Allen Institute for Brain Science launches new atlas, adds new data and tools to others

 Neuroscience 

The Allen Institute for Brain Science announced today the launch of a new brain atlas resource and updates to four existing resources, all publicly available online to accelerate brain research around the globe. The new atlas, the Allen Mouse Brain Connectivity Atlas, moves the Allen Institute's mapping efforts beyond its historical focus on gene expression toward neural circuitry. Additional updates include enhancements to the Allen Mouse Brain Atlas, the Allen Human Brain Atlas, the NIH Blueprint Non-Human Primate (NHP) Atlas, and the BrainSpan Atlas of the Developing Human Brain.

New Atlas Resource – Allen Mouse Brain Connectivity Atlas

The Allen Mouse Brain Connectivity Atlas is a three-dimensional, high-resolution map of neural connections throughout the mouse brain. Generated on a standardized platform, the Atlas is designed as a comprehensive interactive database of the information highways, called axonal projections, that link different brain areas to form the circuits responsible for behavior, perception and other brain functions. This foundational map will help scientists understand how the brain is wired, offering new insights into how the brain works and what goes awry in brain diseases and disorders.

"We are delighted to get this first batch of connectivity data into the hands of the broader research community," said Allan Jones, Ph.D., chief executive officer of the Allen Institute for Brain Science. "We look forward to expanding this unique dataset significantly as the project continues."

This first data release includes an initial set of high-resolution images detailing axonal projections and anatomic reference data. The Atlas will be enhanced with additional data and more tools for data mining and visualization in subsequent data releases.

Other Updates

The Allen Mouse Brain Atlas is a genome-wide, three-dimensional map of gene expression throughout the adult mouse brain. Completed in 2006, the Atlas has now been revamped to update the underlying technologies and leverage tools developed for other more recent atlases in the Allen Brain Atlas portfolio. Enhancements include new search and visualization features, such as an upgrade to the Brain Explorer® 3-D viewer that offers expanded anatomic detail, and an upgraded, fully-digitized and interactive reference atlas.

The Allen Human Brain Atlas is a multi-modal, three-dimensional map of the human brain that integrates anatomic and gene expression data throughout the adult human brain. With data for two complete brains available last spring, the latest data release adds the first batch of data from a third brain, specifically 110 new microarray samples. Because individual brains differ, the ability to compare data from multiple brains is important for understanding what features are common across individuals. Additional updates include enhancements to the user-interface and visualization functions improve usability.

The NIH Blueprint NHP Atlas offers a unique set of data and tools to explore the cellular and molecular architecture of the postnatal developing primate brain. This release adds microarray data and associated search and visualization tools. Additional in situ hybridization data generated serially across hemispheres and corresponding downloadable magnetic resonance images are now also available.

The BrainSpan Atlas of the Developing Human Brain, created by a research consortium and made publicly available online via the Allen Brain Atlas data portal, provides broad and detailed anatomic analysis of gene expression across human brain development. The atlas has been expanded with new microarray data for 287 structures, complete with an interactive heat map viewer for browsing those data, and an anatomic reference atlas for one developmental stage.

About the Atlases

The Allen Brain Atlas resources, created by the Allen Institute for Brain Science as open online public resources, integrate large-scale, systematically generated gene expression and anatomic datasets, complete with powerful search and viewing tools. Each month, the Allen Brain Atlas resources receive approximately 45,000 visits from researchers worldwide. Regular updates and data releases put an increasing amount of valuable data and powerful search and viewing tools in the hands of scientists and research organizations everywhere, thereby accelerating understanding of the brain and related disorders and diseases. The Allen Institute's next public data release is scheduled for March 2012.

The NIH Blueprint Non-Human Primate (NHP) Atlas, http://www.blueprintnhpatlas.org

 

, is funded by NIH Contract HHSN-271-2008-0047 to the Allen Institute for Brain Science (Seattle, WA) totaling $8.5M. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health. This project is funded with 100% federal funds. No non-government funds support the project.

The BrainSpan Atlas of the Developing Human Brain is supported by grants from the National Institute of Mental Health to the Allen Institute for Brain Science (award number RC2MH089921), the University of Southern California (award number RC2MH090047), and Yale University (award number RC2MH089929), totaling $16.2M, $8.9M and $9.9M, respectively. This project is funded with 100% federal funds. No non-government funds support the project. The content is solely the responsibility of the respective authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institute of Mental Health or the National Institutes of Health.

