The Observable Unknown
Episode: Interlude IV — The Observable Unknown in Agency and Free Will
Host: Dr. Juan Carlos Rey
Date: September 23, 2025
Episode Overview
This interlude episode plunges into the intricate relationship between agency, free will, and the brain’s hidden processes that underpin our sense of choice. Dr. Juan Carlos Rey blends neuroscience, philosophy, and quiet metaphysical wonder to scrutinize whether our experience of “willing” an action is genuine authorship or a sophisticated illusion crafted by complex, often subconscious, neural mechanisms. The episode avoids simplistic dichotomies, instead offering a layered, dynamic view of freedom and control—considering both solitary and social influences.
Key Discussion Points and Insights
1. The Architecture of Agency: The Comparator Model
[00:03]
- Concept Introduction:
Rey opens by questioning the traditional view of free will, suggesting that the feeling of authorship is not the act of a centralized “sovereign self” but “a carefully staged experience constructed across layers of the nervous system.” - Comparator Model Explained:
- When executing a movement (e.g., lifting your hand), the brain sends both a motor command and creates an "afference copy": a prediction of what should be sensed in return.
- Agency is a match:
“When sensation matches prediction, the system whispers, this was mine. When it doesn't, the whisper stutters. The act can feel foreign, even uncanny.”
(A, 00:01) - Model influenced by scientists Patrick Haggard and Chris Frith.
- Insight: Even the simplest gesture is “not given. It is inferred, validated, owned or not,” with ownership arising from neural comparison beneath conscious awareness.
2. Libet’s Experiment: The Pre-Conscious Origin of Action
[02:00]
- Background:
Cites Benjamin Libet’s 1980s research on the “readiness potential” — the neural activity preceding a conscious decision to act. - Paradox:
“At first pass, the verdict seemed grim. For free will, the brain starts it. Consciousness arrives late to sign the paperwork.”
(A, 02:20) - Libet’s “Veto” Power:
- Suggests that, even if consciousness doesn’t initiate action, it can “withhold, halt, reroute” — akin to an editor wielding a red pencil.
“So volition may be less a king on a throne, more an editor with a red pencil, not always writing the story, but very capable of crossing out a paragraph before it goes to print.”
(A, 02:40)
- Suggests that, even if consciousness doesn’t initiate action, it can “withhold, halt, reroute” — akin to an editor wielding a red pencil.
- Takeaway: Volition is more about last-minute control than authorship.
3. Wegner and the Illusion of Conscious Will
[03:00]
- Psychologist Daniel Wegner’s View:
Argues that our sense of will is narrative — constructed after the fact.“When intentions, predictions and outcomes align, we feel I did this. When they misalign...the felt authorship dissolves.”
(A, 03:15) - Everyday Mysteries:
Examples include hypnosis, Ouija boards, alien hand syndrome. - Key Quote:
“The feeling of will is not identical to causal control. It is a commentary track layered onto the film of our behavior, sometimes insightful, sometimes unreliable, yet absolutely real as experience.”
(A, 03:35)
4. Multi-layered Agency: Philosophers Gallagher and Metzinger
[04:00]
- Lower Floor: The “pre-reflective feeling of agency” — a seamless, wordless sense of acting.
- Upstairs: The “judgment of agency” — cognitive attribution, subject to context and culture.
“You might insist you acted freely when in fact you were coerced. You might believe you were compelled when the choice was in truth, yours all along.”
(A, 04:30) - Conclusion: Agency is layered, sometimes automatic, sometimes deliberative and interpretive.
5. Observation & Predictive Processing: Friston’s Model
[05:00]
- Observation as Active, Not Passive:
- “Attention is a moving spotlight... What the beam touches becomes the world. What it misses becomes silence.” (A, 05:15)
- Fosters “inattentional blindness”: not a flaw but evidence of selective processing.
