May 20, 2011

Is freewill a happy illusion?

Posted in Science at 9:00 am by David Bradley

Is freewill a happy illusion? – Is freewill real or is just one of our happy illusions? According to a post on 3quarks, it might be that believing in freewill makes your brain behave as if you actually have it. “When people’s belief in freewill was experimentally reduced [not sure how that's done], pre-conscious motor preparation, or that activity that precedes action, in the brain was delayed by more than one second relative to those who believed in freewill – an eternity in brain time.” That’s plenty of time for “conscious” choices to be made, choices that one might call freewill, whether one believes in it or not.