Provided by Allen Institute for Brain Science

"Allen Institute for Brain Science launches new atlas, adds new data and tools to others." November 14th, 2011. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-11-allen-brain-science-atlas-tools.html

 

Posted by
Robert Karl Stonjek

Researchers uncover why the body can’t defend against tuberculosis

 by Biomechanism 

16

“The stealth art of infectious agents: Researchers uncover why the body can’t defend against tuberculosis”

Tuberculosis, which kills over 2 million people each year, is caused primarily by infectious bacteria known as Mycobacterium tuberculosis – or Mtb. Mtbtargets human immune cells as part of its strategy to avoid detection, effectively neutralizing the body’s immune response.

Up until now, scientists had a general understanding of the process, but researchers in the Immunity and Infection Research Centre at Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute and the University of British Columbia have shown Mtb produces a specific protein that allows it to defuse and bypass the body’s security system. The results are published today in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and provide a pathway for improved treatments against this disease.

“TB has been able to completely mislead our immune systems, convincing our body it isn’t there, which is why it is such an effective killer,” says Dr. Yossef Av-Gay, research scientist with the Immunity and Infection Research Centre at the Vancouver Coastal Research Institute and professor in the Division of Infectious Disease at UBC Faculty of Medicine. “We discovered that the cells in charge of targeting and destroying invading bacteria are being fooled by a special protein that blocks the immune cells ability to recognize and destroy it.”

Here is how it works. Macrophages are dedicated human immune cells with the role of identifying and defeating dangerous microorganisms. Normally, macrophages engulf bacteria, or other infectious agents, and contain them in an enclosed secluded environment. Then, special components of the cell (cellular organelles) move to the controlled area and release acid enzymes that dissolve the bacteria. The system works beautifully against most infectious agents. However, as Dr. Av-Gay’s team found, Mtb operates in a stealth manner, turning off this immune response.

In the case of Mtb, once the bacteria become engulfed by macrophages, they secrete a protein named PtpA that disables the two separate mechanisms required for making the acidic environment that normally targets them. The end result is that Mtb lives comfortably in the immune cells, like a Trojan horse, hidden from the rest of the immune system. The bacteria then multiply inside the macrophage, and when released, they attack the body.

“We have been engaged in studying the interaction between the TB bacterium and the human macrophage over the past decade,” says Dr. Av-Gay. “We are delighted with this discovery. Through learning about the tricks it uses, we now have new targets, so that we can develop better drugs against this devastating disease.”

TB is the leading cause of death among infectious diseases in the world today and is responsible for one in four adult preventable deaths, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Every 20 seconds TB kills someone, with approximately 4400 people dying every day. The WHO estimates that one-third of the world’s population is infected.

What Is Auspiciousness

 

“Never in the past was there, nor in the future will there be, a man like Janaka, who had Sita as a daughter, full of all auspiciousness.” (Janaki Mangala, Svayamvara Ki Taiyari, 7)

bhayehu na hoihi hai na janaka sama naravai |
sīya sutā bhai jāsu sakala mangalai ||

What is the best for our welfare? Can there be just one thing that applies universally? If one person is puffed up by the false ego resulting from excessive material opulence and enjoyment, obviously what’s good for them will be a humbling of that pride, something to remind them that they are not in control of everything. On the other hand, someone who is destitute, barely getting by each day with a few morsels of food, can really use some security, the peace of mind that comes with knowing that material amenities will be available in steady supply. Thus what is auspicious for one person is not necessarily beneficial to another. Yet one woman’s company is so delightful that regardless of one’s position, whether they are a powerful king or a renounced yogi, everything beneficial comes as a result of meeting her. She is the ocean of mercy, the reservoir of beauty, and with love offered to her in genuineness comes the fruit of our existence.

It should be noted that even in spiritual life, which is above the temporary pitfalls of acceptance and rejection that swing perpetually like a pendulum, there is not uniformity in desires. The materialist enjoyer is referred to as akarmi in the Vedas. This word points to fruitive work, something performed for a specific benefit. The work has reactions, which are referred to as fruits, or phala; hence the translation of karma into “fruitive work”. The reactions aren’t always intended, nor are they always expected, making karma a complicated business. The enjoyments of even the cherished results don’t last forever, requiring repeated endeavor in fruitive activity.

