[Vision2020] Neuroscientist Michael Gazzaniga: "Who's in Charge?: Free Will and the Science of the Brain."

Mon Jan 9 12:59:06 PST 2012

Did you post that of your own free will, or was it your nature and environment that made you do it? 

Donovan Arnold

________________________________
 From: Joe Campbell <philosopher.joe at gmail.com>
To: "Gier, Nicholas" <NGIER at uidaho.edu> 
Cc: Moscow Vision 2020 <vision2020 at moscow.com> 
Sent: Monday, January 9, 2012 12:56 PM
Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Neuroscientist Michael Gazzaniga: "Who's in Charge?: Free Will and the Science of the Brain."

Thanks Nick!

On Jan 9, 2012, at 9:07 AM, "Gier, Nicholas" <NGIER at uidaho.edu> wrote:

RE: [Vision2020]<span id="misspell-4" class="mark">Neuroscientist</span> Michael <span id="misspell-5" class="mark">Gazzaniga</span>: "Who's in Charge?: Free Will and the Science of the Brain." 
>Dear Ted and Joe,
>
>I just want to say that I appreciate these postings on free-will, and I especially value the contributions of Philosopher Joe.  In a society where far too many diss expertise in all areas, it is refreshing to read such an excellent analysis on the issue.  It is also readable, which is not always the case for our top analytic philosophers.
>
>Hope your test goes well, Joe.
>
>Nick
>
>A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.
>
>-Greek proverb
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: vision2020-bounces at moscow.com on behalf of Joe Campbell
>Sent: Mon 1/9/2012 7:37 AM
>To: Ted Moffett
>Cc: Moscow Vision 2020
>Subject: Re: [Vision2020]Neuroscientist Michael Gazzaniga: "Who's in Charge?: Free Will and the Science of the Brain."
>
>Interesting stuff Ted. Thanks. Let me process this and get back to you. I
>have an angiogram scheduled in Spokane tomorrow, so it might not be soon.
>
>It is important to distinguish between the empirical facts (the science)
>and the modal arguments (the philosophical logic, which is my area). "If
>you have no control over A, and B is caused by A, then you have no control
>over B" is a spurious argument. If all of our actions need to be the
>product over things we control, then it isn't just we humans that lack
>control. No creature could possibly have control. For how can anything be
>the cause of itself? But in the passages below you note that what the
>science shows is that some of us humans have more control than others. If
>you put it all together, this view is problematic. This is precisely the
>kind of stuff philosophers can help sort out. In fact, that is what I
>attempt to do in my research.
>
>More to come. Wish me well! Best, Joe
>
>On Sun, Jan 8, 2012 at 9:09 PM, Ted Moffett <starbliss at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Thanks for this extensive response.  Way beyond the call of duty for
>> Vision2020, I think.
>>
>> I thought you might be familiar with Gazzaniga's work, and if he added
>> anything new to the "free will" discussion with his new book on this
>> issue, published Nov. 2011.  But you stated if I understand correctly
>> you are not familiar with his work.
>>
>> An hour interview with Gazzaniga regarding the new book in question is
>> viewable here:
>>
>> http://www.booktv.org/Program/13035/After+Words+Michael+Gazzaniga+Whos+in+Charge+Free+Will+and+the+Science+of+the+Brain+hosted+by+Sally+Satel.aspx
>>
>> I think it probable that neuroscience will make substantial
>> discoveries, and if I understand correctly you would not disagree,
>> that will more clearly define who does or does not have reduced powers
>> or capacities, assuming your compatibilist view that "free will is a
>> set of active powers and cognitive capacities and that these powers
>> and capacities are consistent with a fully determined world."
>>
>> We already recognize a variety of mental (brain?) conditions (bipolar
>> disorder, schizophrenia, multiple personality disorder) to mitigate
>> guilt or full responsibility for misconduct.  People criminally guilty
>> of some crimes today may in the future due to neuroscience
>> advancements be found to have committed crimes while they were
>> suffering scientifically verifiable neurologically based impairments.
>>
>> Indeed, in the interview referenced above Gazzaniga is quoted
>> regarding "neuroscience oozing into the courtroom," but he cautioned
>> that some of this neuroscience is not ready for this application,
>> though it is likely that eventually some of it will be, or at least
>> claimed to be.  In the interview mention of reliable lie detection
>> with further advancements in neuroscience is discussed, a possibility
>> that if scientifically validated would be a major and alarming,
>> perhaps, breakthrough.
>>
