Flickers of Freedom

Free Will and Neuroscience in the New York Magazine

How the times have changed! There is an interesting piece over at New York Magazine entitled, "Neuroscience and Free Will Are Rethinking Their Divorce." It's not clear to me why the recent findings are taken to show that we have free will (rather than merely free won't). It's also not clear to me what these new findings add to the discussion above and beyond the important clarificatory conceptual work already done by Mele and others who have challenged the traditional interpretation of the Libet findings. But I am curious to see what the folks here at Flickers think!

Bruce Waller's Restorative Free Will: Back to the Biological Base

Here is a link to my review of Bruce Waller's new book--Restorative Free Will: Back to the Biological Base--over at NDPR. 

 

http://ndpr.nd.edu/news/63604-restorative-free-will-back-to-the-biological-base/

 

I thought I would share it here so others can comment if they like, either on the review itself or the book. Hopefully Bruce will have time to jump in and respond! I would like to say that Bruce is a good friend and the book is really worth reading (run out and get a copy today!). We generally agree about most things, especially when it comes to moral responsibility and the notion of just deserts, but we have had an ongoing friendly disagreement about free will preservationism vs. eliminativism for a while. The review, I think, frames our disagreement nicely. We usually get around to arguing about it after a few drinks, and only after first discussing the pernicious nature of the moral responsibility system. I look forward to our next encounter...but for now, at least we have Flickers! 

Welcome back!

Free will is back, y'all. 

The latest from SCIENCEY people: 

http://medicalxpress.com/news/2016-01-free-mechanisms-involved-decision-making.html

(Actually, a pretty cool if not-entirely-unexpected result.)

Enjoy!

Free Will and Cheating Revisited

The New York Times has been covering the recent attempt to replicate a number of well-known psychology studies.  See here for details (and here for the original report). Perhaps unsurprisingly, a number of findings failed to replicate (which is a general problem in social psychology that has been gathering steam during the past few years). One study that failed to be replicated that is especially relevant to the readers of this blog is the Vohs & Schooler (2008) piece that purported to show a connecting between disbelief and free will. Because the original paper has been cited more than any of the other studies that were part of the recent attempts to replicate, The New York Times just published a new piece on three of the more popular studies that didn't replicate (see here for details).  So much for my rival explanation of the original findings!

Superorganisms and Skepticism about Free Will

Over at Daily Nous and Practical Ethics, there are posts about this interesting piece by Peter Kramer and Paola Bressen entitled, "Humans as Superorganisms: How Microbes, Viruses, Imprinted Genes, and Other Selfish Entities Shape Our Behavior." Here is the abstract:

Psychologists and psychiatrists tend to be little aware that (a) microbes in our brains and guts are capable of altering our behavior; (b) viral DNA that was incorporated into our DNA millions of years ago is implicated in mental disorders; (c) many of us carry the cells of another human in our brains; and (d) under the regulation of viruslike elements, the paternally inherited and maternally inherited copies of some genes compete for domination in the offspring, on whom they have opposite physical and behavioral effects. This article provides a broad overview, aimed at a wide readership, of the consequences of our coexistence with these selfish entities. The overarching message is that we are not unitary individuals but superorganisms, built out of both human and nonhuman elements; it is their interaction that determines who we are.

Here is a table from the paper (also posted over at DN):

I have a longstanding interest in toxoplasma gondii (here is an old post of mine over at the Experimental Philosophy blog from all the way back in 2005!)--especially the controversial claim that the "manipulation hypothesis" purportedly applies to humans and not just other animals (see here and here). Needless to say, as a skeptic about free will and moral desert, I find the suggestion that we are not unitary agents but rather superorganisms intriguing when it comes to our agency and responsibility. From the manipulation question to the issue of whether we have a unified self, the data summarized by Kramer and Bressen seem relevant to the issues we explore here on this blog.  

It's no surprise that this issue has peeked the interest of scientists who are interested in free will.  For instance, here is a piece by Cristoff Koch in Scientific American entitled, "Protozoa Could Be Controlling Your Brain"--which begins with the following lead in/hook: 

THE ANCIENT DEBATE surrounding the existence of free will appears unresolvable, a metaphysical question that generates much heat yet little light. Common sense and volumes of psychological and neuroscientific research reveal, however, that we are less free than we think we are. Our genes, our upbringing and our environment influence our behaviors in ways that often escape conscious control. Understanding this influence, the advertisement industry spent approximately half a trillion dollars worldwide in 2010 to shape the buying decisions of consumers. And extreme dictatorships, such as that in North Korea, remain in power through the effective use of insidious and all-pervasive forms of propaganda. Yet nothing approaches the perfidy of the one-celled organism Toxoplasma gondii, one of the most widespread of all parasitic protozoa. It takes over the brain of its host and makes it do things, even actions that will cause it to die, in the service of this nasty hitchhiker. It sounds like a cheesy Hollywood horror flick, except that it is for real.

