Determined, page 48
Emergence and behavior (including metaphorical behavior by white blood cells): “The Emergent Properties of a Dolphin Social Network,” Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B 270, no supp. 2 (2003): S186; T. Harris et al., “Generalized Levy Walks and the Role of Chemokines in Migration of Effector CD8(+) T Cells,” Nature 486 (2012): 545.
Emergence in neurons and neuronal circuits: D. Lusseau, S. Romano, and M. Eguia, “Characterization of Degree Frequency Distribution in Protein Interaction Networks,” Physical Reviews E 71 (2005): 031901; D. Bray, “Molecular Networks: The Top-Down View,” Science 301 (2003): 1864; B. Fulcher and A. Fornito, “A Transcriptional Signature of Hub Connectivity in the Mouse Connectome,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 113 (2016): 1435.
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Power laws and the evolutionary pressure to optimize wiring efficiency in the brain: S. Neubauer et al., “Evolution of Brain Lateralization: A Shared Hominid Pattern of Endocranial Asymmetry Is Much More Variable in Humans Than in Great Apes,” Science Advances 6 (2020): eaax9935; I. Wang and T. Clandinin, “The Influence of Wiring Economy on Nervous System Evolution,” Current Biology 26 (2016): R1101; T. Namba et al., “Metabolic Regulation of Neocortical Expansion in Development and Evolution,” Neuron 109 (2021): 408; K. Zhang and T. Sejnowski, “A Universal Scaling Law between Gray Matter and White Matter of Cerebral Cortex,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 97 (2000): 5621.
For an example of a debate in the field as to the degree to which clusters of highly interacting neurons contribute to brain function, see: J. Cohen and F. Tong, “The Face of Controversy,” Science 293 (2001): 2405; P. Downing et al., “A Cortical Area Selective for Visual Processing of the Human Body,” Science 293 (2001): 2470; J. Haxby et al., “Distributed and Overlapping Representations of Faces and Objects in Ventral Temporal Cortex,” Science 293 (2001): 2425.
As a measure of just how much evolutionary pressure there has been to optimize spatial aspects of brain development, our brains contain approximately sixty thousand miles of projections among neurons: C. Filley, “White Matter and Human Behavior,” Science 372 (2021): 1265.
Footnote: For an example, see A. Wissa, “Birds Trade Flight Stability for Manoeuvrability,” Nature 603 (2022): 579.
Second footnote: Small-world networks: D. Bassett and E. Bullmore, “Small-World Brain Networks,” Neuroscientist 12 (2006): 512; D. Bassett and E. Bullmore, “Small-World Brain Networks Revisited,” Neuroscientist 23 (2017): 499; D. Watts and S. Strogatz, “Collective Dynamics of ‘Small-World’ Networks,” Nature 393 (1998): 440. Two papers exploring just how important the sparse, long-distance projections are: J. Giles, “Making the Links,” Nature 488 (2012): 448; M. Granovetter, “The Strength of Weak Ties,” American Journal of Sociology 78 (1973): 1360.
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Footnote: V. Zimmern, “Why Brain Criticality Is Clinically Relevant: A Scoping Review,” Frontiers in Neural Circuits 26 (2020), doi.org/10.3389/fncir.2020.00054.
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Footnote: Stigmergy: J. Korb, “Termite Mound Architecture, from Function to Construction,” in Biology of Termites: A Modern Synthesis, ed. D. Bignell, Y. Roisin, and N. Lo (Springer, 2010), p. 349; J. Turner, “Termites as Models of Swarm Cognition,” Swarm Intelligence 5 (2011): 19; E. Bonabeau et al., “Self-Organization in Social Insects,” Trends in Ecology and Evolution 12 (1997): 188.
Applications to machine learning: J. Korb, “Robots Acting Locally and Building Globally,” Science 343 (2014): 742.
Applications to the Wisdom of the Crowd phenomenon: A. Woolley et al., “Evidence for a Collective Intelligence Factor in the Performance of Human Groups,” Science 330 (2010): 686; D. Wilson, J. Timmel, and R. Miller, “Cognitive Cooperation,” Human Nature 15 (2004): 225. For a demonstration of how purely egalitarian wisdom-of-the-crowd phenomena aren’t always the best, see P. Tetlock, B. Mellers, and J. Scoblic, “Bringing Probability Judgments into Policy Debates via Forecasting Tournaments,” Science 355 (2017): 481.
