May 23rd, 2007 Fred McVittie
The work of Libet et al (1979) shows that unconscious brain activity, referred to as the ‘readiness potential’ precedes conscious awareness when making decisions or initiating intentional actions. This seems to suggest that many of the decisions that we take, and that we seem to be making in the full light of consciousness, are actually a result of unconscious processes with the conscious mind only becoming aware of (and taking responsibility for) retrospectively. This has been used as a support for the piphenomenalist position on consciousness, that it is merely ‘the steam above the factory’, and not actually the integral part of cognition that it appears subjectively to be. This phenomenon shows itself in unusual pathological conditions such as Alien Hand Syndrome and Utilization Behaviour in which patients engage in unwilled actions spontaneously and uncontrollably, often rationalising their behaviour afterwards.
A significant implication of this finding is its apparent assault on the concept of ‘free will’; if we have no intentional control over our actions but are mere spectators of our own behaviour, confabulating a sense of agency post hoc, then we also have no ultimate moral or authorial responsibility for those actions. It has been suggested however, by Libet himself and others, that whilst we may not have free will as it is traditionally understood, we may have a ‘free won’t’. That is, that although we do not have total power to initiate action through intention and the will, we may have the right of veto, preventing the carrying out of certain unwilled actions and allowing other ‘willed’ actions to proceed.
A possible image of this would be to see the progress through our own experience as similar to a journey through a forest. Perhaps we are arboreal creatures in this forest and can move quickly through the densely packed trees by swinging from branch to branch. As we move we are constantly being presented with a multitude of possible alternative courses of action, this branch or that, and out of this range of options we must only select one. If we had free will we would carefully weigh up the alternatives and decide the ideal course, translating this choice into willed intention and finally action. Without free will, but with a fully functioning free won’t, we see the maze of branches as opportunities offered to us by the world and by the history of our passage so far. Presented with all of these possibilities we do not need to choose one, rather we reject most of these offers and accept only one, in all likelihood the one our momentum is carrying us toward. This process of winnowing out alternative actions in favour of a single one would, I assume, normally happen non-consciously. I am certainly not often aware of the decisions I am making every time I carry out an action. When I am walking my feet fall where they fall without any apparent decision on my part, I am typing these words without making any conscious decisions about which keys to press on the keyboard. At other times, however, I can feel the tug of these subjunctive behaviours; reaching into the fridge for a Coke I barely notice the can of Tango next to it yet I can feel my hand slow and waver slightly as the possibility of taking that one instead presents itself. When this happens I cannot say that I am really making a conscious decision and carefully selecting one alternative over another; it is more that I am witnessing the decision being made, and the process of this decision-making is a rejection of one alternative in favour of another. Free Won’t in action. At other times of course, I am presented with alternatives which require me to consider them consciously: which credit card to switch to, which mobile phone contract to opt for, which bike to buy. On these rare occasions I have the luxury of taking my time, weighing up the alternatives, and (apparently) making a decision in the full light of consciousness. I would like to think that at these times I am operating fully rationally and the decisions I make are carefully considered, although frankly I think this is doubtful. What is clear however, is that decision-making and the operation of the Free Won’t functions at a number of levels, from the totally non-conscious to the barely, or even completely conscious. When we swing through the trees of our experience sometimes we move quickly letting our hands fall where they will and without a second thought to why they choose this branch over that branch. At other times we may slow our progress and look around, assuring ourselves that we are heading in the right general direction. Sometimes we may feel clumsy and ungainly, not knowing which branch is the right one, changing our mind mid-flight, missing one branch and grabbing desperately for another and another, with none of them feeling right. At these times our progress is slow and our journey wandering and frustrating. At other times we fly quickly through the trees, following without conscious thought the path that meets the criteria set by our journey. The branch that falls most readily to hand is exactly the one we need and the possibility of grabbing at the alternatives never seems to come up. Everything is right and we feel an unproblematic sense of mastery. We are in the zone, we are flowing, we are going home.
Haggard, P. & Sukhvinder, S.O. Free Will and Free Won’t. American Scientist July-August 2004, p. 358-365 http://www.americanscientist.org/template/AssetDetail/assetid/34008/page/5
Libet (1979) -Libet B, Wright EW, Feinstein B, and Pearl DK: Subjective referral of the timing for a conscious sensory experience. Brain, 102 193-224.
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