The jnanis, yogis and bhaktas are above karma. A jnani is in search of jnana, or knowledge. In this sense there is some work applied, but it is only through the mind, so there are no visible fruits that result immediately. Rather, through theoretical exercise, the mental speculator hopefully can alter their behavior in such a way that the reactions to their work are always what they intend and that the enjoyments do not bind them in further misery. The yogis are similarly engaged in a higher cause. Through meditation they hope to block off the influence of the senses, to remain in trance so that the consciousness can stay pure.

For the karmis, yogis and jnanis the cherished rewards are not the same. For instance, the karmi considers success in their ventures to be auspiciousness. A tired worker desiring a nice vacation destination spot views a healthy bank balance and the ability to travel as favorable circumstances. The yogi, on the other hand, considers a sacred place that is quiet and peaceful as an auspicious blessing. The jnani lives off of mental speculation and the ability to accept higher knowledge. The intelligentsia class can be likened to the jnanis, so what they consider auspicious is high knowledge in the form of books and the ability to think rationally.

Only the bhaktas, however, are all-inclusive. They can follow any of the activities of the karmis, jnanis andyogis and find auspiciousness through maintaining a purified consciousness. For the bhaktas, the aim is love, the transcendental variety. When dovetailed with spirituality, bhakti is known as bhakti-yoga, ordevotional service

 

. Karma, jnana and meditational yoga can also be linked with spirituality, but again the conditions deemed beneficial are not uniform. For the bhakta, the only requirement is the ability to remain in divine trance, to be able to contemplate on the Supreme Lord.

How is this different from the yogis who sit in meditation? For starters, the conditions for performing meditational yoga are very difficult, so much so that the path is not recommended at all for the people of this age. These recommendations come from the Vedas and their derivative scriptures, which represent the original source of knowledge in this world. The entire world consists of various branches of Vedic culture, which started with the instructions of the Supreme Personality of Godhead that were imparted to the first created living entity, Lord Brahma. From Brahma’s teachings, the initial systems of religion

 

 were created, and as further time elapsed from the start of creation, deviation from the original principles increased, so much so that now there are too many spiritual denominations to count.

Common to any system of maintenance is a desired end-goal. Bhakti is the summit of religious practice because it has the highest end-goal that exists: constant association with God. The Supreme Lord is a personality with divine features, qualities which provide Him pleasure and also attract the sincere souls, who are miniature versions of God. Any being that is autonomous in its movement is a small version of God, but since their exercise of that freedom is limited, they are not equal to the Supreme Person. Fear not, however, as there is no need to try to equal God. The Supreme Lord is meant to be enjoyed through His association, a link which thus represents the most auspicious condition.

How can we say this with certainty? The Supreme Lord is described as having a transcendental body full of sweetness. He is the most beautiful, wise, strong, renounced, wealthy and famous. We are already attracted to famous and successful people, those who have bucked the odds and reached the tops of their respective fields. Beauty is attractive to pretty much anyone, as are strength and knowledge. In this way we see that God’s attractiveness is not a sectarian assertion or something that can only be enjoyed by people born and raised in a certain place. Rather, God is attractive to every single person, including the atheists who deny His existence. In the absence of personal interaction with the Supreme Lord and His brilliant features, what the living entity will find appealing are various impersonal aspects, separated energy expansions. Only in these areas are there varieties of auspicious conditions, dualities in what people find beneficial. This, of course, is because of the lack of the Supreme Lord’s personal presence.

In bhakti, the divine’s features are talked about, relished, honored, and most of all, enjoyed. When we have the most attractive person’s image within our minds, our activities will be driven towards maintaining the sight of that image. Thus the bhakta can be doing something as simple as eating and still enjoy full auspiciousness. For one king a long time ago, he was doing the odd job of ploughing a field, when in an instant he felt the thrill of a lifetime, a jolt of happiness that he had never felt before. This moment would forever change his life.

“One is understood to be in full knowledge whose every act is devoid of desire for sense gratification. He is said by sages to be a worker whose fruitive action is burned up by the fire of perfect knowledge.” (Lord Krishna

 

, Bhagavad-gita

 

, 4.19)

Why was a king ploughing a field? Wasn’t this an act of karma? If so, how could the happiness he found be the source of pleasure for others as well? Though outwardly engaged in fruitive work, this leader of men was actually doing his occupational duty, remaining unattached to the result. He was a fruitive worker who had burned up the reactions to his work by being fully in knowledge. In one sense, this wonderful king of ancient times could be thought of as a combination jnani/yogi. He had knowledge of dharma, or religiosity, which then guided his behavior. He also had control over his senses, which earned him the title Videha, which means “one who is bodiless”.

