Voluntary Action — Patrick Haggard / Serious Science

Cognitive neuroscientist Patrick Haggard on the definition of voluntary action, what are the underlying mental processes of volition and whether we have a conscious free will.

'We make actions all the time and maybe these famous voluntary actions which we consider so important for our free will and for our individual autonomy are not controlled at all, maybe they're just spontaneous bits of neural noise which we occasionally produce. If our voluntary actions were just noise, you would expect the brain to be doing all kinds of things before the action happens, there'd be no pattern.'

Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London

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[userou-igze]

Please make more, almost all of these videos are of outstanding quality (in terms of video production but also information and style). This channel deserves much more views.

[michael-nef]

Very interesting video! The neuroscience videos on this channel are very good!

[timkbirchico]

Even though us homo sapiens sapiens can discuss volition vs inherent programmed reactions we still are subject to them. Most ethologists consider other animals behaviour to be preprogrammed reactions, lacking consciousness, as in volition. As if humans are not just another phenotype subject to similar behaviour programs even whilst being capable of discussing volition.
This brings into question our acceptance of our nature as just another phenotype of dna, and our responsibilities for all other phenotypes.

[TheAngiepangie]

Thank you! I just had an argument with someone who wasn’t even willing to discuss free will.

[JiacuiLi]

This is very interesting study. However, I am not sure if such boredom-induced action can be said to unrelated to external stimuli. The “stimulus” here is “the fact that the dots haven’t moved for X seconds”. The lack of stimulus is still an external stimulus, no?

[errgo]

This is another fascinating video. Has Serious Science ever considered doing a group discussion? Get Chomsky, Friston and Haggard together to meet minds!

[mattd]

If it weren't for the implications of strong emergence, I'd be pretty much cemented to the idea that the frontal cortex is acting as the expediter of our unconscious mind in this situation, and that free will does not in fact exist.

[MisterNohbdy]

Treating responses to boredom as fundamentally different from other stimulus responses doesn't really make sense to me; extended *lack* of stimulus (causing boredom) is still just a form of stimulus in the end. I'm curious as to what other scenarios result in this measurable "readiness potential".

[thstroyur]

Well, it always boils down to that conclusion, now doesn't it? (Which, BTW, isn't "philosophical", at all...). Yes, our speaker told us about something scientific here - most of which clustered around the magic word, "biomarker". I know that prophecies are out of fashion these days, but I'd like to make one, anyway: that, five years from now, cognitive scientists will still be talking about biomarkers; then, fifty years from now, they will still be talking about biomarkers; then, five hundred years from now...

[Arunava_Gupta]

Who is the feeler, the knower, the subjective experiencer? Neuroscientists would do well to answer this question first before designing such experiments. To say that electrical activity in "circuits" of neurons is a feeler, a "we" or "I" is a joke. Thought and memory are knowledge entities ontologically distinct from the sense/motor-data flowing through these "wires" (neurons). To reduce these entities to electrical signals is a subversion of common sense and a blot on human intellect. There is a fundamental, irreducible conscious personality--a first principle--connected to the brain and the senses. But those committed to the materialist ideology (rather than the truth) would never admit it.

[drzeworyj]

we are better off/more humane without the notion of free will (Buddhism/yoga style).
people get so ridiculously emotional about it, and I did too, until I could let go of it (my brain knew it didn't make much sense).

[drewie_Butts]

What if it’s not boredom that’s making them skip, but a mild anxiety? Would that mean the experiment is directly causing the precursor? My intuition says it would but I’d love to hear thoughts!

[TheDavidlloydjones]

For the nineteenth time in seven hundred years, science gets all dressed up in khaki pants and solar topee, sets off into the jungle in yet another expedition against the dreaded theology monster.

[stefanotittarelli]

This research is interesting but nowhere close to explaining Consciousness, and people like Searle are totally off the mark. You are studying the neurophysiological and neurobiological correlations of actions in the brain, fine, but you will never be able to objectify consciousness, therefore be humble, do not be like Searle.