First, it was Libet‘s study, which recorded brain activity several hundred milliseconds before people expressed their conscious intention to move.
Then, came Dylan Haynes, whose first study modernized Libet’s and was able to predict accurately 60% of the times what participants would choose. His second study used more accurate scanning techniques and was able confirm his previous findings: that motor intentions were encoded in frontopolar cortex up to seven seconds before participants were aware of their decisions.
In 2011, Itzhak Fried studied individuals with electrodes implanted in their brains, and was able to predict the timing of a decision with more than 90% accuracy. “Volition could arise from accumulation of ensemble activity crossing a threshold“.
Now, a study by the Center for Mind and Brain, University of California, Davis, and published in the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience found that the illusion of free will may stem from brain noise:
This finding provides evidence for a mechanistic account of decision-making by demonstrating that ongoing neural activity biases voluntary decisions about where to attend within a given moment.
So, what else do compatibilists need in order to change their views? Belief in free will is irrational, hence dangerous.
I think Jerry Coyne is right when he says we should get rid of the free will concept once and for all.
