Free will, agency and volition

Question 1

What is a problem with consciousness compared to unconscious mind?

Answer 1

Multiple experiences experienced by unconscious brain, only a fraction of that by conscious mind.

Consciousness is limited, most of our experiences, decisions and choices are subconscious. So very little of our processing mind our conscious self. We do not have access to a lot of things we know.

Question 2

Why do humans identify themselves as their conscious self?

Answer 2

Because we are only aware and understand the conscious information. The subconscious information is out of our control. Look up Benjamin Libet’s study.

Question 3

What events can be justified by our subconscious thinking?

Answer 3

Not being about to justify an action or explain/verbalise a feeling. Our subconscious mind can do that but not our conscious one.

Question 4

What causes Alien Hand syndrome?

Answer 4

Often due to damage to middle of the frontal lobe or corpus callosum.(often in epilepsy)

• cannot control what the limb is doing
• other limbs try to correct mistakes

Question 5

How do we know we have a mind?

Answer 5

• we can introspect and feel that we have one

- we are able to make decisions and think

Question 6

What is solipsism?

Answer 6

The belief that we have a mind ourselves?

Question 7

Where did they hirosticall believe the mind was?

Answer 7

In the heart

-the believed this as we associate the heart with emotions and decisions

Question 8

What is the modern scientific view of the mind?

Answer 8

An emergent property of the working brain

Question 9

What age does a child separate itself from surroundings and develops an individual identity to itself?

Answer 9

18 months to 2 years

Question 10

What are innate behavioural attributes of newborn babies?

Answer 10

• orientate towards anything that looks like it has 2 eyes
• sucking for milk so it doesn’t starve
• crying if needs attention or help

Question 11

What usually happens when those blind from work regain sight?

Answer 11

• want to go blind again

- they cant understand what they see as they have had no input or processing of what they see during the critical period

Question 12

What is the critical period of input and learning in humans?

Answer 12

0-12 years

Question 13

What do we mean when we say the voluntariness of an action is graded?

Answer 13

• feelings and intentions, goals and plans accompany actions
• actions can still be unwilled as long as individual can recognise that they are

Distinctions:

• do something and we feel it
• dont do something but we feel it
• no feeling of will, yet we do it anyway

Question 14

What is “will”?

Answer 14

• not only an experience but can be conceptualised as a force
• we have perception that we have free will which may influence our actions

Question 15

What is causality?

Answer 15

action that results should be consistent with the prior thought/action

Question 16

What is Hume?

Answer 16

causality is not a property of objects or things we cannot see

Question 17

What is human causal agency?

Answer 17

• helps us understand why someone performed an action
• understanding behaviour in terms of goals, beliefs, desires, plans and motion
• how humans explain things

Question 18

What are the 2 explanatory systems that humans have?

Answer 18

1. One for minds
2. One for everything else
   Neonates do not have anything innate to help them with causal ascriptions

Question 19

Real and Apparent Causation

Answer 19

The real causes of human behaviour are strongly overdetermined

• i.e. we would need to measure everything to explain who an individual completes one action versus another
• simpler to say “i did it because I wanted to” but this is insufficient

Question 20

What did Baruch Spinoza suggest?

Answer 20

“Men are mistaken in thinking themselves free; their opinion is made up of consciousness of their own actions, ignorance of the causes by which they are determined.“

-dont need to learn just get the gist of it

Question 21

Wegner and Wheatley 1999

Answer 21

-

Question 22

What did Wegner and Wheatley suggest in 1999

Answer 22

claimed that people experience conscious will when they can say their thoughts were the cause of their actions

Question 23

What is “free won’t”?

Answer 23

The ability to veto your thoughts or impulses.

-You don’t have to indulge in every choice or desire simply because it is available to you