Michael S. Gazzaniga
Our notion of the mind is a single “me” that consciously acts and reacts on/to stimuli. But a more accurate description would be several modules that work in tandem to define and dictate what we could call the mind/consciousness. A lot of this mind’s activities is dictated by factors that have been built into us by evolution and environment. I had just about been converted to biological determinism and started disbelieving the notion of free will! I think I’ll have to change my mind again!
While the blurb might seem like a case for determinism, (and thus against ‘free will’) I thought the actual content of the book, especially towards the last third, swing more towards a “we don’t know yet”. The idea of it, though, starts earlier in the book – “Just as traffic emerges from cars, traffic does ultimately constrain cars, so doesn’t the mind constrain the brain that generated it?”
In the second half, the author brings up what is probably his stance on the subject – emergence. A level of organisation that is more than the sum of its parts. An example is any object that’s made of atoms. While the behaviour of atoms is described by quantum mechanisms, when they come together to make say, a ball, the behaviour and properties of the ball is described by Newton’s laws! Thus it is impossible to analyse at the level of atoms and predict the properties of the ball. Likewise for the brain and the mind. In that sense, we are probably erring in our framing of free will, and need a new vocabulary.
This has a big impact on how we judge human actions, and the author uses multiple fields – neuroscience, ethics, law etc to highlight the implications. A fantastic read if you’re interested in the brain and mind.
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