Agency and Self-Awareness: Mechanisms and Epistemology
Agency and Self-Awareness August 27, 1992 Naomi Eilan, Johannes Roessler
In the mid-1980s, Libet's experiments suggested that brain activity initiating actions occurs before people become aware of their intentions to act. This has been interpreted as indicating that the brain 'decides' on actions independently of consciousness, challenging the notion of free will—the idea that conscious intentions control actions. The debate highlights an intuitive link between awareness of intentions and the control people believe they have over their actions. The argument is that without awareness of an action's initiation, the action is not under the kind of control associated with free will.