Neuroscience: Capturing free will

Metaphysics ejournal

There is still a controversy if human volitions and actions are governed by causal laws or obeys free will. Neurosciences start to study the neural correlates of free will by investigating how brains make decisions. Here, some of questions about free will are discussed from the neurosciences point of view taking into consideration a neuroeconomic model of decision making. This model is used here with the purpose of providing very formal definitions of key concepts raised in any free will discussion such as goals, necessity, motivation, etc., and to provide a formal background for discussing decision making. One of the conclusions of this discussion is that free will is computable but unpredictable, therefore not submitted to causal laws. In addition, the electroencephalogram was recorded in an experiment about choice selection of alternative actions and it presented here as an example of how neurosciences may study the neural correlates of free will.

Marketing Letters, 2005

This article presents an introduction to and analysis of an emerging area of research, namely decision neuroscience, whose goal is to integrate research in neuroscience and behavioral decision making. The article includes an exposition of (1) how the exponential accumulation of knowledge in neuroscience can potentially enrich research on decision making, (2) the range of techniques in neuroscience that can be used to shed light on various decision making phenomena, (3) examples of potential research in this emerging area, and (4) some of the challenges readers need to be cognizant of while venturing into this new area of research.

Journal of Economic Psychology, 2010

Contributions to decision neuroscience Scanning methodologies such as functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI), electroencelography (EEG) and others have allowed neuroscientists to focus on brain activations during complex real life behaviours. Researchers have now moved beyond the clinical setting to study a wide range of basic processes in healthy subjects. This emerging discipline is broadly referred to as cognitive neuroscience. Within this field several groups have focussed on the study of decision-making, giving rise to the field of decision neuroscience. Decision neuroscience encompasses the behaviours of the individual in society in a wide range of decision-making contexts from economic decisions to health issues, communication and purchasing of goods; whether to purchase a product or not is a basic unit of economic and consumption behaviour. Decision neuroscience has thus initiated a multidisciplinary research agenda for economics, psychology and consumer behaviour. Within the nascent field of decision neuroscience several special interest groups have formed that focus for example on economic and public policy questions (referred to as neuroeconomics) or on marketing questions (referred to as consumer neuroscience).

Free Will and Luck, 2006

Freedom of decision, 2021

View or download the book at https://sites.google.com/view/freedom-of-decision The book helps the reader acquire knowledge to make right decisions, by reflecting on his previous mistakes and getting guidance to avoid them. It is motivated by the idea that, no matter how much experience we have, we know too little about the physiological and psychological causes that determine the success or failure of our decisions. The main objectives of the book are: (1) to provide knowledge on the structure and mental operations that ensure the correct functioning of the brain, from a biological and psychological point of view; on the way the brain can reshape itself over time reorienting the decisions; and also regarding the scientific arguments for a permanent and correct help needed for its maintenance; (2) to urge the reader to reflect on his status of decision maker, on the way he uses his free will and personality in making decisions; and to advise him to be open to introspection and personal transformation, to consciously optimize his decisions; (3) to provide an orientation in the process of making complex decisions, by the description, analysis and psychological explanation of each required step in this process. These objectives are centered on man, not on business, they focus on general human characteristics, but also on his particularities. There are many questions this book responds regarding the internal and external causes that influence the mental activities involved in a decision. It emphasizes the idea that not only reason influences our decisions, but also the personality, the educational, emotional, social and spiritual variables, as well as dynamic situations or environments, conflicting goals, consequences and long-term and uncertain results. The book has three educational goals because it teaches us: (1) to follow correctly all steps in making right decisions; (2) to permanently maintain healthy our brain, and use all the three parts of the brain we have (rational, emotional and spiritual) in making decisions; (3) to become aware of our decision biases and habits and to improve or remove them. In addition, the book helps us to understand the importance and manage correctly, during the decision making, our free will, our emotions, intuition, imagination and creativity; to self-analyze and improve our psyche that decisively impacts on our decisions; to be able to lead large teams and to make collective decisions; to plan and organize our complex decisions and to avoid the decision traps; to make moral and responsible decisions and to manage our indecisions and fears. The book points out the benefits in decision making of the brain positive modeling and the perils of its negative modeling and analyzes the positive and negative influences of the society and technology on the brain modeling. In addition, it advises the adults to avoid the mental inertia that causes the brain fast aging, with impact on their decisions.