As mentioned before, the karmis, yogis and jnanis each have respective definitions of auspiciousness, conditions whose merits may not apply across disciplines. Though he was known as an expert yogi, King Janaka was actually a bhakta, or devotee, at heart. This meant that through his pious acts, he was qualifying himself to gain full auspiciousness, which would arrive on the day he would find the precious baby girl in the ground. Of all the places to find gold in the form of another human being, Janaka found his little treasure in the ground that was being tilled for a sacrifice, or yajna.

What was so wonderful about this event? How would this help Janaka’s piety? Aren’t the karmis the ones enchanted by familial attachment, which is only temporary? This was no ordinary girl. Just as the Supreme Lord is the reservoir of attractiveness, His eternal consorts possess similarly brilliant features. In many ways God’s companions are more glorious than He is, for they are completely devoted to Him. Having the audience of a devotee is the greatest blessing for the person wandering aimlessly through life in search of a higher taste, one that doesn’t leave bitter aftereffects or vanish in an instant.

The girl Janaka found was the Supreme Lord’s wife in the spiritual sky. Since God is the source of all men, He is given the name Narayana. Since He is the most fortunate entity in the world, His wife is known as Lakshmi, who is the goddess of fortune. That same Lakshmi appeared in Janaka’s sacred land to bless him, to give him full auspiciousness. Janaka was the most pious king and thus fully deserved having Lakshmi’s presence.

But why come as a little girl? Why didn’t Lakshmi just visit Janaka’s home and bless him? Bhakti is an eternal engagement; hence it is also known as bhagavata-dharma. In every other area of endeavor there is a state of maturation, where the cherished fruit is received and then enjoyed for some length of time. Bhakti is divine love, so it can never stop. The greatest blessing, the most auspicious condition, is to be able to continue one’s bhakti unabated. God’s presence and the association of His dearmost devotees

 

 are considered universally auspicious for this very reason. Whoever comes in contact with such divine figures and knows how to make use of that association will find an eternal engagement that brings forth tremendous delights. The hungry man looking for a meal finds temporary auspiciousness by being fed a few morsels of food, but he who has a tree on his land that produces endless fruits is blessed every day. Having Lakshmi appear as a little girl in his kingdom gave Janaka a wish-fulfilling tree to fulfill all his desires.

Though he was Videha, Janaka immediately had affection for the little girl, deciding to raise her as his own daughter. Since she was found in the ground, he named her Sita. Goswami Tulsidas

 

, in writing his Janaki Mangala, which describes how Sita’s marriage would take place later on, remarks that Janaka is the most fortunate, and that there was never a king like him, nor will there be one like him in the future. He received Sita as a daughter, which meant that it was his obligation to smother her with parental affection. Who can imagine receiving such a benediction? People pray to have Lakshmi, or fortune, all the time, but if they misuse her benedictions, they can lose everything. Thereby Lakshmi can end up harming someone as well, if they are not deserving of her association.

On the other hand, someone like Janaka was so pious that he was desirous to love God and His devotees without hesitation. What better way to allow for that love to continue than by giving him Sita as a daughter? The Supreme Lord knows all. He watches the behavior of the pious and sees whether or not they are qualified for receiving full auspiciousness. In addition to raising Sita as his most precious daughter, on the day of her marriage Janaka would receive Narayana Himself, in the guise of a warrior prince named Rama, as a son-in-law.

Though Sita is Lakshmi and thus a divine figure, Janaka’s love for her never stops. He found real auspiciousness by gaining the ability to practice bhakti as a way of life. To extract his heartfelt emotions, Lakshmi came herself to play the role of his daughter. The king made the most of the opportunity by increasing his bhakti more and more, so much so that he is today considered one of the twelve authorities on devotional service. As Tulsidas states, there is no king like him, and by the same token, for the pious there is no auspiciousness like that of Sita’s association. Just remembering her, her devotion to Rama, and the gloriousness of her father, the mind can find peace, comfort and happiness in any situation.

In Closing:

Something as auspicious do I take,

But not for others also does it make.

