Even several seconds before we consciously make a decision its outcome can be predicted from unconscious activity in the brain... - from a quote that DBT posted.
Now wait a minute. I posted this objection to the "several seconds" crap somewhere upthread.
I will lodge my objection again, using the same examples, via video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJxJN3hK9bs
Watch the video and see people reacting instantly - there is less than a second in some of these. Now, if decisions were to take "several seconds", then none of this would be possible. The ball is thrown, the batter swings - all unpredictable; the person catches the ball. There is no way, NO WAY, that several seconds could elapse in order for the brain to decide what to do. The whole "several seconds" argument is destroyed in this video alone.
Depends on the nature of the decision. Not all decisions take seconds, others may take hours, weeks or months of infomation processing before a conscious conclusion is reached.....which pops into mind fully formed.
I agree. Deciding to get married or not, to make a certain investment, to buy a house, to buy a new car: these decisions can take a very long time, even years, as you said.
But the athletes in the video compilation I posted are reacting to something within less than a second. How much time elapses from a swing of a bat and the ball screaming at the pitcher? Usually less than a second. Now, it is true that athletes are "poised" to react to a variety of possibilities. Indeed, that is the very nature of their vocation: to be prepared. But a ball screaming directly at the pitcher is something that very rarely occurs, and there is no chance for a pitcher to anticipate that happening. Even if he was to know that the ball would come right at him, he still has to decide where to put his glove. He has to SEE the ball's trajectory - within a fraction of a second from when it comes off the bat - in order to judge where to put his glove. Am I to believe that his reaction was "predicted" by brain activity several seconds before the ball came screaming at him? All that could possibly be predicted is a pronounced readiness to act and/or react, to whatever happened. The brain activity could not possibly predict the trajectory of the ball and the nearly instantaneous reaction of the pitcher - because the future doesn't exist. All that exists, even a second into the future, is a range of possibilities, and yes, probabilities, as FDI says. But in a baseball game, having the ball go screaming at a pitcher in the blink of an eye is not probable: far from it. Possible, certainly, but not even close to probable.
Look at professional boxers. A punch is thrown at them, and they avoid it by a subtle movement of the body: a swerve of the shoulders and head, or a well-timed block with the arm(s). Constant decisions and reactions, each according to what the opponent is doing, and none of them "predictable". After all, the mark of a world class fighter is their ability to surprise their opponent, and to be
unpredictable. See a genius such as Gene Tunney or Mohammed Ali.
***
Just noticed this (is the Wiki article updated? Or is this bit incorrect?):
...Libet found that even after the awareness of the decision to push the button had happened, people still had the capability to veto the decision and not to push the button. So they still had the capability to refrain from the decision that had earlier been made. Some therefore take this brain impulse to push the button to suggest just a readiness potential which the subject may either then go along with or may veto. So the person still has power over his or her decision.[9]
For this reason, Libet himself regards his experimental results to be entirely compatible with the notion of free will.[9] He finds that conscious volition is exercised in the form of 'the power of veto' (sometimes called "free won't"[12][13]); the idea that conscious acquiescence is required to allow the unconscious buildup of the readiness potential to be actualized as a movement. While consciousness plays no part in the instigation of volitional acts, Libet suggested that it may still have a part to play in suppressing or withholding certain acts instigated by the unconscious. Libet noted that everyone has experienced the withholding from performing an unconscious urge. - Wikipedia
Emphasis mine.
"Readiness potential" is a good phrase. Obviously, Libet's experiments show that there is readiness to act, and this should be no surprise since the subjects were aware that making a decision was at the center of the experiment: indeed the whole reason for it.
But this brain activity which signifies a readiness, or a "readiness potential" does in no way "predict"
which action the subject will take. It only predicts that
an action is being prepared for (not any
specific action).
