Posted: Mar 18, 2010 1:35 pm
FBM wrote:There's the work that Libet did that strongly suggests that decisions are made prior to conscious awareness of them. More recently, John-Dylan Haynes, et al, did some experiments that seem to show that decisions can happen unconsciously up to 10 seconds prior to conscious awareness of them. http://brainandlearning.blogspot.com/2008/04/do-we-have-freewill.html
More accurately, certain kinds of choices can be reliably predicted with brain imaging technology up to 10 seconds prior to conscious experience. This is rather amusing, since the previously maximum measured time was used by some proponents of Quantum Consciousness to save free will by sending signals back in time.
Anyway, Libet offered the idea of the veto himself. It has been rather solidly rebuked in an experimental setting as well. In any case, it was demolished in philosophy before it was in science.