Are Your Life Story, Your Free Will, and Your Self Convenient Fabrications?

Suppose that because of epilepsy you have had the connection severed between your two brain hemispheres so that one side does not communicate with the other. In an experiment, somebody shows you a card that says "Walk." So you walk. When asked why you did it, you say, "To get a drink of water." In fact you only did it because you saw the card. You made up the explanation after the fact. This couldn't happen to you, right? Wrong.

Michael Gazzaniga: The Mind's Past

In The Mind's Past, Gazzaniga reminds me of age-old teachings in Buddhism and Advaita. Of course in this he is not out of tune with other neuroscientists.   I am reminded of Benjamin Libet,  I am also reminded of neurophilosopher Thomas Metzinger, who publishes opinions reminiscent of ancient Eastern views of self and mind. (Not that neurophilosphers intend it, although some borrow from the teachings without acknowledging their sources.) Neuroscience also provides evidence that corroborates some of the teachings.

A Review of Michael Gazzaniga's The Mind's Past

In The Mind's Past, Gazzaniga reminds me of age-old teachings in Buddhism and Advaita. Of course in this he is not out of tune with other neuroscientists (e.g, Benjamin Libet) and neurophilosophers (Thomas Metzinger, for one) who increasingly publish findings and opinions that are reminiscent of ancient Eastern views of self and mind. (Not that they intend it, although some borrow from the teachings without acknowledging their sources.) Neuroscience also provides evidence that corroborates some of the teachings.

Free will not an illusion after all

"Champions of free will take heart. A landmark 1980s experiment that purported to show free will doesn't exist is being challenged.

In 1983, neuroscientist Benjamin Libet asked volunteers wearing scalp electrodes to flex a finger or wrist. When they did, the movements were preceded by a dip in the signals being recorded, called the "readiness potential". Libet interpreted this RP as the brain preparing for movement.

Crucially, the RP came a few tenths of a second before the volunteers said they had decided to move. Libet concluded that unconscious neural processes determine our actions before we are ever aware of making a decision (Brain, vol 106, p 623).

Since then, others have quoted the experiment as evidence that free will is an illusion - a conclusion that was always controversial, particularly as there is no proof the RP represents a decision to move." More (Requires a subscription)

A synopsis of the full article:

Jeff Miller and Judy Trevena of the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand, experimented to determine what prompts the Readiness Potential (RP).

Like Libet, they used scalp electrodes, but with a difference. Volunteers did not decide when to move. Miller and Trevena had them wait for an audio tone. Upon hearing it they could decide whether or not to tap a key.

Given Libet's view of the RP, Miller and Trevena held that it should be greater after the volunteer chose to tap the key.

What did they find out? The RP was the same, both before and after the decision to move. For that reason, they posit that the RP may merely be a sign that the brain is paying attention and does not indicate that a decision has been made.

What about Libet's view that decision-making is subconscious? In a second experiment, they failed to find evidence for it. In this experiment, volunteers pressed a key after the tone, but had to decide whether to use their left or right hand.

This is revealing because movement in the right limbs relates to left hemisphere brain signals; the left side, to the right. If an unconscious process is driving this decision, brain location should depend on choice of hand. Choice did not correlate.

The findings do not refute Libet's experiments but they do undermine them.

The original experiments by Benjamin Libet can be read about in Mind Shadows here.

Against Benjamin Libet & Free Won't

Benjamin Libet provided a simple model of repeatable experiments to verify his findings which reveal that, so to speak, things seem topsy turvy. His findings are widely interpreted to mean that we can veto our actions but we do not decide when to initiate them. In other words, we have veto power but not decision power. (Libet said this is in keeping with the Ten Commandments as most of them are Do Nots.)

I found an interesting review of Libet's book. The review argued against the standard interpretation. I do not know the writer's credentials, nor do I know if he has professionally published--not that the questions must matter--but I did find Carlos Camara informative and intelligent in the points he makes. (English is not his first language, revealed by his spellings, which I corrected below.) Here is an excerpt from his review of Benjamin Libet's book, Mind Time: The Temporal Factor in Consciousness:

"Nor does Libet consider the fact of epilepsy, where brain activity is quite long in duration, but different in amplitude and frequency, and the patient is unconscious. Time cannot be the only factor. If it is, proving so requires more than what Libet offers.

