!n the late 1970's, a scientist named Benjamin Libet conducted a series of experiments designed to collect data on the subjective experience of free will. Here's the short version from Wikipedia:

"His initial investigations involved determining how much activation at specific sites in the brain was required to trigger artificial somatic sensations, relying on routine psychophysical procedures. This work soon crossed into an investigation into human consciousness; his most famous experiment demonstrates that the unconscious electrical processes in the brain called Bereitschaftespotential (or readiness potential) discovered by Lüder Deeckean and Hans Helmut Kornhuber in 1964, precedes conscious decisions to perform volitional, spontaneous acts, implying that unconscious neuronal processes precede and potentially cause volitional acts which are retrospectively felt to be consciously motivated by the subject."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Libet

That's a mouthful. You can read about the details of the experiment at the link.

It would appear that some kind of neuronal activity precedes what feels to us like a free decision, by some predictable fraction of a second. We do not experience this event in our consciousness. We do experience the making of a decision freely later than the unconscious neuronal event. It looks very much like the neuronal activity causes the next series of events, which we experience as a free choice. The actual experimental work was published at:

Libet, B., Gleason, C. A., Wright, E. W., and Pearl, D. K. (1983). Time of conscious intention to act in relation to onset of cerebral activity (readiness-potential). The unconscious initiation of a freely voluntary act. Brain, 106:623-642

The results have been confirmed, and Libet has been recognized and honored for his work. Although he is well known in his field and some related fields, very few lay people know about this work. The implications of the work have been explored by distinguished thinkers and writers. Start at the Wikipedia link if you are interested.

I find it astonishing that there is concrete evidence that the experience of free will is a delusion. I find it more astonishing that it isn't front page news.

This is a saying of Kabir who lived in the fifteenth century in India. He's describing an ecstatic moment, among many, experienced by him. He wasn't a writer, so his works have come to us by means of oral tradition, which doesn't operate like a copier (Over time, you would expect small errors to accumulate). Also this is a translation. This isn't what he literally said, but it describes the experience he promoted in his work in general.

I've known my body as the

Sport of the universe

But now I escape

from the error of this world

The inward and outward are

become as one sky, the infinite

and the finite are united.

I am drunken with the sight of this all.

He was a weaver, not wealthy but self-supporting, who lived in the fourteen hundreds, in what is now Varansi in Northern India. Think of Christopher Columbus _ same time period. The area is inhabited by both Moslems and Hindus, and Kabir seems to have been able to appreciate both traditions, and both religions have a claim on his works.

Anyway about the experience he describes above - its available to all of us. Everyone seems to be able to describe some version or another of the experience: " everything seemed to be perfect, everything was in its right place, everything seemed to be related to everything else, we all seem to be part of the same thing, I just melted away and became part of the ocean around me, I just knew there was something all-powerful behind this". Neuroscientists have been able to induce the experience in people by magnetic stimulation of a certain part of the brain. In other words, it's a natural experience, given our circuitry.

For those of us who inhabit this material world feeling like strangers, who have to struggle to find meaning, who are naturally inclined away from religious dogma and psuedo science, this experience can be examined with a lot more than circuitry in mind. Nueroscience, Quantum mechanics, physics, philosophy, and good old fashioned mysticism are converging in a very interesting way right now, as you read this post. No Joke. So this blog is going to be about all that.