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Neuroscientist Uri Maoz’s experiments are changing how we think about the brain’s decisions
We’ve all had that moment. You make a choice, what to eat, whether to speak up, which path to take, and later wonder: Was that really me deciding… or just my brain running on autopilot?
Philosophers have debated free will for centuries. In the 1980s, a famous neuroscience experiment seemed to settle it: free will is an illusion. Your brain decides first. You only become aware of the decision later.
But neuroscientist Uri Maoz isn’t so sure. His experiments suggest the story is more interesting and more hopeful than that.
The Experiment That Started It All
In the early 1980s, Benjamin Libet asked people to sit and flex their wrist whenever they felt like it. While they watched a spinning clock, they had to note the exact moment they first felt the urge to move.
The results shocked everyone.
A brain signal called the readiness potential started building about half a second before people said they decided to move. Later studies pushed that window even further, sometimes several seconds.
The popular conclusion? Your brain has already made the choice before “you” know it. Consciousness is just the last one to get the memo.
Maoz Asked a Better Question
Uri Maoz noticed something important: almost all these experiments studied arbitrary decisions. Raise your left hand or right hand. Press this button or that one. No reason. No consequences. No stakes.
But real life doesn’t work that way.
The decisions that actually matter, who to love, whether to help someone, how to spend your money or your time, are deliberate. They involve reasons, values, and real outcomes.
So Maoz designed experiments that forced people to make choices that counted.
The $1,000 Decision
In one of his key studies, participants faced a real decision: which of two nonprofits would receive a full $1,000 donation.
In other trials, they simply pressed a button at random to split the money. Same physical action. Completely different meaning.
When people made the random choice, the classic readiness potential showed up, just like in Libet’s experiment.
When they made the meaningful donation choice? The readiness potential disappeared.
No early brain signal. No evidence that the decision had been made before they were aware of it.
What Does This Mean?
Maoz’s work suggests the readiness potential might not be the brain “deciding” at all. It may simply be the brain accumulating random noise until it tips into action, which only happens when there’s no strong reason to prefer one option over another.
When a decision actually matters, different brain processes take over. Reasons and evidence drive the choice instead of noise.
In other words: the experiments that seemed to kill free will may only apply to meaningless choices. They don’t necessarily apply to the ones that shape our lives.
So… Do We Have Free Will?
Maoz is careful not to overclaim. Neuroscience hasn’t “proved” free will exists. The big philosophical questions remain open.
But his research does something important: it weakens the strong claim that science has already shown free will is an illusion.
Not all decisions are the same in the brain. Spontaneous, low stakes actions may work differently from deliberate, high stakes ones. And that difference matters, for how we think about responsibility, identity, and what it means to choose.
The Takeaway
Your brain is constantly influencing you in ways you don’t notice. That part is true.
But when the decision carries weight, when reasons, values, and consequences are on the line, the story may be more complicated than “the brain decided first.”
Uri Maoz’s experiments don’t give us a final answer. They do something better: they show that the question of free will is still very much alive.
And that, in itself, feels like a kind of freedom.