Libet also famously found that brain activity precedes the conscious will to act for about 200 milliseconds. He also proposes that the notion of free will can be maintained, because there is time to veto consciously willed actions. You do not begin your actions, but you modulate them.

Again, his evidence is strong, robust and significant. But what about his 'veto' speculation. It is unnecessary. Firstly, materialists should not be surprised with the fact that conscious will comes late in the game. If conscious will is the result of brain processes, it cannot antedate these processes. Secondly, the obvious question arises if the veto function is not preceded by unconscious brain activity in turn. Libet here argues that it must not, for even if the awareness of the decision to veto requires brain activity, the content of that awareness (the actual decision to veto), need not. This reply depends of course, on the independence of consciousness from its content, an assumption that Libet gives us no reason to accept." More

Benjamin Libet & Free Won't**

Hold out your arm. Look at it. Now bend your hand at the wrist. Do it whenever you want. Do it a few times.*

How did this process begin? Was it you? Was it these words?

In 1985, neuro-scientist Benjamin Libet conducted an experiment related to this.

With electrodes connected to their wrists and scalps, his subjects had brain waves recorded as they watched a clock with a spot revolving faster than a second hand. Like you, they were told to flex their wrists whenever. They were also told to note the spot's position at the time they decided to do so. They stated where they saw it, and Libet correlated their observations with data recorded by electrodes at wrist and scalp.

Libet measured three factors: the action's beginning, the moment of decision, and the Readiness Potential, which began a certain brain wave pattern. This pattern involves the brain's plans to carry out an action.

Okay, so what did he find out? This. The decision to act was recorded as taking place at some 200 milliseconds before the Readiness Potential, which occurred some 550 milliseconds before the action.

So what?, you ask. Only this. A decision to act did not start the process. It did not come before the Readiness Potential. It can be construed as an effect of the Potential as cause. The decision was determined, then, and not a function of free agency.

Surprised? Did you expect a different sequence, this one?: first, the decision to act, then the planning stage, otherwise known as Readiness Potential, followed by the action. Instead, the Readiness Potential preceded the decision. Understood one way, no decision caused the brain to get ready to act. The brain got ready, then gave the appearance that a decision was made.

Some who study this experiment can liken the sense of decision to a hood ornament over a truck engine, symbolic rather than instrumental of a driving force. Libet found one, Readiness Potential, two, decision, three, action. The Readiness Potential led to the action, with the decision to act as a result of the Readiness Potential. In their view, with true free will a decision should have generated the preparation to act, culminating in the Readiness Potential.

Others say that had the decision sprung into consciousness without anything preceding it, the event would have been like God in the Book of Genesis saying of the void, Let there be light! Something would have come out of nothing. We can deem it natural that something comes from something, in this case a decision from a Readiness Potential. Obvious proponents of something from something are scientific determinists. This handily dispenses with subject-object duality and explains all through a physical monism.

With a different argument, somebody might say that a neatly simple scientific experiment causes reductionist absurdity when applied to anything so complex as human agency—or free will, if you prefer. People daily engage in behavior more complex than moving their wrists. They raise children, handle office politics, respond to political news. These involve conscious experiences, not simple brain events which the Libet experiments record. The correlation of conscious experience to brain events is highly problematic.

Still, one interpretation is that while Libet's subjects thought they were deciding, they actually saw an internal replay of a decision that had already occurred. They did not initiate an action but thought they had. They thought their decision had caused the action, although the Readiness Potential may have caused the decision to act. No choice, here, they would argue. No volition, just a series of processes.

If Libet's subjects didn't have free will, they did have a kind of free won't. That is, he told them that they could veto an action. Instead of flexing a wrist, they could stop the movement. He discovered an action could be vetoed, but the subjects only had one tenth second (100 milliseconds) to do so. In short, they could not initiate an action and could only overrule any impulse if they were alert and acted instantly. This is reminiscent of Zen teachings about alertness as the road to freedom.

(Of this experiment, and its implications, Tufts University philosopher Daniel Dennett* is reputed to have said "I want more freedom than that." *(Freedom Evolves, Elbow Room, Consciousness Explained, and other books.) In short, this does not mean he refuses to accept the facts but believes that they can be interpreted differently.)*( Slightly revised from a 2003 post.)

** Jeff Miller and Judy Trevena of the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand. have conducted experiments that call into question Libet's findings. According to their view, the Readiness Potential only pays attention to decisions being made and does not mean that one is "decisionally" aware of his action after the fact. In short, the Readiness Potential is misconstrued as to its role.

