Science and Free Will

By Jason Castro, an assistant professor of neuroscience at Bates College in Maine

What does neuroscience tell us about free will?

There are some classic neuroscience experiments that were done by a guy named Benjamin Libet - these were about 30 years ago or so. And he found some results that have some really intriguing and, frankly, to some, some slightly unsettling applications for free will. And basically what he found is that there is brain activity that registers our intent to make a decision - a spontaneous decision - well before we've consciously decided to make a decision.

It's sort of like we're showing up a little bit late to the party. We think that we initiate activity and our brains follow suit, but it's actually the other way around. Our brains - the activity is initiated in the brain, and it only registers after the fact.

Does that mean brains have free will, or are they doing something very chemical and methodical, and we don't even know what's going on?

Yes, it's sort of a chemical mechanistic thing that's going on. We feel very much like we're these free-flowing entities that can make these spontaneous decisions, but it seems - the view that science backs - that it's more the case that we're, in a sense, going along for the ride. We're downstream of the process that's actually making decisions and initiating actions.