Free Will - an illusion?
 

Reproducing Libet's original experiment:



More compelling experiment:

Im sorry, I cant seem to get this to load on my phone.

Exactly what am I supposed to be seeing? The title of this thread suggests Im not the only person who thinks this.But I could be way off. What is your point?

BUMP! Answer me dammit.

Well, just coming from a neurophysics background, free will is kind of a supernatural idea if you think about it. It's claiming that some ethereally independent entity makes decisions independent of the laws of the universe.

What makes more sense is that organism behavior is a product of (mostly) deterministic processes playing out: a combination of internal states (genetics, memory, toxicity, trauma, whatever) and external stimulus (current physiological stimuli).

And these experiment demonstrate that when people feel like they've made impulsive, random decisions, they really haven't. A computer algorithm and a little brain monitoring can predict what decision you are going to make with reasonably good accuracy.

We had a discussion similar to this last year. The consensus was that people didn't have freewill and were subject to their environment and the way they were swayed by outside forces.

I have never believed in free will. I think of it from a spiritual stand point, but I am super interested in it from a scientific stand point.

I think that's the most reasonable conclusion... but don't forget internal forces like genetics and psychological states! The stress-diathesis model: two different people will respond to the same environment different ways depending on their past history with the same kind of stimuli, their genetic dispositions, and other confounding biological factors.

I think people tend to forget about developmental factors too.

I just love the way you idiots are hung up on your science. That's some serious faith dudes. Are you all from western Europe, or just the UK. You all are so well schooled, and completely clueless, and this is banter :) But, I'm probably serious.

omniscience will share a secret.