Browsing by Subject "Vapaa tahto"

The question of free will has intrigued people, and especially philosophers throughout time. Still, a consensus concerning the nature of our will, is yet to be found. If a person is, according to the Cartesian definition of free will, able to behave in many different ways in one specific condition, can he be seen to have a free will, and to be morally responsible of his deeds. On the contrary, if our will is deterministic and thus predictable considering all the existing premises, there is no room left for moral responsibility. The question of free will has therefore important implications to our everyday lives. This literature review approaches the question of free will from a neuroscientific point of view. The main point in most of the neuroscientific studies concerning free will, is studying subjects’ brains while the subjects are performing a simple movement, and asking them afterwards, when did they make the conscious decision to carry out the movement. The scientists then compare the brain-data they got (e.g EEG- or fMRI scans) to the timing of the subjects’ decision to move, and to the timing of the movement itself. What scientists have ended up finding, is that there is a lot of predictive activity going on in the brain prior to the subject’s conscious decision. Scientists have in fact been able to predict which hand the subject is going to use, and when he is going move it, several seconds before the subject’s conscious decision (Soon et al., 2008). The conscious experience of the decision is in turn produced by the supplementary motor area (SMA) (Haggard & Eimer,1999., Lau et al., 2004., Friedin et al.,1991., Haggard & Magno, 1999). The neural, physical correlates of decisions concerning at least simple movements have therefore been found. It is a meaningful finding, since these physical activations ought to obey classical physical deterministic laws. When these physical activations furthermore happen before a person is aware of making a decision, it is contradictory to the belief of free will. How the brain works when dealing with more complex decisions, is however still unknown.