One side is looking for much wealth,

While another wants less for mental health.

That Janaka found greatest fortune is true,

Gives happiness to all men, both me and you.

Chance to love Sita in affection, God’s wife,

Keeps flame of bhakti alive, gives eternal life.

Keep on searching past, present and future,

But won't find man like Janaka, king like no other.

King's greatest fortune came from Sita alone,

For she would bring Shri Hari to his home.

Is Neuroscience the Death of Free Will?

By EDDY NAHMIAS

Is free will an illusion?  Some leading scientists think so.  For instance, in 2002 the psychologist Daniel Wegner wrote

, “It seems we are agents. It seems we cause what we do… It is sobering and ultimately accurate to call all this an illusion.” More recently, the neuroscientist Patrick Haggarddeclared

, “We certainly don’t have free will.  Not in the sense we think.”  And in June, the neuroscientist Sam Harris claimed

, “You seem to be an agent acting of your own free will. The problem, however, is that this point of view cannot be reconciled with what we know about the human brain.”.

Such proclamations make the news; after all, if free will is dead, then moral and legal responsibility may be close behind.  As the legal analyst Jeffrey Rosen wrote

 in The New York Times Magazine, “Since all behavior is caused by our brains, wouldn’t this mean all behavior could potentially be excused? … The death of free will, or its exposure as a convenient illusion, some worry, could wreak havoc on our sense of moral and legal responsibility.”

Indeed, free will matters in part because it is a precondition for deserving blame for bad acts and deserving credit for achievements.  It also turns out that simply exposing people to scientific claims that free will is an illusion can lead them to misbehave

, for instance, cheating more or helping others less. ^[1]

  So, it matters whether these scientists are justified in concluding that free will is an illusion.

Here, I’ll explain why neuroscience is not the death of free will and does not “wreak havoc on our sense of moral and legal responsibility,” extending a discussion begun in Gary Gutting’s recent Stone column

.  I’ll argue that the neuroscientific evidence does not undermine free will.  But first, I’ll explain the central problem: these scientists are employing a flawed notion of free will.  Once a better notion of free will is in place, the argument can be turned on its head.  Instead of showing that free will is an illusion, neuroscience and psychology can actually help us understand how it works.

Leif Parsons

When Haggard concludes that we do not have free will “in the sense we think,” he reveals how this conclusion depends on a particular definition of free will.  Scientists’ arguments that free will is an illusion typically begin by assuming that free will, by definition, requires an immaterial soul or non-physical mind, and they take neuroscience to provide evidence that our minds are physical.  Haggard mentions free will “in the spiritual sense … a ghost in the machine.”  The neuroscientist Read Montague defines free will as “the idea that we make choices and have thoughts independent of anything remotely resembling a physical process. Free will is the close cousin to the idea of the soul” (Current Biology 18, 2008).^[2] 

They use a definition of free will that they take to be demanded by ordinary thinking and philosophical theory.  But they are mistaken on both counts.

We should be wary of defining things out of existence.  Define Earth as the planet at the center of the universe and it turns out there is no Earth.  Define what’s moral as whatever your God mandates and suddenly most people become immoral.  Define marriage as a union only for procreation, and you thereby annul many marriages.

The sciences of the mind do give us good reasons to think that our minds are made of matter.  But to conclude that consciousness or free will is thereby an illusion is too quick.  It is like inferring from discoveries in organic chemistry that life is an illusion just because living organisms are made up of non-living stuff.  Much of the progress in science comes precisely from understanding wholes in terms of their parts, without this suggesting the disappearance of the wholes.  There’s no reason to define the mind or free will in a way that begins by cutting off this possibility for progress.

Our brains are the most complexly organized things in the known universe, just the sort of thing that could eventually make sense of why each of us is unique, why we are conscious creatures and why humans have abilities to comprehend, converse, and create that go well beyond the precursors of these abilities in other animals.  Neuroscientific discoveries over the next century will uncover how consciousness and thinking work the way they dobecause our complex brains work the way they do.

These discoveries about how our brains work can also explain how free will works rather than explaining it away.  But first, we need to define free will in a more reasonable and useful way.  Many philosophers, including me, understand free will as a set of capacities for imagining future courses of action, deliberating about one’s reasons for choosing them, planning one’s actions in light of this deliberation and controlling actions in the face of competing desires.  We act of our own free will to the extent that we have the opportunity to exercise these capacities, without unreasonable external or internal pressure.  We are responsible for our actions roughly to the extent that we possess these capacities and we have opportunities to exercise them.

