of free will is undermined.
...
Major fail, probably because of the faulty experiments claming to demonstrate that we make decisions before we are aware of them. This was disussed way back in the thread - so far back it would take a while to locate it. However, Graham was involved then (as now), so has no excuse for disregarding that. In a nutshell, the experiments we based on detecting only the nerve impulses transmitted down the arm, that actually cause the subject's hand to go up, not the impulses related to the brain thinking before putting a hand up.