Bottom-up curation systems: J. Giles, “Internet Encyclopedias Go Head to Head,” Nature 438 (2005): 900; J. Beck, “Doctors’ #1 Source for Healthcare Information: Wikipedia,” Atlantic, March 5, 2014.
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For a string of some of the dazzling findings in this field, see: M. Lancaster et al., “Cerebral Organoids Model Human Brain Development and Microcephaly,” Nature 501 (2013): 373; J. Camp et al., “Human Cerebral Organoids Recapitulate Gene Expression Programs of Fetal Neocortex Development,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Science of the United States of America 112 (2015): 15672; F. Birey, J. Andersen, and C. Makinson, “Assembly of Functionally Integrated Human Forebrain Spheroids,” Nature 545 (2017): 54; S. Pasca, “The Rise of Three-Dimensional Human Brain Cultures,” Nature 533 (2018): 437; S. Pasca, “Assembling Human Brain Organoids,” Science 363 (2019): 126; C. Trujillo et al., “Complex Oscillatory Waves Emerging from Cortical Organoids Model Early Human Brain Network Development,” Cell Stem Cell 25 (2019): 558; Frankfurt Radio Symphony, Manfred Honeck, conductor; L. Pelegrini et al., “Human CNS Barrier-Forming Organoids with Cerebrospinal Fluid Production,” Science 369 (2020): 6500; I. Chiaradia and M. Lancaster, “Brain Organoids for the Study of Human Neurobiology at the Interface of in Vitro and in Vivo,” Nature Neuroscience 23 (2020): 1496.
Footnote: For a thoroughly cool demonstration of the different types of brain organoids produced by different ape species, see: Z. Kronenberg et al., “High-Resolution Comparative Analysis of Great Ape Genomes,” Science 360 (2018): 6393; C. Trujillo, E. Rice, and N. Schaefer, “Reintroduction of the Archaic Variant of NOVA1 in Cortical Organoids Alters Neurodevelopment,” Science 371 (2021): 6530; A. Gordon et al., “Long-Term Maturation of Human Cortical Organoids Matches Key Early Postnatal Transitions,” Nature Neuroscience 24 (2021): 331.
Second footnote: S. Giandomenico et al., “Cerebral Organoids at the Air-Liquid Interface Generate Diverse Nerve Tracts with Functional Output,” Nature Neuroscience 22 (2019): 669; V. Marx, “Reality Check for Organoids in Neuroscience,” Nature Methods 17 (2020): 961; R. Menzel and M. Giurfa, “Cognitive Architecture of a Mini-Brain: The Honeybee,” Trends in Cognitive Sciences 5 (2001): 62; S. Reardon, “Can Lab-Grown Brains Become Conscious?,” Nature 586 (2020): 658; J. Koplin and J. Savulescu, “Moral Limits of Brain Organoid Research,” Journal of Law and Medical Ethics 47 (2019): 760.
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J. Werfel, K. Petersen, and R. Nagpal, “Designing Collective Behavior in a Termite-Inspired Robot Construction Team,” Science 343 (2014): 754; W. Marwan, “Amoeba-Inspired Network Design,” Science 327 (2019): 419; L. Shimin et al., “Slime Mould Algorithm: A New Method for Stochastic Optimization,” Future Generation Computer Systems 111 (2020): 300; T. Umedachi et al., “Fully Decentralized Control of a Soft-Bodied Robot Inspired by True Slime Mold,” Biological Cybernetics 102 (2010): 261. For a charming case of the student teaching the master, see: J. Halloy et al., “Social Integration of Robots into Groups of Cockroaches to Control Self-Organized Choices,” Science 318 (2007): 5853.
Final footnote: S. Bazazi et al., “Collective Motion and Cannibalism in Locust Migratory Bands,” Current Biology 18 (2008): 735. Just in case you thought locust cannibalism was dated science by now—as this book went to press, the presses were stopped for a May 5, 2023, paper detailing that locust have evolved pheromonal signaling mechanisms to decrease the odds of getting eaten by the locust just behind them. H. Chang et al., “A Chemical Defense Defers Cannibalism in Migratory Locusts,” Science 380 (2023) 537.
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8. Does Your Free Will Just Emerge?
C. List, “The Naturalistic Case for Free Will: The Challenge,” Brains Blog, August 12, 2019, https://philosophyofbrains.com/2019/08/12/1-the-naturalistic-case-for-free-will-the-challenge.aspx; R. Kane, “Rethinking Free Will: New Perspectives on an Ancient Problem,” in The Oxford Handbook of Free Will, ed. R. Kane (Oxford University Press, 2002), 134.
