We can define free will ‘as the power to act voluntarily to cause another event, outside the influence of fate or external influence’. The most powerful piece of psychological evidence against free will comes from the work of Benjamin Libet.
In his experiment, Libet asked participants to make random voluntary wrist movements while he recorded their muscle and brain activity. He also got them to report the position of a hand on a clock-face when they felt the urge to move. He then compared the timing of the wrist movement (action), the clock-hand position (urge), and the brain activity (a motor readiness potential in the pre-motor cortex).
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