Free Will an Illusion?

[Charlemagne_III]

independent.co.uk/news/science/free-will-could-be-the-result-of-background-noise-in-the-brain-study-suggests-9553678.html

Why would we be surprised?

Some scientists have been telling us for decades that God is an illusion.

Or maybe God is just the background noise from the Big Bang?

And the beat goes on.

 

[grannymh]

independent.co.uk/news/science/free-will-could-be-the-result-of-background-noise-in-the-brain-study-suggests-9553678.html

Why would we be surprised?

Some scientists have been telling us for decades that God is an illusion.

Or maybe God is just the background noise from the Big Bang?

And the beat goes on.

When a reader carefully examines the description of the experiment, there is the immediate realization that the experiment does not replicate free will as taught by the Catholic Church.

 

[grannymh]

independent.co.uk/news/science/free-will-could-be-the-result-of-background-noise-in-the-brain-study-suggests-9553678.html

Why would we be surprised?

Some scientists have been telling us for decades that God is an illusion.

Or maybe God is just the background noise from the Big Bang?

And the beat goes on.

When a reader carefully examines the description of the experiment, there is the immediate realization that the experiment does not replicate free will as taught by the Catholic Church. Therefore, free will is intact. It is not an illusion. You may put that research into your circular file.

 

[tonyrey]

independent.co.uk/news/science/free-will-could-be-the-result-of-background-noise-in-the-brain-study-suggests-9553678.html

Why would we be surprised?

Some scientists have been telling us for decades that God is an illusion.

Or maybe God is just the background noise from the Big Bang?

And the beat goes on.

Great minds think alike, Charlie! I submitted a letter to the Editor this morning as follows:

“The publicity-seeking claim by neuroscientists that free will could be the result of background noise in the brain overlooks the possibility that noise is not the ultimate factor. Their conclusion is self-refuting because it would be the result of background noise in their brains and therefore lacking credibility.”

How reliable are conclusions are based on selection by cacophony? :ehh:

 

[Buck_Crosswhite]

If we had no free will we wouldn’t be responsible for the things we do. We would have no need for a court system.

 

[grannymh]

Great minds think alike, Charlie! I submitted a letter to the Editor this morning as follows:

“The publicity-seeking claim by neuroscientists that free will could be the result of background noise in the brain overlooks the possibility that noise is not the ultimate factor. Their conclusion is self-refuting because it would be the result of background noise in their brains and therefore lacking credibility.”

If I were submitting a letter, I would base it on post 2 which goes directly to the scientist’s turf.

 

[Aloysium]

independent.co.uk/news/sc…s-9553678.html

There is so much fail in this media report that all it seems to do is fuel my tendency towards uncharitable thoughts.

They were then asked to make a decision to look either left or right when a cue symbol appeared on the screen, and then to report their decision.

I think the linking of this simple experiment on the neurological basis of decision-making to “free will” is the doing of the article’s author.
I should not be cynical but, this stuff sells newspapers and, because it may help with funding, it probably won’t be clarified by the researchers.
Obviously to decide on and carry out an action, to express oneself, to exercise one’s creativity especially when one is conflicted, is not as insignificant as picking one of equally valued potions - left or right.
An example of free will in the case of say a researcher, would be in a decision whether or not to plagiarize someone else’s work.
Obviously, there would be considerable deliberation on the matter that would include the playing out of various scenarios having to do with morality and consequences.
The report of this experiment, if not the experiment itself, is nonsense.

The brain has a normal level of so-called background noise; the researchers found that the pattern of activity in the brain in the seconds before the cue symbol appeared - before the volunteers knew they were going to make a choice - could predict the likely outcome of the decision.

The background noise actually includes thoughts about various things including, how one will respond to the next cue.

“The state of the brain right before presentation of the cue determines whether you will attend to the left or to the right,” Bengson said.

No argument here

“This random firing, or noise, may even be the carrier upon which our consciousness rides, in the same way that radio static is used to carry a radio station.”

This has to be the second most ridiculous statement I have ever had the displeasure to hear.

Libet asked volunteers to press a switch in response to a visual signal - but whereas he had to rely on the participants telling him when they made their choice, Bengson explained that the random nature of the new study meant that “we know people aren’t making the decision in advance”. “It inserts a random effect that allows us to be freed from simple cause and effect,” Bengson said.

Huh?

• sigh -

 

[anon99031074]

If we had no free will we wouldn’t be responsible for the things we do. We would have no need for a court system.

