Back to basics: Give me an argument as to why a god exists

[FaerieStories]

Hi, I'm new here and I see a lot of active topics on specific concepts where users are already heavily engaged in debate, making it a little hard for me to join in. So to test the waters a little (and to help me decide whether or not to stick around here), let's go back to basics and have a debate about the most fundamental question at hand here: does a god exist?

As a non-believer, I have yet to discover any convincing reason as to why I should believe in a god. So, if a Theist would like to get the ball rolling by giving me a reason why god exists, that would be great.

(PS: unrelated question: what is the general breakdown of belief/non-belief on these forums? Is it an even mix of believers and non-believers, or is there- as tends to happen on the internet- a larger proportion of atheists to Theists?).

[kayky]

Yet it is something that those so called reductionists go by. That reductionism destroys all meaning is just wrong. It is one way of understanding parts and details. Those scientism people that you claim are a danger don't think of it as the only way to tackle any problem. It is the best/only for some though.

I think a true reductionist would simply scoff at the very mention of the soul. Not all scientists ascribe to scientism or reductionism. That has never been my claim. But to deny that these phenomena even exist is to turn a blind eye.

It think the claim that reductionism is some kind of ultimate religion of scientists just wrong and a huge misunderstanding. Claiming that it leads to nihilism at some point (small parts) is imo about as intelligent an observation as saying money has no inherent value. Which is so popular in recent financial crisis talk. With similar enlightenment value for the debate.

Nihilism has nothing to do with small parts. It's the belief that existence has no inherent meaning. And it just so happens that money really doesn't have any inherent value. It is only paper and metal. The only value it has is what we assign to it. Scientism and reductionism don't necessarily lead to nihilism, but it is definitely one logical conclusion.

Some art certainly is about conveying emotion first. Other art is about meaning and values and emotion. If they be universal is rarely the case and pretty much always open for discussion.

The emotion art may evoke in you is often because of the universal meaning it points to. You may not be consciously aware of what that meaning is or be able to express it in words. And you don't have to. The artist has done it for you. These things are often less open to discussion as many people think. You might be a "scientist person," but I am an "arts person."

You could switch to the free will thread that is currently running.
Otherwise I'd have to ask with what concepts surrounding mind and free will are you familiar with? I don't really care to give a lecture. We got Wikipedia for that.
Some keywords indeterminism, determinism, identicality (I don't know if there is one perfect English word, I had philosophy in German, it is not related to free will but to theory of the mind), true free will, weak free will aka free choice, dualism (descartes)

It's the wording of this I do not understand:

Dusk:

This negelects the idea of true free will. If I can reduce everything to conditions that forced that will into either being not free or entirely random that animation problem is not really the primary problem. The entire dualistic idea of non identicality depends on there being something not there if you reduce too much.

I don't see how "forcing" the will into being unfree or random solves the "animation problem.". I don't know what you mean by "nonidenticality" or "there being something not there" or even what it means to "reduce too much." I don't require a lecture and I appreciate the fact that English is not your native language; but if you could express these ideas in clearer language, it would help.

[kayky]

When you actually want ro understand why brain scientists believe the mind is the product of the brain (thus freewill is an illusion) then let me know. Then we can discuss the evidence and experiments which lead them to such conclusions.

I already understand as I have pointed out several times on this thread. I listened quite carefully to what Sam had to say. His science is good, his philosophy faulty. I don't see how further discussion of the science would make any difference.

Some valid criticisms I see on this matter:
1. Explain a flaw or oversight with the interpretation of the data from an experiment/study.
2. Provide an alternate explanation for the results of an experiment/study.
3. Point out problems with the integrity of a particular experiment's/study's methodology or data.

As I have already said, I see no problem with the science.

But I will not waste my time debating silly and inane things like:
1. Brain scientists are guilty of scientism.
2. Brain scientists studies/experiments/data/conclusions can be hand waved away because they are based on reductionism.
3. Brain scientists are colluding or conspiring to suppress the truth.
4. Scientific findings and conclusions are just opinions.

What is most amazing is that I have never said any of these things. This is a debate you are making up in your own head. The only thing I have said is that concluding from the evidence that human free will is an illusion is a product of reductionism.

[dusk]

You cannot find a house in side a brick. That doesn't mean a brick doesn't exist.
The reductionist scoffs at many concepts of a soul that religious people prefer and to distinguish they often take care not to call anything soul. For that reason the priest thinks they don't think any "soul" exist just because they think that the priest idea of soul is nonsense.

Yes money doesn't have any inherent value but it was never supposed to. Such enlightening insights come only to people how never understood the concept to being with or why it is the way it is.
So reductionism may lead to nihilism. Do we have to throw it away now? Should we close our eyes and not try to understand some stuff because we might be disillusioned. Like the Christians that would have preferred to live in their geocentric world which makes theology so much easier. Being the center of the world and all.
Some people don't want to know how the mind or brain works. Some people may not want to know anything about stuff that is older than their 10k year genesis. Some people may not want to know anything about psychological/genetical/environmental reasons for why people are bad at whatever.
Amish have no use for computers and smartphones.
For all that stuff you need reductionism. You put things apart into small enough pieces to understand the whole. It doesn't work any other way.
Just because some religious people prefer to live without some truths doesn't mean we can just drop it.
The claim that reductionism is as bad as fundamentalism I just don't accept. It hurts nothing. It may lead for some to nihilism but even those nihilist only annoy the some religious people (get over it). I work in IT and there it just doesn't go without. You cannot build chips without knowing what you are doing. Trial and error doesn't work. Nobody understands a modern operating system with Millions of lines of code in full. We can only still manage complex IT programs because we abstract and reduce the appropriate problem solving levels.

I don't think it is a religion. It is a methode for understanding complex things and the only alternative is to close our eyes. If someone thinks he can find some unknown truth underneath something let him try. It is effectively taking the position against technology. Like Amish or to a lesser degree some hippies.
Sometimes technology maybe detrimental but nothing is perfect. Just stopping now wouldn't make people happy either. We are an adaptive animal and just need to find a way to deal with the drawbacks. Those of reductionism aren't anywhere near as big as some think. IMO it is often just the people in traditional religion stuck in their old believes and feel threatened to change too many of them.

The emotion art may evoke in you is often because of the universal meaning it points to. You may not be consciously aware of what that meaning is or be able to express it in words. And you don't have to. The artist has done it for you. These things are often less open to discussion as many people think. You might be a "scientist person," but I am an "arts person."

I am no arts person so maybe you can enlighten me here.
Take the mona lisa. It is art and insanely expensive. I think it is ugly. The women, the style of painting and the facial expression all of it. I would dump it. Well I would sell but for me personally there is nothing in there. I wouldn't look at it twice was it just among many others. What's the deal with that painting. I think that Jesus painting in Spain much more interesting. Kind of funny in its wrongs. Though that is not art by all accounts.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder as they say and I don't see any universal beauty nor any other special meaning in the little louvre painting.
I may not be aware of meanings you say (obviously). Great but sometimes I guess one is.
Can you deliver some example of a universal meaning in some specific art example like a painting, poem, music. If it is not emotion there has to be a way to express it somehow.