- Friston’s Predictive Brain:
- The brain is “proactive,” perpetually forecasting sensory input and minimizing discrepancy.
- “Perception... is controlled hallucination, constrained by input. Action is prediction made real by moving the body to fulfill its own forecasts.” (A, 05:40)
- The “observable unknown” is the fertile gap between forecast and actual feedback — where learning, agency, and freedom play out.
6. Social Brain: Mirror Neurons & Intersubjective Agency
[06:30]
- Rizolati’s Mirror Neurons:
- Our brains simulate others’ actions, fostering motoric empathy.
- Porous Boundaries:
“Our sense of I act is never sealed. It is porous, co regulated, tuned by faces, voices and the choreography of the crowd.”
(A, 06:50)- Agency is “intersubjective”: we “borrow timing... confidence, borrow fear.”
- What others do becomes part of the predictive scaffolding of our own experience.
7. Synthesizing the Constellation — The Nature of Free Will
[07:30]
- Recaps contributions of Libet, Wegner, Haggard, Frith, Gallagher, Metzinger, Friston, and Rizolati.
“Free will is neither absolute independence nor clockwork determinism. It is a practice, a dynamic between initiation and inhibition, prediction and correction, solitude and the social field.”
(A, 08:10) - Suggests free will is a cultivated skill realized through model improvement, attentional discipline, widening context, and knowing when to exercise veto.
8. Practical Implications and Hopeful Outlook
[09:00]
- Core Messages:
“Free will is not absolute. Agency is not simple. Observation is never passive. All three are constructed, fragile and trainable. And there is grace in that, because what is constructed can be reconstructed with better habits, gentler self models, clearer feedback, and communities that co author our courage rather than our fear.”
(A, 09:10)- Freedom isn’t an “uncaused cause” but a “skilled dance, learned, rehearsed, refined.”
- Final Reflection:
“The unknown is observable sometimes in itself, if we're willing to look, and sometimes through the actions that have concealed... it through the agency of ourselves or the agency of others. Be well friends, and be gentle with yourselves.”
(A, 10:20)
Memorable Quotes
- On constructed agency:
“Even the simplest gesture is not given. It is inferred, validated, owned or not.”
(A, 00:45) - On the paradox of volition:
“Consciousness arrives late to sign the paperwork.”
(A, 02:20) - On will as story:
“The feeling of will is not identical to causal control. It is a commentary track layered onto the film of our behavior...”
(A, 03:35) - On agency as layered:
“Agency is layered. Sometimes it hums like a motor under the floorboards. Sometimes it stands in the doorway and perhaps pronounces a verdict.”
(A, 04:45) - On intersubjectivity:
“Our sense of I act is never sealed. It is porous, co regulated, tuned by faces, voices and the choreography of the crowd.”
(A, 06:50) - On hope and practice:
“What is constructed can be reconstructed with better habits, gentler self models, clearer feedback, and communities that co author our courage rather than our fear.”
(A, 09:15)
Key Timestamps
- 00:03–02:00: Introduction, the comparator model, bodily ownership
- 02:00–03:00: Libet’s readiness potential & the veto concept
- 03:00–04:00: Wegner & the illusion of conscious will
- 04:00–05:00: Multi-level agency (Gallagher & Metzinger)
- 05:00–06:30: Observation, attention, predictive processing (Friston)
- 06:30–07:30: Social agency, mirror neurons (Rizolati)
- 07:30–09:00: Synthesis — nuanced free will and agency
- 09:00–End: Practical wisdom, call to reflection, and gentle encouragement
Summary & Takeaway
Dr. Rey’s interlude masterfully reframes free will as a dynamic interplay of prediction, comparison, and social coordination — a skill both fragile and improvable, neither pure illusion nor total autonomy. The episode invites listeners to find agency not in absolute control but in reflection, practice, community, and the last reservoirs of choice. Its tone is analytical yet compassionate, offering both conceptual clarity and gentle inspiration for self-knowledge.