From brain science, new questions about free will

WORLD SCIENCE

Phi­loso­phers since an­cient times have strug­gled with the ques­tion of wheth­er hu­mans have any free will. With forc­es such as God or mo­lec­u­lar in­ter­ac­tions—de­pend­ing on whom you asked and when—said to ul­ti­mately con­trol eve­ry­thing, can hu­mans really make any de­ci­sions “in­de­pen­dently”?

Some sci­en­tists say re­cent re­search val­i­dates such con­cerns, cast­ing doubt on the com­mon hu­man feel­ing that we are able to make up our own minds, at least in the way we like to think.

In the July 2 is­sue of the re­search jour­nal Sci­ence, Ruud Cus­ters and Henk Aarts of Utrecht Uni­vers­ity in The Neth­er­lands dis­cuss re­search sug­gest­ing our sub­con­scious thoughts can ma­ni­pu­late our goals and mo­tiva­t­ions much more than sci­en­tists have ev­er im­ag­ined.

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