seminar from group Science, Reason and Faith.
José Manuel Muñoz Ortega. Pamplona, 20 September 2016.
About speaker:
José Manuel Muñoz Ortega holds a PhD in Philosophy and graduate in Biology. He currently teaches the permanent training course "Neuroscience and free will" at the UNED and is a teacher at the I.E.S. Joan Ramis i Ramis in the Balearic Islands.
summary:
Benjamin Libet's experiments on the temporal sequence in the electrophysiology of certain voluntary acts have produced a discussion in Philosophy and neuroscience. Many authors have seen in them a convincing test against the existence of free actions. Other more recent experiments, carried out with fMRI or deep electrodes, seem to lead to the same conclusion. However, the argumentation followed by their advocates has received important criticisms. In this seminar: the essential features of the "subject Libet" experiments are presented, the positions of prominent authors defending or refuting the argument against free will based on these experiments are shown, and it is examined whether, in the light of the above, it can be rejected that humans enjoy free will (libertarianism) and furthermore that it is incompatible with determinism.
References:
Alexander, P., A. Schlegel, W. Sinnott-Armstrong, A.L. Roskies, T. Wheatley, and P.U. Tse. 2016. "Readiness Potentials Driven by Non-Motoric Processes." Consciousness and Cognition 39: 38-47.
Fox, M.C., K.A. Ericsson, and R. Best. 2011. "Do Procedures for Verbal Reporting of Thinking Have to Be Reactive? A goal-Analysis and Recommendations for Best Reporting Methods." Psychological Bulletin 137: 316-44.
Fried, I., R. Mukamel, and G. Kreiman. 2011. "Internally Generated Preactivation of Single Neurons in Human Medial Frontal Cortex Predicts Volition". Neuron 69: 548-62.
Gomes, G. 1999. "Volition and the Readiness Potential". In The Volitional Brain: Towards a Neuroscience of Free Will, eds. B. Libet, A. Freeman and K. Sutherland, 59-79. Sutherland, 59-76. Exeter, UK: Imprint Academic.
Guggisberg, A.G., S.S. Dalal, A. Schnider, and S.S. Nagarajan. 2011. "The Neural Basis of Event-Time Introspection." Consciousness and Cognition 20: 1899-915.
Haggard, P., and M. Eimer. 1999. "On the Relation Between Brain Potentials and the Awareness of Voluntary Movements". Experimental Brain Research 126: 128-33.
Haggard, P., and E. Magno. 1999. "Localising Awareness of Action with Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation". Experimental Brain Research 127: 102-7.
Henz, S., D.F. Kutz, J. Werner, W. Hürster, F.P. Kolb, and J. Nida-Ruemelin. 2015. "Stimulus-Dependent Deliberation Process Leading to a Specific Motor Action Demonstrated Via a Multi-Channel EEG Analysis." Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 9: 355.
Kane, R. 1996. The Significance of Free Will. New York: Oxford University Press.
Kornhuber, H.H., and L. Deecke. 1965. "Hirnpotentialänderungen bei Willkürbewegungen und passiven Bewegungen des Menschen: Bereitschaftspotential und reafferente Potentiale". Pflügers Archiv: European Journal of Physiology 284: 1-17.
Lau, H.C., R.D. Rogers, and R.E. Passingham. 2006. "On Measuring the Perceived Onsets of Spontaneous Actions". The Journal of Neuroscience 26: 7265-71.
Libet, B. 1999. "Do We Have Free Will?". In The Volitional Brain: Towards a Neuroscience of Free Will, eds. B. Libet, A. Freeman, and K. Sutherland, 47-53. Sutherland, 47-57. Exeter, UK: Imprint Academic.
Libet, B., E.W. Wright, and C.A. Gleason. 1982. "Readiness-Potentials Preceding Unrestricted 'Spontaneous' vs. Pre-Planned Voluntary Acts." Electroencephalography and Clinical Neurophysiology 54: 322-35.
Marcel, A. 2003. "Introspective Report: Trust, Self-Knowledge and Science. Journal of Consciousness Studies 10: 167-86.
Matsuhashi, M., and M. Hallett. 2008. "The Timing of the Conscious Intention to Move". European Journal of Neuroscience 28: 2344-51.
Mele, A.R. 2014. Free: Why Science Hasn't Disproved Free Will. New York: Oxford University Press.
Murillo, J.I., and J.M. Giménez-Amaya. 2008. "Time, consciousness and freedom: considerations on the experiments of B. Libet and collaborators". certificate Philosophica 17: 291-306.
Nahmias, E. 2002. "When Consciousness Matters: A Critical Review of Daniel Wegner's The Illusion of Conscious Will". Philosophical Psychology 15: 527-41.
Pacherie, E. 2006. "Toward a Dynamic Theory of Intentions. In Does Consciousness Cause Behavior? eds. S. Pocket, W.P. Banks and S. Gallagher, 145-67. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press.
Soon, C.S., M. Brass, H-J Heinze, and J-D Haynes. 2008. "Unconscious Determinants of Free Decisions in the Human Brain". Nature Neuroscience 11: 543-5.
Trevena, J., and J. Miller. 2010. "Brain Preparation before a Voluntary Action: Evidence Against Unconscious Movement Initiation". Consciousness and Cognition 19: 447-56.
Walter, H. 2011. "Contributions of Neuroscience to the Free Will discussion: From Random Movement to Intelligible Action". In The Oxford Handbook of Free Will (2nd ed.), ed. R. Kane, 515-29. New York: Oxford University Press.
Wegner, D.M. 2002. The Illusion of Conscious Will. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press.
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