We like to believe that we are the authors of our actions. We decide to move our hand, speak a sentence, make a purchase or change our direction in life. The decision feels like ours, and we experience ourselves as being in control.
But how do we know that we are actually initiating our actions? And could the brain sometimes begin preparing an action before we become consciously aware of deciding to perform it?
Neuroscience has conducted some fascinating experiments to investigate this question.
The brain moves before we know?
In the PBS NOVA documentary Your Brain: Who's in Control?, researcher Alice Wong demonstrates an experiment using a technique called Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS).
TMS uses magnetic pulses to stimulate specific regions of the brain. When directed at the motor cortex, it can produce involuntary movements, such as a finger twitch.
In the documentary, a volunteer is asked to move his finger voluntarily. Researchers record the electrical activity associated with the movement. They can detect signals indicating that the brain has initiated the movement before the finger actually moves.
The researchers then introduce magnetic stimulation in certain trials, influencing the movement. What makes the experiment particularly interesting is the volunteer's experience of agency.
Even when he intended to move his finger, he sometimes reported that the movement did not feel as though it had been initiated by him.
The experiment illustrates an important distinction: the physical initiation of an action and our subjective experience of being responsible for that action are not necessarily the same thing.
The sense of agency
Psychologists and neuroscientists call our experience of controlling our actions and their consequences the sense of agency.
Interestingly, this sense is not based only on our intention. The brain also processes feedback from the body and the environment to determine whether an action and its outcome belong together.
For example, when you reach out to pick up a glass, your brain anticipates the movement and its sensory consequences. When the expected movement and actual feedback correspond, this contributes to your experience of having controlled the action.
But when external stimulation or unexpected events interfere, that experience can change.
Research on the sense of agency, including work reviewed by neuroscientist Patrick Haggard, shows that our feeling of control involves both processes occurring before an action and the brain's interpretation of what happens afterwards.
Are we the karta?
This brings us to a profound question in Indian philosophy: Are we really the karta, the doer?
The Bhagavad Gita, in Chapter 3, Verse 27, states:
प्रकृतेः क्रियमाणानि गुणैः कर्माणि सर्वशः।
अहङ्कारविमूढात्मा कर्ताहमिति मन्यते॥All actions are performed by the qualities of Prakriti (nature), but one whose understanding is clouded by ego identifies with these actions and thinks, "I am the doer."
The verse invites us to examine our unquestioned identification with the role of the individual doer.
The philosophical enquiry is not simply whether we perform actions, but whether the ego-driven sense of being an entirely independent author of those actions is justified.
Neuroscience and Vedanta approach this question differently, but both provide reasons to examine our ordinary assumptions about agency and doership.
Does this mean free will does not exist?
Not necessarily.
Experiments involving the timing of brain activity and conscious intention have generated considerable debate. Benjamin Libet's pioneering experiments suggested that measurable brain activity associated with movement could precede a person's reported awareness of intending to move.
However, subsequent research has questioned how these experiments should be interpreted. A major review published in 2024 examined more than 2,200 publications on the neuroscience of volition and highlighted significant methodological and philosophical issues.
The evidence does not establish that conscious choice is an illusion or that human beings have no capacity to influence their behaviour.
Rather, it suggests that the relationship between unconscious brain processes, conscious intention and voluntary action is far more complex than we once assumed.
Perhaps freedom does not mean that every impulse originates in conscious awareness. It may also involve our capacity to examine, regulate and sometimes refrain from acting on those impulses.
A question to carry forward
If the brain not only initiates actions but also constructs our experience of being their author, how much of our understanding of ourselves is based on the stories we tell about our lives?
How does the mind create a coherent sense of identity from countless experiences, memories and decisions?
In Part 6: The Stories Our Mind Tells Us.
References and further reading
- NOVA/PBS, Your Brain: Who's in Control? — primary documentary inspiration.
- Dominik, T. et al. (2024). Libet's Legacy: A Primer to the Neuroscience of Volition. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 157, 105503. Read research review.
- Triggiani, A. I. et al. (2023). What Is the Intention to Move and When Does It Occur? Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 151, 105199. Read research review.
- Haggard, P. (2017). Sense of Agency in the Human Brain. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 18, 196–207. Read research review.
- Bhagavad Gita, 3.27.