Benjamin Libet and Free Won't

     Benjamin Libet and Free Won't

An updated, clearer article with the same title can be found by clicking here.

Hold out your arm. Look at it. Now bend your hand at the wrist. Do it whenever you want. Do it a few times.

How did this process begin? Was it you? Was it these words?

In 1985, neuroscientist Benjamin Libet conducted an experiment similar to this. (See Free Will and Benjamin Libet's Experiments, 8 November 2003.)

With electrodes connected to their wrists and scalps, his subjects had brain waves recorded as they watched a clock with a spot revolving faster than a second hand. Like you, they were told to flex their wrists spontaneously. They were also told to note the spot's position at the time they decided to do so. They stated where they saw it, and Libet correlated their observations with data recorded by electrodes at wrist and scalp.

Libet measured three factors: the action's beginning, the moment of decision, and the Readiness Potential, which began a certain brain wave pattern. This pattern involves the brain's plans to carry out an action.

Okay, so what did he find out? This. The action was recorded as taking place before the decision to act.

Libet was surprised. He expected a different sequence, this one: first, the decision to act, then the planning stage, otherwise known as Readiness Potential, followed by the action. Instead, the Readiness Potential preceded the decision. No decision caused the brain to get ready to act. The brain got ready, then gave the appearance that a decision was made.

The sense of decision was rather like a hood ornament over a truck engine, symbolic rather than instrumental. Libet found one, Readiness Potential, two, decision, three, action. The Readiness Potential led to the action, with the decision to act as an impression after the fact.

In other words, while his subjects thought they were deciding, they actually saw an internal replay of a decision that had already occurred. They did not initiate an action but thought they had. They thought their decision had caused the action.

Libet's experiments suggest that his subjects apparently didn't have free will, but instead, a kind of free won't. That is, he told them that they could veto an action. Instead of flexing a wrist, they could stop the movement. He discovered an action could be vetoed, but the subjects only had one tenth second (100 milliseconds) to do so. In short, they could not initiate an action and could only overrule any impulse if they were alert and acted instantly. This is reminiscent of Zen teachings about alertness as the road to freedom. (See the Zen parable, "Attention means attention," in Ramesh Balsekar's Inconsistencies, 10 March 2004.)

(Of this experiment, and its implications, Tufts University philosopher Daniel Dennett* is reputed to have said "I want more freedom than that." *(Freedom Evolves, Elbow Room, Consciousness Explained, and other books.) In short, this does not mean he refuses to accept the facts but believes that they can be interpreted differently.)

Now a question. Where is the self that seems to make all the decisions?

Time is out of joint for us. Another Libet experiment, in 1981, revealed that brain stimulation induces conscious sensory impressions, but only one half second after steady stimulation. In other words, consciousness builds over time. It lags behind events and only later corrects the delay by making us think that awareness occurred before the stimulus. (Our brains are masters of deception. See Gorillas and Inattentional Blindness, 13 March 2004.)

During meditation or other introspection, one looks steadily into his experience and finds nothing that lasts, only ever-changing impressions, thoughts, sensations, without separation between observer and observed.

Scottish philosopher David Hume said that whenever he delved within he found only perceptions--heat, cold, pain, pleasure--and from this concluded that the self was nothing but a bundle of perceptions. True, but beyond them, a perceiver remains as distinct from the sense of self, and it cannot be explained by that which it perceives. (See Perception, 8 December 2003.)

So do you make decisions? How do you know? If you believe so, find your beliefs and the self who believes them.

(Also see Wheeler and Delayed Choice, 11 January 2004; Penrose and Brain Wave Function Collapse, 23 January 2004; Free Will: Goswami, Balsekar, Libet, 28 December 2003, Daniel Dennett and Compatibilist Volition, 15 December 2003, Daniel Wegner and Free Will, 12 December 2003, Two Sages and A Taoist, 9 January 2004, Losing Control, 9 December 2003; Thought Experiment: Where Are You?, 8 March 2004; Brain in A Vat, 20 November 2003.)

Benjamin Libet's Personal View of Free Will

Benjamin Libet's Personal View of Free Will

"If the moon, in the act of completing its eternal way around the earth, were gifted with self-consciousness, it would feel thoroughly convinced that it was travelling its way of its own accord on the strength of a resolution taken once and for all. So would a Being, endowed with higher insight and more perfect intelligence, watching man and his doings, smile about man’s illusion that he was acting according to his own free will." (Attributed to Albert Einstein in the promotion site for Libet's The Volitional Brain. Perhaps from Einstein's autobiography, The World As I See It, in which he addresses his deterministic view of the universe.)

