<\/p>\n
That ability is special among scientists, says Chapman colleague Aaron Schurger, with whom Maoz co-directs the Laboratory for Understanding Consciousness, Intentions, and Decision-Making (LUCID, appropriately). \u201cI really think that Uri is kind of at the nexus of this field right now because he\u2019s really, really good at bringing people together around these big ideas,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
Maoz has recently been making progress on one of the big ideas that have consistently occupied his working hours: how trivial and significant decisions play out differently in the brain. In collaborations with Mudrik, he\u2019s parsed the neural difference between picking and choosing\u2014their terms for arbitrary decisions and those that change your life and tug on your emotions.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Readiness potential? Their measurements didn\u2019t clock it ahead of choices. In 2019, Maoz and a crew published a paper measuring the electrical activity in people\u2019s brains as they pressed a key to choose one of two nonprofits to donate $1,000 to\u2014for real, with actual dollars. Then the researchers compared that activity with what they saw when the same group pressed a key at random to donate $500 each to two nonprofits. The team saw the readiness potential in the arbitrary decision, but not for the $1,000 question.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Libet\u2019s result, they concluded, doesn\u2019t apply to the important stuff, which means readiness potential might not actually be a sign that your brain is making a choice before you\u2019re aware of it. \u201cIf Libet would have chosen to focus on deliberate decisions, then maybe the entire debate about neuroscience proving free will to be an illusion would have been spared from us,\u201d Mudrik says.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Maoz\u2019s research has spurred others to reinterpret Libet\u2019s work. It\u2019s \u201cenriched my thought process a great deal,\u201d says Bianca Ivanof, a psychologist whose dissertation scrutinized Libet\u2019s methods. They turn out to identify readiness potential at different times depending on how the rotating-dot setup is designed, complicating the ability to compare and interpret results.<\/p>\n
Maoz has also continued to gather data on the subject. Last year, for example, he used an EEG to measure electrical signals in people\u2019s brains as they got ready to press a keyboard space bar. At random moments, he interrupted their preparations with an audible tone and asked them about their intentions. He saw no connection between the readiness potential and whether or not they were planning to tap the key\u2014evidence that the potential doesn\u2019t represent the buildup of either conscious or unconscious plans. The team did see a signal, though, in a different part of the brain when people said they were preparing to move.<\/p>\n
So \u2026 that\u2019s free will? Sadly, Maoz would be compelled to say Well, not exactly<\/em>. An electrical impulse in our brains can shed only so much light on whether we truly are the architects of our own fates. And maybe the confusing data from neurons is actually the point. \u201cI don\u2019t think it is a yes-or-no question,\u201d Maoz says. Maybe our less meaningful choices aren\u2019t <\/em>mindfully made but big ones are; maybe we have the conscious power to change an intended action, but only if our brains are in a particular state.\u00a0<\/p>\n Neuroscientists likely can\u2019t figure out, on their own, if free will exists. But they can, Maoz says, parse how semantically distinct decision-making forces\u2014desires, urges, intentions, wishes, beliefs\u2014manifest in our brains and become actions. \u201cThat is something that we are making progress on,\u201d he says, \u201cand I think that that\u2019s going to help us understand what we do control.\u201d And perhaps also help us make peace with what we do not.\u00a0<\/p>\n Sarah Scoles is a freelance science journalist and author based in southern Colorado.<\/em>