Free Will… or Free Won’t?

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It’s the advent of Elul (which means “searching” in Aramaic; it’s an acronym in Hebrew for “I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine”), the last month of the year (in my calendar), which begins the two month period of accounting and preparation.  [Ed:  This was written a few weeks ago.] It’s the end of our spiritual new year.  This means it’s time to reflect on the year, what I plan to do next year, and to make amends should I have offended some…  Which means we need to consider whether or not this was all fore-ordained; in other words, is there free will or not?

A young man at my shul (synagogue), Aaron Troy, got me started on this cerebration when he discussed (very well, I might add) the concept of reward and punishment.  Or, why do bad things happen to good people.   His theme was based upon George Bailey (“It’s a Wonderful Life“) and Batman (“The Dark Night“).   That discourse got me thinking- since I am more interested in free will.   After all, if I don’t have free will, can I truly be at fault for things that I have done?

This concept was supposedly put to bed by Dr. Benjamin Libet (with Drs. Gleason, Wright, and Pearl, which work Libet continued and wrote about often), published in Brain (Volume 106, 1983). As opposed to “free will”, he seemingly determined we have a “free won’t”- in other words, we have a short window where we can veto the performance of certain actions.

And, once we began inserting electrodes into brains (again, for treatment of epilepsy, as has been reported often on this blog), he was able to determine that the stimulus for our action had to be present for about 500 ms for one to recognize its presence.  (These were electrical stimuli.)  Actually, the readiness potential existed for about 300 ms before the patient recognized it, and 200 ms before action could occur- which was sufficient for us to demonstrate our “free won’t”.   In other words, our brain has signaled its intention to act (550 ms, on average, called the readiness potential) before it acts- which means our brain is acting long before we are consciously aware it plans to do so. (If you are interested, you can read his 8 year old book “Mind Time” for more information and discussion of his findings.)

This is where science stood for a long time- until 2009, when Drs. Trevena and Miller (Univeristy of Otago, New Zealand) presented their findings in Consciousness and Cognition. (An aside:  I am always amazed at the plethora of journals that exist to satisfy the publishing desires of academia and industry.) Their research was slightly different.  Instead of exciting the brain and seeing when one recognizes that action, they asked the volunteers to tap- or not- upon a keyboard, once they heard a tone.  And, they found that the readiness potential existed- whether or not they elected to tap the keyboard.

Now, Drs. Schurger, Sitt, and Dehaene of Inserm and the French Atomic Energy Commission took these tests one step further.  They hypothesized (and found that hypothesis to be correct) that the brain has random fluctuations of neural activity.  Once a threshold is reached, then it is possible for the brain to act.  This accumulation of neural “noise” is what Libet called the “readiness potential”.

As they will report (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, in press), they then repeated Libet’s series of experiments, with a wrinkle.  While asking the respondents to act spontaneously, they were required to act immediately if they heard a clicking sound.  Their hypothesis is those whose neural noise had already accumulated to that threshold would act immediately; those whose neural noise had not reached the required level would react more slowly.  Examining their EEG (electroencephalogram) potential, that’s exactly what they found.  If the neural noise had not reached the “readiness potential”, the subjects did not respond promptly.

Given that, we are fairly certain that we have free will.  And, as such, we are responsible for our actions.  Ergo, should I have offended you in any way this year, please forgive me.  And, may you- if you are so inclined- have a wonderful New Year and High Holiday season.

Roy A. Ackerman, Ph.D., E.A.

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18 thoughts on “Free Will… or Free Won’t?”

  1. Free will and divine providence is something I have studied, along with how the human mind works scientifically. I believe I have told you before that I see science as unlocking another language of the SB, so might better understand both our world and Him. If not, that’s how I see it…so when I study things I usually study them in both, how science and spirituality. I could write lengthy comment right now…but instead, I will say you have done nothing to offend me, and if you have and it slipped my mind just now (how bad could it have been) then you have my total forgiveness. I plan on having a fantastic holiday season and wish one for you as well, if it is G-d’s will 😉 *HUGS*
    Lisa Brandel recently posted..Midnight Angel by Lisa Brandel

    1. Thanks for the visit AND the comments, Cathy! I certainly do believe that laughter is not the best medicine, but the only prescription for life.
      When you’ve had folks put guns and shotguns on you, when you’ve found out that the SB has a slender thread holding those airliners in the air- and it can be cut in a nanosecond, then you realize you must enjoy each and every moment you have…
      Thanks for giving me some of those moments.

