We'd all like to think we dictate the things we do by exercising our conscious will, but do we? For centuries philosophers have debated free will, arguing over its role in establishing morals and laws. But then neuroscientists and psychologists got in on the act with disturbing results.
By studying brain activity in people performing simple tasks, they have found evidence that free will may just be a comforting illusion.
In a series of experiments performed in the 1970s, the American neurologist Dr. Benjamin Libet found that even bran activity associated with something as simple as finger movements appears over half a second before the subjects become conscious of 'Deciding' to act.
More recently , sociologist Professor Daniel Wegar of Harvard University has shown our brains can create illusion of having taken a conscious decision to do something over which we actually exercised no control. For example, people who watch another person's arms moving don't feel the arms belong to them.
But then they watch again, while also listening to a recording that predict each movement before they see it, they then feel that these arms are under their control because thay know what to expect from 'theirs' arms
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