2009

The article reflects the fact, that concepts like decision making and free will have entered the field of cognitive neuroscience towards the end of 20th century. It gives an overview of brain structures involved in decision making and the concept of free will; and presenting the results of clinical observations and new methods (functional neuroimaging, electrophysiology) it postulates possible mechanisms

DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals), 2015

In this paper, I will take into account and criticize two of the most celebrated neuroscientific experiments about free will, which seem to deny that agents freely deliberate about simple choices of their everyday life: the pioneering experiment of Benjamin Libet and the more recent one of John Dylan Hayes. My aim is to reject the relevance of their empirical results, which deny the existence of free will. However, such a rejection will not rely on criticisms about how the experiments are conducted. Instead, I would like to bring about a broad philosophical and methodological concern: namely, that the success or the failure of the experiments in arguing for the illusion of free will is strictly dependent on the meaning of the notion of free will which is put through an experimental investigation.

In recent years, scientists and science popularisers alike have seen profound consequences for our view of ourselves and the organisation of society in new findings about the functioning of the human brain. Prominent in the debate surrounding these claims is the question of free will, i.e. whether or not humans are able to choose and act freely in a certain fundamental sense thought required for our practice of holding ourselves free and responsible for our actions, both morally and legally. One common position, as taken by, e.g. Sam Harris (populariser) and Daniel Wegner (scientist), holds that free will of this kind is unsupportable in the face of empirical evidence – i.a. evidence from neuroscience about the way consciousness lags behind unconscious neural processes – and that we therefore need to revise our views and practices in light of these scientific facts. In this thesis, I argue that what might be termed the "revisionist" position is predicated not only on empirical evidence, but is essentially motivated by a belief in the fundamental incompatibility of free will with any reasonable (meta-) physics. In Part 1 I investigate the fundamental philosophical debate and find that the question of the possibility of free will is unresolved, thus challenging any simple appeal to the impossibility of free will such as that made by Harris in his short book on the subject, Free Will (2012). I also provide independent reason for upholding a broadly commonsense belief in free will by highlighting the sceptical nature of the challenge from determinism, which can be overcome with the help of P.F. Strawson’s "soft naturalism"-appeal to our self-justified reactive attitudes. In Part 2 I investigate the empirical evidence adduced as support for the revisionist position, focused through the well-developed argument presented by Wegner in his Illusion of Conscious Will (2002). Here I argue that the revisionist interpretation of the data loses out to a traditional interpretation that is realist about conscious causal efficacy when the former is divested of its untenable appeal to incompatibilism. I conclude that neuroscience has not settled the question of free will, and, furthermore, that the current state of the two debates – the theoretical and the empirical – supports a continued belief in free will of a kind that fits with our practice of generally believing ourselves free in our choices, and responsible for our actions.

2009

The article reflects the fact, that concepts like decision making and free will have entered the field of cognitive neuroscience towards the end of 20th century. It gives an overview of brain structures involved in decision making and the concept of free will; and presenting the results of clinical observations and new methods (functional neuroimaging, lectrophysiology) it postulates possible mechanisms of these processes. We give a review of the neuroanatomy, specially discussing those parts of the brain important to the present topic, because the process of decision making is dependent on deep subcortical as well as superficial cortical structures. Dopamine has a central role in the in process of reward related behaviour and hedonism. A list of brain structures, related to dopamine action, is also given. The article especially concentrates on the Single Photon Emission Computer Tomography studies in patients with Parkinson’s disease (neuroimaging), as well as to the studies concer...