>> Also, Gazzaniga presents studies indicating very young children
>> already have forms of moral reasoning manifesting in their behavior,
>> that in some sense is programmed into the brain (my wording). He
>> emphatically implied that the tabula rasa approach to the human brain
>> is false (my wording again).
>>
>> If stating "my neurons are in control" is not a threat to your view of
>> free will, then with advancements in neuroscience eventually a brain
>> state of "free will" may be empirically defined with replicatable peer
>> reviewed experimental studies that offers the capacity to
>> scientifically detect if such a state is or is not present in the
>> brain.  Of course a problem applying this evidence to the commission
>> of crimes is that the actual state of brain when a crime was committed
>> is not likely to be available as evidence in a courtroom.  Someone may
>> at a later time display a brain state indicating free will is present,
>> but when the crime was committed their brain might have displayed an
>> absense of this capacity.  This problem was mentioned in the C-Span2
>> BookTV interview with Gazzaniga.  This already is a problem in trials
>> where there is a claim of mental impairment when a crime was
>> committted, though the accused appears "sane" later.
>>
>> I wonder if "Will" is dependent on genetic factors, with some
>> possessing a strong will and others not, just as physical capacities
>> vary considerably based on genetics.  Actually, it seems plausible
>> this is the case.
>>
>> I once told someone that the fact in my late 30s I ran Bloomsday at a
>> 5:58 minute per mile average for the 7.46 mi. 12 K. race (29th out of
>> 2900 in my age group) was nothing I should accept praise for.  My
>> genetics allowed me to do this, something I had no control over.  Many
>> others no doubt worked as hard or harder than I did, yet their
>> genetics limited their capacity, while truly world class runners ran
>> at a sub-5 minute per mile pace, only possible for the extremely
>> genetically blessed, thus literally impossible for me to match.  If
>> only I was that blessed!
>>
>> If some individuals simply are weak willed, due to genetics, thus
>> having much less control over their impulses, while some are
>> genetically blessed with a strong will, and thus more capacity for
>> virtue, this is a questionable basis for blame or praise, it seems to
>> me.
>>
>> Regarding environmental influences on behavior, many of which are not
>> under our control, especially while children, the following song at
>> least emotionally captures a more compassionate rather than
>> judgemental view of the failures of the human condition:
>> Joan Baez singing Phil Och's "There But For Fortune:"
>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4BYOJ1tc-k
>> ---------------------------
>> The following book review from the "Wall Street Journal" on
>> Gazzaniga's "Who's in Charge?" discusses a kind of biological
>> reductionism, that is a basis to argue against some definitions of
>> free will, and objections to this view.  I'm not sure the author of
>> this review quite correctly understands Gazzaniga's position on these
>> issues, but he presents some amazing theories, and states:
>> ---One of the founding fathers of cognitive psychology, Jerry Fodor,
>> has argued that to solve the puzzle of conscious experience "there's
>> hardly anything we may not have to cut loose from."---
>>
>> Exactly.
>>
>>
>> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204618704576642991109496396.html
>>
>> NOVEMBER 12, 2011
>>
>> Rethinking Thinking
>>
>> How a lumpy bunch of tissue lets us plan, perceive, calculate,
>> reflect, imagine-and exercise free will.
>>
>> By RAYMOND TALLIS
>>
>> The world of academe is currently in the grip of a strange and
>> worrying epidemic of biologism, which has also captured the popular
>> imagination. Scientists, philosophers and quite a few toilers in the
>> humanities believe-and would have the rest of us believe-that nothing
>> fundamental separates humanity from animality.
>>
>> Biologism has two cardinal manifestations. One is the claim that the
>> mind is the brain, or the activity of the brain, so that one of the
>> most powerful ways to advance our understanding of ourselves is to
>> look at our brains in action, using the latest scanning devices. The
>> other is the claim that Darwinism explains not only how the organism
>> Homo sapiens came into being (as, of course, it does) but also what
>> motivates people and shapes their day-to-day behavior.
>>
>> These beliefs are closely connected. If the brain is an evolved organ,
>> shaped by natural selection to ensure evolutionary success (as it most
