Free Will: a new study, Libet refuted (Introduction)

by David Turell , Monday, March 09, 2020, 01:20 (1721 days ago) @ David Turell

A different approach to Libet's observation,. He is dead wrong:

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-03-clutches-motor-cortex-brains-movement.html

"For decades, scientists have wondered why specific cells in the brain that control movement fire when people simply plan or imagine making a movement, or observe someone else making a movement—but do not actually move themselves.

"Now, University of Chicago scientists working on this mystery have discovered that signals in the motor cortex act like a series of clutches when it comes to moving, and that these signals can be disrupted to slow the brain's initiation of movement.

***

"It's long been known that when a person thinks about or plans a movement, neurons fire in the motor cortex and create a signal called a beta oscillation. Hatsopoulos compares the function of this signal to a clutch in a car with a manual transmission: If you push in a clutch pedal, then press on the gas, the car engine will rev—but it won't move because the car is not in gear. Likewise, if you simply imagine moving your arm or observe someone else moving their arm, this signal in your motor cortex is maintained or even intensifies—but you don't move your arm. It's only when you're ready to actually move that the beta oscillations cease—essentially, the clutch engages the engine to the transmission of the car—and your arm moves.

"Hatsopoulos and his team have discovered that this 'clutch' signal in the motor cortex is better understood as not one, but rather multiple clutches that engage in an organized spatial pattern that can begin at either end of the motor cortex and terminate at the other. Every time a movement is initiated, this organized wave of clutches—in actuality, groups of firing neurons—engages.

Comment: Jumping to the wrong conclusions about no free will is the result of incomplete research and freewill illusionists' fantasies. The brain is operating under our controls.