Episode 53 of the Brain Science Podcast is a discussion of Did My Neurons Make Me Do It?: Philosophical and Neurobiological Perspectives on Moral Responsibility and Free Will by Nancey Murphy and Warren S. Brown. This book challenges the widespread fear that neuroscience is revealing an explanation of the human mind that concludes that moral responsibility and free will are illusions created by our brains. Instead the authors argue that the problem is the assumption that a physicalist/materialistic model of the mind must also be reductionist (a viewpoint that all causes are bottom-up). In this podcast I discuss their arguments against causal reductionism and for a dynamic systems model. We also discuss why we need to avoid brain-body dualism and recognize that our mind is more than just what our brain does. The key to preserving our intuitive sense of our selves as free agents capable of reason, moral responsibility, and free will is that the dynamic systems approach allows top-down causation, without resorting to any supernatural causes or breaking any of the know laws of the physical universe. This is a complex topic, but I present a concise overview of the book’s key ideas.
Listen to Episode 53Episode Transcript (Download PDF)
Additional Show Notes
Books and Ideas #12 (“The Myth of Free Will”)
References:
- Alice Juarrero, Dynamics in Action: Intentional Behavior as a Complex System
- Terence Deacon, The Symbolic Species: The Co-Evolution of Language and the Brain
- Terrence Deacon, “Three Levels of Emergent PHenomena,” in Nancy Murphy and William R. Stoeger (eds.) Evolution, and Emergence: Systems, Organisms, Persons (OUP 2007) ch 4.
- Alwyn Scott, “The Development of Nonlinear Science”, Revista del Nuovo Cimento, 27/10-11 (2004) 1-115.
- Roger W. Sperry, “Psychology’s Mentalist Paradigm and the Religion/Science Tension,” American Psychologist, 43/8 (1988), 607-13.
- Donald T. Campbell, “‘Downward Causation’ in Hierarchically Organized Biological Systems.” in F. J. Ayala and T. Dobzhansky (eds.) Studies in the Philosophy of Biology 179-186.
- Steven Johnson, Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software
- Robert Van Gulick, “Who’s in Charge Here? And Whose Doing All the Work?”In Heil and Mele (eds.) Mental Causation, 233-56.
- George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and Its Challenge to Western Thought
- Ludwig Wiggenstein, Philosophical Investigations
Other Scientists Mentioned in the Episode:
- Antonio Damasio: Descartes’ Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain
- Arthur Glenberg: interviewed in Episode 36
- Rolf Pfeifer: interviewed in Episode 25
- Leslie Brothers, Friday’s Footprint: How Society Shapes the Human Mind
- Raymond Gibbs, Embodiment and Cognitive Science
- Andy Clark, Being There: Putting Brain, Body, and World Together Again
- Gerald M.Edelman and Guilo Tononi, A Universe of Consciousness: How Matter Becomes Imagination
Episode Transcript (Download PDF)
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{ 3 comments }
I enjoyed listening to the hour, but I must admit that your discussion, especially the discussion of ‘top-down causation’, left me unconvinced. Just by saying that ‘reductionism’ ignores emergent phenomena and environmental cues while dynamical-systems approaches to complex systems includes them merely suggests that the dynamical systems perspective does a better job of modelling the systems as they are, while the reductionist straw man you describe does a poor job indeed. That your/the authors’ limited model of ‘reductionism’ fails to account for the behavior of complex systems does not make these systems any less deterministic, nor imply that our perceived wishes or wills are any more or less likely to affect our physical or mental states. All it really says is that these systems are complex enough to defy understanding, and that simply ‘break-it-down’ reductionism doesn’t get the job done.
Also, I feel like the distinction you draw between reductionism and emergence/dynamical system is overstated. It’s not that complex systems are the “sum of their parts”, it’s just that how you “sum” the parts is just as important as the parts themselves.
Whether our intuition of free will is real or illusory is an issue I have yet to fully understand, and have not yet made up my mind. Even though I don’t agree with your conclusions, I’m open to the chance that I didn’t get your whole argument, and I appreciate your intelligent discussion.
Thanks for podcasting,
Tom Oliver
Tom,
Your criticisms are very valid, and certainly highlight the disadvantage of trying to summarize such a complex topic in an hour podcast.
In thinking about this issue as I have for many years, it seems these discussions often go astray due as much as anything, to semantics.
To my way of thinking, “Free Will” implies that our mind/brain possesses supernatural transcendent power. For otherwise, our thoughts, our Free Will, would have to be considered in some ways, dependent upon the contingent conditions of the physical brain itself, and the sensory input and prior experiences contained therein.
A further stumbling block encountered when I discuss this issue with people is that some fall into the false dichotomy of believing that our thoughts/will are either “free” or determined (i.e. predictable).
The entire debate suffers perhaps most notably by until now anyway, an inability to develop test which could support or falsify hypotheses. Well known studies have shown that certain experimentally constructed decisions have been made several seconds before such decisions reach consciousness. Some interpret this as evidence that decisions are therefore not under our control (i.e. Free Will does not exist). Though I am definitely on the No Free Will side of the debate, all such studies demonstrate is that certain decisions are made “unconsciously”. Thus, all that has been achieved is to move the debate is at least one step from the realm of consciousness into some other part of the either omniscient or dependent brain. It does not identify the point of origin or nature (independent or dependent) of the decision itself.
Proponents of either side of the debate could argue that these observations still are consistent with their views.
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