[continued from previous message]

[This one is hilarious because I'd even been talking to Vicki saying things like "even if the unconscious stomps on the gas, my conscious mind can still steer and maybe even hit the brakes". I was using that metaphor, and then here is a similar
experiment.

So that's another thing I believe free will does. It CANCELS suggested actions/desires that arise from the unconscious. I may look over and see that woman with gorgeous tits hanging out of her low-cut top and stare a little too long before my conscious
mind discreetly has me glance away and pretend to have been looking at something else nearby. :) You might even WANT to grab a pussy, but you don't HAVE to, because you can freely choose to cancel that fleeting desire (or not, if you're pretty sure she'
s into it).]

“A person’s decisions are not at the mercy of unconscious and early brain waves,” the lead researcher, Dr. John-Dylan Haynes of Charité - Universitätsmedizin in Berlin, said in the study’s press release. “They are able to actively intervene
in the decision-making process and interrupt a movement. Previously people have
used the preparatory brain signals to argue against free will. Our study now shows that the freedom is much less limited than previously thought.”

French neuroscientists published in 2012 in PNAS that also challenged the way Libet’s seminal work is usually interpreted. These researchers believe that the supposedly nonconscious preparatory brain activity identified by Libet is really just part of
a fairly random ebb and flow of background neural activity, and that movements occur when this activity crosses a certain threshold. By this account, people’s willful movements should be quicker when they’re made at a time that just happens to
coincide with when the background ebb and flow of activity is on a high point.

And that’s exactly what the French team found. They recorded participants’ brain waves as they repeatedly pressed a button with their finger, sometimes spontaneously at times of their own choosing, and other times in response to a randomly occurring
click sound. The researchers found that their participants were much quicker to
respond to the click sounds when the sounds happened to occur just as this random background brain activity was reaching a peak.

Based on this result from 2012 and a similar finding in a study with rats published in 2014, the lead researcher of the 2012 study, Aaron Schurger at INSERM in Paris, and two colleagues have written in their field’s prestige journal Trends in Cognitive
Sciences that it’s time for a new perspective on Libet’s results — they say that their results call “for a reevaluation and reinterpretation of a large body of work” and that for 50 years their field may have been “measuring, mapping and
analyzing what may turn out to be a reliable accident: the cortical readiness potential.”

And like their counterparts in Germany, these neuroscientists say the new picture is much more in keeping with our intuitive sense of our free will. When
we form a vague intention to move, they explain, this mind-set feeds into the background ebb and
flow of neural activity, but the specific decision to act only occurs when the neural activity passes a key threshold — and our all-important subjective feeling of deciding happens at this point or a brief instant afterward. “All this leaves our
common sense picture largely intact,” they write.

***

One more significant work... which leaves the whole thing a bit... up in the air. :)

Study Tackles Neuroscience Claims to Have Disproved “Free Will”
MARCH 12, 2018

Summary: A new qualitative review calls into question previous findings about the neuroscience of free will.
Source: North Carolina State University.

For several decades, some researchers have argued that neuroscience studies prove human actions are driven by external stimuli — that the brain is reactive and free will is an illusion. But a new analysis of these studies shows that many contained
methodological inconsistencies and conflicting results.

“Score one for skepticism of claims that neuroscience has proven — or disproven — any metaphysical position,” says Veljko Dubljevic, co-author of
the paper and an assistant professor of philosophy at NC State who specializes in research on the
neuroscience of ethics and the ethics of neuroscience and technology.

“The problem is that neuroscientists in training are being taught these studies provide definitive proof of the absence of free will, and instructors aren’t being careful about looking at the evidence that supports the claims that are made,”
Dubljevic says. “Teaching uncritical thinking like this in science courses is
both unscientific and socially dangerous.”

At issue are studies like those pioneered by Benjamin Libet in the 1980s, which
assessed brain activity in study participants who were asked to perform a specific task. Libet found brain activity preceded a person’s actions before the person decided to
act. Later studies, using various techniques, claimed to have replicated this basic finding.

But in the first-ever qualitative review of these studies, researchers are finding that the results are far from conclusive. The review analyzed 48 studies, ranging from Libet’s landmark 1983 paper through 2014.

“We found that interpretation of study results appears to have been driven by
the metaphysical position the given author or authors subscribed to — not by a careful analysis of the results themselves,” Dubljevic says. “Basically, those who
opposed free will interpreted the results to support their position, and vice versa.”

The researchers also found significant variability across studies. For example,
a subset of studies that actually looked at where activity was taking place in the brain, and whether it was related to will (or intent to complete a task), often found
conflicting results.

“Meanwhile, the journal articles that drew the most forceful conclusions often didn’t even assess the neural activity in question – which means their conclusions were based on speculation,” Dubljevic says. “It is crucial to critically examine
whether the methods used actually support the claims being made.”

The researchers also found significant variability across studies. For example,
a subset of studies that actually looked at where activity was taking place in the brain, and whether it was related to will (or intent to complete a task), often found
conflicting results.

This is important because what people are told about free will can affect their
behavior.

“Numerous studies suggest that fostering a belief in determinism influences behaviors like cheating,” Dubljevic says. “Promoting an unsubstantiated belief on the metaphysical position of non-existence of free will may increase the likelihood that
people won’t feel responsible for their actions if they think their actions were predetermined.”

And this isn’t a problem solely within the neuroscience community. Earlier work by Dubljevic and his collaborators found challenges in how this area of research has been covered by the press and consumed by the public.

“To be clear, we’re not taking a position on free will,” Dubljevic says. “We’re just saying neuroscience hasn’t definitively proven anything one way or the other.”

***

Dublijevic's most significant point, I think, was this:

“Promoting an unsubstantiated belief on the metaphysical position of non-existence
of free will may increase the likelihood that people won’t feel responsible for their actions
if they think their actions were predetermined.”

I say it's better to hold the attitude that *I'll take the most responsibility I possibly CAN." (Even if it is partially illusory, it's better to TRY, and better not to just accept any bs that comes your way as if you have no control.) Right?

A second lesson is: don't just take the first few results you see on a major issue like free will related to extremely complex data on what's going on in the brain and just say "hey, that's it". (Especially when it seems to go against a lifetime of
experience.)

.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: www.darkrealms.ca (1:229/2)