I have always been a firm believer that everyone has free will, and that they can choose what they would like on their own accord. Marcus de Sautoy has led me to question this. He underwent a fMRI in a BBC video called "The Secret You" which showed him that they were able to predict his actions up to 6 seconds before he did them. To me, this seems to derail the idea of freewill. If someone else can tell him what he was going to do before he knew (consciously) what he was going to do himself, what could this lead to?
I wonder if someday they will be able to predict things more complex than pushing buttons, and further ahead of time. What do you think? Also, what are the implications of being able to tell someones actions before they even occur? When it comes to being able to predict a button that will be pushed based on brain activity prior to the push of the button (activity image is shown below), it doesn't seem as eerie, but knowing this could someday lead to something more is a scary thought in my opinion. If our minds our made before we even "know" they are, does this mean we don't have free will, but rather a mass of neurons and connections decides what we are going to do for us?
This Oxford Mathematician, Marcus, has really made me think if every action we do is already decided by our brain before we do it, why, then am I so indecisive? I can never pick what to by at the store, what to order on a menu, or what to have for a meal. Regardless, the technology we have today is amazing, and its hard to "determine" what technology we may have in the future, and what more we can find out about consciousness and decision making!
I think that one day with further technology, people will be able to know what someone will decide with something such as where to eat, since these processes do happen before we realize what answer we want to give. I am a very indecisive person too but I feel like when it comes down to it, we all have an answer in mind, it's just a matter of if we realize it. For instance, picking where you want to eat, if someone asks you "Do you want to eat at Noodle's or Chipotle?" and you respond with "I don't care" and then they choose Noodle's. You can either be okay with it or, as many times I do, say "Actually can we go to Chipotle?". It takes you a little time to realize what you really want deep down and in my opinion I feel like your brain recognizes this but you as a whole do not. I am also very excited to see what technology the future has in store for us!