Fall 2007

Thanks to Dr. Fi Knox for pointing out to us the following information about free will. The research comes from the neurophysiologist, Benjamin Libet. According to Libet, so called “free will” is not as “free” as we think. In his article “Do we have free will?” Libet states,

“The volitional process is …initiated unconsciously. But the conscious function could still control the outcome. It can veto the act. Free will is therefore not excluded.  These findings put constraints on views of how free will may operate; it would not initiate a voluntary act, but it could control performance of the act”. (Benjamin Libet, Anthony Freeman, Keith Sutherland (eds). THE VOLITIONAL BRAIN: Towards a neuroscience of free will. Exeter: Imprint Academic, 1999: p47-57.)

What others call the “conscious mind”,  or what we call our “primary process” is, as we have said already in the book, the RIVER’S WAY,  not entirely at our disposal. The primary process too arises spontaneously. It can then bend and mold itself to some extent, but it can not create itself!