Free Will and Science

[needimprovement]

"We must believe in free will; we have no choice!"

 

(Isaac Balshevis Singer)

There are several experimental and theoretical results from science that demonstrate the above quote (although there is debate about their interpretation):

1) The Libet delayed choice experiment: electrodes are attached to a subject's head and the impulses and time measured when a.) the subject decides he/she is going to punch a button, b.) when the button is punched. The interesting thing is that there is a pre-decision rise of the brain potential (starting as much as 2 seconds before the subject is consciously aware of his/her decision), so something is stirring in that mass of jelly we call the brain to compel? or recognize? a decision. Lots of online references, but here's a Youtube video that describes the experiment concisely and accurately:

In this connection I recall an anecdote from Roger Penrose's "The Emperor's New Mind" in which a Canadian neurosurgeon does brain surgery (to correct seizures) on a conscious patient, gives an electrical impulse to the motor area of the brain, the patient lifts his arm as a result, but says "it feels like someone else was moving the arm". And this signifies?

 

2) The quantum mechanical "delayed choice experiment proposed by John Wheeler and realized experimentally most rigorously by Aspect in 2007 (?). If a particle goes through a two-slit arrangement (properly arranged) then a Young interference diffraction pattern will occur, i.e. wavelike behavior; if one of the slits is closed, then classical behavior, i.e. no diffraction. Now if a slit is closed AFTER the particle has gone through, then it will behave as if the slit had been closed before it had passed, through, i.e. the experimenter's free choice (if indeed, he/she had free choice) reached backwards in time. Wheeler's original gedanken experiment was to use a galaxy as an optical lens, and so create a two beam path from a star behind the galaxy; the delayed choice experiment would then reach back in time millions of years. Here are some web sites to flesh out the above short description:

http://onlinephilosophyclub.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=3615

http://www.bottomlayer.com/bottom/basic_delayed_choice.htm

Responses from psychologist/neurologists, philosophers, physicists sought and welcomed.

Edited August 26, 2010 by needimprovement

[DJBruce]

Just a resource for others the topic of free will was discussed in these to threads before hand:

 

Science vs. Free Will (Created by Ydoaps)

No free will (Created by CharonY)