And God Gave Us Free Will.. or Not
Filed Under (Interesting, News) by Ian on 14-04-2008
Tagged Under : brain, free will, god, neurophysiologist, physiologist, science
The reason evil exists in the world is because god(s) gave us free will, right? Doesn’t look that way.
Free will? Not as much as you think
You’re going to press that button, right? You know you’re going to press it and then . . . you make a conscious decision and you press it, right?
Maybe not, say German researchers in a new study published in the April 13 online edition of Nature Neuroscience.
Using sophisticated brain imaging techniques, the researchers found that they can predict people’s simple decisions up to 10 seconds before they’re conscious of making such a choice.
“It seems that your brain starts to trigger your decision before you make up your mind,” said the study’s lead author, John-Dylan Haynes of the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Germany. “We can’t rule out free will, but I think it’s very implausible. The question is, can we still decide against the decision our brain has made?”
The study is the latest salvo in a longstanding scientific and philosophical debate over whether what we perceive as “free will” decisions are actually made before we’re aware that we’re making them.
A groundbreaking study, conducted in the 1980s by the recently deceased neurophysiologist Benjamin Libet, suggested that a region of the brain that prepares muscles to move showed activity a few hundred milliseconds before subjects made a conscious decision to press a button.
This is still free will. Your brain (i.e. YOU) has made the decision, but it takes a bit for you to be cognizant about the decision you have made.
How can I have free will if god created me this way? Isn’t everything preordained by god(s)?
Dude, I’m an atheist too. I’m just saying that this is free will because you ARE making a decision, but your conscience just happens to be the last to know. I mean, there’s a lot you brain must process before it makes a decision, so it really doesn’t surprise me at all that scientists can do this.
If i program a computer to jump everytime i say the word “jump”, is that free will?
If your conscious mind doesn’t up decisions for you, then it’s most likely a reflex and not “free will”.
Are you a fatalist?
absolutely.
John-Dylan Haynes seems to be under the delusion that the brain and you are somehow seperate. People who usually think like this are people that beleive in ideas such as people have “souls”. You ARE your brain, you take brain damage and your personality can be completey altered. If you take serious brain damage then it make you into a creationist, ba-zing!