A University of Pennsylvania research project has determined the neural basis for decision-making in monkeys and they believe the research will allow them to predict human behavior through brain scans, the New York Times reports.

The implications are immediate. If researchers can in theory predict what human beings will decide before they themselves know it, what is left of the notion of human freedom? How can we say that humans are free in any meaningful way if others can know what their decisions will be before they themselves make them?

Research of this sort can seem frightening. An experiment that demonstrated the illusory nature of human freedom would, in many people’s mind, rob the test subjects of something essential to their humanity.

Original Source: The New York Times
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