 |
The Volitional Brain
Towards a Neuroscience of Free Will
Edited by
Benjamin Libet
Anthony Freeman
and Keith Sutherland
JCS, Volume 6, 1999: August/September
320 pages
|
"If the moon, in the act of completing its eternal way around the
earth, were gifted with self-consciousness, it would feel thoroughly convinced
that it was travelling its way of its own accord on the strength of a resolution
taken once and for all. So would a Being, endowed with higher insight and
more perfect intelligence, watching man and his doings, smile about man’s
illusion that he was acting according to his own free will."
Albert Einstein: On Free Will
It is widely accepted in science that the universe is a closed deterministic
system in which everything can, ultimately, be explained by purely physical
causation. And yet we all experience ourselves as having the freedom to
choose between alternatives presented to us — ‘we’ are in the driving seat.
The puzzling status of volition is explored in this issue by a distinguished
body of scientists and philosophers.
CONTENTS
Abstracts
-
Editors: Introduction
Neuroscience
-
David Ingvar: On volition: a neurophysiologically oriented essay
-
Sean A. Spence and Chris D. Frith: Towards a functional anatomy
of volition
-
Wolfram Schultz: The primate basal ganglia and the voluntary control
of behaviour
-
Benjamin Libet: Do we have free will?
-
Gilberto Gomes: Volition and the readiness potential
Psychology and Psychiatry
-
Jonathan Bricklin: A variety of religious experience: William James
and the non-reality of free will
-
Guy Claxton: Whodunnit? Unpicking the ‘seems’ of free will
-
Jeffrey Schwartz: A role for volition and attention in the generation
of new brain circuitry: Towards a neurobiology of mental force
Physics
-
Henry P. Stapp: Attention, intention and will in quantum physics
-
Ulrich Mohrhoff: The physics of interactionism
-
David Wilson: Mind–brain interaction and violation of physical laws
Philosophy
-
David Hodgson: Hume's mistake
-
Jonathan Lowe: Self, agency and mental causation
-
John McCrone: A bifold model of free will
Comment
-
Jaron Lanier: Kinds of time and consciousness
-
Whit Blauvelt: Y’s Domain
-
Anthony Freeman: Decisive Action: Personal responsibility all the
way down
-
Thomas W. Clark: Review of ‘The Volitional Brain’
The following papers have been held over for JCS, 6, No.10, October
1999:
-
Undo Uus: The libertarian imperative
-
Jean Burns: Volition and physical laws