In your own time

Here's a good excuse to venture some questions I've been wondering about for a while.

Using the fMRI to monitor brain activity and machine learning to analyze the neuroimages, the researchers were able to predict which pattern participants would choose up to 11 seconds before they consciously made the decision. And they were able to predict how vividly the participants would be able to envisage it.

But in these and similar experiments, how can they know when the conscious decision was reached ? Is it fair to say that the decision is only reached the exact moment the brain transmits the signals to the finger to press the button ? For example, I can decide to go on holiday months ahead of time, and it wouldn't be sensible to say I've only made the decision when I actually step out my door, or even when I finally arrive at my destination - up until that point I can still abort without actually having taken any holiday. So couldn't there also be a delay between deciding when to press the button and actually pressing it ? How could the participant ever remember the exact moment of conscious choice ?

Similarly, they are presumably choosing randomly, so could in principle make an instantaneous "decision" but with no actual thought behind it. They were given quite a long time to make the choice - again, how does anyone tell when the decision was actually made, and what happens if the time available is reduced ?

Also, as far as I know these experiments have thus far been very simple decisions with no real consequence. It would be interesting (but perhaps experimentally difficult) to see what happens with much more difficult choices that actually have a significant impact. The sort where one can go "ummm" and "ahhh" over for hours before finally deciding - and still it may boil down to random. And likewise a comparison where the choice is more instant and depends on individual preferences, e.g. do you want to vote for the Monster Raving Loony Party or someone else ?

So all in all, I'm not convinced these experiments pose much difficulty for the notion of free will. You can predict people's decisions before they make them anyway, whether you do so using scans of the brain or by following their pattern of behaviour is immaterial. That people are predictable doesn't violate free will - that would demand free will meant making entirely random choices, which would be paradoxical and silly. There's no contradiction between having free will and having predictable desires.

That's not to say that there might not be some cases where the hard work is done behind the scenes in the unconscious though, because there certainly are. I'm not consciously aware of every finger movement I'm using to type this out. I'm conscious of my thoughts being slowly assembled as I type, my unconscious assembling letters and words and sending them for a final review to my conscious perception. But it is undeniably my words that I write and by my will - that they have been influenced by the article doesn't change that. Only an omnipotent and omniscient entity could have pure internal will, and that, mercifully, is certainly not me.

Neuroscientists can read brain activity to predict decisions 11 seconds before people act

Free will, from a neuroscience perspective, can look like quite quaint. In a study published this week in the journal Scientific Reports, researchers in Australia were able to predict basic choices participants made 11 seconds before they consciously declared their decisions.