Adina Roskies

Dissecting the Readiness Potential: An Investigation of the Relationship between Readiness Potentials, Conscious Willing, and Action The readiness potential (RP) has proven to be one of the most controversial topics in neuroscience and philosophy due to its perceived relevance in elucidating the role of conscious will for action. The controversy stemmed largely from Libet et al.’s (1983) report that the RP that precedes a volitional movement also precedes any conscious awareness of that movement. This chapter presents five experiments showing that (1) the RP does not reflect uniquely motor-related processing, while the lateralized readiness potential (LRP) likely does, and (2) that neither the RP nor the LRP index neural processes are causal of conscious willing. Both potentials seem unrelated to conscious intentions to move. The LRP seems to be associated with an actual neural signal to move. Although the exact nature of the neural processes remains unclear, they seem not to be specific to any particular action domain.

The brain sciences are providing new means of investigating brain processes involved in decision making. However, understanding decision making at the computational level requires methods unsuitable for use in humans. This chapter argues that monkeys are attractive models of human decision making and that neurophysiological recordings in monkeys can provide insight into human decision processes. The chapter explores a number of objections to the relevance of monkey data to understanding human decision making, including the importance of language and consciousness, and argues that none undermines the applicability of the model, though some may limit it. The relevance of studies of decision in monkeys to questions of free will is discussed.

Frankfurt’s compatibilist account of free will considers an individual to be free when her first- and second-order volitions align. This structural account of the will, this chapter argues, fails to engage with the dynamics of will, resulting in two shortcomings: (1) the problem of directionality, or that Frankfurtian freedom obtains whenever first- and second-order volitions align, regardless of which desire was made to change, and (2) the potential for infinite regress of higher-order desires. The authors propose that a satisfying account of the genesis of second-order volitions can resolve these issues. To provide this they draw from George Ainslie’s mechanistic account of self-control, which relies on intertemporal bargaining wherein an individual’s self-predictions about future decisions affect the value of her current choices. They suggest that second-order volitions emerge from precisely this sort of process, and that a Frankfurt-Ainslie account of free will avoids the objections previously raised.

No neuroscientific evidence that one could feasibly obtain could settle, _by itself_, whether anyone has free will, since there are both philosophical and empirical components to this question. However, neuroscience could provide evidence for or against free will, given certain philosophical commitments. This chapter sketches some possibilities but ultimately argues that our interpretation of brain data and its relevance to a deep philosophical question are mediated by a lot of theory, both philosophical and psychological, and that our neuroscience is unlikely to uncover deep truths about metaphysical questions that don’t presuppose some controversial metaphysical views.

Folk psychology operates with commonsense conceptions of volition or the will, agency, voluntary behavior, and human freedom. Philosophy has long been concerned to clarify and illuminate the nature of these concepts, but until recently it had just analytical tools to apply to the enterprise. Now, however, enough progress has been made in understanding the neural bases of human action to begin to ask how these commonsensical concepts comport with our biological understanding. This chapter reviews results from a number of strands of neuroscientific research that provide some insight into the neural circuitry mediating behaviors we associate with will and volition, and considers the degree to which our scientific knowledge suggests alterations in these intuitive views. Although to date no results succeed in fundamentally disrupting our commonsensical beliefs, the picture emerging from neuroscience does raise new questions and may ultimately put pressure on some intuitive notions about what is necessary for free will.

This article examines whether, and in what ways, neuroscience can illuminate those questions associated with neurophilosophy. It begins by discussing the relation between philosophy and neuroscience, in particular how they can each influence each other. It then considers how neuroscience can illuminate philosophical questions about mind, including metaphysical questions about the relation of mind and brain, questions about the nature of mental representation and content, consciousness, and even moral theory. It also looks at some of the most prevalent techniques employed by neuroscience for investigating brain structure and function; how neuroscience provides potential counterexamples to philosophical claims, by showing how brains work and suggests new interpretations of data; and the influence of neuroscience on philosophy in the area of normativity. The article concludes by examining attempts to use neuroscience to inform philosophical argument about free will.

Thought experiments have played a central role in philosophical methodology, largely as a means of elucidating the nature of our concepts and the implications of our theories.1 Particular attention is given to widely shared “folk” intuitions – the basic untutored intuitions that the layperson has about philosophical questions.2 The folk intuition is meant to underlie our core metaphysical concepts, and philosophical analysis is meant to explicate or sometimes refine these naïve concepts. Consistency with the deliverances of folk intuitions is a sign that the philosopher is making contact with his object of interest. In order to explore folk concepts, people are often asked to provide their intuitions about a state of affairs in some alternate universe or possible world, one that differs in particular, precise ways from the way things are in the actual world. Here we provide evidence that people’s intuitions about moral responsibility sometimes diverge across worlds even when the facts about these worlds are the same. Which world one considers actual affects at least some philosophical judgments, suggesting that it is not just possible worlds to which our intuitions are tied. We will present several possible explanations for the asymmetry we have identified, and we’ll consider some implications for philosophical intuition.

Functional neuroimaging is sometimes criticized as showing only where in the brain things happen, not how they happen, and thus being unable to inform us about questions of mental and neural representation. Novel analytical methods increasingly make clear that imaging can give us access to constructs of interest to psychology. In this paper I argue that neuroimaging can give us an important, if limited, window into the large-scale structure of neural representation. I describe Representational Similarity Analysis, increasingly used in neuroimaging studies, and lay out desiderata for representations in general. In that context I discuss what RSA can and cannot tell us about neural representation. I compare RSA with fMRI to a different experimental paradigm which has been embraced as being indicative of representation in psychology, and argue that it compares favorably.

© The Authors 2017. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Analysis Trust. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: [email protected] Clark is usually among the first in philosophy to ride a new and important wave on the frontiers of cognitive science research. His Microcognition and Associative Engines chronicled connectionism, Being There explored embodied cognition, Natural Born Cyborgs deals with BCIs and environmental and technological scaffolding, and Supersizing the Mind is an extended argument for extended minds. Clark's latest, showcases his new enthusiasm about predictive coding, a computational framework for understanding cognition that is generating more excitement and controversy across diverse areas of cognitive science than an offshore wind at Maverick’s does among the boarding elite....Clark is a master at taking complex ideas in cognitive science and conveying them in less technical fashion to a wide audience, doing so with panache and wit....