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Neuroscience Of Free Will
The neuroscience of free will, a part of neurophilosophy, is the study of topics related to free will (including Volition (psychology), volition and the sense of agency), using neuroscience and the analysis of how findings from such studies may impact the free will debate. As medical and scientific technology has advanced, neuroscientists have become able to study the human brain, brains of living humans, allowing them to observe the brain's decision-making processes and revealing insights into human Agency (philosophy), agency, moral responsibility, and consciousness. One of the pioneering studies in this field was conducted by Benjamin Libet and his colleagues in 1983 and has been the foundation of many studies in the years since. Other studies have attempted to predict the actions of participants before they happen, explore how we know we are responsible for voluntary movements as opposed to being moved by an external force, or how the role of consciousness in decision-making ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Brain Activity Before Voluntary Action
The brain is an organ that serves as the center of the nervous system in all vertebrate and most invertebrate animals. It consists of nervous tissue and is typically located in the head (cephalization), usually near organs for special senses such as vision, hearing, and olfaction. Being the most specialized organ, it is responsible for receiving information from the sensory nervous system, processing that information (thought, cognition, and intelligence) and the coordination of motor control (muscle activity and endocrine system). While invertebrate brains arise from paired segmental ganglia (each of which is only responsible for the respective body segment) of the ventral nerve cord, vertebrate brains develop axially from the midline dorsal nerve cord as a vesicular enlargement at the rostral end of the neural tube, with centralized control over all body segments. All vertebrate brains can be embryonically divided into three parts: the forebrain (prosencephalon, subdivided i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Determinism
Determinism is the Metaphysics, metaphysical view that all events within the universe (or multiverse) can occur only in one possible way. Deterministic theories throughout the history of philosophy have developed from diverse and sometimes overlapping motives and considerations. Like Eternalism (philosophy of time), eternalism, determinism focuses on particular events rather than the future as a concept. Determinism is often contrasted with free will, although some philosophers claim that the two are compatibilism, compatible. A more extreme antonym of determinism is indeterminism, or the view that events are not deterministically caused but rather occur due to random chance. Historically, debates about determinism have involved many philosophical positions and given rise to multiple varieties or interpretations of determinism. One topic of debate concerns the scope of determined systems. Some philosophers have maintained that the entire universe is a single determinate system ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
John-Dylan Haynes
John-Dylan Haynes (born 1971) is a British-German brain researcher. Haynes studied psychology and philosophy at the University of Bremen from 1992 to 1997. In 2003 he received his doctorate from the Institute of Biology in Bremen. After research stays in Magdeburg, Plymouth (Plymouth Institute of Neuroscience, 2002-2003) and London (Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience and Wellcome Department of Imaging Neuroscience, University College London, 2002-2005) he became head of a research group at the Max Planck Institute for Cognitive and Neurosciences in Leipzig in 2005. Since 2006 he has been professor of theory and analysis of long-range brain signals at the Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience and at the Berlin Center for Advanced Neuroimaging (BCAN) of the Charité and the Humboldt University of Berlin. In 2007 his research group was able to predict volitional decisions up to 12 seconds before they became conscious, thus improving the time bound of 0.5 seconds found ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Adina Roskies
Adina L. Roskies is an American philosopher. She became a Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Santa Barbara in January 2024; Previously she had taught at Dartmouth College beginning in 2004, serving as the Helman Family Distinguished Professor from 2017 to 202She is known for her works on neuroethics, neuroscience of free will and epiphenomenalism. Roskies was Senior Editor of the journal ''Neuron A neuron (American English), neurone (British English), or nerve cell, is an membrane potential#Cell excitability, excitable cell (biology), cell that fires electric signals called action potentials across a neural network (biology), neural net ...''. Books *''A Primer on Criminal Law and Neuroscience'', edited with Stephen J. Morse, Oxford University Press 2013 Awards * William James Prize, awarded by the Society of Philosophy and Psychology * Stanton Prize, awarded by the Society of Philosophy and Psychology References Awards * William James Prize, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Walter Jackson Freeman III
Walter Jackson Freeman III (January 30, 1927 – April 24, 2016), was an American biologist, theoretical neuroscientist and philosopher who conducted research in rabbits' olfactory perception, using EEG. Based on a theoretical framework of neurodynamics that draws upon insights from chaos theory, he speculated that the currency of brains is primarily meaning, and only secondarily information. In "Societies of Brains" and in other writings, Freeman rejected the view that the brain uses representations to enable knowledge and behavior. Biography Walter Freeman was born in Washington, DC. His father was Walter Jackson Freeman II; his great-grandfather was William Williams Keen. Freeman died at his home in Berkeley, California on April 24, 2016 from pulmonary fibrosis, aged 89. A special Theme Issue of the journal Nonlinear Dynamics in Psychology (N 21/4, 2017) was devoted to Freeman's work and theory. Contribution to science Freeman was a multi-disciplinary scientist, pr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Sam Harris (author)