I don't see how "forcing" the will into being unfree or random solves the "animation problem.". I don't know what you mean by "nonidenticality" or "there being something not there" or even what it means to "reduce too much." I don't require a lecture and I appreciate the fact that English is not your native language; but if you could express these ideas in clearer language, it would help.

The animation problem is something that doesn't even come up because it chickens out before.
The basic problem is that if the mind and the brain always work synchron in parallel and there is nothing happening in the mind that doesn't somehow also happen in the brain (neurons,..) that if you can disprove free will for the brain you also do it for the mind. The only place of retreat is to a subjective concept that is effectively a terminology of the subjective 1st person view but objectively free will is disproven.

Now the dualists say that there is a mind sort of independent. It is not identical. Not always synchron or parallel. The free will decision they say is outside and has no appearance in the brain. The major problems with dualism is the interaction with the material world and determinism and what I wrote...

With reduce too much I mean at to low a level. Some people claim that there is some aera in the brain with a special free will module (however that should look like). There is lots of other ideas but the real problem is how much you analyse the decision making process and how much determinism there is. In a way how on a physical level free will can work.

If you consider a decision making process.
1. You need to somehow arrive at options.
They depend on the situation, circumstances, mental abilities to figure them out,..
2. You need to decide which one freely. For this you need a free agent but where to find it.
How do you decide?
Well there are two ways.
Pick one at random or reason it out.

For reasoning:
You need Goals G = sum (g1..gn) (Staying alive, stilling hunger, staying healthy)
They would have weights to them too but anyway.
How do you get your goals?
Needs N forced on you by nature or environment. Values V that you have been indoctrinated with or acquired yourself. Preferences P that are biological (aggression, risk aversness,...) And more..

Now you need some reasoning machine.
N+V+P -> G
Reason best Option in respect to all G.

Now picking Random is not make a choice it is just picking random.
The reasoning engine doesn't have to be deterministic. As we know from Quantum Mechanics if you go small enough it can be at a small enough detail indeterministic. That means it may be slightly random at a very low level.
Some people want to imagine some animated special sauce some where at the lower level.
It doesn't really matter if our decision is perfectly rational or slightly random. At a very small circuit level you end up at a circuit that is either completely deterministic or it is not. In neither case is it conscious.
So I say that if we can see rational decision appear out of the blue and cannot find all necessary small circuits to explain the process than dualism is probably right and we can search for the connection. In that case we can continue on playing by dualistic rules.
If we find however everything we need than dualism is wrong. Dualism is not pantheistic.

It doesn't matter at what level stuff is considered animated if the smallest circuits necessary to simulate deterministic or random, than it ain't free. There is the idea that on the QM level the mind sort of connects and it influences the probabilities in those really tiny level. Yet it would have to be proven (and could if run against a perfectly deterministic marco simulator) that those probabilities are out of the ordinary and it still would remain the question how it reasons or if it does.

Now all our inputs into the reasoning process are pre determined and when Deciding they are what they are. These wants have been emergent from all our past experiences and/or genetics.
You made wrong a decision in kindergarden. You didn't know any better. That is what we often say to children. The thing is there is no reason to think it is any different with grown ups. Even if they do know better, they always decide according to their wants or random(not decide). They want what they have been trained to want by life (nurture) or what they want because of nature, or they are irrational random.

If you do not "reduce too much" you can effectively say, somewhere in there, there is a free will box that does all the magic. Currently we cannot reduce anywhere near as much as they want to. If we stopped here it is still an open question with only some evidence pointing toward one thing but one cannot completely rule out those other ideas.

Some free will ideas don't depend on any of that thinking they just redefine it to sort of free choice. Which is why I usually write true free will. You are free if you have options effectively where none is forced on you from the outside. The past and your nature is bad luck. The choice is not free and deterministic but it seems to be subjectively because you don't know all your true reasons (inputs) you think it is your choice.
It comes down to a play of definitions. Sam Harris talks about the true free will that it is an illusion, while in courts and our legal system and psychology they go about the free choice/options defintion. Both call it free will.

[kayky]

You cannot find a house in side a brick. That doesn't mean a brick doesn't exist.
The reductionist scoffs at many concepts of a soul that religious people prefer and to distinguish they often take care not to call anything soul. For that reason the priest thinks they don't think any "soul" exist just because they think that the priest idea of soul is nonsense.

It's obvious to me that you don't think it is nonsense, and I'm sure there are some scientists who would agree with you. But be real. There's a whole lot who would not.

Yes money doesn't have any inherent value but it was never supposed to. Such enlightening insights come only to people how never understood the concept to being with or why it is the way it is.

I'm not sure what you mean by this. I was simply correcting your comment that money did have inherent value.

So reductionism may lead to nihilism. Do we have to throw it away now? Should we close our eyes and not try to understand some stuff because we might be disillusioned. Like the Christians that would have preferred to live in their geocentric world which makes theology so much easier. Being the center of the world and all.
Some people don't want to know how the mind or brain works. Some people may not want to know anything about stuff that is older than their 10k year genesis. Some people may not want to know anything about psychological/genetical/environmental reasons for why people are bad at whatever.

I want to know as much as I can about everything. I don't know why you keep trying to group me with Christian fundamentalists. I am not that person. Is this the only kind of religion you are aware of?

Amish have no use for computers and smartphones.
For all that stuff you need reductionism. You put things apart into small enough pieces to understand the whole. It doesn't work any other way.
Just because some religious people prefer to live without some truths doesn't mean we can just drop it.
The claim that reductionism is as bad as fundamentalism I just don't accept. It hurts nothing. It may lead for some to nihilism but even those nihilist only annoy the some religious people (get over it). I work in IT and there it just doesn't go without. You cannot build chips without knowing what you are doing. Trial and error doesn't work. Nobody understands a modern operating system with Millions of lines of code in full. We can only still manage complex IT programs because we abstract and reduce the appropriate problem solving levels.

The problem with reductionism is that it often leads to wrong conclusions. Anyone who is really interested in the truth would find this concerning. It happens so often now in scientific studies, that some people simply take its validity for granted. I fail to see how this is any different than a fundamentalist measuring everything against the Bible to evaluate its validity.

I don't think it is a religion. It is a methode for understanding complex things and the only alternative is to close our eyes. If someone thinks he can find some unknown truth underneath something let him try. It is effectively taking the position against technology. Like Amish or to a lesser degree some hippies.
Sometimes technology maybe detrimental but nothing is perfect. Just stopping now wouldn't make people happy either. We are an adaptive animal and just need to find a way to deal with the drawbacks. Those of reductionism aren't anywhere near as big as some think. IMO it is often just the people in traditional religion stuck in their old believes and feel threatened to change too many of them.

Of course we should not stop using the scientific method. Does this mean that every conclusion a scientist reaches is above reproach? Just like the Bible is literally true and incapable of error?

I think you will find that my religious beliefs are far from "traditional."

