In yet another thought-provoking research breakthrough that is sure to make a non-deafening non-impact in the mainstream non-media, a new brain study calls into question the idea of human free will.
Though CNN had other more pressing issues to cover, the story was picked up by Wired:
You may think you decided to read this story — but in fact, your brain made the decision long before you knew about it.
In a study published Sunday in Nature Neuroscience, researchers using brain scanners could predict people’s decisions seven seconds before the test subjects were even aware of making them.
[…] the patterns consistently predicted whether test subjects eventually pushed a button with their left or right hand — a choice that, to them, felt like the outcome of conscious deliberation. For those accustomed to thinking of themselves as having free will, the implications are far more unsettling than learning about the physiological basis of other brain functions.
[…] the findings raise profound questions about the nature of self and autonomy: How free is our will? Is conscious choice just an illusion?
[…] “Your decisions are strongly prepared by brain activity. By the time consciousness kicks in, most of the work has already been done,” said study co-author John-Dylan Haynes, a Max Planck Institute neuroscientist.
Scary stuff.
If scientists can look into your brain to predict simple actions before you’re even aware of your decision, how long before they can determine more complex thoughts, or before MRI machines take the place of waterboards in the world’s interrogation chambers?
And if we’re all just cogs with tiny, predetermined roles to play in a great random cosmic machine, if free will is just an illusion created by the chemicals sloshing around our brains — along with joy, fulfillment and the creative impulse — what’s the point of anything?
But maybe free will isn’t down for the count just yet — after all, the researchers only got it right seven times out of ten. Just because my actions can be predicted, doesn’t mean I didn’t choose them freely, using some process that can’t yet be measured. Maybe this just means we have a natural predisposition to choose Option A, but can overcome it to choose Option B instead — a bit like the conscious effort required to break a bad habit. Maybe we’re not cogs after all, but unique individuals of near-infinite complexity, each with boundless power and potentiality within us.
Or maybe that’s just what our cosmic overlords want us to think…
Link via Slashdot.
Photo via the Ludwig von Mises Institute.
2 responses so far ↓
1 B // Apr 14, 2008 at 1:28 pm
There’s a great quote by Kubulius (I think) that says, “Free will is an illusion. It is synonymous with incomplete perception.” We may very well not be qualified to determine whether or not we have free will.
On another side of the issue this study (at least from what I have read of it) hardly supports or fails to support the concept of free will.
1. It doesn’t discuss memory effects, which often work in the opposite order we’d anticipate (e.g., the memory effect gap that results in deja-vu).
2. The article also doesn’t discuss their qualification of the biological correlates of free will. So who’s to say that free will isn’t a later stage mediator. That is, the impulses abound, but “free will” can inhibit, enhance, or allow the impulses as it chooses. The simplicity of the choices the participants were asked to make would speak to whether or not the design is valid. It could also explain the 70% accuracy (hardly a ringing endorsement).
Interesting article nonetheless. It is an interesting finding, but hardly something on which to base a theory. The basic rule in research is to always have at least three point on which to base theoretical propositions. This comes from the old Math adage that “any two points will form a line”. The author of this article didn’t even stick to two points.
2 NAT // Apr 14, 2008 at 9:00 pm
Well it seems we’ll have to wait a little longer for scanners to help us with “Real-life decision making”!
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