Another eminent scientist (and free will skeptic) has taken a similar line.  Here is an excerpt from an interview with Robert Sapolsky as Edge.org:

In the endless sort of struggle that neurobiologists have — in terms of free will, determinism — my feeling has always been that there's not a whole lot of free will out there, and if there is, it's in the least interesting places and getting more sparse all the time. But there's a whole new realm of neuroscience which I've been thinking about, which I'm starting to do research on, that throws in another element of things going on below the surface affecting our behavior. And it's got to do with this utterly bizarre world of parasites manipulating our behavior. It turns out that this is not all that surprising. There are all sorts of parasites out there that get into some organism, and what they need to do is parasitize the organism and increase the likelihood that they, the parasite, will be fruitful and multiply, and in some cases they can manipulate the behavior of the host.

As we learn more about "toxo" and other organisms that may influence our macro-behavior without our awareness, it is unsurprising that some might suggest we reevaluate the traditional way of viewing human thought, agency, and behavior. It is surprising, then, that there is no mention of toxoplasma gandii in all of the Philosopher's Index. While the aforementioned manipulation hypothesis was initially met with skepticism when applied to humans, the science has steadily pushed further towards that conclusion. Now this paper by Kramer and Bressen has compiled the findings on various other micro-organisms that (may) influence our behavior in ways that satisfy their interests while running counter to our own.

So, what say you, philosophers of action? What sense are we to make of the gathering data on microorganisms and macrobehavior? Can these findings be summarily dismissed? If so, why? If not, how should it affect what we say about agency and responsibility? If you hate headlines like "My brain made me do it," just think of how you'll respond to "My toxo made me do it"! For skeptics, this is just more grist for the mill. But for the rest of you? You may have some explaining (away) to do...

 

Neuroscience and Free Will Revisited

Free will makes the news once again.  This time the issue is raised over at the Genetic Literacy Project in a piece entitled, "Neuroscience of Free Will: Does Reaching for a Beer with a Robotic Arm Mean Free Will Doesn't Exist?" It's a surprisingly balanced piece, with quotes from our own Al Mele and some mysterious team from George [sic] State University. I can only assume it's Eddy Nahmias' doppelganger in a nearby world.

I am not sure why the fact that the drink is a beer is relevant, but I am suddenly finding myself strangely thirsty. Perhaps we're less free than we think after all (if such simple priming has me posting this and leaving shortly hereafter for the pub)! Or, perhaps weakness of will is real and some of us (for instance, me) do worse at avoiding it than others. Al's got a theory about that too.  But it ain't "lite"!

 

Bound by Shaun Nichols

Haven't seen it mentioned, apologies if I missed it: Shaun Nichols recently published an excellent new book that should be of great interest to everyone here: Bound: Essays on Free Will and Responsibility. Substantial portions of the material was published before, but Shaun brings everything together in a superb study, that has all the features one expects from Shaun's work: exhaustive knowledge of the relevant philosophical literature, deep probes into the results of an amazing range of psychological and experimental philosophy studies, and a thoughtful "counter-revolutionary" conclusion that is interesting and insightful and enlightening (even for those "revolutionaries" who are not quite convinced by it).

I don't know what this means

It probably doesn't mean much, but I thought folks here might be interested in these, which I made over at the Google Ngram Viewer.  Apologies about the wonky spacing. I couldn't figure out how to fix it. As a result, the diagrams are below the fold...

Mind Over Masters: The Question of Free Will

Here’s a link to a 90 minute panel discussion of free will at the World Science Festival on 5-30-15, featuring Christoph Koch, Tamar Kushnir, Azim Shariff, and our own Al Mele.  The sound goes out for a while near the beginning, but otherwise the discussion is free from technical glitches. So, go check it out!

p.s.  Per usual, Jerry Coyne has bashed JTF for helping to sponsor this event. But don't bother posting any critical comments on his blog, since he has a habit of not approving them--which is ironic given that he accuses JTF of distorting the facts, having an agenda, etc. At least JTF was interested in funding an open discussion about free will--something you won't find on Coyne's blog (which ends up being an echo chamber of sorts for his converts).  

 

Will the Real Compatibilist Please Stand Up

In the comment thread to my last post, I sensed some confusion regarding the compatibilist position on basic desert moral responsibility. Perhaps this confusion is warranted, since not all compatibilists are clear on what they are defending. Are they defending a backwards-looking form of moral responsibility (what I’m calling basic desert moral responsibility) or are they simply defending a forward-looking conception of moral responsibility? Are they defending a non-consequentialist, non-contractualist conception of MR or are they appealing to pragmatic, consequentialist, or contractualist justifications? Perhaps there is no single answer here (my guess is that there isn’t). Nonetheless, I thought it would be helpful to disambiguate a few possible varieties of compatibilism and see which, if any, represent the majority of compatibilists. This is probably a fool's errand but I think some clarity here would be helpful. I was also hoping that some of you would be willing to define your own positions using these distinctions, or at least offer up additional distinctions.