I am no arts person so maybe you can enlighten me here.
Take the mona lisa. It is art and insanely expensive. I think it is ugly. The women, the style of painting and the facial expression all of it. I would dump it. Well I would sell but for me personally there is nothing in there. I wouldn't look at it twice was it just among many others. What's the deal with that painting. I think that

Well, I'm more of a literary person so your choice of the Mona Lisa is a lucky one for me. It is, after all, the most famous painting in the world so I know a little bit about it. Da Vinci considered it his greatest work.


1. The painting has a remarkable geometrical symmetry, which makes it aesthetically pleasing. She actually is presented in the top of her head to her hands in the shape of a pyramid.

2. Another aesthetically pleasing aspect of the painting is the contrast between the light shining in her face, surrounded by the darkness of her hair and veil. You are immediately drawn to her facial expression.

3. It is one of the first portraits to place the subject in front of an imaginary landscape (important as far as art history is concerned).
Detail of the background (right side)

4. Her curves match the curves of the background scenery. Many people this is Da Vinci making a connection between humanity and nature.
Leonardo used a pyramid design to place the woman simply and calmly in the space of the painting. Her folded hands form the front corner of the pyramid. Her breast, neck and face glow in the same light that models her hands. The light gives the variety of living surfaces an underlying geometry of spheres and circles. Leonardo referred to a seemingly simple formula for seated female figure: the images of seated Madonna, which were widespread at the time. He effectively modified this formula in order to create the visual impression of distance between the sitter and the observer. The armrest of the chair functions as a dividing element between Mona Lisa and the viewer.

The woman sits markedly upright with her arms folded, which is also a sign of her reserved posture. Only her gaze is fixed on the observer and seems to welcome him to this silent communication. Since the brightly lit face is practically framed with various much darker elements (hair, veil, shadows), the observer's attraction to it is brought to even greater extent. The woman appears alive to an unusual measure, which Leonardo achieved by his new method not to draw the outlines, "mainly in two features: the corners of the mouth, and the corners of the eyes" (Gombrich), as firmly as that had been the use, before (sfumato).[29] There is no indication of an intimate dialogue between the woman and the observer as is the case in the Portrait of Baldassare Castiglione (Louvre) painted by Raphael about ten years later, and undoubtedly influenced by the work.


Detail of Lisa's hands, her right hand resting on her left. Leonardo chose this gesture rather than a wedding ring to depict Lisa as a virtuous woman and faithful wife.[30]
The painting was among the first portraits to depict the sitter before an imaginary landscape and Leonardo was one of the first painters to use aerial perspective.[31] The enigmatic woman is portrayed seated in what appears to be an open loggia with dark pillar bases on either side. Behind her a vast landscape recedes to icy mountains. Winding paths and a distant bridge give only the slightest indications of human presence. The sensuous curves of the woman's hair and clothing are echoed in the undulating imaginary valleys and rivers behind her. The blurred outlines, graceful figure, dramatic contrasts of light and dark, and overall feeling of calm are characteristic of Leonardo's style. Owing to the expressive synthesis that Leonardo achieved between sitter and landscape it is arguable whether Mona Lisa should be considered as a traditional portrait, for it represents an ideal rather than a real woman. The sense of overall harmony achieved in the painting"especially apparent in the sitter's faint smile"reflects the idea of a link connecting humanity and nature.

Mona Lisa has no clearly visible eyebrows or eyelashes. Some researchers claim that it was common at this time for genteel women to pluck these hairs, as they were considered unsightly.[32][33] In 2007, French engineer Pascal Cotte announced that his ultra high resolution scans of the painting provide evidence that Mona Lisa was originally painted with eyelashes and with better visible eyebrows, but that these had gradually disappeared over time, perhaps as a result of overcleaning.[34] For modern viewers the nearly-missing eyebrows add to the slightly abstract quality of the face.

There has been much speculation regarding the painting's model and landscape. For example, that Leonardo probably painted his model faithfully since her beauty is not seen as being among the best, "even when measured by late quattrocento (15th century) or even twenty-first century standards."[35] Some art historians in Eastern art, such as Yukio Yashiro, also argue that the landscape in the background of the picture was influenced by Chinese paintings;[36] however, this thesis has been contested for lack of clear evidence.[36]




Jesus painting in Spain much more interesting. Kind of funny in its wrongs. Though that is not art by all accounts.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder as they say and I don't see any universal beauty nor any other special meaning in the little louvre painting.
I may not be aware of meanings you say (obviously). Great but sometimes I guess one is.
Can you deliver some example of a universal meaning in some specific art example like a painting, poem, music. If it is not emotion there has to be a way to express it somehow.

I don't see how "forcing" the will into being unfree or random solves the "animation problem.". I don't know what you mean by "nonidenticality" or "there being something not there" or even what it means to "reduce too much." I don't require a lecture and I appreciate the fact that English is not your native language; but if you could express these ideas in clearer language, it would help.

The animation problem is something that doesn't even come up because it chickens out before.
The basic problem is that if the mind and the brain always work synchron in parallel and there is nothing happening in the mind that doesn't somehow also happen in the brain (neurons,..) that if you can disprove free will for the brain you also do it for the mind. The only place of retreat is to a subjective concept that is effectively a terminology of the subjective 1st person view but objectively free will is disproven.

Now the dualists say that there is a mind sort of independent. It is not identical. Not always synchron or parallel. The free will decision they say is outside and has no appearance in the brain. The major problems with dualism is the interaction with the material world and determinism and what I wrote...

With reduce too much I mean at to low a level. Some people claim that there is some aera in the brain with a special free will module (however that should look like). There is lots of other ideas but the real problem is how much you analyse the decision making process and how much determinism there is. In a way how on a physical level free will can work.

If you consider a decision making process.
1. You need to somehow arrive at options.
They depend on the situation, circumstances, mental abilities to figure them out,..
2. You need to decide which one freely. For this you need a free agent but where to find it.
How do you decide?
Well there are two ways.
Pick one at random or reason it out.

For reasoning:
You need Goals G = sum (g1..gn) (Staying alive, stilling hunger, staying healthy)
They would have weights to them too but anyway.
How do you get your goals?
Needs N forced on you by nature or environment. Values V that you have been indoctrinated with or acquired yourself. Preferences P that are biological (aggression, risk aversness,...) And more..

Now you need some reasoning machine.
N+V+P -> G
Reason best Option in respect to all G.

Now picking Random is not make a choice it is just picking random.
The reasoning engine doesn't have to be deterministic. As we know from Quantum Mechanics if you go small enough it can be at a small enough detail indeterministic. That means it may be slightly random at a very low level.
Some people want to imagine some animated special sauce some where at the lower level.
It doesn't really matter if our decision is perfectly rational or slightly random. At a very small circuit level you end up at a circuit that is either completely deterministic or it is not. In neither case is it conscious.
So I say that if we can see rational decision appear out of the blue and cannot find all necessary small circuits to explain the process than dualism is probably right and we can search for the connection. In that case we can continue on playing by dualistic rules.
If we find however everything we need than dualism is wrong. Dualism is not pantheistic.

It doesn't matter at what level stuff is considered animated if the smallest circuits necessary to simulate deterministic or random, than it ain't free. There is the idea that on the QM level the mind sort of connects and it influences the probabilities in those really tiny level. Yet it would have to be proven (and could if run against a perfectly deterministic marco simulator) that those probabilities are out of the ordinary and it still would remain the question how it reasons or if it does.