These capacities for conscious deliberation, rational thinking and self-control are not magical abilities.  They need not belong to immaterial souls outside the realm of scientific understanding (indeed, since we don’t know how souls are supposed to work, souls would not help to explain these capacities).  Rather, these are the sorts of cognitive capacities that psychologists and neuroscientists are well positioned to study.

This conception of free will represents a longstanding and dominant view in philosophy, though it is typically ignored by scientists who conclude that free will is an illusion.  It also turns out that most non-philosophers have intuitions about free and responsible action that track this conception of free will.  Researchers in the new field of experimental philosophy

 study what “the folk” think about philosophical issues and why. For instance, my collaborators and I have found that most people think that free will and responsibility are compatible with determinism, the thesis that all events are part of a law-like chain of events such that earlier events necessitate later events.^[3]

 That is, most people judge that you can have free will and be responsible for your actions even if all of your decisions and actions are entirely caused by earlier events in accord with natural laws.

Our studies suggest that people sometimes misunderstand determinism to mean that we are somehow cut out of this causal chain leading to our actions. People are threatened by a possibility I call “bypassing” — the idea that our actions are caused in ways that bypass our conscious deliberations and decisions.  So, if people mistakenly take causal determinism to mean that everything that happens is inevitable no matter what you think or try to do, then they conclude that we have no free will.  Or if determinism is presented in a way that suggests all our decisions are just chemical reactions, they take that to mean that our conscious thinking is bypassed in such a way that we lack free will.

Even if neuroscience and psychology were in a position to establish the truth of determinism — a job better left for physics — this would not establish bypassing.  As long as people understand that discoveries about how our brains work do not mean that what we think or try to do makes no difference to what happens, then their belief in free will is preserved.  What matters to people is that we have the capacities for conscious deliberation and self-control that I’ve suggested we identify with free will.

But what about neuroscientific evidence that seems to suggest that these capacities are cut out of the causal chains leading to our decisions and actions? For instance, doesn’t neuroscience show that our brains make decisions before we are conscious of them such that our conscious decisions are bypassed?  With these questions, we can move past the debates about whether free will requires souls or indeterminism — debates that neuroscience does not settle — and examine actual neuroscientific evidence.  Consider, for instance, research by neuroscientists suggesting that non-conscious processes in our brain cause our actions, while conscious awareness of what we are doing occurs later, too late to influence our behavior.  Some interpret this research as showing that consciousness is merely an observer of the output of non-conscious mechanisms.  Extending the paradigm developed by Benjamin Libet, John-Dylan Haynes and his collaborators used fMRI research to find patterns of neural activity in people’s brains that correlated with their decision to press either a right or left button up to seven seconds before they were aware of deciding which button to press.  Haynes concludes

: “How can I call a will ‘mine’ if I don’t even know when it occurred and what it has decided to do?”

However, the existing evidence does not support the conclusion that free will is an illusion.  First of all, it does not show that a decision has been made before people are aware of having made it.  It simply finds discernible patterns of neural activity that precede decisions.  If we assume that conscious decisions have neural correlates, then we should expect to find early signs of those correlates “ramping up” to the moment of consciousness.  It would be miraculous if the brain did nothing at all until the moment when people became aware of a decision to move.  These experiments all involve quick, repetitive decisions, and people are told not to plan their decisions but just to wait for an urge to come upon them.  The early neural activity measured in the experiments likely represents these urges or other preparations for movement that precede conscious awareness.

This is what we should expect with simple decisions.  Indeed, we are lucky that conscious thinking plays little or no role in quick or habitual decisions and actions.  If we had to consciously consider our every move, we’d be bumbling fools.  We’d be like perpetual beginners at tennis, overthinking every stroke.  We’d be unable to speak fluently, much less dance or drive.  Often we initially attend consciously to what we are doing precisely to reach the point where we act without consciously attending to the component decisions and actions in our complex endeavors.  When we type, tango, or talk, we don’t want conscious thinking to precede every move we make, though we do want to be aware of what we’re doing and correct any mistakes we’re making.  Conscious attention is relatively slow and effortful.  We must use it wisely.

