You might feel that you have the ability to make choices, decisions and plans — and the freedom to change your mind at any point if you so desire — but many psychologists and scientists would tell you ...

This is the first part in a four part series on the science of free will. First, some history. Though philosophers have debated free will for over 2000 years, scientists only began to take it on ...

Neuroscientists have joined this discussion thanks to the electroencephalographic (EEG) experiments of Benjamin Libet. In the 1970-1980s, he showed that 0.5–1.5 seconds before conscious awareness of ...

For decades, a groundbreaking brain study fueled opinions about whether we have free will over our actions. The conclusions drawn from this experiment, however, were likely flawed. A brief history of ...

This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American In the second half of the 19th century, ...

Benjamin Libet, the UC San Francisco physiologist whose studies of the brain led to a new understanding of consciousness and brought into question the concept of free will, died July 23 at his home in ...

When I think of “free will” I have the image of arriving at a fork in the road and taking a decision which is caused but not determined. Benjamin Libet’s 1983 experiment, as described by Chris Frith ...

You might feel that you have the ability to make choices, decisions and plans — and the freedom to change your mind at any point if you so desire — but many psychologists and scientists would tell you ...