自由意志何以必要?——析里贝特的成功实验和自败解释

Why Is Free Will Necessary: An Analysis of Libet’s Self-defeating Interpretations of His Successful Experiments

里贝特在解释自己的实验结果时,忽视了自己事先给出的实验指令引起的受试者需要的决定性效应,只注意到了受试者大脑神经活动与自觉行为意愿在时间上的先后次序,结果得出了"自觉意志不会启动自愿行为"的自败结论。但从哲理角度深入分析会发现,他的实验不仅成功地揭示了自由意志的启动效应,而且表明了自由意志对于人生在世既是真实存在的,又是必不可少的,甚至还可以进一步启发我们探究人类意识的起源和构成问题。

When Benjamin Libet interpreted his experimental results,he ignored the decisive effects of the subjects’ needs caused by the experimental instructions given by him in advance,and only noticed the temporal order of their neurological activities in their brains and conscious intentions in their minds. That is why he concluded in a self-defeating way that"the role of conscious will would be not to initiate a specific voluntary act". However,it may be argued through an in-depth philosophical analysis that his experiments not only successfully reveal the initiating function of free will,but also show that free will is both real and indispensable for human life,and can even inspire us to further explore the origin and composition of consciousness.