Darren New wrote:
> I thought the idea that someone else knows your decision significantly
> sooner than you do is a pretty strange idea.
> 

Then you have to define 'when you know' and, even stranger, 'you'. The
brain, obviously, 'knows' at the time that the firings show up on the
FMRI or PET which ever they are using. Perhaps it knows even before
that, and we just do not know what to look for. From a biological point
of view with out the possibility for an outside 'self', you 'know' when
the neurons start firing. That there is a delay may be nothing more than
the filtering that the brain does with vision prediction. [1]

Alternatively, allowing for a possible outside 'self', the firing of
neurons may just be the initial 'handshake' between the self and the body.

Define free will how you like, that is only the middle step of the whole
problem.


[1]http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1081006/84-cent-tennis-points-wrong-umpires-tricked-optical-illusion--reveals-study.html

Post a reply to this message