Madam, - Under the headline "Net tightening on free will", you report (April 19th) that scientists have found that in an experimental situation "a decision had been made several seconds before subjects decided which button to press". A decision made before they decided? Hmm.
Anyway, it seems the experimental findings do not sit well with whatever theory of free will Prof John-Dylan Haynes is familiar with. That is not my concern. What interests me is that (as I understand your report) there is no opposition between the Aristotelian-Thomistic exposition of free will and the experimental findings.
Thomists teach that a very complex process precedes an act of free decision. The act is a climatic act of rational self-consciousness and it cannot be performed until a number of operations (its preconditions) - an interplay of sensations, memory, imagination, perception, estimation, feelings, insight(s), judgments(s), not-free act(s) of the will, speculative and practical judgment(s) - have been performed. It takes time.
In brief, the brain has a lot of work to do before we are presented with a possible object of choice. It takes time, too, to make the choice and mediate it back to the nervous system for subsequent activity.
I can't treat further of this in a letter. But for me the reported results of the experiments do not invalidate the age-old exposition.
Prof Haynes is quoted as saying: "It seems that your brain starts to trigger your decision before you make up your mind." That's one way of putting it. The whole complex process converges on one's being equipped to make up one's mind: it is initiated in order to fulfil the conditions required for enlightened decision. Antecedent perceptions and feelings settle on an object as an "end" and that attracts volition prior to rational reflection and decision. Could that be the "decision made before they decided?"
I am glad that Prof Haynes concedes that "we can't rule out free will". But in the light of my experience and the common conviction, I must disagree with his opinion that "It's very implausible". - Yours, etc,
M PHILIP SCOTT, OCSO,
Our Lady of Bethlehem Abbey,
Portglenone,
Co Antrim.