Scientific Arguments against Free Will

Abstract

Abstract This chapter considers the Libet and Wegner experiments purporting to show that free will is an illusion. The chapter dismantles the Libet experiment and argues that he went far beyond his data in rejecting free will, and that he had an incomplete understanding of causation in the brain. The chapter also considers and disregards as irrelevant the Wegner experiments concerning the issue of free will. Finally, the chapter asks whether feelings of having willed or caused an action are about future or past actions. Some feelings of willing are retrodictive, about what one just caused, so cannot be causal of those actions. Other aspects of willing are prospective, such as conscious imagining and deliberation, and can be causal of subsequent thoughts and actions.