Free Will - Essay Example

Free Will and Free Won’t Sukhvinder S. Obhi and Patrick Haggard July-August 2004 Number and Department of Psychology Fayetteville State University The position of Obhi and Haggard clearly demonstrates the main point of Libet, which tries to emphasize that free will is none existent and it is just an illusion after all (Obhi & Haggard, 2004). According to Libet, it is likely that the human brain has the actual function of preparing movement prior to the real action of the subject to initiate a conscious movement. This stand is clearly a contradiction to the classical belief pertaining to the primitive view on the existence of free will. Libet argued that the conscious experience of every human being has something to do with the processes taking place inside the brain. He justified this point by pointing to the existence of lateralized readiness potential (LRP), which must have essentially provided the important influence on the level of awareness of intention that a person has. To prove this, Obhi and Haggard introduced three important neuropsychiatric conditions: alien-hand syndrome, utilization behavior, and schizophrenia. All these neuropsychiatric conditions are known to be related to the loss of one’s control over the things that are considered to be performed normally by any normal human. However, at the bottom line of it, the loss of control may be linked to the presence of lesions or any potential discrepancy within the brain. For instance, the existence of alien-hand syndrome and utilization behavior are said to be due to a lesion in the brain particularly on the part that contributes to the optimization of the brain’s LRP. What is lost in the actual performance of the brain in here is control. The loss of control leads to the inability of the person to have conscious awareness of intention. According to Libet, a person’s awareness of intention precedes movement. This led Libet to replace free will with free won’t, arguing that any person has the ability to inhibit actions from being implemented. The study of Elbert and Wegner reveals that the reason why people may believe the existence of free will is due to their ability to attribute randomness in behavior to it (Elbert and Wegner, 2011). In this research study, the proponents performed experiments to reveal the likelihood of determining actions as freely chosen when there was inclusion of random sequence actions instead of a deterministic sequence (Elbert & Wegner, 2011). Elbert and Wegener are therefore trying to propose the idea that free will does not exist. In addition, the idea of Libet that people have the ability to inhibit actions from being implemented is supported by a study revealing that if the belief in free will should be weakened, the process associated with self-control will also be degraded (Rigoni, Kuhn, Gaudino, Sartori & Brass, 2012). On the other hand, determinism guides human action instead of free will, which is substantially established in the philosophical concepts of freedom of will (Imhof & Fangerau, 2013). While the idea of Libet seems to be promising and provides fundamental scientific bases, many studies and experts in the cotemporary time try to debunk the view point regarding the non-existence of human free will. In fact, the argument in this issue might not have only proliferated within the context of behavioral and psychological point of views, but including in the philosophical perspective too. Disregarding this, the most important message prevails that there are existing contradictions to the proposed idea of Libet. On the other hand, in contradiction to the idea of Libet, Ananthaswamy (2009) argued that free will cannot be an illusion, as it is real and existent. A relevant research study concludes that it is possible to detect the occurrence of free will by being able to measure the belief about agency and responsibility (Nadelhoffer, Shepard, Nahmias, Sripada & Ross, 2014). The existence of responsibility for instance paves the way for understanding that people have to choose the things they should do, because they have certain responsibility to play. It seems they have no choice at all, but doing things in line with their responsibility reveals that free will exists. In addition, another study reveals that when a person is in his conscious state, he tends to judge that a person who acted a certain action must have done it freely (Shepherd, 2012). The study therefore remarkably implies that there is an existing relationship between free will and consciousness. The study therefore further suggests that for as long as human consciousness exist, the presence of free will in inevitable. This is a concept that freely argues the fundamental view point of Libet emphasizing that instead of free will, people are controlled by their brain, and so when certain defects in there exist, people will no longer be capable of doing their actual intention. The two respective point of views regarding the argument whether there is free will or not and instead of deterministic approach are controversial due to the point that there are varying perspectives and research findings pertaining to finding link between the brain and human behavior. The point of Libet is straightforward, revealing that the brain controls everything and that this makes a person think of free will, as only an illusion, but the real score is that it does not exist at all. This is hard to prove, but citing the existence of any neuropsychiatric conditions proves that the brain has primary and essential function for the ability of people to seemingly take control of everything around them. In this consideration, the point of Libet may have fundamentally argued the consistent principle that each people will have to respond to stimuli. The idea of Libet seems to promote the idea that the human brain has a mind of its all and that a person at some point may be influenced by it, instead of having control to take control of it. While there might be essential point in this, what seems to be lacking in this view is the thought that stimuli are not pre-programmed, so which means the actual response of the brain is not also pre-programmed, but dependent on the prevailing stimuli in the environment. Libet limited the capacity of the brain, but the actual argument to prove the point that the brain takes control was based on the neuropsychiatric conditions, which at some point may not represent the healthy human mind. In this regard, there is still substantial limitation in the idea of Libet. Although Obhi and Haggard justified it in a way that sounds positive, the idea of Libet still remained to be challenged by other various alternative stand points. In fact, the thought that the idea of consciousness alone remarkably reveals the thought that people are capable of making choices. People have the choice to either do their responsibility or not. The case of failure to follow or obey certain responsibility only justifies that people may be in their conscious state and they know that they have choices to follow. However, they also have the freedom to follow these choices or not, for as long as their consciousness works and that any related neuropsychiatric conditions may be far from their experience. This means that the existence of free will, which might be abstract in this case, sounds plausible, considering that a healthy mind always promotes the thought of what is right or wrong. In this regard, people find that following certain responsibility is a good choice to consider. On the contrary, not doing certain task, duties or obligations may be wrong. Thus, the point of, Ananthaswamy, Nadelhoffer, Shepard, Nahmias, Sripada, Ross, and Shepherd adheres to this way of thinking. It is more realistic to look at this point of view compared to Libet’s perspective. References Ananthaswamy, A. (2009). Free will not an illusion after all. New Scientist, 203(2727), 14. Elbert, J. P., & Wegner, D. M. (2011). Mistaking randomness for free will. Consciousness and Cognition, 20(3), 915-971. Imhof, C., & Fangerau, H. (2013). Neuroscience and the Bereitschaftspotential: Current debates about free will and autonomy. Neurology, Psychiatry and Brain Research, 19(4), 201-206. Nadelhoffer, T., Shepard, J., Nahmias, E., Sripada, C., & Ross, L. T. (2014). The free will inventory: Measuring beliefs about agency and responsibility. Consciousness and Cognition, 25, 27-41. Obhi, S. S. & Haggard, P. (2004). Free Will and Free Won’t. American Scientist, 92, 358-365. Rigoni, D., Kuhn, S., Gaudino, G., Sartori, G., & Brass, M. (2012). Reducing self-control by weakening belief in free will. Consciousness and Cognition, 21(3), 1482-1490. Shepherd, J. (2012). Free will and consciousness: Experimental studies. Consciousness and Cognition, 21(2), 915-927. Read More