The Mind and the concept of free will Flashcards
What is Agency?
sense of control
What is Volition?
- power of using will
What is Will
- one’s intention/will
What is Free will?
power of acting without therestriction of fate; the ability to act at one’s own discretion.
Why are you here?
- not random
- explanations scientific
- genetic influences; evolution - humans would hunt for food, protect themselves from other tribes (man’s responsibility so more likely to die, women needed to reproduce and maintain human population (apply to modern society, gender roles? decrease in birth rates?)
- previous experience; parent’s influence
- social situation; IQ - intelligence (link to personality), more intelligent = higher survival
- culture; family styles
- neuroanatomy
- simpler explanation: because I CHOOSE/WANT/CONCSCIOUSLY WILLED IT
- link to unconscious bias
The MIND quote
Descartes: “I think, therefore I am” (1637, Discourse on the Method)
What is the mind?
- Product of working brain
- emotions - needed for survival, biased and quick
- thoughts - long and conscious
Where does it arise from?
- Evolutionary?
Is the mind an emergent property?
- Recently: misappropriation of early assistance: hypersensitivity metric of world, is mind even needed? AI, train announcements make thoughts for us - less need to actively exercise brain functions?
Do tables/dogs have minds?
- NO, only human species aware of death, will to survive adapts behaviour
Do 1 year old children have minds since 18 months is time taken to be cognisant of oneself as a separate entity
- role of genes?
Visual perception:
- blind spot - not actual perception
- brain inverts image of world
Controversy in physics
- around space & time: doesn’t exist
- figment of imagination and construct of our mind to make sense of the world
- subjective/personal experience
- change in mind?
- does brain lie to us?
- is anything real?
- a simulation…?
BIAS OF PERCEPTION
- addicts react to stimulus quicker than average perception
Modern scientific view of mind
- is it an emergent property of a working brain?
- mind from meat?
- brain already made decision before action e.g. picking up pen
- changes in brain → neuronal changes = is it free will? or is brain in charge?
- unaware of making free choices = problem → unconscious free will but what about conscious?
- could mind be outside body?
- How do we know someone loves us? real friends? you never know! can’t enter their brain or mind…but experience and consistent action aid in believing in it
Conscious what?
- “aware of and responding to one’ssurroundings”
- Free will → brain alters perception of time routinely
- Will
- Actions can feel willed or not — its the feeling of voluntariness or doing something
Its a feeling = a perception
- Actions can feel willed or not — its the feeling of voluntariness or doing something
Wegner & Erskine (2003) experiment:
- The capacity of the will to cancel itself may underlie phenomena in which people experience involuntariness for actions despite external indications that the action has arisen voluntarily
- Participants either
- suppressed thoughts of their intention to perform the task
- concentrated on such thoughts
- monitored their thoughts without trying to change them
- Suppression resulted in reduced reports of intentionality as compared to monitoring, and concentration.
- Weak trend for suppression to enhance reported intentionality for a repetition of the action carried out after suppression instructions had been discontinued.
- People in this study who were asked not to think about their intention before they performed an action described the action as seeming less intentional as a result.
- Although, it is possible to produce ‘‘voluntary involuntariness’’ through thought suppression, such suppression did not have an effect over time, and may yield a rebounding sense of intentionality for actions that were previously put out of mind.
- Limitations:
- the repeated- measures design of the study ⇒ demand characteristics
- It remains a question for future research whether suppression or concentration prompted spontaneously, without social pressure?
explain Feelings accompanying Actions
- Intentions, goals and plans are often experiences yet actions can still be unwilled as long as the individual reports they are
- consciously willing an action requires that one feels they were consciously willing it
- many and possibly most actions are companies by this feeling
- but not all….
Alien Hand syndrome
- “Alien hand syndrome isa phenomenon in which one hand is not under control of the mind.”
- often results following damage to middle of the frontal lobe or Corpus Callosum
- Epilepsy sufferers are prone to this
role of frontal lobe:
voluntary movement, expressive language and for managing higher level executive functions; capacity to plan, organise, initiate, self-monitor and control one’s responses
Damage to frontal lobe:
- behavioural changes
- personality changes, difficulty concentrating or planning, and impulsivity.
- Conclusion: we’re all ‘naughty’ but restrain ourselves
Role of Corpus callosum
- hemispheric communication
- inhibits unwanted movements
Patient reports from alien hand syndrome:
- one hand operates as if it has a mind of its own
- the alien hand operates autonomously/not their own
- e.g. a patients reports their right hand automatically doing something regarded inappropriate while left/normal hand restrains it
- e.g. their left hand unbuttoning a shirt they’re trying to put on
Critical Distinctions
- voluntary action = we do something and feel we do it
- normal action = not doing anything feel like we are not
- automatism = no feeling of will, yet we are acting e.g. driving home ⇒ get home ⇒ no knowledge of how
- illusion of control = video games