There are numerous theoretical reasons which are usually said to undermine the case for mental causation. But in recent years, Libet‘s experiment on readiness potentials (Libet, Wright, and Gleason 1982; Libet, Gleason, Wright, and Pearl 1983), and a more recent replication by a research team led by John Dylan Haynes (Soon, C.S., Brass, M., Heinze, H.J., and Haynes, J.-D. [2008]) are often singled out because they appear to demonstrate empirically that consciousness is not causally involved in our choices and actions. (...) In this paper, an alternative interpretation of these studies is offered; one which is in accordance both with the empirical evidence and also with the phenomenology of the will, demonstrating that the two opposing views of agency – both the ones that deny the reality of free will and the ones that affirm it – are equally compatible with the outcomes of these two experiments. On this basis, it is shown that the claim that the results on the timing of readiness potential tip the scales in favour of one or the other view cannot be justified - neither from a neurological, nor from a philosophical perspective. (shrink)

Libet and colleagues, and later many others investigated brain activity during voluntary action. They found that electrophysiological "readiness potentials" precede awareness of intention to act. They also found that awareness of actually moving i.e., initiation of motor command follows W, and action follows M; after W, the decision to act can be consciously vetoed until the action actually starts. Libet proposed that one's brain initiates voluntary acts but not one's conscious will, and that conscious will can still control the outcome (...) by vetoing the action. In this article, we explain why the above experimental observations occur in the order they do, using the two-time interpretation of quantum mechanics. We take into account the general and objective observation that a voluntary action needs to use information pertaining to the desired future state. This observation is confirmed by cognitive scientists as they state that the mental image of the future must become the content of the present memory as a prerequisite to such action and that our brains are endowed with the ability to create ‘memories of the future', i.e., neural models of something that, as of yet does not exist but which we want to bring into existence. (shrink)