Classic experiments in neuroscience suggest that our brains generate an action before we're consciously aware of making the choice, suggesting our experience of having complete conscious control over our actions may be a mistake.
In one of these experiments by Benjamin Libet at the University of California, San Francisco, using an electroencephalogram, Libet monitored their subjects' brains, telling them: "Lift your finger whenever you feel the urge to do so."
It was already known that there is a detectable change in brain activity up to a second before you "spontaneously" lift your finger, but when did the urge occur in the mind?
Amazingly, Libet found that his subjects' change in brain activity occurred 300 milliseconds before they reported the urge to lift their fingers.
This implies that, by measuring your brain activity, I can predict when you are going to have an urge to act. Apparently this simple but freely chosen decision is determined by the preceding brain activity. It is our brains that cause our actions. We just come along for the ride.
Our responses to stimuli are generated in the brain even before we become aware of them. These experiments show that we may not have free will. We are often unaware of the influences that dictate our choices and actions, we assume that our thoughts are deliberate, conscious and above all self generated, when in effect our decisions are to a great degree pre-determined by factors outside of our awareness.
* * * *
I just used an excerpts of one valuable study (one in an ocean of them) to initiate our own contemplatation and the variety of possible responses on the subject.
PLEASE, GO ON !!!!! DIVE INTO OUR LIVES!!!! NICOLAUS COPERNICUS WAS FIRST TO DISPLACE THE EARTH FROM THE CENTER OF UNIVERSE!
AREN`T OUR LIVES IN QUESTION?
Shall we release the fog over our minds and brains???
Let`s search and discuss!