You’d still have the exact same need for a court system. In fact, I would argue that the purpose of the court system is not to administer justice in a moral sense. That is impossible. Free will would be one of many causes and conditions that led to the crime. Without being omniscient, nobody can know the moral culpability of any person. However, pragmatically, society still needs to protect itself from criminal activity, and so prison could be viewed as a sort of quarantine. If somebody contracts an infectious disease that may lead to a pandemic, one is not trying to administer justice by locking the infected person up. One simply wishes to protect the rest of society. Pragmatically, when it comes to the justice system, there are several considerations:

• The sentence must seem fair enough to common people so that they don’t take the law into their own hands.
• The sentence should deter others from committing crimes.
• If at all possible, the sentence should help rehabilitate the person who has committed the crime.
  (EDIT: And of course, it should prevent the person who committed the crime from doing more harm).

There can never be true justice in a court system. Murder victims can never be given their life back, no matter what is done to the person who committed the murder. And as explained above, the individual culpability of a person cannot be known, even if there is such a thing as free will, because there are many other factors in the equation than just free will.

 

[John_Martin]

Free will has nothing to do with animal instinct and reaction; we are like all other animals in this respect. We will jump when we feel something hot, or when lightning strikes a hundred yards away. When in heavy traffic at rush hour, sometimes we will floor the gas pedal to avoid a collision, sometimes slam on the brake, when either would work. That is not free will. That is not will at all, that is animal survival instinct, the same as my dog uses.

Will (loving something) and free will (making choices of actions to unite with what we love) is in the soul, in the intellect, and is a functioning of “reason”.
We set our heart on “Good”, and then the choices we make to unite to the Good or that might separate us from that Good are “moral decisions” - and that is the place of Free Will.

My physiological state plays a big role in how I react in rush hour traffic, and I would be remiss to use my free will to make it a moral issue. Later, in my “reasoning time”, I may regret that I put myself at risk by driving with the crowd rather than staying in the slow lane. But, science, in abandoning the reality of the soul, has no clue what Will is, let alone Free Will. They think intellect and reason and will are somehow contained in the brain.

John Martin

 

[tonyrey]

…Libet asked volunteers to press a switch in response to a visual signal - but whereas he had to rely on the participants telling him when they made their choice, Bengson explained that the random nature of the new study meant that “we know people aren’t making the decision in advance”. “It inserts a random effect that allows us to be freed from simple cause and effect,” Bengson said.

It sounds like a case of wishful thinking. We are freed by discovering we don’t have free will! :whacky:

 

[Bahman]

Interesting study aligned with another study that question conscious decision based on Libet’s experiment.

 

[Bahman]

Also please read this for further new studies.

 

[grannymh]

I have one of the most interesting research papers attempting to locate volition (free will) while brain mapping is conducted during awake brain surgery. Its introduction cites Descartes’s work.

I wonder how many Catholics would spot that the Catholic teaching on free will is not attributed to Descartes. I wonder how many Catholics would spot that this research would benefit medical science in the area of inoperable brain tumors which is an entirely different activity from active use of free will. I wonder how many Catholics would understand that declining a choice is part of the use of free will. I wonder how many Catholics would spot that a patient on the operating table, with his brain exposed, no longer has the free choice to get up and get a cold one. I wonder how many Catholics truly understand free will as taught by the Catholic Church.

The above outline can be adapted to any valid, properly conducted, peer reviewed research studies. However, it does take mental work to do so plus some basic knowledge of the nitty-gritty format for acceptable studies. However, the media splash presented here is not always in tune with real science nitty-gritty. Real science interpretations does not gather enough advertising dollars for supermarket tabloids.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

I think it very possible, even likely, that certain scientists (victims of scientism) will always be trying to demonstrate that every religious doctrine traditionally associated with Christianity is an illusion.

Freud began by treating the God concept as delusional. Many if not virtually all of his followers agree, and have regarded Christians as neurotic.

Freud and his followers likewise believed that many mental illnesses can be tied to religious feelings of guilt. So, of course, guilt must also be an illusion.

Since God and guilt are delusional, so also must be heaven and hell.

And of course free will.

At some point, will they say that love, truth, and holiness are all delusional?

So then what is left at the end that is not delusional?

A rotting human carcass?

 

[inocente]

There were five scientists on that research team, and I’m intrigued how you guys can be so certain none of them are Catholic.

Actually, in the original UC Davis press release, the lead scientist says:

Libet’s experiment raised questions of free will — if our brain is preparing to act before we know we are going to act, how do we make a conscious decision to act? The new work, though, shows how “brain noise” might actually create the opening for free will

 

[grannymh]

There were five scientists on that research team, and I’m intrigued how you guys can be so certain none of them are Catholic.

