Do We Have Free Will?

 

Kornhuber.gif (7056 bytes)

bullet

A subject is asked to press a button at a time of his/her own violition.   Electrodes detect the brain's activity.

bullet

Result:  There is a clear indication of electrical activity about a full second ahead of the time that the subject believes that the actual decision was made.

bullet

If free will exists, then it must involve some sort of a time delay of about one second.

bullet

Or is free will an illusion, the result of the interpreter's storytelling?

 

index | back | next

 

Source:   H. H. Kornhuber, "Cerebral Cortex, Cerebellum, and Basal Ganglia: An Introduction to Their Motor Functions," in The Neurosciences, Third Study Program, eds. F. O. Schmitt and F. G. Worden (Cambridge, Mass.: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1973), pp. 267-80.  Diagram from Penrose, Roger, The Large, the Small, and the Human Mind.