Questioning & Conviction
October 03, 2008
They’ve conducted experiments where they put people under hypnosis and tell them that when they get out of hypnosis, they’ll do something at a certain signal. And sure enough they come out of hypnosis and, at the signal, they do it—they climb a ladder, wave a hand, or whatever. When they’re asked, “Why did you do that?” they’ll give explanations. “I wanted to do X, I wanted to do Y.” The people running the experiments have claimed that this is proof that people have no free will, that our idea of free will is an illusion because the decision was made much earlier and under much different circumstances from what the people claimed.