Now all our inputs into the reasoning process are pre determined and when Deciding they are what they are. These wants have been emergent from all our past experiences and/or genetics.
You made wrong a decision in kindergarden. You didn't know any better. That is what we often say to children. The thing is there is no reason to think it is any different with grown ups. Even if they do know better, they always decide according to their wants or random(not decide). They want what they have been trained to want by life (nurture) or what they want because of nature, or they are irrational random.

If you do not "reduce too much" you can effectively say, somewhere in there, there is a free will box that does all the magic. Currently we cannot reduce anywhere near as much as they want to. If we stopped here it is still an open question with only some evidence pointing toward one thing but one cannot completely rule out those other ideas.

Some free will ideas don't depend on any of that thinking they just redefine it to sort of free choice. Which is why I usually write true free will. You are free if you have options effectively where none is forced on you from the outside. The past and your nature is bad luck. The choice is not free and deterministic but it seems to be subjectively because you don't know all your true reasons (inputs) you think it is your choice.
It comes down to a play of definitions. Sam Harris talks about the true free will that it is an illusion, while in courts and our legal system and psychology they go about the free choice/options defintion. Both call it free will.[/quote]

[scourge99]

When you actually want ro understand why brain scientists believe the mind is the product of the brain (thus freewill is an illusion) then let me know. Then we can discuss the evidence and experiments which lead them to such conclusions.

I already understand as I have pointed out several times on this thread. I listened quite carefully to what Sam had to say. His science is good, his philosophy faulty. I don't see how further discussion of the science would make any difference.

Some valid criticisms I see on this matter:
1. Explain a flaw or oversight with the interpretation of the data from an experiment/study.
2. Provide an alternate explanation for the results of an experiment/study.
3. Point out problems with the integrity of a particular experiment's/study's methodology or data.

As I have already said, I see no problem with the science.

But I will not waste my time debating silly and inane things like:
1. Brain scientists are guilty of scientism.
2. Brain scientists studies/experiments/data/conclusions can be hand waved away because they are based on reductionism.
3. Brain scientists are colluding or conspiring to suppress the truth.
4. Scientific findings and conclusions are just opinions.

The only thing I have said is that concluding from the evidence that human free will is an illusion is a product of reductionism.

You make vague and obscure accusations often using buzzwords like "reductionism" and "scientism". Can you actually explain how those you accuse of these things actually are guilty of them? You do it yet again in this response when you say: "His science is good, his philosophy faulty."

What specifically is faulty about his philosophy?
Why exactly do you categorize it as "philosophy"? When is a scientific conclusion "science" and not "philosophy"?
Is reductionism always invalid? That is, can nothing be legitimately explained by reducing it to the interactions of its parts?

[Mithrae]

I might have missed something, but as far as I noticed from that video Sam Harris only makes specific reference to three scientific factoids of relevance; the experiments of Benjamin Libet, more recent fMRI experiments along similar lines, and that "the biologist Martin Heisenberg has observed that some fundamental processes in the brain, like the opening and closing of ion channels and the release of synaptic vesicles, occur at random, and cannot, therefore, be determined by environmental stimuli" (transcript source).

As I've commented numerous times in various threads, seems to me that part of what the first two types of experiments show is that at least down to -1.6 seconds before an action, the observed brain activity is not a sufficient cause of our behaviour. That is, the experiments show that at least down to -1.6 seconds the brain activity can be followed by no action, because in response to a stimulus the subject (by conscious intention) does not perform the potential action. And a multitude of examples such as fast-paced sports show often in time-frames less than a second that pre-intention brain activity is not a necessary cause of our behaviour either.

As for the third example, both Harris and Heisenberg apparently agree that those brain processes occur at random, but as far as I'm aware the only way to conclude that something is random is by showing that there's no correlation with any other phenomenon. It seems unlikely to me, but it should be recognised that finding no correlation with observable phenomena doesn't necessarily preclude the possibility that these apparently random fundamental processes in the brain might correlate with phenomena we can't yet observe; perhaps the mind, whether conscious, subconscious or unconscious is the actual cause of these 'random' brain processes.

I only watched the video once in fairness, and was distracted patting and feeding my cat at the time, so let me know if I've missed something there. I know he asserts numerous times that thoughts and intentions simply appear in our consciousness, and spends quite a bit of time discussing the possible implications of his views vis a vis morality and justice. But those are the only three relevant scientific points which I noted, and as far as I can tell they don't at all suggest that not-wholly-constrained choice is an illusion.

[scourge99]

I might have missed something, but as far as I noticed from that video Sam Harris only makes specific reference to three scientific factoids of relevance

factoids? Referencing peer-reviewed research and the conclusions of those researchers is now:
1. insignificant or trivial facts.
2. something fictitious or unsubstantiated that is presented as fact, devised especially to gain publicity and accepted because of constant repetition.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/factoid?s=t

As I've commented numerous times in various threads, seems to me that part of what the first two types of experiments show is that at least down to -1.6 seconds before an action, the observed brain activity is not a sufficient cause of our behaviour. That is, the experiments show that at least down to -1.6 seconds the brain activity can be followed by no action, because in response to a stimulus the subject (by conscious intention) does not perform the potential action.

I don't know what stimulus you are talking about. In Libet's experiment, the subjects decided when to perform an action of their own volition. No stimulus was given to the the subject.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Libet#Methods

And a multitude of examples such as fast-paced sports show often in time-frames less than a second that pre-intention brain activity is not a necessary cause of our behaviour either.

I think you are confused. Libet's experiments involve conscious intentional actions. They are not about muscle memory, reactions, trained responses, etc. Actions can be trained or unconscious like sport moves, driving a car, or pulling your hand away from stove. There is a reason athletes train diligently. For one thing it is to build up what is called "muscle memory" for particular physical skills or maneuvers. Ever heard of the phrase "I can do it in my sleep."? That certain types of actions may occur faster than the time frame in the aforementioned experiments doesn't show anything unless those actions are conscious and intentional like those in Libet's experiments..

Perhaps you can link to a few of these "multitude of examples" you reference because I am interested in reading them.

What Libet's and other follow on experiments demonstrate is that brain activity always precedes the sensation of making a conscious choice. If dualism is correct and the brain is merely a receiver and disseminator of choices from the mind then we would expect the opposite. We would expect that brain activity would be detected only after the sensation of a choice occurs.

Can you provide an experiment where brain activity is found to occur only after a conscious choice is made? I know of none that exist but I know of several that demonstrate just the opposite.

As for the third example, both Harris and Heisenberg apparently agree that those brain processes occur at random, but as far as I'm aware the only way to conclude that something is random is by showing that there's no correlation with any other phenomenon. It seems unlikely to me, but it should be recognised that finding no correlation with observable phenomena doesn't necessarily preclude the possibility that these apparently random fundamental processes in the brain might correlate with phenomena we can't yet observe; perhaps the mind, whether conscious, subconscious or unconscious is the actual cause of these 'random' brain processes.

I don't know even the slightest thing about the opening and closing of ion channels and the release of synaptic vesicles so I can't comment.

