The article refers to a book by Peter Tse, which argues that the brain's ability to re-wire itself quickly actually means that free will is real. From another link:
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. Recent neurophysiological breakthroughs reveal that neurons function as criterial assessors of their inputs, which then change the criteria that will make other neurons fire in the future. 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.My brain is not sure what to think of this yet. Rewiring is currently in progress....
Nothing is free in this universe. If you want to invoke science to justify free will then you have contradict a central tenet of science: causation.
ReplyDeleteOne of Tse's main points is that science needs to acknowledge a new mode of physical causation in living systems, which he calls 'criterial causation.' The basic idea is that detectors or receptors await specific patterns or phase relationships among energetic inputs before releasing an action that then changes the physical system, e.g. releasing an action potential that then changes synaptic weights on other neurons so they now will respond to different information than just before this synaptic reweighting. You can't argue that Tse is wrong on the basis of an out-moded conception of causation that he is trying to move beyond. That is like saying atheists are wrong because the bible says there is a god.
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