      Roy

  2. I will go you one further, Roy. I believe that free will is a law that even the SB has to abide by. I got this idea from C.S. Lewis and it makes sense to me. And if he has to obey this law, he could not take it away from us to make us be good or bad nor could we be predestined to do anything. That said, I also know that he knows his children and pretty much has an idea what we will do in a given situation and what the likely outcome will be. Still this is not the same as predestination. I also believe that the SB knows us from before we are born (Jeremiah, I think) and he foreordains some of us for special tasks that we can choose to do or not. All that aside, you have saved my hide and my job. For that you have nothing to apologize for. I need to apologize to you for poking fun at you occasionally because it’s not as much fun as if you were really here for me to do that. 🙂 –Annie
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  3. As I read your ending I was thinking, my free will says if I feel offended or not. I believe that your intention is to inform rather than offend so if there was offence it was in my head. And that comes back to taking anything you say personally. Now if we could find a way of unlearning how to take things personally and if we could find a balance that moves between callous and too sensitive, life would be lived differently.
    Roy, the advances in science are awesome but…sometimes I still worry that the research more often is fiddled to prove the thesis rather than challenge the thesis.
    And as for poking electrodes into the brain – what an awesome computer that we have above our necks. Maybe one day we will understand how it works.
    Roberta Budvietas, recently posted..Reading, Listening and Being in Control

    1. As I have stated many times, Roberta, I am glad that no one has diagnosed me with these afflictions that would render me akin to Mr. Frankenstein with electrodes in my brain…
      And, I, too, agree that many researchers don’t challenge their theses deeply enough. Which may explain (another of my impending blogs) the plethora of journals that seem to be appearing each and every day to accommodate the scientific papers that are being developed. (And, as my blog will so state, some are far less scientific than others….)

      Thanks for the comment, Roberta.

  4. Roy: I firmly believe we have free will & get a bit unnerved by people that sit back and wait for some type of “divine intervention” to “show them the way.” We all have brains (sometimes we wonder about that fact but, scientifically, it’s true) and are quite capable of weighing the pros/cons in order to make decisions or guide our actions. Sometimes our actions or decisions are for the best & sometimes not. We can only do the best we know how at the time & learn from any faux pas along the way (including the occasional ‘offending of others’), right? Thanks for sharing such thought-provoking material — makes for great discussions!
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  5. Thanks for joining this blog Roy.i agree with you .i am also believe in free will and have free will and think this the right work to do or not. in the case of science it is advance but science says not to us that do this work.
    nice blog………

  6. Not much of a religious person myself (Agnostic, no offense to anyone else here. We can still be friends, right? 🙂 ), but I’ve always been a believer in Free Will and it’s good to see that the basis of the supposed refutation of Free Will just might not be anywhere near as solid as people think.

    Dr. Ackerman, you should also see the paper by Martin Lages about the Soon et al, experiments that were performed in 2008. He goes on to explain that, instead of ‘hidden intentions’ causing decisions, the correlates might be contextual information.

    Also, out of curiousity, are you the same “Ackerman” who did a meta-analysis of the “Unconscious Thought” theory?

    1. So, Weston, that is never an issue. I have friends that range from atheist to agnostic to followers of all religions. Plus Democratic, Republican, Libertarian, and non-plussed, to boot! It’s how we learn, by conversing and comparing notes.
      Glad you liked the Free Will piece.
      Re: the Lages and Soon papers- they did not study the threshold data. So, it is possible that their data are in concert- since it seems, from my lay reading of the papers, that the results are consistent, as well.
      No, that was not me- and I think the last name differed, as well, for the meta-analysis paper.

  7. I have always wondered how the SB could know us so well that he knew what we are going to do. But if time for the SB is a perfect round, He sees it all, all at once. He knows the past, present, future at the same time. He doesn’t predestine or foreordain our actions although I think he may ordain us in the preexistence (where we live before we are born) for certain positions on earth, which we have the right to do or refuse (free will). Thanks for the science about free will (which isn’t really free, but that’s another miniblog).
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