The Libet Experiments and How to Maximize Free Will

From LP Koch on Luctalks.substack,com (Nov. 27, 2022):

The experiments carried out by Benjamin Libet in the early 1980s have caused quite the stir. I vividly remember how even in the late 90s and early 2000s, the media was hammering home the message that these experiments somehow proved that Free Will was an illusion—just as those zeitgeist-enslaved philosophers and scientists had been saying all along.

At the very least, this interpretation has been given much room and put those who challenged it on the defensive.

However, the “no free will” interpretation of the Libet experiments amounts to little more than an opinion, and an unsophisticated one at that. There is a lot more to it than meets the eye, with direct and practical consequences for our lives.

But first, let’s give a brief overview of the Libet experiment.

Short Summary of the Libet Experiments

Libet gave participants of his experiments a simple task, while measuring their brain activity: they had to decide to flex a finger whenever they wished, and note the position on a fast-moving clock at the precise moment they took the decision.

 

The result was that the brain showed activity at least 400ms before the participants became aware of their “decision making.”

Here’s a diagram showing what’s going on:1

 

 

“RP” stands for “Readiness Potential,” that is, the supposed build-up in brain activity before the decision to act and the subsequent action. What we see is that this brain activity starts before the participants became aware of their intention to flex the finger.

The results have led the no-Free-Will crowd to exclaim, “see, everything is driven by your brain, and you taking decisions is just an illusion!”

However, this seems to be a typical case of taking something very specific and isolated out of context and then drawing conclusions based on existing biases.

First, Libet himself thought that there is still enough time between our awareness of intention and the action itself for us to “veto” the decision and stop the movement. This would leave free will intact: remember that even the tiniest bit of actual free will leads to the philosophical position of what is called libertarian free will, that is, genuine free will with the power to really cause something.

Second, critics of the “no Free Will” interpretation have pointed out that the process of our decision-making is actually much more complex and involves the generation of different alternatives before we pick out one of those. This would explain the brain activity before our awareness of intention: we begin thinking about flexing that finger, possibly weighing different times when we should do so, before we actually decide to go for it. This “potential” builds up and becomes detectable about half a second before we “shoot.” Heck, it seems that just by introspection, we can literally feel that this is the case—how, tasked with lifting a finger at random times, things start moving in our mind until we decide to execute, with the built-up right before we close the deal rising exponentially.

I might also add that even if we accept that we literally make the decision after the build-up, I can’t see a reason why such things should not take the form of a blurry occurrence in time instead of an imaginary, abstract, dimensionless point on a scale: for all we know, we attract a potential, which shows up on the brain scan, but only actualize that potential a little later.

Alternatively, to leave the safe space of respectable academic orthodoxy entirely, there might even be retro-causation involved: we take a decision, and by doing so, something which is slightly in the past becomes a logical necessity, and therefore actualized.2

All that being said, there’s a more straight-forward interpretation of the experiment that I find very useful.

A Better Interpretation of Libet

A slightly different take comes from Christopher Langan—one that I find very interesting and which may have important implications for our lives.

He argues that decision-making might involve different layers, where an overarching decision might be made, which is then split up and executed in different sub-decisions. Such sub-decisions may be taken on an unconscious level, but reported to our conscious awareness so that we still have the option to stop it: to execute our veto power. In other words, when we take overarching decisions (or follow an overarching instruction), we relegate the execution of the sub-decisions to our subconsciousness, which then makes us aware of those along the way, if we are lucky.3

In the Libet experiments, the overarching plan is dictated to the participant by the experimenter: look at the watch, take decisions, note times. The participant then decides to follow these instructions and build a plan in his or her mind. After that, the plan is simply executed. And so, what appear to be individual decisions to flex the finger are really part of this bigger plan, and these are simply brought to the participant’s awareness to enable veto power. [read more]

Interesting. Yea, the Langan interpretation makes more sense.