Finale (10/10) of the brain ideas countdown. The topic: some of the most interesting ideas that brain researchers are pursuing today.
Brain idea 1: Free will is NOT an illusion
Many brain researchers adopt the stance that our free will is likely to be a fiction that our brain tells us. The gist is that we live in a deterministic universe and everything is playing out as a predetermined program that shapes our genes and our environment, and this in turn determines the decisions that we make. One example was Francis Crick, who proposed the Astonishing Hypothesis: "You, your joys and sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules."
In parallel, some researchers have argued that Free Will does in fact exist, as a consequence of indeterminacy in the universe, e.g. at the quantum level. Those ideas have been regarded as a bit fringe. More recently, some of the clearest and most respected thinkers in the field, such as @WiringtheBrain, are elaborating on those ideas with new insights about emergence and top down causality from complex dynamical systems. So perhaps soon the idea that free will is not an illusion won't be so fringe after all?
The friendly version:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/innate/201811/how-free-is-our-will
The deeper dive:
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tins.2018.05.008
Also: be on the lookout for a book in 10/23.
(For days 1-9 & a call to add your own ideas to the list, click here: #BrainIdeasCountdown)
@NicoleCRust @WiringtheBrain I love this idea, but doesn’t it depend on the assumption that indeterminacy is a real phenomenon and not a reflection of the limits of our current methods of understanding the world?
@tdverstynen @WiringtheBrain @NicoleCRust indeterminacy does not rescue free will. The folk notion of free will (that our choices are “uncaused causes”) is incompatible with materialism whether or not the the universe follows the Copenhagen view or superdeterminism. But we can consider a compatiblist notion of free will. Like, it is clear that for some events (like me writing this toot) the most proximal cause of the event is the properties of an organism: I.e. me. I would add a bunch of links… but I’m on my phone and it would be a bunch of work. :)
@tdverstynen @NicoleCRust @jerlich @WiringtheBrain I have a book about that issue
https://cup.columbia.edu/book/mental-causation/9780231144179
@Adardis @tdverstynen @jerlich @WiringtheBrain
Excellent. Thank you!
@WiringtheBrain this is what I mean by uncaused causes.
@jerlich @tdverstynen @WiringtheBrain
Jeff: I just emailed you the @TrendsNeuro piece, which offers up a nice and more elaborate summary.
If anyone else wants it and can't get through the paywall, DM your email to me or @WiringtheBrain
@NicoleCRust @jerlich @tdverstynen @WiringtheBrain
Thank you for bringing this existential subject ! I will probably have a better grasp on the arguments advocating for free will once I get back to the lab to get access to the paper, but I can already try to add some elements of discussion.
First, I'd like to point out that revealing the indeterminacy of our universe is a necessary but not a sufficient case for claiming the existence of free will.
Also, that pointing out a lack of arguments against (parts of what constitutes) free will cannot be a proof of its existence. Indeed, free will is often considered real until proven otherwise (because we "feel" like it does exist) while it would be more parsimonious to go the other way around, just as we do for non-human animals.
But as it has been pointed out, defining free will would be a first (although clearly not the easiest !) critical step :)
@jerlich @tdverstynen @NicoleCRust I don't think the folk notion of free will is one of "uncaused causes". It's one of macroscopic causes - specifically of the individual person being the cause of things (a causal agent). That can't be the case if determinism at the lowest levels is true because all the causation would be exhausted down there!