Raúl
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Re:Consciousness as Hallucination - 2007/08/13 19:56
In the line of what you say, one has to question everything in these kinds of experiments as conclusions may be established prematurely. What Libet demonstrated is that there is a pattern of activity (known as Readiness Potential or RP) that preceded any voluntary action. The RP appeared something like 300 ms before the conscious report of the decision. But, as we know, consciousness is tricky with the perception of time. Also, what if the RP pattern is part of the formation of the conscious decision that will be take place in short? Maybe, as you say, the RP is part of the pattern that forms the conscious thought. Anyway, we are never conscious of the inner reasoning process going on within our head in order to take a decision. That doesn’t necessarily mean that free will is an illusion. It simply means that conscious decisions are formed unconsciously, the same way the activation of our arm muscles is carried out unconsciously when we consciously decide to move the arm.
Additionally, we could think of some flaws in the design and interpretation of these experiments. The subjects had to report their decision, and that is a different conscious process than the decision itself, so it is not surprising that the conscious report of the decision comes later than the conscious decision itself.
Raúl Arrabales Moreno. conscious-robots.com/raul |
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