[Mithrae]

I might have missed something, but as far as I noticed from that video Sam Harris only makes specific reference to three scientific factoids of relevance

factoids? Referencing peer-reviewed research and the conclusions of those researchers is now:
1. insignificant or trivial facts.
2. something fictitious or unsubstantiated that is presented as fact, devised especially to gain publicity and accepted because of constant repetition.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/factoid?s=t

Thankyou for the correction. I'd always thought it meant more along the lines of facts in passing or little facts, similar to 'planetoid'; if those are the only three points from neurological research into decision-making which Harris mentions, obviously relevant science isn't the primary focus of a 20-minute video. But I'll try to avoid misusing the word in the future.

As I've commented numerous times in various threads, seems to me that part of what the first two types of experiments show is that at least down to -1.6 seconds before an action, the observed brain activity is not a sufficient cause of our behaviour. That is, the experiments show that at least down to -1.6 seconds the brain activity can be followed by no action, because in response to a stimulus the subject (by conscious intention) does not perform the potential action.

I don't know what stimulus you are talking about. In Libet's experiment, the subjects decided when to perform an action of their own volition. No stimulus was given to the the subject.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Libet#Methods

Experiments of that type; a possible criticism of Libet's experiment, mentioned on that Wiki page, is the possibility of error in the subjects' report of when they decided to push the button. A later experiment suggested a time-frame for the conscious intention to move of up to 1.7 seconds. If nothing else that contrast with Libet's 0.2 seconds highlights the difficulty of asserting that one has pinpointed the 'decision' to move and found neural activity before that - particularly given that the conditions of the experiments require that the subjects already have the general intent to move. But since this later experiment involved participants halting their potential movement, this also shows that neural activity detected in the fMRI experiments up to 6 or 8 seconds before movement cannot be sufficient for the action. In fact a still later study (Miller and Trevena) apparently suggested that the neural activity might be merely some kind of 'readiness potential' leading up to a possible decision to act.

And a multitude of examples such as fast-paced sports show often in time-frames less than a second that pre-intention brain activity is not a necessary cause of our behaviour either.

I think you are confused. Libet's experiments involve conscious intentional actions. They are not about muscle memory, reactions, trained responses, etc. Actions can be trained or unconscious like sport moves, driving a car, or pulling your hand away from stove. There is a reason athletes train diligently. For one thing it is to build up what is called "muscle memory" for particular physical skills or maneuvers. Ever heard of the phrase "I can do it in my sleep."? That certain types of actions may occur faster than the time frame in the aforementioned experiments doesn't show anything unless those actions are conscious and intentional like those in Libet's experiments..

Perhaps you can link to a few of these "multitude of examples" you reference because I am interested in reading them.

You're not suggesting that trained atheletes' movements are unconscious, or unintentional? Or that players new to a tennis or basketball court take several seconds for their brains to initiate each movement? The specific responses and skills are certainly honed at higher levels, but even new players don't need to wait 8 seconds for the ol' neurons to fire up a decision to act.

Other examples? If I notice something unpleasant or fragile underneath my descending foot, it generally takes less than a second to change where I stand. When I drop something I usually don't have to wait several seconds to decide and execute a catching maneuvre. I can touch type at upwards of 4 keystrokes a second. It may be that my conscious intentions to move are in all cases preceded by a few milliseconds of nonconscious neural activity: Obviously I can't know that, but equally obvious is the fact that actions need not be preceded by the several seconds of neural activity which some experiments suggest - they are not a necessary cause.

What Libet's and other follow on experiments demonstrate is that brain activity always precedes the sensation of making a conscious choice. If dualism is correct and the brain is merely a receiver and disseminator of choices from the mind then we would expect the opposite. We would expect that brain activity would be detected only after the sensation of a choice occurs.

Can you provide an experiment where brain activity is found to occur only after a conscious choice is made? I know of none that exist but I know of several that demonstrate just the opposite.

Who said anything about dualism? The question is free choice. To show by experiment that our experience of free choice is illusory one would have to show in a situation of alleged free choice that the behaviour was caused by neural activity from before the experience of choice (ie, that it was not caused by choice). Seems to me that so far as I can tell from these experiments and my own experience, neural activity prior to choice is not a sufficient cause of behaviour, and to my knowledge has not been shown to be a necessary cause either.

If choice is an integral part of many decisions, and can either halt upcoming actions or generate new actions without previous brain activity, our experience of free choice can still be falsified if one shows physical determinism to be true. (Determinism of the brain and body would falsify free choice even if dualism were true.) But that's as much a philosophical question as scientific - and while Harris dwells mostly on philosophy in that video from memory, his concerns are about morals and justice, not the nature of causation. He provides as little philosophical proof that free choice is illusory as he does scientific.

[scourge99]

I might have missed something, but as far as I noticed from that video Sam Harris only makes specific reference to three scientific factoids of relevance

factoids? Referencing peer-reviewed research and the conclusions of those researchers is now:
1. insignificant or trivial facts.
2. something fictitious or unsubstantiated that is presented as fact, devised especially to gain publicity and accepted because of constant repetition.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/factoid?s=t

Thankyou for the correction. I'd always thought it meant more along the lines of facts in passing or little facts, similar to 'planetoid';

I don't remember what i used to think the definition was but I remember being surprised by the definition as well. Perhaps the meaning is changing.

if those are the only three points from neurological research into decision-making which Harris mentions, obviously relevant science isn't the primary focus of a 20-minute video. But I'll try to avoid misusing the word in the future.

Harris has earned a PhD in neuroscience from UCLA and has performed original research. Many of his ideas are shared by mainstream neuroscientists and I would guess many of the things he discusses were not formulated by him but by many researchers and scientists before him. His credentials are more than sufficient to deem him an expert in the field. I think your time could be better spent actually focusing on the evidence rather than attempting to insinuate that Harris is being disingenuous or isn't being consistent with the plethora of evidence he has indisputably encountered during his time attaining his PhD and performing post doctoral work.

Lastly, I'm not interested in trying to defend a person. I think its just a distraction from worthwhile discussion and debate.

As I've commented numerous times in various threads, seems to me that part of what the first two types of experiments show is that at least down to -1.6 seconds before an action, the observed brain activity is not a sufficient cause of our behaviour. That is, the experiments show that at least down to -1.6 seconds the brain activity can be followed by no action, because in response to a stimulus the subject (by conscious intention) does not perform the potential action.

I don't know what stimulus you are talking about. In Libet's experiment, the subjects decided when to perform an action of their own volition. No stimulus was given to the the subject.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Libet#Methods

Experiments of that type; a possible criticism of Libet's experiment, mentioned on that Wiki page, is the possibility of error in the subjects' report of when they decided to push the button. A later experiment suggested a time-frame for the conscious intention to move of up to 1.7 seconds. If nothing else that contrast with Libet's 0.2 seconds highlights the difficulty of asserting that one has pinpointed the 'decision' to move and found neural activity before that - particularly given that the conditions of the experiments require that the subjects already have the general intent to move. But since this later experiment involved participants halting their potential movement, this also shows that neural activity detected in the fMRI experiments up to 6 or 8 seconds before movement cannot be sufficient for the action. In fact a still later study (Miller and Trevena) apparently suggested that the neural activity might be merely some kind of 'readiness potential' leading up to a possible decision to act.

