Evidence item · v0.74
Libet-style readiness potentials revisited
E-LIBET-REVISITED
Visual overview: Libet readiness potentials visual overview
Classification
- Evidence ID
- E-LIBET-REVISITED
- Corpus/version
- v0.74
- Stage
- stage2
- Category
- Consciousness & Mind
- Major category
- Science
- Sub-category
- Cognitive Neuroscience
- BF status
- ready
- Scoring label
- Scored row with active Bayes factors
Navigation
Primary Datum
Datum: readiness-potential experiments show preconscious neural activity before some decisions, but do not simply disprove agency.
Scoring / Hypothesis Pressure
| Hypothesis | log10BF | Min | Max | Rationale |
|---|---|---|---|---|
H-EMERGENTISM | 0.02 | -0.02 | 0.06 | Emergent agency models can incorporate neural precursors and higher-level control without treating decisions as magic interruptions. |
H-GOD | 0 | -0.04 | 0.04 | Theistic views can allow ordinary neural mechanisms for action; Libet-style findings do not directly bear on God. |
H-IDEALISM | 0 | -0.04 | 0.04 | Mind-first accounts can also include structured decision dynamics; the differential evidence is near neutral. |
H-NATURALISM | 0.03 | -0.01 | 0.07 | Readiness-potential and accumulator models modestly support naturalized accounts of action initiation, while later reinterpretations limit the force. |
H-PHYSICALISM-REDUCTIVE | 0.02 | -0.02 | 0.06 | Neural precursors are congenial to reductive physicalism, but do not settle agency, deliberation, or responsibility. |
Dependency / Cap Metadata
- dependency_cluster_id
- consciousness_mind
- dependency_cluster_role
- sibling_support
- dependency_cluster
- consciousness_mind
- dependency_role
- sibling_support
- cap_profile
- moderate_semi_independent
- evidence_function
- context_child
- directness
- supporting
Counter-Pressure
- title
- Brain explanations are real; reduction is the extra claim.
- text
- Libet-style readiness potentials revisited may give naturalism real local pressure by showing how much mind depends on brain. The Christian answer should welcome that. But dependence is not identity, and correlation is not a full account of first-person life, truth, moral responsibility, and love.
- path
- Let neuroscience explain the machinery. Then ask whether the machinery explains the person. A Christian can say humans are embodied souls or ensouled bodies without pretending thought floats free from the brain. The hard question is whether matter alone can carry meaning.
Apologetic Note
- label
- Apologetic leverage
- title
- People are harder to explain than brain scans are to describe.
- key point
- Libet-style readiness potentials revisited matters because neuroscience can describe brain activity without fully explaining what it is like to be a person who knows truth, loves, chooses, feels guilt, prays, and asks what life means.
- conversation move
- Welcome the science. Then use a simple distinction: explaining the instrument is not the same as explaining the music. Brain processes matter, but the person doing the thinking is still the deeper mystery.
- caveat
- Do not deny the brain. Christianity says persons are embodied. The point is that persons look like more than chemistry talking to itself.
Caveats / Notes
- Source note
- Keep Libet-style evidence narrow: readiness potentials modestly support naturalized action-initiation models for simple movements, not global disproof of agency, moral responsibility, or personhood.
- Cap notes
- This row belongs to the consciousness and mind family. Its force should remain inspectable while overlap with sibling mind/reason rows is governed in cap diagnostics.
- Cap profile note
- Semi-independent convergence rows are capped, but not treated as exact duplicates.
- Scoring note
- Modernized from legacy Stage-1 refs. Modest functional agency/neuroscience support only.
Citations
- Schurger, A. et al. (2012). An accumulator model for spontaneous neural activity.
- Maoz, U. et al. (2019). Neural precursors of decisions...
Recommended Citation
The Signal Evidence Dataset, "Libet-style readiness potentials revisited," Evidence ID: E-LIBET-REVISITED, Version 0.74. Accessed [access date]. https://logos-signal.org/evidence/E-LIBET-REVISITED/
Machine-Readable Source
This page is generated from the public evidence mirror without recalculating or changing scores.