We need conscious deliberation to make a difference when it matters — when we have important decisions and plans to make.  The evidence from neuroscience and psychology has not shown that consciousness doesn’t matter in those sorts of decisions — in fact, some evidence

 suggests the opposite.  We should not begin by assuming that free will requires a conscious self that exists beyond the brain (where?), and then conclude that anyevidence that shows brain processes precede action thereby demonstrates that consciousness is bypassed.  Rather, we should consider the role of consciousness in action on the assumption that our conscious deliberation and rational thinking are carried out by complex brain processes, and then we can examine whether those very brain processes play a causal role in action.

For example:  suppose I am trying to decide whether to give $1,000 to charity or buy a new TV.  I consciously consider the reasons for each choice — e.g., how it fits with my goals and values.  I gather information about each option.  Perhaps I struggle to overcome my more selfish motivations.  I decide based on this conscious reasoning (it certainly would not help if I could magically decide on no basis at all), and I act accordingly.  Now, let’s suppose each part of this process is carried out by processes in my brain.  If so, then to show that consciousness is bypassed would require evidence showing that thosevery brain processes underlying my conscious reasoning are dead-ends.  It would have to show that those brain processes do not connect up with the processes that lead to my typing my credit card number into the Best Buy Web site (I may then regret my selfish decision and re-evaluate my reasons for my future decisions).

None of the evidence marshaled by neuroscientists and psychologists suggests that those neural processes involved in the conscious aspects of such complex, temporally extended decision-making are in fact causal dead ends.  It would be almost unbelievable if such evidence turned up.  It would mean that whatever processes in the brain are involved in conscious deliberation and self-control — and the substantial energy these processes use — were as useless as our appendix, that they evolved only to observe what we do after the fact, rather than to improve our decision-making and behavior.  No doubt these conscious brain processes move too slowly to be involved in each finger flex as I type, but as long as they play their part in what I do down the road — such as considering what ideas to type up — then my conscious self is not a dead end, and it is a mistake to say my free will is bypassed by what my brain does.

So, does neuroscience mean the death of free will?  Well, it could if it somehow demonstrated that conscious deliberation and rational self-control did not really exist or that they worked in a sheltered corner of the brain that has no influence on our actions.  But neither of these possibilities is likely.  True, the mind sciences will continue to show that consciousness does not work in just the ways we thought, and they already suggest significant limitations on the extent of our rationality, self-knowledge, and self-control.  Such discoveries suggest that most of us possess less free will than we tend to think, and they may inform debates about our degrees of responsibility.  But they do not show that free will is an illusion.

If we put aside the misleading idea that free will depends on supernatural souls rather than our quite miraculous brains, and if we put aside the mistaken idea that our conscious thinking matters most in the milliseconds before movement, then neuroscience does not kill free will.  Rather, it can help to explain our capacities to control our actions in such a way that we are responsible for them. It can help us rediscover free will.

---

FOOTNOTES

[1]

 It’s not clear what exactly drives these behavioral effects

 of telling people free will is an illusion. Along with the two psychologists who originally discovered these effects, Kathleen Vohs and Jonathan Schooler, philosopher Thomas Nadelhoffer and I are currently following up on this research to better understand what information leads people to alter their beliefs about free will and how that then influences their behavior.

[2]

 In an influential article

, Joshua Greene and Jonathan Cohen, similarly conclude, “Free will, as we ordinarily understand it, is an illusion.” They reach this conclusion in part by assuming that people ordinarily understand free will and responsibility to require dualism (i.e., a non-physical soul) and libertarianism (i.e., powers to cause decisions without being caused to do so).

[3]

 See

 Nahmias and Murray “Experimental Philosophy on Free Will: An Error Theory for Incompatibilist Intuitions” and Nahmias, Morris, Nadelhoffer, and Turner “Is Incompatibilism Intuitive?” which, along with other x-phi work on free will, have recently been discussed in articles inScience

 and NewScientist

.

---

Eddy Nahmias

 is an associate professor at Georgia State University in the department of philosophy and the Neuroscience Institute. He is the author of many articles, including “Scientific Challenges to Free Will” and “Intuitions about Free Will, Determinism, and Bypassing.” He is the co-editor of the book, “Moral Psychology: Historical and Contemporary Readings,” and is currently writing another, titled “Rediscovering Free Will.”

Source: The New York Times
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/13/is-neuroscience-the-death-of-free-will/

Posted by
Robert Karl Stonjek