Most scientific thought concurs that the universe is deterministic and that the sense of free will is an illusion. Still, the question remains, as posed by T.S. Eliot:

Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow

("The Hollow Men," 1925)

Benjamin Libet conducted now famous experiments that seemed to light up the shadow as phrased in Eliot's poem. Essentially, they were that a subject thought he had made a decision to act, but instead the action occurred about a half second before the sense of a decision. The decision was illusory. The action involved no agent, no choosing person, but instead happened, with the sense of control occurring afterward. ( In this blog various articles can be found on free will in general and several on Libet in particular, especially Benjamin Libet and Free Won't, 4 May 2008.)

Despite the evidence of his own experiments, Benjamin Libet allows some room for free will in an otherwise deterministic world. He provides many of his arguments in The Volitional Brain (Libet, Freeman, and Sutherland, 1999).

Libet has this to say about his methods: "I have taken an experimental approach to this question. Freely voluntary acts are preceded by a specific electrical change in the brain (the 'readiness potential', RP) that begins 550 ms before the act. Human subjects became aware of intention to act 350-400 ms after RP starts, but 200 ms. before the motor act. The volitional process is therefore initiated unconsciously. But the conscious function could still control the outcome; it can veto the act. Free will is therefore not excluded. These findings put constraints on views of how free will may operate; it would not initiate a voluntary act but it could control performance of the act. The findings also affect views of guilt and responsibility. But the deeper question still remains: Are freely voluntary acts subject to macro-deterministic laws or can they appear without such constraints, non-determined by natural laws and 'truly free'? I shall present an experimentalist view about these fundamental philosophical opposites."

He has several justifications, one of which is that many readiness potentials are produced by the brain although only one is acted upon. Another is that the conscious mind can veto actions before they are performed. Into this he tosses the notion of "consciousness fields," which is more supposition than evidence-based theory.

Critics argue that he has created a homonculus, a little man inside, who over-rides unconscious urges to act, but his own experiments verify that such vetos do occur. In this regard, the burden of explaining away the evidence lies with his critics, for subjects are indeed able to stop actions within a very narrow window of time. This has been established by Libet's own experiments.

Also see in Mind Shadows Benjamin Libet & Free Won't**, 4 May 2008; Looking for Self: Yogi Berra, Forks in The Road, Benamin Libet and Free will, 8 November 2003; Michael Gazzaniga: The Mind's Past, 3 December 2012; Epiphenomenalism and Illusion of Conscious Control, 26 April 2011; Whose Fault Is It? Did Your Neurons Make You Do It?, 5 April 2011.

Free Will and Time: Dennett, Libet, Penrose, Wheeler, Advaita

Notes on Time and Choice: Daniel Dennett, Benjamin Libet, Roger Penrose, John Wheeler,  and Advaita

Everything humanity thinks and believes about itself is predicated upon two concepts. One is free will; the other is self. Look wherever you will, whatever society you find, and all cultures contain a belief in some kind of will, and self. Civilizations, economies, legal systems, art, religion, all arise from them. Notes on Time and Free Will

Free Will Illusion: Goswami, Balsekar, Benjamin Libet

The Illusion of Free Will: Physicist Amit Goswami, Sage Ramesh Balsekar, and Neuroscientist Benjamin Libet

Balsekar: [On free choice:] A personal awareness of that choice comes about 1/2 second later than a "readiness potentia" that appears in the brain wave, per brain surgeon Benjamin Libet. Thus there can be no free will, that most precious "possession" in the West. The Indian sage Ramana Maharshi said the same thing. You see the way I interpret it, in simple language, is this. In the ocean of consciousness there are possibilities. And quantum mechanics as I understand it, what is going to happen then is not really known. . . . And in that pool of consciousness which particular possibility becomes a fact, is not known. So if I say, "I have a thought," this means, as I understand it, what it really means is that thought has occurred half a second before I say, "it is my thought."

Goswami: That's right. That identity takes half a second to come about.

Balsekar: My interpretation as a layman is this . . . that a thought comes as one of the actualities from the pool of possibilities, and what comes from the pool of possibilities is outside my control, there is nothing I can do. And that thought arises, the brain reacts to that thought, and the reaction of the brain is what I choose to call my action, whereas it is not my reaction. It is a reaction of the brain to a thought that occurred a half-second earlier. Which I say is my thought!

