Includes bibliographical references (pages [99]-103) and index (pages [105]-107)
Contents:
Foreword -- Acknowledgments. 1 The scientific case against conscious agency and free will : Illusory free will -- Key definitions: free will, conscious agency -- Determinism and quantum mechanics -- Mental states are physical states -- The original free-will research. 2 Philosophical, religious, social, and legal arguments : Philosophical arguments for free will -- Religious basis of free will -- Social and legal bases of free will -- How science has obscured the issue of free will. 3 Physiology of mental states and conscious agency : The autonomous sense of self -- Reframing the free-will issue -- Natural selection and evolution -- The "mere observer" argument -- Consciousness as a mediator of agency -- Free won't -- Possibly mechanisms for conscious agency -- The brain's conscious avatar -- When the avatar goes to sleep. 4 Free-will-dependent human thought and behaviors : Capacities of the conscious avatar -- Attentiveness and directing attention to selective targets -- Self-constructed conscious willful purposes: a matter of degree -- Pain -- Flexibility -- Unpredictability -- Patience: maybe more than a virtue -- Language -- Memory -- Reason -- Value judgments -- Character development -- Will power -- Planning/future thinking -- Creativity -- Mental illness. 5 Neuroscience may rescue free will from its illusory status : Marshaling systems-level neuroscience -- Neural circuitry and the currency of decision-making -- How the brain makes choices/decisions -- Networks in the brain -- Neural networks and chaotic dynamics. 6 Conclusion. Bibliography -- Index.
Summary:
Makes a series of arguments that certain human behaviors are impossible to explain in the absence of free will, and that free will emerges from materialistic processes of brain function. It outlines future directions for neuroscience studies that can harness emerging technologies and tools for systems-level analysis.
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