I don't see how your response has anything to do with your claim that the experiments are flawed because the subject (by conscious intention) does not perform the potential action in response to stimulus. It seems you've entirely changed your argument or moved onto a different one. And I won't skip around from argument to argument without first tying off loose ends. So I'll ask again: I don't know what stimulus you are talking about. In Libet's experiment, the subjects decided when to perform an action of their own volition. No stimulus was given to the the subject. That you believe a stimulus was given to the subject could mean several things such as
a) you don't understand the experiment
b) I don't understand what you mean.

Now I will address your new criticisms:

Experiments of that type; a possible criticism of Libet's experiment, mentioned on that Wiki page, is the possibility of error in the subjects' report of when they decided to push the button.

Yes, which means one of two possibilities when it comes to the intention to move:
1) the awareness of the intention to move is delayed by so much time that we are actually aware BEFORE the readiness potential occurs.
2) the awareness of the intention to move is delayed by some amount of time but it still occurs AFTER the readiness potential is detected.

What has been repeatedly demonstrated by several other experiments, (including Libet's) is that #2 is the reality. For example, Matsuhashi, M., & Hallett performed a test where they removed many of the subjective aspects that the Libet experiments were criticized for.

Matsuhashi, M., & Hallett, M. (2008). The timing of the conscious intention to move. European Journal of Neuroscience , 28, 2344-2351.

Banks, W.P. and Isham, E.A.(2009). We infer rather than perceive the moment we decided to act. Psychological Science, 20, 17-21

Fried, I., Mukamel, R., and Kreiman, G. (2011). Neuron 69, this issue, 548"562.

Haggard, P. & Eimer, M. (1999) On the relation between brain potentials and
the awareness of voluntary movements. Exp. Brain Res., 126, 128"133.

Shibasaki, H. & Hallett, M. (2006) What is the Bereitschaftspotential? Clin.
Neurophysiol., 117, 2341"2356.

A later experiment suggested a time-frame for the conscious intention to move of up to 1.7 seconds. If nothing else that contrast with Libet's 0.2 seconds highlights the difficulty of asserting that one has pinpointed the 'decision' to move and found neural activity before that - particularly given that the conditions of the experiments require that the subjects already have the general intent to move.

No. Not at all. You are cherry picking the timing from one experiment and trying to retrofit it other experiments. I think its presumptuous to do that.

What every experiment shows is that the readiness potential occurs BEFORE the intention to move becomes aware in the subject. Whether its -8 seconds or -0.005 seconds matters not. The critical point is that its BEFORE.

But since this later experiment involved participants halting their potential movement, this also shows that neural activity detected in the fMRI experiments up to 6 or 8 seconds before movement cannot be sufficient for the action.

I agree that the evidence is insufficient to support the claim that the neural activity causes the action. But that is not what the scientists conclude from the experiments. What they conclude is that the neural activity for an action always precedes the awareness of the intention for the action.

That is, there is no claim made about how or where the action comes about.

In fact a still later study (Miller and Trevena) apparently suggested that the neural activity might be merely some kind of 'readiness potential' leading up to a possible decision to act.

But Miller and Trevena fundamentally changed the experiment. In Libet's and other experiments the subjects are not prompted to make a decision. They are asked to choose a random moment to flick their wrist and to report the time when the felt the desire to flick their wrist. In Miller and Trevena's experiment they are asked to make a decision when they hear a particular tone which occurs randomly.

And a multitude of examples such as fast-paced sports show often in time-frames less than a second that pre-intention brain activity is not a necessary cause of our behaviour either.

I think you are confused. Libet's experiments involve conscious intentional actions. They are not about muscle memory, reactions, trained responses, etc. Actions can be trained or unconscious like sport moves, driving a car, or pulling your hand away from stove. There is a reason athletes train diligently. For one thing it is to build up what is called "muscle memory" for particular physical skills or maneuvers. Ever heard of the phrase "I can do it in my sleep."? That certain types of actions may occur faster than the time frame in the aforementioned experiments doesn't show anything unless those actions are conscious and intentional like those in Libet's experiments..

Perhaps you can link to a few of these "multitude of examples" you reference because I am interested in reading them.

You're not suggesting that trained atheletes' movements are unconscious, or unintentional? Or that players new to a tennis or basketball court take several seconds for their brains to initiate each movement?

Well not quite how you are thinking about it. I'm still new to the field so I'm not great with the vocabulary but what I am referring to is perhaps best described as autonomic.

People new to sports, and new activities are clumsy, oafish, and must make extraordinary efforts to perform actions that professionals perform quickly, with ease, and without much if any thought. Experiments demonstrate that people who perform activities that they have trained to do are utilizing completely different parts of their brains to do them than people learning them or doing them for the first time.

When you do something thousands of times that activity is offloaded into different parts of the brain and you don't even have to consciously think about it (or think about it much) to perform it. However, when you are learning a new activity or something fundamentally different from anything else, it takes a great deal of attention and focus. You are using very different parts of your brain.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychomotor_learning

The specific responses and skills are certainly honed at higher levels, but even new players don't need to wait 8 seconds for the ol' neurons to fire up a decision to act.

I never implied such a level of absurdity. Strawman.

Other examples? If I notice something unpleasant or fragile underneath my descending foot, it generally takes less than a second to change where I stand.

But you don't think about moving your foot. Just like pulling your hand away from a hot stove. Its an automatic response. And it may not even go to your brain at all. Perhaps you are new to this stuff but these responses to stimuli are fundamentally different then intentional conscious actions.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_delta_fiber
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Withdrawal_reflex
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reflex
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reflex_arc
http://www.enotes.com/reflexes-reference/reflexes

When I drop something I usually don't have to wait several seconds to decide and execute a catching maneuvre.

And is that because you were born with that response or did you learn it? I would guess you learned it and practiced it directly or indirectly.


But Im not going to go on some tangent where you try to nitpick my personal assessment of these things. I'm not an expert but I do have a basic understanding. Suffice it to say you are talking about fundamentally different types of actions and conscious activities but you don't seem to be aware of the very large differences in them. I believe this misunderstanding of yours contributes to your misunderstanding of the conclusions regarding Libet-like experiments.

Obviously I can't know that, but equally obvious is the fact that actions need not be preceded by the several seconds of neural activity which some experiments suggest - they are not a necessary cause.

It seems that conscious and intentional activities do. Automatic/unconscious/unintentional/trained/etc actions like reflexes do not.

What Libet's and other follow on experiments demonstrate is that brain activity always precedes the sensation of making a conscious choice. If dualism is correct and the brain is merely a receiver and disseminator of choices from the mind then we would expect the opposite. We would expect that brain activity would be detected only after the sensation of a choice occurs.

Can you provide an experiment where brain activity is found to occur only after a conscious choice is made? I know of none that exist but I know of several that demonstrate just the opposite.

Who said anything about dualism? The question is free choice.

