I love New York

Recently, I spent some time in New York/DUMBO (Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass).  Hosted by a good friend of mine, I enjoyed a  inspiring time in between the really ambitious creatives who seem to cluster there.  And yes, I took pictures! 

Unconscious brain activity precedes conscious decisions

 

A recent publication in Nature Journal I stumbled over, reveals some new astonishing facts concerning the initiation of physical action by mental processes long before we become aware of the intention to act. Extending Libet’s work from the 80s, researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive Science now showed by means of fMRI and a different experiment setting that specific high-level brain areas begin to shape an upcoming decision up to 10(!) seconds before we get consciously aware of it. 

Now, what should this mean to us? Are we predetermined, deterministic marionettes? Is our experience of freedom just an illusion? Do we have actually no freewill? And if yes, how is the decision primarily initiated or even by whom? Wouldn’t this affect several aspects of our everday’s life such as legal frameworks, criminal law which precisely distinguishes if a crime is committed premeditated or unpremeditated?  Of course, it is said that there is (always?) the possibilty of a conscious veto which lets us rescind our predetermined decisions.    

I personally ‘feel’ free to decide in basically every situation, hence I belief in the existence of the freewill though there is no scientific evidence for it yet.