I have an interest in free will. (Whether that interest is freely willed is a moot point!)
As a student, I read Roger Penrose’s book The Emperor’s New Mind about minds, machines, quantum mechanics and consciousness. Several sections in the book attracted my attention at the time but one part that I have been thinking about more recently discussed the experiments of Benjamin Libet. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Libet
Libet’s work involved monitoring the timing of brain signals associated with actions perceived by the subject to be voluntarily willed. His experiments appear to suggest that the subconscious mind is already gearing up for an action before the conscious mind is aware that it has made a decision to execute that action. If the results are taken at face value – and many scientists do so – they seem to suggest that free will is just an illusion.
Here is the well-known neuroscientist Susan Greenfield being a guinea pig for a reproduction of one of Libet’s experiments.
What is your reaction to these results?
Atheists, suppose you adopt this scientific view and accept that free will doesn’t exist. Suppose you are up a creek without a paddle. If you then find a floating plank and use it as a paddle, your solution is not down to your own ingenuity, it’s predetermined. And as you start to paddle your canoe, it’s not really you that’s doing it. You are trapped in a paddling automaton with the mere illusion that you are controlling it.
Does that sound satisfactory to you?
Theists, suppose you refute the scientific view that Libet’s experiments seem to push us towards. Suppose you are also up a creek without a paddle. You know that your sinful nature – or that of others – has brought this bad situation into being. If you then find a floating plank to use as a paddle, it’s down to divine providence. And, as you start to paddle, you know that God wants you to paddle home safely but you still have the free will to mess up.
Does that sound satisfactory to you?
Personally, I find myself resisting the apparent implications of Libet’s work. I don’t think the results are wrong – just that they might be being misinterpreted. Why would consciousness evolve in the first place if it was an entirely passive construct and there were no evolutionary advantage to it? I find it hard to accept that I am a spectator watching my own biopic rather than a player participating in it.
What do you think? Do you care? Do you think Outwith should cease cogitating and make the (illusionary?) choice to start cleaning her house instead?
Thanks for reading this far!