Patricia S Churchland The Brain as a Causal Machine 200605

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Professor Patricia S. Churchland: • So, what about free will? • Almost certainly, brains are causal machines. By which I mean, that they go from state to state as a result of antecedent conditions. Any particular state, whether it's a perception of a face or whether it's a reflex to withdraw from pain, is a result from antecedent conditions. At least, that seems to be true from everything we know so far in neurobiology, everything we know at the level of the single neuron and what causes it to behave the way it does, the way neurons interact with each other to produce a complex macro effect, and the way that many levels of neurons interact with each other to produce a behaviour. It's a causal machine. • There does not appear to be, so far as we can tell at this stage, any noncausal Cartesian substance that intervenes and has an effect on the brain to produce a change or a decision. It looks like there is only the physical brain. • But of course, having said that it's only a physical brain, don't sell it short. It's a remarkable, unique, unbelievably complex, and we're only just learning how complex organ. • — snippet gleaned from a May of 2006 UCtv talk • Decisions, Responsibility, and the Brain • by Patricia S. Churchland • ☑ • Decisions Responsibility and the Brain • ☑ http://www.ucsd.tv/search-moreresults... • ☑ http://blogs.vancouversun.com/2012/02... • ☑ https://press.princeton.edu/books/pap... • • (20130605) tiny addendum: • Professor Patricia S. Churchland will be releasing a new book in mid-July: • Touching a Nerve: The Self as Brain • ☑ http://www.amazon.ca/Touching-Nerve-S... • ❧▬▬▬▬▬▬ • (*Wonderful music titled Away by Heinali. • Shared via Creative Commons.)

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