- We all kind of go around with this feeling
that we are the authors of our lives,
and we are in control that I could have done otherwise.
To what extent is the conscious,
are we in control?
- The subconscious is a force that looms large
below the surface of our conscious minds.
And it's controlling our lives much more than we're aware.
- Free will is at the basis of a lot of our social pillars.
Our legal system presumes some kind of freedom.
There are economic theories that assume
that people are free to make their decisions.
So for all those things,
understanding how free we are,
the limits of our freedom,
how easy it is to manipulate our freedom and so on,
I think is important.
If we understand the interplay
between conscious and unconscious,
it might help us realize
what we can control and what we can't.
- My name is Uri Maoz.
I study how the brain enables things
like consciousness and free will.
- Okay Uri, what is free will?
- Sure, that's easy.
Generally humans have a sense that they control themselves
and sometimes their environment more than they do.
You don't try to control every contraction
of every muscle in your hand
And if you did try to control that,
well good luck to you
because if you try to concentrate exactly
on how it is that you're walking,
it's even hard to walk.
So there are certain places in the brain
that if you stimulate there,
a person begins to laugh.
You ask them, wait, why are you laughing?
And they say, Oh I just remembered this really funny joke.
The brain kind of puts together some reasons
for something that you did
while we think that they're under
our full conscious control,
they are not.
There is a famous experiment
made in the early eighties by Benjamin Libet.
The idea is that a person is holding their hand
and they're told whenever they have the urge to do so,
you flex whenever you want.
However, at the same time,
there's this rotating dot on the screen
And your job is to look at the screen
and say where the dot was
when you first had the urge to move.
So then you have this weird situation,
only 200 milliseconds before you move
do people say,
I'm aware that I've decided to move
but if you look into their brain,
you can see something there second before they move.
So what happens in that interval?
Some kind of nefarious neuroscientists
that would put an electrode on you would say,
Aha you're about to move now,
but you would not be conscious of it.
And some people interpret it,
the Libet experiment, to suggest that
all of these big, important life decisions,
are maybe unconscious
Libet's experiment proved controversial,
but inspired subsequent tests.
Dr. Mao's own research attempted
to observe the brain signals Libet
measured in real time
by directly monitoring the brain of epilepsy patients.
- We approached some of these patients
and we said,
Would you please play something
like a two choice version of rock, paper scissors?
At the go signal
we each raise a hand and let's say
if we raise the same hand I win.
And if we raise different hands, you win.
We had a system that was processing the whole thing
in real time and just before we got the go signal,
I got a beep in my earphones telling me which hand
to raise so that I would beat the subject.
We could predict them about 80% of the time.
Even if we, let's say we don't have as much free
will about raising my right hand or my left hand right now,
to some extent who cares?
It's just, I mean, nobody's going to take you to court
because you raise your right hand
and not your left hand for no reason or for no purpose.
Now let's say that I say to you,
there's a burning car and you have to decide whether to run
in and try to save your friend or not.
Okay now you're making a decision that matters.
- So how do you take control back from your subconscious?
The trick may be found in a fable about Ulysses.
The ancient Greek warrior,
who was sailing home was told about the sirens.
The sirens were monsters posing as beautiful women
who would sing to passing ships,
hoping to lure them closer and ultimately to their death.
Ulysses was warned of the sirens ahead of time
and knew that his subconscious would be unable
to resist the siren songs.
So Ulysses made a conscious decision ahead of time
to have his crew fill their ears with beeswax
and tie him to the mast
Ulysses and his crew sailed past the sirens unharmed.
You could think about this as a struggle
between like the later unconscious
and the current conscious because later on,
I will not be in a position to control myself
in the way that I want it.
Neuroscience is a newcomer to the field of freewill.
What are exactly the kind of questions
that are worth asking?
What different kinds of experiments
that can say something about conscious and unconscious
decisions could help us be more modest
in what we realize we can control and what we can't?
And then also maybe be a bit more forgiving
towards ourselves about our decisions and our actions.
Not everything is within our control
as much as we would think
or maybe even would wish.
Do I have free will, depends of course,
on the definition, in the sense that the world
could go one way or another way,
depending on my decision. No, I don't think
I have that power, but to the extent
that I can act according to my desires and my wishes,
yes, I think I can. I wish to be here and here I am.
(upbeat music)
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