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List, “The Naturalistic Case for Free Will: The Challenge.”
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C. List and M. Pivato, “Emergent Chance,” Philosophical Review 124 (2015): 119, quote from p. 122.
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List and Pivato, “Emergent Chance,” quote from p. 133. In addition to his book Why Free Will Is Real (Harvard University Press, 2019), List presents these ideas in: C. List, “Free Will, Determinism, and the Possibility of Doing Otherwise,” Noûs 48 (2014): 156; C. List and P. Menzies, “My Brain Made Me Do It: The Exclusion Argument against Free Will, and What’s Wrong with It,” in Making a Difference: Essays on the Philosophy of Causation, ed. H. Beebee, C. Hitchcock, and H. Price (Oxford University Press, 2017).
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W. Glannon, “Behavior Control, Meaning, and Neuroscience,” in Neuroexistentialism, ed. G. Caruso and W. Flannagan (Oxford University Press, 2018). The Shadlen and Roskies quotes are both from: M. Shadlen and A. Roskies, “The Neurobiology of Decision-Making and Responsibility: Reconciling Mechanism and Mindedness,” Frontiers of Neuroscience 6 (2012), doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2012.00056.
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M. Bedau, “Weak Emergence,” in Philosophical Perspectives: Mind, Causation, and World, ed. J. Tomberlin (Blackwell, 1997), p. 375, the two quotes are from pp. 376 and 397; D. Chalmers, “Strong and Weak Emergence,” in The Re-emergence of Emergence, ed. P. Clayton and P. Davies (Oxford University Press, 2006); S. Carroll, The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself (Dutton, 2016); S. Carroll, personal communication, 5/22/2019.
Footnote: G. Gomes, “Free Will, the Self, and the Brain,” Behavioral Sciences and the Law 25 (2007): 221; quote is from p. 233.
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G. Berns et al., “Neurobiological Correlates of Social Conformity and Independence during Mental Rotation,” Biology Psychiatry 58 (2005): 245.
Footnote: P. Rozin, “Social Psychology and Science: Some Lessons from Solomon Asch,” Personality and Social Psychology Review 5 (2001): 2.
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Footnote: H. Chua, J. Boland, and R. Nisbett, “Cultural Variation in Eye Movements during Scene Perception,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 102 (2005): 12629.
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M. Mascolo and E. Kallio, “Beyond Free Will: The Embodied Emergence of Conscious Agency,” Philosophical Psychology 32 (2019): 437.
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Mascolo and Kallio, “Beyond Free Will”; J. Bonilla, “Why Emergent Levels Will Not Save Free Will (1),” Mapping Ignorance, September 30, 2019, mappingignorance.org/2019/09/30/why-emergent-levels-will-not-save-free-will-1/.
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Footnote: See, for example, C. Voyatzis, “ ‘Even a Brick Wants to Be Something’—Louis Kahn,” Yatzer, June 9, 2013, yatzer.com/even-brick-wants-be-something-louis-kahn.
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9. A Primer on Quantum Indeterminacy
S. Janusonis et al., “Serotonergic Axons as Fractional Brownian Motion Paths: Insights into the Self-Organization of Regional Densities,” Frontiers in Computational Neuroscience 14 (2020), doi.org/10.3389/fncom.2020.00056; H. Zhang and H. Peng, “Mechanism of Acetylcholine Receptor Cluster Formation Induced by DC Electric Field,” PLoS One 6 (2011): e26805; M. Vestergaard et al., “Detection of Alzheimer’s Amyloid Beta Aggregation by Capturing Molecular Trails of Individual Assemblies,” Biochemistry and Biophysics Research Communications 377 (2008): 725.
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C. Finch and T. Kirkwood, Chance, Development, and Aging (Oxford University Press, 2000).
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B. Brembs, “Towards a Scientific Concept of Free Will as a Biological Trait: Spontaneous Actions and Decision-Making in Invertebrates,” Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 278 (2011): 930; A. Nimmerjahn, F. Kirschhoff, and F. Helmchen, “Resting Microglial Cells Are Highly Dynamic Surveillants of Brain Parenchyma in Vivo,” Science 308 (2005): 1314.
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Footnote: M. Heisenberg, “The Origin of Freedom in Animal Behavior,” in Is Science Compatible with Free Will? Exploring Free Will and Consciousness in the Light of Quantum Physics and Neuroscience, ed. A. Suarez and P. Adams (Springer, 2013).