>> surely is), and if the mind is the brain and nothing more, then the
>> mind and all those things we are minded to do can be explained by the
>> evolutionary imperative. The mind is a cluster of apps or modules
>> securing the replication of the genes that are expressed in our
>> bodies.
>>
>> Many in the humanities have embraced these views with astonishing
>> fervor. New disciplines, prefixed by "neuro" or "evolutionary" or even
>> "neuro-evolutionary," have been invented. "Neuro-aesthetics" explains
>> aesthetic pleasure in terms of activity in certain parts of the brain
>> observed when people are enjoying works of art. A propensity for
>> aesthetic brain-tingles, implanted in us by evolution, causes us to
>> tingle to the right kinds of things, such as pictures of landscapes
>> loaded with food.
>>
>> "Neuro-economics" can explain why we buy things we don't need or can't
>> afford, by identifying ancestral imbalances between the want-it center
>> in the amygdala, deep in the cerebral hemispheres, and the
>> wait-until-you-can-afford-it center in the prudent frontal lobes.
>> Those toxic subprime mortgages, it appears, were in fact "neurotoxic."
>> Conspicuous consumption and our trillion-dollar debts are due to a
>> desire to advertise our genetic health, analogous to a peacock
>> virtually crippled by its meretricious tail.
>>
>> A brain in good working order is, of course, a necessary condition of
>> every aspect of human consciousness, from basic perception to the most
>> complex constructed sense of self. It does not follow that this is the
>> whole story of our nature-that we are just brains in some kind of
>> working order. Many aspects of everyday human consciousness elude
>> neural reduction. For we belong to a boundless, infinitely elaborated
>> community of minds that has been forged out of a trillion cognitive
>> handshakes over hundreds of thousands of years. This community is the
>> theater of our daily existence. It separates life in the jungle from
>> life in the office, and because it is a community of minds, it cannot
>> be inspected by looking at the activity of the solitary brain.
>>
>> Biologism commands acceptance in the humanities because it is promoted
>> or endorsed by scientists whose prowess in their chosen field seems to
>> qualify them to pronounce on what are essentially philosophical
>> questions. Thus it is notable when two books written by
>> neuro-biologists of the greatest distinction are nonetheless critical
>> of the simplifications-both scientific and philosophical-of biologism.
>> Both authors look outside the conceptual frameworks upon which
>> biologism depends.
>>
>> "Incomplete Nature: How Mind Emerged From Matter" by Terrence Deacon,
>> a professor of neuroscience and anthropology at the University of
>> California, Berkeley, does not deliver on its subtitle, but the author
>> acknowledges the depth and complexity of the problem. This mighty work
>> of scholarship is long, slow-moving and peppered with neologisms, but
>> it is infinitely preferable to the flashy tomes of the Professors of
>> Legerdemain who assure us that the mind could emerge from matter in
>> the brain "just like that" simply because "the brain is the most
>> complex object in the world."
>>
>> Along the way, Mr. Deacon demolishes fashionable computational
>> theories of the brain.  Anyone in the future who is tempted to assert
>> that "the mind is the software of the brain" should reflect on Mr.
>> Deacon's observation that the apparent agency of a computer "is just
>> the displaced agency of some human designer." The use of simplistic
>> analogies to make the mind look machine-like and machines mind-like
>> and thereby solve the mind-brain problem should never again pass
>> unchallenged.
>>
>> In his approach to the question of how sentience emerged from "dumb"
>> and "numb" matter, Mr. Deacon mobilizes some radically new ideas,
>> taking us back to thermodynamics to show how it might have happened.
>> His key argument, developed over several hundred pages, centers on
>> what he calls a "teleo-dynamic" system-a self-organizing system that
>> "promotes its own persistence and maintenance" by modifying itself "to
>> more effectively utilize supportive extrinsic conditions." He suggests
>> how such a system might spontaneously arise out of thermodynamic
>> processes, as predicted by chaos theory.
>>
>> Living organisms are such self-organizing teleodynamic systems, and
>> they have a key property. He calls this the absential. An absential is
>> a phenomenon "whose existence is determined with respect to an . . .
>> absence." This sounds somewhat opaque but captures something essential
>> to mind. In the
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