Time, Determinism & Free Will

Neuroscience of Free Will (Libet Experiments)

speculative Contemporary 1983 (Benjamin Libet et al.); the "readiness potential" concept traces to Kornhuber & Deecke, 1965

A body of experimental work using EEG and fMRI to look for the brain’s decision-making process before a person becomes consciously aware of “deciding” — used as an empirical stress-test for the whole free will debate rather than a philosophical position in itself.

Proponents

Benjamin Libet, Hans Helmut Kornhuber, Lüder Deecke

Evidence For

EEG studies recorded a "readiness potential" building in the brain several hundred milliseconds before subjects reported becoming consciously aware of deciding to act, suggesting the process begins before conscious awareness of it.

Evidence Against

An influential 2012 re-analysis (Schurger et al.) argues the readiness potential may just reflect random neural noise crossing a decision threshold rather than a genuine unconscious "decision," and Libet himself argued the conscious mind retains a late-stage veto ("free won't") even if the initial urge is unconscious.

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