Goswami: One can say that there is a choosing consciousness but certainly that's not the ego function.

Balsekar: Yes. Quite. So from the pool of consciousness, consciousness selects a particular thought.

Goswami: And that consciousness is what we variously call God, or the universal God.

Balsekar: On this particular thing, would you like to expand it? As it says, "the most prized possession of the West."

Goswami: I'd like to just make the Western view a little bit more palatable, by saying that the West does not make a complete mistake of this, because the very good thinkers of the West recognize that the action of free will is actually the action of surrender. There is action of free will by the human because human beings are separate from God, so the only way the only status the human being can have is to surrender to God's will. And there is no real distinction because there is only one world operating, so as soon as we learn to surrender then we are actually accepting free will.

Balsekar: So that means, what you are really surrendering is your concept of living . . . isn't it? What else do you have to surrender, what capital do you have to surrender to God from whom you have received everything? You have only the concept that you have free will to surrender. So that is why I often say, my only point is that nothing is in your control. Anything that happens is part of the impersonal functioning of the totality of consciousness, or the will of God.

Goswami: Libet is a very good neurophysiologist. He had done another experiment, related to the other experiment which shows clearly what you are saying. First of all, people are asked to will to raise their hand when they choose. So they will to raise their hand. Of course as indicated by the other experiment, half a second before they are willing, the experimenter looking at the EEG machine of course already knows that. But let me tell you. Then he said, "even after you become aware of your willing, try to see if you can stop yourself from raising your hand". So they did the experiment, and they found that when they were given the choice of negating the action, they could do it. So the conclusion is that the only little amount of escape hatch that consciousness retains in a state of identification with the ego is the ability to say no to a conditioned action. There is no free will there. We can stop ourselves even at that ego identification. More from The Online Bulletin of Science Within Consciousness
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My comments: Given that, as Libet's experiments suggest, the sense of conscious will is illusory, what then? His findings have implications for both belief in conscious will and for disbelief. Conditioning changes, depending on belief or disbelief. Belief in the sense begets one kind of conditioning; disbelief, another. Belief that one does have conscious will has brought about the conditions which provided for technological and political advances of the West. The essential point: even if conscious will is an illusion, belief or disbelief in conscious will has consequences conditioned by mind set toward the issue. These conditioned consequences shape individual lives and whole cultures.

Apart from illusions, the question of belief value arises. If something is judged as illusory, does that mean it is not valuable? It certainly had evolutionary survival value. If valuable in the context of human effects, illusion or not, it profits humanity.

The effects of Shakespeare or an elegant mathematical formula can be regarded as illusory. (Eastern thinkers would brush aside such effects as part of the dream called life. This is not the Western temperament. In his later years, Mark Twain was deeply troubled by questions of reality, exploring them in his works. In The Mysterious Stranger, the story's conclusion yields a Western, not Eastern, perspective. He wrote, Dream bigger dreams and better.)

Also note that Balsekar says that Consciousness chooses ("selects a particular thought"). No chooser, only the sense of choosing: this concept need not be fatalistic, but taken in the context of Balsekar's other writings it must be construed as fatalistic. Balsekar has said that his life has already been "chalked up."

But Quantum Theory indicates no fatalism in the universe. Rather, its evidence reveals indeterminism (Bohr) or determinism (Bohm), depending on the theorist, and this is an entirely different understanding. Nothing is already "chalked up." To use Balsekar's concept that Consciousness chooses, one can also infer that choice occurs in the moment, that nothing is predetermined. (See Daniel Dennett and choice machines, 8 January article above.)

Goswami points out that Libet's subjects can negate a hand's rising, "telling" it not to rise. This ability to negate an action is significant in that it accords with Eastern teachings, which stress attention to one's thoughts, deeds, and movements. Attention is taught as the only escape from ignorance. With attention, one can be alert to thought, deeds, and movements; by this alertness, he can stop their arisings and eventually decondition himself.

Goswami says this negation in Libet's subjects is not free will. Why is it not? If he means actions are not initiated and freely selected out of a field of opportunity, yes, he is correct. But it can still be considered a form of free will in that it either ratifies or vetoes an action arising in the sequence of conditioning. (As a term, free will has become too all-encompassing.)