Comment by namero999
2 days ago
Libet has only measured the latency of metaconsciousness/cognition, nothing else. It says nothing about free will, which is ill defined anyway.
2 days ago
Libet has only measured the latency of metaconsciousness/cognition, nothing else. It says nothing about free will, which is ill defined anyway.
I've seen that argument repeated ad-nauseum.
It makes sense if you're desperate for free will to be real, but you really have to work for it. Especially when you add in the countless other studies showing that a lot of the reasons we give for our actions, especially in quick or ambiguous choices, are confabulationalist post-hoc constructions. Our own introspection seems mostly to consist of just "making stuff up" to justify the decisions we've already made.
I mean, a reasonable person could argue their way past all the evidence without totally denying it, but "free will" just isn't the simplest explanation that fits the available data. It's possible that free will exists in the same way it's possible that Russels teapot exists.
Maybe the point of someone else you've spoken to. Personally I don't even see how free will enters into this discussion, and if you were to ask me, I don't even think we have it as it is commonly defined/understood. But any comment on free will doesn't change the fact that Libet measured metacognition latency and nothing else.