Lets not kid ourselves that dualism isn't hiding under the covers for most theists. Theists often believe in some notion of disembodied minds (souls) that have some magical interface with a physical brain and can survive the death of the body. Thats often the underlying reason for this voracious defense of freewill because it fits into that picture of the world.

Do you not believe in a soul or afterlife?

To show by experiment that our experience of free choice is illusory one would have to show in a situation of alleged free choice that the behaviour was caused by neural activity from before the experience of choice (ie, that it was not caused by choice).

The experiments DO show that neural activity occurs BEFORE the experience of choice. What they do not show is what caused that neural activity to occur nor do they claim to show it.

neural activity prior to choice is not a sufficient cause of behaviour, and to my knowledge has not been shown to be a necessary cause either.

The experiments do not claim to explain how or from where the stimulus for the behavior (E.G., pushing a button) arises. What the experiments do demonstrate is that physical brain processes required for the action (pushing the button) occur before the subject is aware of any intention to push the button. And that is an odd yet very important finding.


Its basic biology that the nervous system controls motor functions (among others) and thus our physical actions can largely be traced back to signals from the brain. That is, when a person presses a button (as they did in the Libet experiments) their brain has sent a signal to their hand which causes the muscles in the hand to flex which causes the finger to depress the button.

Neural activity is sufficient to explain how button pressing occurs in humans. I agree that it isn't NECESSARY but nothing in science can be shown as necessary. E.G., the theory of gravitation is sufficient to explain gravitation but it doesn't make it necessary. E.G., gravitation could be caused by invisible angels holding peoples feet to the ground.

If choice is an integral part of many decisions, and can either halt upcoming actions or generate new actions without previous brain activity, our experience of free choice can still be falsified if one shows physical determinism to be true.

That is one way. I don't think that is why neuroscientists disbelieve in freewill, though. That is, I don't think neuroscientists believe they have proven determinism therefore freewill does not exist.

Furthermore, I think choices are illusions and that there isn't any way to halt upcoming actions because you aren't actually in control of anything to begin with. And if you aren't in control then you can't very well halt anything.

(Determinism of the brain and body would falsify free choice even if dualism were true.)

Sure. Dualism isn't required for freewill and determinism isn't required for non-dualism. But I am not interested in what we can imagine. I'm interested in what the evidence indicates. And the evidence indicates that our supposedly intentional actions begin before or at the moment we intend them. That leads us to conclude that we are NOT consciously making decisions. Instead we are merely aware of our the action our body/brain is performing as it is happening.

But that's as much a philosophical question as scientific - and while Harris dwells mostly on philosophy in that video from memory, his concerns are about morals and justice, not the nature of causation. He provides as little philosophical proof that free choice is illusory as he does scientific.

I wasn't talking about Sam Harris or the video in the paragraph you responded to. Its red-herring that you bring him up. So please address what I say instead of trying to ad-hom Sam Harris:

What Libet's and other follow on experiments demonstrate is that brain activity always precedes the sensation of making a conscious choice. If [strike]dualism[/strike]the brain is merely a receiver and disseminator of choices from the mind (as many freewill'ists/theists argue) then we would expect the opposite. We would expect that brain activity would be detected only after the sensation of a choice occurs.

Can you provide an experiment where brain activity is found to occur only after a conscious choice is made? I know of none that exist but I know of several that demonstrate just the opposite.[/strike]

[Mithrae]

Thankyou for the correction. I'd always thought it meant more along the lines of facts in passing or little facts, similar to 'planetoid';

I don't remember what i used to think the definition was but I remember being surprised by the definition as well. Perhaps the meaning is changing.

if those are the only three points from neurological research into decision-making which Harris mentions, obviously relevant science isn't the primary focus of a 20-minute video. But I'll try to avoid misusing the word in the future.

Harris has earned a PhD in neuroscience from UCLA and has performed original research. Many of his ideas are shared by mainstream neuroscientists and I would guess many of the things he discusses were not formulated by him but by many researchers and scientists before him. His credentials are more than sufficient to deem him an expert in the field. I think your time could be better spent actually focusing on the evidence rather than attempting to insinuate that Harris is being disingenuous or isn't being consistent with the plethora of evidence he has indisputably encountered during his time attaining his PhD and performing post doctoral work.

I was merely explaining why I thought factoid (as 'facts in passing') wasn't an unfair choice of words

As I've commented numerous times in various threads, seems to me that part of what the first two types of experiments show is that at least down to -1.6 seconds before an action, the observed brain activity is not a sufficient cause of our behaviour. That is, the experiments show that at least down to -1.6 seconds the brain activity can be followed by no action, because in response to a stimulus the subject (by conscious intention) does not perform the potential action.

I don't know what stimulus you are talking about. In Libet's experiment, the subjects decided when to perform an action of their own volition. No stimulus was given to the the subject.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Libet#Methods

Experiments of that type; a possible criticism of Libet's experiment, mentioned on that Wiki page, is the possibility of error in the subjects' report of when they decided to push the button. A later experiment suggested a time-frame for the conscious intention to move of up to 1.7 seconds. If nothing else that contrast with Libet's 0.2 seconds highlights the difficulty of asserting that one has pinpointed the 'decision' to move and found neural activity before that - particularly given that the conditions of the experiments require that the subjects already have the general intent to move. But since this later experiment involved participants halting their potential movement, this also shows that neural activity detected in the fMRI experiments up to 6 or 8 seconds before movement cannot be sufficient for the action. In fact a still later study (Miller and Trevena) apparently suggested that the neural activity might be merely some kind of 'readiness potential' leading up to a possible decision to act.

I don't see how your response has anything to do with your claim that the experiments are flawed because the subject (by conscious intention) does not perform the potential action in response to stimulus. It seems you've entirely changed your argument or moved onto a different one. And I won't skip around from argument to argument without first tying off loose ends. So I'll ask again: I don't know what stimulus you are talking about. In Libet's experiment, the subjects decided when to perform an action of their own volition. No stimulus was given to the the subject.

I mean that my original comment was not about the specific experiment/s which Libet performed, it was about "what the first two types of experiments show."

Now I will address your new criticisms:

Experiments of that type; a possible criticism of Libet's experiment, mentioned on that Wiki page, is the possibility of error in the subjects' report of when they decided to push the button.

Yes, which means one of two possibilities when it comes to the intention to move:
1) the awareness of the intention to move is delayed by so much time that we are actually aware BEFORE the readiness potential occurs.
2) the awareness of the intention to move is delayed by some amount of time but it still occurs AFTER the readiness potential is detected.

What has been repeatedly demonstrated by several other experiments, (including Libet's) is that #2 is the reality. For example, Matsuhashi, M., & Hallett performed a test where they removed many of the subjective aspects that the Libet experiments were criticized for. . . .

A later experiment suggested a time-frame for the conscious intention to move of up to 1.7 seconds. If nothing else that contrast with Libet's 0.2 seconds highlights the difficulty of asserting that one has pinpointed the 'decision' to move and found neural activity before that - particularly given that the conditions of the experiments require that the subjects already have the general intent to move.

No. Not at all. You are cherry picking the timing from one experiment and trying to retrofit it other experiments. I think its presumptuous to do that.

