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Neuroscience of free will is the part of neurophilosophy that studies the interconnections between free will and neuroscience. As it has become possible to study the living brain, researchers have begun to watch decision making processes at work. Findings could carry implications for our sense of agency and for moral responsibility and the role of consciousness in general.〔〔 Relevant findings include the pioneering study by Benjamin Libet and its subsequent redesigns; these studies were able to detect activity related to a decision to move, and the activity appears to begin briefly before people become conscious of it. Other studies try to predict activity before overt action occurs.〔 Taken together, these various findings show that at least some actions - like moving a finger - are initiated unconsciously at first, and enter consciousness afterward.〔 In many senses the field remains highly controversial and there is no consensus among researchers about the significance of findings, their meaning, or what conclusions may be drawn. It has been suggested that consciousness mostly serves to cancel certain actions initiated by the unconscious,〔Henri Bergson, ''Matter and Memory'', 1896〕 so its role in decision making is experimentally investigated. Some thinkers, like Daniel Dennett or Alfred Mele, say it is important to explain that "free will" means many different things; among these versions of free will some are dualistic, some not. But a variety of conceptions of "free will" that matter to people are compatible with the evidence from neuroscience.〔〔〔〔 ==Overview== One significant finding of modern studies is that a person's brain seems to commit to certain decisions before the person becomes aware of having made them. Researchers have found delays of about half a second (discussed in sections below). With contemporary brain scanning technology, other scientists in 2008 were able to predict with 60% accuracy whether subjects would press a button with their left or right hand up to 10 seconds before the subject became aware of having made that choice. These and other findings have led some scientists, like Patrick Haggard, to reject some forms of "free will". To be clear, no single study would disprove all forms of free will. This is because the term "free will" can encapsulate different hypotheses, each of which must be considered in light of existing empirical evidence. There have been a number of problems regarding studies of free will. Particularly in earlier studies, research relied too much on the introspection of the participants, but introspective estimates of event timing were found to be inaccurate. Many brain activity measures have been insufficient and primitive as there is no good independent brain-function measure of the conscious generation of intentions, choices, or decisions. The conclusions drawn from measurements that ''have'' been made are debatable too, as they don't necessarily tell, for example, what a sudden dip in the readings is representing. In other words, the dip might have nothing to do with unconscious decision, since many other mental processes are going on while performing the task.〔 Some of the research mentioned here has gotten more advanced, however, even recording individual neurons in conscious volunteers.〔 Researcher Itzhak Fried says that available studies do at least suggest consciousness comes in a later stage of decision making than previously expected - challenging any versions of "free will" where intention occurs at the beginning of the human decision process.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Neuroscience of free will」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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