Samuel Benjamin Harris (born April 9, 1967) is an American philosopher, neuroscientist, author, and podcast host. His work touches on a range of topics, including rationality, religion, ethics, free will, determinism, neuroscience, meditation, psychedelics, philosophy of mind, politics, terrorism, and artificial intelligence. Harris came to prominence for his criticism of religion, and he is known as one of the "Four Horsemen" of New Atheism, along with Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and Daniel Dennett. Harris's first book, '' The End of Faith'' (2004), won the PEN/Martha Albrand Award for First Nonfiction and remained on ''The New York Times'' Best Seller list for 33 weeks. Harris has since written six additional books: ''Letter to a Christian Nation'' in 2006, '' The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values'' in 2010, the long-form essay ''Lying'' in 2011, the short book ''Free Will'' in 2012, '' Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion'' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Introspection Illusion
The introspection illusion is a cognitive bias in which people wrongly think they have direct insight into the origins of their mental states, while treating others' introspections as unreliable. The illusion has been examined in psychological experiments, and suggested as a basis for biases in how people compare themselves to others. These experiments have been interpreted as suggesting that, rather than offering direct access to the processes underlying mental states, introspection is a process of construction and inference, much as people indirectly infer others' mental states from their behaviour. When people mistake unreliable introspection for genuine self-knowledge, the result can be an illusion of superiority over other people, for example when each person thinks they are less biased and less conformist than the rest of the group. Even when experimental subjects are provided with reports of other subjects' introspections, in as detailed a form as possible, they still rat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Brain Damage
Brain injury (BI) is the destruction or degeneration of brain cells. Brain injuries occur due to a wide range of internal and external factors. In general, brain damage refers to significant, undiscriminating trauma-induced damage. A common category with the greatest number of injuries is traumatic brain injury (TBI) following physical trauma or head injury from an outside source, and the term acquired brain injury (ABI) is used in appropriate circles to differentiate brain injuries occurring after birth from injury, from a genetic disorder (GBI), or from a congenital disorder (CBI). Primary and secondary brain injuries identify the processes involved, while focal and diffuse brain injury describe the severity and localization. Impaired function of affected areas can be compensated through neuroplasticity by forming new neural connections. Signs and symptoms Symptoms of brain injuries vary based on the severity of the injury or how much of the brain is affected. The fou ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Neurostimulation
Neurostimulation is the purposeful modulation of the nervous system's activity using invasive (e.g. microelectrodes) or Non-invasive procedure, non-invasive means (e.g. transcranial magnetic stimulation, transcranial electric stimulation such as transcranial direct-current stimulation, tDCS or transcranial alternating current stimulation, tACS). Neurostimulation usually refers to the electromagnetic approaches to Neuromodulation (medicine), neuromodulation. Neurostimulation technology can improve the life quality of those who are severely paralyzed or have profound losses to various sense organs, as well as for permanent reduction of severe, chronic pain which would otherwise require constant (around-the-clock), high-dose opioid therapy (such as neuropathic pain and spinal-cord injury). It serves as the key part of neural prosthetics for hearing aids, artificial vision, artificial limbs, and brain-machine interfaces. In the case of neural stimulation, mostly an electrical stimulat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Correlation Does Not Imply Causation
The phrase "correlation does not imply causation" refers to the inability to legitimately deduce a cause-and-effect relationship between two events or variables solely on the basis of an observed association or correlation between them. The idea that "correlation implies causation" is an example of a questionable-cause logical fallacy, in which two events occurring together are taken to have established a cause-and-effect relationship. This fallacy is also known by the Latin phrase ''cum hoc ergo propter hoc'' ('with this, therefore because of this'). This differs from the fallacy known as '' post hoc ergo propter hoc'' ("after this, therefore because of this"), in which an event following another is seen as a necessary consequence of the former event, and from conflation, the errant merging of two events, ideas, databases, etc., into one. As with any logical fallacy, identifying that the reasoning behind an argument is flawed does not necessarily imply that the resulting c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Single-unit Recording
In neuroscience, single-unit recordings (also, single-neuron recordings) provide a method of measuring the electro-physiological responses of a single neuron using a microelectrode system. When a neuron generates an action potential, the signal propagates down the neuron as a current which flows in and out of the cell through excitable membrane regions in the soma and axon. A microelectrode is inserted into the brain, where it can record the rate of change in voltage with respect to time. These microelectrodes must be fine-tipped, impedance matching; they are primarily glass micro-pipettes, metal microelectrodes made of platinum, tungsten, iridium or even iridium oxide. Microelectrodes can be carefully placed close to the cell membrane, allowing the ability to record extracellularly. Single-unit recordings are widely used in cognitive science, where it permits the analysis of human cognition and cortical mapping. This information can then be applied to brain–machine interfa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