What every experiment shows is that the readiness potential occurs BEFORE the intention to move becomes aware in the subject. Whether its -8 seconds or -0.005 seconds matters not. The critical point is that its BEFORE.

Recognising differences in the timing of the 'intention to move' is comparing, not cherry picking. And it is a valid point to raise. I haven't looked into it much at all, but it seems to me that in most cases (if not all) the subjects are told a bit about how the experiment will work and what they should do before the experiment commences. So they begin Libet's experiment with the general intention to push the button or move their finger or whatever. The subsequent, more specific decision immediately preceding the action apparently is not very easy to put a precise time on, and the associated neural activity also seems not very easy to interpret (I gather that the predictive accuracy is in the order of 60-80%).

It's certainly the case that neural activity precedes the full-consciousness decision to push the button. But is that neural activity before the decision the cause of action, or is the decision necessary for the action also? If the decision is necessary for the action also, then is prior neural activity a cause of that decision so that the decision is merely a product or a coming-into-awareness thing? While I admit my relative ignorance on the subject, from what I've so far seen of the science we don't yet have a cut-and-dried answer to either of those questions.

But since this later experiment involved participants halting their potential movement, this also shows that neural activity detected in the fMRI experiments up to 6 or 8 seconds before movement cannot be sufficient for the action.

I agree that the evidence is insufficient to support the claim that the neural activity causes the action. But that is not what the scientists conclude from the experiments. What they conclude is that the neural activity for an action always precedes the awareness of the intention for the action.

That is, there is no claim made about how or where the action comes about.

Then you would agree that the science does not prove our experience of free choice to be illusory?

In fact a still later study (Miller and Trevena) apparently suggested that the neural activity might be merely some kind of 'readiness potential' leading up to a possible decision to act.

But Miller and Trevena fundamentally changed the experiment. In Libet's and other experiments the subjects are not prompted to make a decision. They are asked to choose a random moment to flick their wrist and to report the time when the felt the desire to flick their wrist. In Miller and Trevena's experiment they are asked to make a decision when they hear a particular tone which occurs randomly.

How validly can you interpret data from one type of scenario if you don't consider others as a basis for comparison and contrast? I don't know what all of the data really means, but it seems to me that this experiment should be considered relevant unless shown otherwise. To show otherwise you're suggesting that in Libet's and others' experiments the absense of an external stimulus implies a genuinely random moment of decision. But is that actually the case? Surely the subjects don't have a completely blank mind until suddenly deciding to act. While the timing might be genuinely random, it seems more likely by my guess that in most cases there would have been a reason, however trivial; some kind of internal stimulus (if not a fly on the wall or some other trivial external factor).

If their stream of thought in the experiment were "not yet... not yet... not yet... not yet... getting there... nearly... now I'll do it," they'd obviously mark the last bit as their decision to act, but in all likelihood the 'getting there' which ultimately prompted the decision would have been several seconds before that. Whatever the case may be, the contrast offered by Miller and Trevena's seems worthy of consideration unless and until the differences can be shown to make it not relevant.

And a multitude of examples such as fast-paced sports show often in time-frames less than a second that pre-intention brain activity is not a necessary cause of our behaviour either.

I think you are confused. Libet's experiments involve conscious intentional actions. They are not about muscle memory, reactions, trained responses, etc. Actions can be trained or unconscious like sport moves, driving a car, or pulling your hand away from stove. There is a reason athletes train diligently. For one thing it is to build up what is called "muscle memory" for particular physical skills or maneuvers. Ever heard of the phrase "I can do it in my sleep."? That certain types of actions may occur faster than the time frame in the aforementioned experiments doesn't show anything unless those actions are conscious and intentional like those in Libet's experiments..

Perhaps you can link to a few of these "multitude of examples" you reference because I am interested in reading them.

You're not suggesting that trained atheletes' movements are unconscious, or unintentional? Or that players new to a tennis or basketball court take several seconds for their brains to initiate each movement?

Well not quite how you are thinking about it. I'm still new to the field so I'm not great with the vocabulary but what I am referring to is perhaps best described as autonomic.

People new to sports, and new activities are clumsy, oafish, and must make extraordinary efforts to perform actions that professionals perform quickly, with ease, and without much if any thought. Experiments demonstrate that people who perform activities that they have trained to do are utilizing completely different parts of their brains to do them than people learning them or doing them for the first time.

When you do something thousands of times that activity is offloaded into different parts of the brain and you don't even have to consciously think about it (or think about it much) to perform it. However, when you are learning a new activity or something fundamentally different from anything else, it takes a great deal of attention and focus. You are using very different parts of your brain.

Were the subjects of Libet et al's experiments new to pushing buttons or moving their wrists? If memory serves EduChris raised precisely that objection regarding such experiments, suggesting that such actions are so common and trivial as to be inadequate tests of our volition. He even used the word 'offloaded.' While I didn't agree with his reasoning, it's interesting to see the same argument used to dismiss the relevance both of pre-intention brain activity and the absense of such pre-intention brain activity

The specific responses and skills are certainly honed at higher levels, but even new players don't need to wait 8 seconds for the ol' neurons to fire up a decision to act.

I never implied such a level of absurdity. Strawman.

If new players don't yet have the autonomic psychomotor skills ingrained in them, and if brain activity some seconds prior to intention is a relevant factor in decision-making, how can new players in a sport decide on their actions in a second or less?

Other examples? If I notice something unpleasant or fragile underneath my descending foot, it generally takes less than a second to change where I stand.

But you don't think about moving your foot. Just like pulling your hand away from a hot stove. Its an automatic response. And it may not even go to your brain at all. Perhaps you are new to this stuff but these responses to stimuli are fundamentally different then intentional conscious actions.

I do think about moving my foot actually - it's not even in the same league as response to extreme pain.
Journal entry from Sunday, 19 June 2011
I intended to record seven memories once - the number is pure coincidence - and one of them, I suspect, would have been when I was 20 or 21. I was living in R----- Hill, on ------- Terrace; I was walking home after dark, in the evening. Without noticing I trod on a beetle, but I realised fast enough to halt the full descent of my foot. I heard the cracking of it's shell, but I'm sure it wasn't dead. As I walked on all I was thinking of was how a crippled beetle would suffer before its inevitable death. I wondered whether it wouldn't have been best to crush it entirely.

When I drop something I usually don't have to wait several seconds to decide and execute a catching maneuvre.

And is that because you were born with that response or did you learn it? I would guess you learned it and practiced it directly or indirectly.


But Im not going to go on some tangent where you try to nitpick my personal assessment of these things. I'm not an expert but I do have a basic understanding. Suffice it to say you are talking about fundamentally different types of actions and conscious activities but you don't seem to be aware of the very large differences in them. I believe this misunderstanding of yours contributes to your misunderstanding of the conclusions regarding Libet-like experiments.

Those are all examples of conscious, intentional behaviour. You can section off certain types of conscious intentional behaviour as the basis on which free choice is 'proven' to be illusory - only behaviour which is not prompted by any stimulus whatsoever, apparently - but considering virtually all our choices are associated with some situation or other, it doesn't make for a very convincing argument