Actually, in the original UC Davis press release, the lead scientist says:

Libet’s experiment raised questions of free will — if our brain is preparing to act before we know we are going to act, how do we make a conscious decision to act? The new work, though, shows how “brain noise” might actually create the opening for free will

If our brain is not preparing to act, we are dead.
:doh2: Sorry. I could not resist the obvious.

From the link
“The volunteers were instructed to make a decision to look either to the left or to the right when a cue symbol appeared on screen, and then to report their decision.”
When a person understands ahead of time that the only available choices are to look either to the left or to the right, would the person picture buying tickets to a baseball game before it is sold out? I would think,
– is thinking something different a possibility in this experiment?

I would think (depending when that is allowed) that there is a lot more to freely exercising rationality (needed for real free will ) than staring at a screen.

 

[grannymh]

There were five scientists on that research team, and I’m intrigued how you guys can be so certain none of them are Catholic.

Actually, in the original UC Davis press release, the lead scientist says:

Libet’s experiment raised questions of free will — if our brain is preparing to act before we know we are going to act, how do we make a conscious decision to act? The new work, though, shows how “brain noise” might actually create the opening for free will

If our brain is not preparing to act, we are dead.
:doh2:Sorry. I could not resist the obvious.

From the link
“The volunteers were instructed to make a decision to look either to the left or to the right when a cue symbol appeared on screen, and then to report their decision.”

When a person understands ahead of time that the only available choices are to look either to the left or to the right, would the person decide when to buy tickets to a baseball game. I would think, – is thinking something different a possibility in this experiment?

I would think (depending when that is allowed) that there is a lot more to freely exercising rationality (needed for real free will ) than staring at a screen.

 

[John_Martin]

There were five scientists on that research team, and I’m intrigued how you guys can be so certain none of them are Catholic.

Actually, in the original UC Davis press release, the lead scientist says:

Libet’s experiment raised questions of free will — if our brain is preparing to act before we know we are going to act, how do we make a conscious decision to act? The new work, though, shows how “brain noise” might actually create the opening for free will

Actually, a decision is not made in the brain - the brain is the place where the decision is made available to conscious thought, as animated by the soul (the soul is a spiritual thing, not a material processing of neural activity). The soul drives or moves neural activity to form the conscious words of the decision, so that the conscious words say “I choose this and not that”. The words were not in thought, then out of the blue in the correct intelligible sequence the words were present in the conscious thought.

This understanding is as old as Plato, Aristotle, and given detailed explanation in Aquinas. Only modern philosophy in renouncing anything that is not material / physical cannot see past their own nose.

John Martin

 

[Aloysium]

It’s not clear what is meant by “brain noise”. I have a bit of tinnitus, but I’m sure that’s not what it means.

Nerve cells are interconnected and “communicate” by means of specific chemicals that are sent by one cell and picked up by receptors on the other. These chemicals are released when a nerve cell depolarizes. What this means is that the salt balance between the inside and the outside of the cell changes. This is initiated by the reaction of receptors to chemical messengers and the deploraization travels down the nerve to where it “touches” another nerve cell. It is a bit more complicated, but this is the basics.

Since there is a change in salt concentration and salts carry a charge, small eletric currents are generated which can then be measured. The over-all activity of the nerve cells in the brain can be measured by electrodes. Just like an ElectroCardioGraph measures conduction in the heart, the ElectroEncephaloGraph measures the brain’s activity.

Libet’s experiment raised questions of free will — if our brain is preparing to act before we know we are going to act, how do we make a conscious decision to act? The new work, though, shows how “brain noise” might actually create the opening for free will

What a waste of brain power, seriously. As I said earlier, these things make me struggle with my anger.

The fact is that in order to perform and act,
be it verbal or otherwise,
a complex series of neurological processes must occur.
The end result in the motor area of the brain would coincide with the expression of the decision.

It is possible that that the neurological changes they observe before the person is able to demonstrate their decision
involve the actual decision making process.

At any rate this has nothing to do with free will. The unity that we are, can be described in various ways, the main classifications being physical, mental, spiritual. If you are just looking at brain, all you will find is brain function: no will, no colours, no emotion, no love - these attributes apply to another “lens” through which we try to understand ourselves.
In this paper, there is clearly a breakdown in the intellectual boundaries which we use to understand. It is like saying apples do not exist because of this clear demonstration of oranges.

I’m at work sorry for typos; if I didn’t write this I would waste my time ruminating over it.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

Christians don’t have to worry about what the scientists say, Divine Revelation makes it absolutely clear that we have free will. And the Catholic Church has always taught that we have free will. Sorry scientists, you have been trumphed.

Linus2nd