Free Will

From: Humphreys, Juliet (JHM92PY@psy.soton.ac.uk)
Date: Fri May 19 1995 - 17:15:21 BST


To go back to those experiments talked about in the lecture, where the
participant was told to press a button whenever they felt like it in
the next 60 seconds while watching a clock, and note the time that
they decided that they would press the button. Can those experiments
really represent any kind of normal situation? I really don't think
that such contrived experiments can possibly prove anything about free
will. They are too far removed from real life. To start with, the
participants are under pressure to perform, as are participants in all
psychology experiments, and are constantly thinking about the one issue
at hand: when to press the button. If they are constantly thinking
about pressing the button, how easy is it for them to know when exactly
they decided to press the button. Then, of course, comes the issue of
how possible it is to tally subjective timing and real time, as Stevan
said in the lecture. All this, to me, shows that the experiment was
really a bit crap. So why is there so much talk about it?

Bye, Jules.



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