The Neural Basis of Free Will: Criterial Causation

Tse, Peter Ulric

ISBN 10: 0262019108 / ISBN 13: 9780262019101

Published by Mit Pr, 2013

Connecting readers with great books since 1972! Used books may not include companion materials, and may have some shelf wear or limited writing. We ship orders daily and Customer Service is our top priority! Seller Inventory # S_459946330

Synopsis:

A neuroscientific perspective on the mind–body problem that focuses on how the brain actually accomplishes mental causation.

The issues of mental causation, consciousness, and free will have vexed philosophers since Plato. In this book, Peter Tse examines these unresolved issues from a neuroscientific perspective. In contrast with philosophers who use logic rather than data to argue whether mental causation or consciousness can exist given unproven first assumptions, Tse proposes that we instead listen to what neurons have to say.

Tse draws on exciting recent neuroscientific data concerning how informational causation is realized in physical causation at the level of NMDA receptors, synapses, dendrites, neurons, and neuronal circuits. He argues that a particular kind of strong free will and “downward” mental causation are realized in rapid synaptic plasticity. Such informational causation cannot change the physical basis of information realized in the present, but it can change the physical basis of information that may be realized in the immediate future. This gets around the standard argument against free will centered on the impossibility of self-causation. Tse explores the ways that mental causation and qualia might be realized in this kind of neuronal and associated information-processing architecture, and considers the psychological and philosophical implications of having such an architecture realized in our brains.

About the Author: Peter Ulric Tse is Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Dartmouth College. He was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2014.

Bibliographic Details

Title: The Neural Basis of Free Will: Criterial ...
Publisher: Mit Pr
Publication Date: 2013
Binding: hardcover
Condition: Very Good