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T. Hellmuth Tet al., “Delayed-Choice Experiments in Quantum Interference,” Physics Reviews A 35 (1987): 2532.
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A. Ananthaswamy, Through Two Doors at Once: The Elegant Experiment That Captures the Enigma of Our Quantum Reality (Dutton, 2018); for an introduction to the many-world idea, see Y. Nomura, “The Quantum Multiverse,” Scientific American, May 2017.
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J. Yin et al., “Satellite-Based Entanglement Distribution over 1200 Kilometers,” Science 356 (2017): 1140; J. Ren et al., “Ground-to-Satellite Quantum Teleportation,” Nature 549 (2017): 70; G. Popkin, “China’s Quantum Satellite Achieves ‘Spooky Action’ at Record Distance,” Science, June 15, 2017.
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Footnote: D. Simonton, Creativity in Science: Chance, Logic, Genius, and Zeitgeist (Cambridge University Press, 2004); R. Sapolsky, “Open Season,” New Yorker, March 30, 1998.
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C. Marletto et al., “Entanglement between Living Bacteria and Quantized Light Witnessed by Rabi Splitting,” Journal of Physics: Communications 2 (2018): 101001; P. Jedlicka, “Revisiting the Quantum Brain Hypothesis: Toward Quantum (Neuro)biology?,” Frontiers in Molecular Neuroscience 10 (2017): 366.
Footnote: J. O’Callaghan, “ ‘Schrödinger’s Bacterium’ Could Be a Quantum Biology Milestone,” Scientific American, October 29, 2018.
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10. Is Your Free Will Random?
A selective tour of the quantum indeterminacy menagerie: R. Boni, Quantum Christian Realism: How Quantum Mechanics Underwrites and Realizes Classical Christian Theism (Wipf and Stock, 2019); D. O’Murchu, Quantum Theology: Spiritual Implications of the New Physics (Crossroads, 2004); I. Barbour, Issues in Science and Religion (Prentice Hall, 1966); quote by “New Age Physicist” from: Amit Goswami, as quoted in the film “What the #$*! Do We Know?!” and his website https://www.amitgoswami.org/2019/06/21/quantum-spirituality/; P. Fisher, “Quantum Cognition: The Possibility of Processing with Nuclear Spins in the Brain,” Annals of Physics 362 (2015): 593; H. Hu and M. Wu, “Action Potential Modulation of Neural Spin Networks Suggests Possible Role of Spin,” NeuroQuantology 2 (2004): 309; S. Tarlaci and M. Pregnolato, “Quantum Neurophysics: From Non-living Matter to Quantum Neurobiology and Psychopathology,” International Journal of Psychophysiology 103 (2016): 161; E. Basar and B. Guntekin, “A Breakthrough in Neuroscience Needs a ‘Nebulous Cartesian System’ Oscillations, Quantum Dynamics and Chaos in the Brain and Vegetative System,” International Journal of Psychophysiology 64 (2006): 108; M. Cocchi et al., “Major Depression and Bipolar Disorder: The Concept of Symmetry Breaking,” NeuroQuantology 10 (2012): 676; P. Zizzi and M. Pregnolato, “Quantum Logic of the Unconscious and Schizophrenia,” NeuroQuantology 10 (2012): 566. And naturally, there’s a quantum diet: L. Fritz, The Quantum Weight Loss Blueprint (New Hope Health, 2020). Plus, don’t miss: A. Amarasingam, “New Age Spirituality, Quantum Mysticism and Self-Psychology: Changing Ourselves from the Inside Out,” Mental Health, Religion & Culture 12 (2009): 277.
Footnote: G. Pennycook et al., “On the Reception and Detection of Pseudo-profound Bullshit,” Judgment and Decision Making 10 (2015): 549.
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Goswami, amitgoswami.org.
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Journal Citation Reports ranked NeuroQuantology 253rd out of 261 neuroscience journals in terms of impact on other scientists’ work, making one curious as to what numbers 254–261 are like.
Footnote: J. T. Ismael, Why Physics Makes Us Free (Oxford University Press, 2016).
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Quote is from P. Kitcher, “The Mind Mystery,” New York Times, February 4, 1990; for a similarly anguished review this time by a neuroscientist, see: J. Hobson, “Neuroscience and the Soul: The Dualism of John Carew Eccles,” Cerebrum: The Dana Forum on Brain Science 6 (2004): 61.
Footnote: J. Eccles, “Hypotheses Relating to the Brain-Mind Problem,” Nature 168 (1951): 53.
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