> From: "Humphreys, Juliet" <JHM92PY@psy.soton.ac.uk>
> Date: Fri, 19 May 1995 16:15:21 GMT
>
> 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.
Although I think that's not what you intended, this comment seems to imply
we can't learn anything from ANY psychological experiment.
But, yes, experiments trying to measure (or even, as you see, to time)
consciousness directly do come up against special problems.
> 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.
I agree it's an odd task, and possibly impossible. But, on the face of
it, if I decide to do something, I ought to know I'm deciding it, and if
I know I'm deciding it, I ought to know WHEN I'm deciding it (for if I
know only afterwards, it doesn't sound as if I'm really the one who
decided, does it?).
This would all be quite obvious if the time differences were a matter
of hours, or even minutes or seconds. But since we are talking about
timing differences that are only about 1/5 of a second here, what you
MIGHT mean is that you can't be expected to DO all these things --
press a button, watch a clock, notice when you decided to press the
button, report the time -- and keep the timing straight in your mind
when such tiny time differences are involved.
And in that you may be right (some of Libet's commentators say the same
thing).
> Then, of course, comes the issue of how possible it is to tally
> subjective timing and real time, as Stevan said in the lecture.
And I think that question is worth thinking about. The Libet experiment
is just a concrete entry point into it.
> All this, to me, shows that the experiment was really a bit crap. So
> why is there so much talk about it?
Well, read the experiment and discussion before drawing any irrevocable
conclusions. They've drawn a lot of attention (which is no proof of
anything, of course) and they definitely raise in concrete form many of
the thorny issues surrounding the objective study and understanding of
consciousness.
Chrs, S
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