The Libet Experiment: Is Free Will Just an Illusion?

Are our 'conscious decisions' just reports on what is already happening? Narrated by Harry Shearer. Scripted by Nigel Warburton.

and the animations were created by Cognitive.

[jonashermans]

You cannot choose your thoughts, as it would require that you think them before you think them.

[sicktoaster]

Two points:

1. Your unconsciousness is still you, it's still in the same brain as your consciousness. Furthermore part of the brain's processing has to be in the consciousness. cogito ergo sum. Those particular signals are physical phenomenon as well and would then influence the unconscious part of the brain, thus changing how that effects decisions in the future. So the most this might mean is that in order to exercise free will you need to plan ahead, that we have no free will in our reactions to things that are complete surprises. But even then the things we describe as "surprises" usually still have some familiar elements and our reactions to them will be determined at least in part by how we have thought in the past about similar scenarios, so there's still some free will.

2. How do we know when the research subjects are actually aware? To measure their awareness requires we either communicate with the research subjects or use instruments to somehow measure their awareness. In either case we are assuming that there is no lag between when the awareness actually happens and when we receive physical evidence (either in the form of a talking person declaring they are aware of something or in the form of a brain scan readout) of the awareness's occurrence. What if the awareness actually happens before the signs of awareness come about?

When you look at something off in the distance you're actually looking into the past because of the speed of light. Since neural impulses also have to travel it makes sense that the time a person appears to be aware would occur after the person was actually aware.

[ExistentialBordem]

Is the guy voicing his principle skinner?

[Steve]

My thoughts (or maybe my brain's thoughts): If the brain seems to make the decision before we're consciously aware of making a choice, why and how does it make that selection? On what criteria? It depends on the person we've grown up to be. Our brain 'decides' based on those prior causes, those foundations of our unconscious motives. So if someone tells you to flex your wrist, you might sit there and refuse to do it or you might follow the instruction, depending on what kind of person you are. But if we're made to reflect on it, we tell ourselves we made a conscious decision to do it because it flatters the ego to believe that we're in charge and free from prior causes. But the brain, in a sense, knows us better than we know ourselves. We're only ever aware of part of what motivates our 'choices'.

[hoogmonster]

I've got free can't. I'm special like that.

[robl]

know think what the experiment is saying is that a big part of ourselves we are still unaware think just but focusing on physical sensation you become aware of patterns of holding and if you self observe you go deeper within and start knowing thyself more

[armentopchyan]

When I get to work I hardly remember my drive...but I do remember what I thought about during the ride and the decisions I made during it. Clearly these two activities, both requiring complex decisions, function at two very different levels. One is engrained from experience of driving and is done automatically and in many cases (such as steering to avoid a collision) realized consciously after the decision. The other is forward-thinking and hardly a task relayed to autonomous portions of the brain. I think Ian McGilchrist has explained these differences in better depth.


The Sam Harrises of the world like to say it's my past experiences that determine ultimately what choice I'll make in the latter case, but I don't believe neuroscience supports this. My understanding is the brain brings up considering points: one part reminds you of past things, another brings fear of uncertain events, yet another may remind how your social image may change, etc. It's like a meeting of executives and the CEO, your consciousness decides. It's true that genetics and upbringing shape which executive is loudest in each person, but we are still able to ignore the loudest one...case in point letting a counselor, family, or friend's voice drown out some internal thoughts you are trying to reject.


A CEO cannot be bothered with small tasks, like which arm to move. Even though that become problematic at times: CEO says diet, underlings binge. It's like we are sentient beings that have to steer a resistant primitive animal.

[animatoraftereffects]

The experiments claims to know so much about what is happening in the brain when all the equipment tells us is when brain activity is happening. The brain activity happening before the subject claims to have chosen to perform the task could be the mind checking on the arm and preparing the muscles for movement. How can we know for sure with such crude brain reading equipment?

[sphenopalatineganglioneuralgia]

Too many assumptions of the correctness of timing, and our very subjective ideas of exactly what is being measured and what it means. In addition, free will has been limited in its definition. This is an interesting experiment with some interesting things to follow up on, but alone it does not prove anything. Still too much unknown. Very interesting stuff though.

[sukurys]

Dennet's free will is not the free will that people have in mind when talking about it. He rephrased it and made it possible that way. I find it that id does not solve the problem - just proves that we cannot prove it exists.

[TrueNorthGaming]

You're an odd man Skinner, but you make a great description of a psychological experiment.

[MrRobtwothirds]

What if this "preparatory" brain activity is actually because of a "premonition" of the conscious act, we know, like borrowing energy from the future in order to acheive an outcome that would not have been possible without it, as in quantum burrowing.

[NefosG]

Back there, Benjamin Libet had an all joyful camaraderie.

[waedjradi]

Mind is always 100-steps ahead of you.

[donkconklin]

Any psychology experiment in which the data being collected is based entirely on self report should be suspect. It amazes me that this is taken as seriously as it is.

I'm not saying I believe libertarian free will exists. I lean heavily towards determinism. I just think self report should not be a part any scientific inquiry. People are far too good at fooling themselves.

[envycentral]

The sixth stage is without description.

[tomcollinz]

Libet experiment is not to be taken seriously as there is too much asked of the subject of the experiment. Also because there are numbers on the dial. The preliminary brain activity could surely be the conscious mind deciding on a number. The subject makes a mental note only of when the decision was made to make a hand gesture within hundredth of a second. The unconscious reaction in brain waves could simply be the neural mechanics involved in manipulating the hand. Not one bit of those observations and movements could tell Libet anything with any accuracy for he could not discriminate what decision was made and when it was made, especially relying on subject feedback and within hundredths of seconds.

[andreagrennan]

"Benjamin beyond bliss" "Back there Benjamin" "Libet's dilay" "Libet's all joyful cameraderie".

[fuvet]

Idk about anyone else, but if someone told me to do this, i would either randomly move my arm/hand/fingers in any way that didn't go against the instructions, meaning i didn't think of the action itself, or i would sit there and think for a bit, then perform a routine i planned in my head according to the question, but not moving at all until a couple seconds later.
I also think it might be due to the fact that we are so in sync with our body's movement capabilities that when told an instruction, such as hold out your arm and make a fist, that we don't have to think of the action, but just comprehend what was said...
*This makes me wonder... what if the person was given an instruction in a language that they only know well enough to understand simple instructions. They would then have to mentally translate it to there native language to act on the instructions. (because they aren't fluent enough in the foreign language for it to be intuitive) My guess is that this could result in them possibly thinking about the action before doing it, maybe no matter what? i don't know*

[alriktyrving]

There would off course be a time lag between the REPORTING of a counscious desiscion and the counscious desiscion itself. I don’t see the problem. The experiment doesn’t seem to refute neither free will nor strengthen the philisophical idea of
materialism. Am I missing something here or what?