Free Will?

On November 22, 1963, Lee Harvey Oswald shot and killed President John F. Kennedy. This assassination shook all of America, as people were in disbelief that their president could have been killed so easily. Many wondered what kind of person could do such a thing. It seemed like such an egregious act was beyond most, but new science might suggest that all people, under the right circumstances, would do the same as Oswald. Most generally take free will for granted. If free will was merely an illusion, then did Oswald really have a choice? New work in psychology and neuroscience suggests that humanity’s natural intuition of free will may be dramatically skewed.

The work of experimental psychologist Daniel Wegner¹ has caused many to rethink their ideas of consciousness and choice. Wegner postulates that the feeling of will is an illusion. He suggests that people may make conclusions of causality between their will and their actions that are incorrect (Wegner, 66). Wegner attempts to demonstrate cases in which peoples apparent assumptions of causality and will are wrong in order to suggest that humans may be mistaken about their perceived actions relation to their will. Wegner cites alien hand syndrome as an example of this. A person with alien hand syndrome will be able to feel their limbs, but they will often feel that they can not control them. They describe it as if the limb was being controlled by an alien. This is usually occurs to a person who has experienced brain trauma, a stroke, brain surgery or a brain infection. To an outside observer, the limb movements usually appear natural, but the owner of the limb feels as though he has no control over it. This often causes odd situations. One man reported that he would open a book with his right hand, only to have it closed by his left. (Wegner, 4-5) In another case the man was playing a game of checkers and his left hand moved a piece that he did not want to move; he moved it back with his right hand, only to have his left hand repeat the move. (Wegner, 5) He also cites examples of table turning séances. In these rituals, people would gather around and put their hands on a table. As the séance progresses the table would begin to spin, sometimes very fast. The participators of these events claimed that they were not at all causing the table to move themselves, but studies done by scientists including physicist Michael Faraday showed that their hands were indeed the cause of the motion. Even after Faraday released his findings, the subjects of the study vehemently believed that they were not the cause of the movement. (Wegner, 7-8)

Wegner also argues that there are situations where people feel they have will over a situation but in reality do not. Wegner references an example from his own life.

"I eased up to a video game display and started fiddling with the joystick. A little monkey on the screen was eagerly hopping over barrels as they rolled toward him, and I got quite involved in moving him along and making him hop, until the phrase “Start Game” popped into view. I was under the distinct impression that I had started some time ago, but in fact I had been “playing” during a pre-game demo…. I thought I was doing something that I really didn’t do at all." (Wegner, 9-10)

This example provides an interesting analogy for humanity's perspective on will. Wegner’s argument does not definitively disprove free will, but it does show how the feeling of choice is not sufficient reason to believe it exists.

Wegner’s theories gain more credit in light of new evidence. Until recently, scientists were unable to accurately study brain activity, but with the advent of new technology, scientists are now able to observe and measure brain activity as the activity is happening. This technology has led to many experiments that reveal how minds function when making choices. One of the most famous experiments of this type was conducted by Benjamin Libet² and his colleagues. Libet asked volunteers to make a random decision while their brain was monitored by an EEG. Scientists instructed volunteers to move their hand spontaneously, without premeditation, and note the time on a clock when they felt the conscious will to make this action. Libet compared the time when the monitors recorded the cerebral activity necessary for the hand motion, what he calls “readiness potential,” and the moment the volunteer claimed they experienced conscious will to act. Libet recorded a delay of 150 to 800 milliseconds. (Libet, Pub Med, 1) Libet concluded that “cerebral initiation of a spontaneous, freely voluntary act can begin unconsciously, that is, before there is any (at least recallable) subjective awareness that a 'decision' to act has already been initiated cerebrally.” (Libet, Pub Med, 1) Libet uses the data to propose that the choice of an action may be made before a person experiences a sense of making that choice.

Some have criticized Libet’s experiment by claiming the recorded delay was caused by the time it takes a person to shift their attention from their feeling of will to the time displayed on a clock. Follow up experiments seemed to support this criticism; they found that small changes in the delay correlated to the attention of the volunteer, (Eimer and Haggard, 1) but the changes were not significant and still allowed for enough delay that Libet’s conclusion remained valid. (Haggard, 1)

Two scientists from the psychology department of the University of London performed a similar experiment, but asked volunteers to choose which hand to move in addition to when to move it. By monitoring both sides of the brain for activity, the scientists were able to detect brain activity governing the volunteers’ choice of hand before their feeling of will, since different hemisphere’s of the brain correspond to different parts of the body. (Eimer and Haggard, 1) In another experiment, neurophysiologists Ammon and Gandevia⁵ discovered that they could influence the decision of volunteers through magnetic stimulation. The subjects, unaware of the stimulation, were asked to move one hand randomly. The scientists found that “In the study single magnetic stimuli, subthreshold for movement, produced significant preference for selection of one hand in a forced-choice task.” (Ammon and Gandevia, 1) The magnetic impulse influenced the subjects’ choices, but all reported a feeling of free will. (Ammon and Gandevia, 1)

These experiments strongly suggest a lack of free will; some, including Libet, attempt to dispute the results by claiming that individuals still have the ability to surpass their natural brain activity through will and make another choice, (Libet, Journal of Consciousness Studies, 24-28) but this view is not supported by science. Moreover, a change in mind would likely entail preliminary brain activity that could be observed before a feeling of concious descision. (Velmans, 42-61) The experiments at least demonstrate that the human perception of will is misguiding, but they suggest that acts that seem chosen are indeed causally determined.

Though much more research and study in this area is needed, these experiments demonstrate how humanity’s perception of free will is skewed. If free will does not exist, then how can society justify a merit and blame system of justice? If Lee Harvey Oswald had no choice but to pull the trigger, is he really guilty? This evidence should cause humanity to reflect on its assumptions of free will and how a disruption of those assumptions could change its view of society and history.



Sources

Ammon, K and Gandevia, S. Pub Med. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2213050

Haggard, P. Pub Med. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15925808.

Haggard P, and Eimer M. Pub Med. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10333013

Libet,. "Can Conscious Experience affect brain Activity?", Journal of Consciousness Studies 2003. pp 24–28.

Libet, B, Gleason, C, Wright, E, and Pearl, D. Pub Med. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6640273.

Velmans, M. "Preconscious free will", Journal of Consciousness Studies , 2003, pp 42–61.

Wegner, Daniel. The Illusions of Conscious Will. (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2002).