experiments that suggest that the readiness potential appears about 350-400 milliseconds the conscious intention to act. Many people think that this result gives us good before reason to doubt the sort of indeterminism required for libertarianism. In particular, that’s one might results to argue against TDW-indeterminism by saying something use Libet’s like the following: (1) Conscious decisions are preceded by nonconscious brain processes (namely, the readiness potential) and are, in fact, nonconsciously initiated. Therefore, it seems likely that (2) Torn decisions are at least causally influenced by prior-to-choice nonconscious brain processes, and so they are not TDW-undetermined; indeed, they might be fully determined by prior-to-conscious-choice brain processes. The problem with this argument is that we have any evidence for the claim that, in don’t torn decisions, the readiness potential is part of a causal process relevant to which that’s There are several other things the readiness potential could be doing, option is chosen. aside from this. For instance, it could be that the readiness potential is part of a causal process leading to the of torn decisions and that this has nothing whatsoever occurrences to do with which option is chosen. (Remember, a torn decision could be even if the occurrence of the decision was fully causally determined--i.e., even if it was fully determined that the agent was going to make a torn decision; the only thing that needs to be undetermined, in order for a torn decision to be is Now, not claiming here that which tied-for-best option is chosen.) I’m we have good reason to endorse this view of what the readiness potential is doing. My claim is rather that we have any good reason to reject this view. Or more to the don’t
experiments that suggest that the readiness potential appears about 350-400 milliseconds before the conscious intention to act. Many people think that this result gives us good reason to doubt the sort of indeterminism that’s required for libertarianism. In particular, one might use Libet’s results to argue against TDW-indeterminism by saying something like the following: (1) Conscious decisions are preceded by nonconscious brain processes (namely, the readiness potential) and are, in fact, nonconsciously initiated. Therefore, it seems likely that (2) Torn decisions are at least causally influenced by prior-to-choice nonconscious brain processes, and so they are not TDW-undetermined; indeed, they might be fully determined by prior-to-conscious-choice brain processes. The problem with this argument is that we don’t have any evidence for the claim that, in torn decisions, the readiness potential is part of a causal process that’s relevant to which option is chosen. There are several other things the readiness potential could be doing, aside from this. For instance, it could be that the readiness potential is part of a causal process leading to the occurrences of torn decisions and that this has nothing whatsoever to do with which option is chosen. (Remember, a torn decision could be even if the occurrence of the decision was fully causally determined--i.e., even if it was fully determined that the agent was going to make a torn decision; the only thing that needs to be undetermined, in order for a torn decision to be is which tied-for-best option is chosen.) Now, I’m not claiming here that we have good reason to endorse this view of what the readiness potential is doing. My claim is rather that we don’t have any good reason to reject this view. Or more to the