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, ...

Does something like "free will" really exist? We often take it for granted, but philosophers, psychologists and neuroscientists have debated the issue for decades—if not centuries. In his recent Ph.D.

Libet showed consistently that there was unconscious brain activity associated with the action – a change in EEG signals that Libet called “readiness potential” — for an average of half a second ...

The results of Libet's experiments have generated a lot of controversy about free will, and some neurophysiologists have even concluded that it does not exist. Moreover, Libet's experiment has been ...

In his response to my letter about the 1983 Libet experiment (1 September, p 24), Chris Frith asks two questions: What triggers the action demanded by the experiment, and why the report of the ...

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 ...