Determined, page 49
G. Engel, T. Calhoun, and E. Read, “Evidence for Wavelike Energy Transfer through Quantum Coherence in Photosynthetic Systems,” Nature 446 (2007): 782.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 5
P. Tse, “Two Types of Libertarian Free Will Are Realized in the Human Brain,” in Neuroexistentialism, ed. G. Caruso and O. Flanagan (Oxford University Press, 2018), p. 170.
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J. Schwartz, H. Stapp, and M. Beauregard, “Quantum Physics in Neuroscience and Psychology: A Neurophysical Model of Mind-Brain Interaction,” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society London B, Biological Sciences 360 (2005): 1309; Z. Ganim, A. Tokmako, and A. Vaziri, “Vibrational Excitons in Ionophores; Experimental Probes for Quantum Coherence–Assisted Ion Transport and Selectivity in Ion Channels,” New Journal of Physics 13 (2011): 113030; A. Vaziri and M. Plenio, “Quantum Coherence in Ion Channels: Resonances, Transport and Verification,” New Journal of Physics 12 (2010): 085001.
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S. Hameroff, “How Quantum Biology Can Rescue Conscious Free Will,” Frontiers of Integrative Neuroscience 6 (2012): 93; S. Hameroff and R. Penrose, “Orchestral Reduction of Quantum Coherence in Brain Microtubules: A Model for Consciousness,” Mathematical and Computational Simulation 40 (1996): 453; E. Dent and P. Baas, “Microtubules in Neurons as Information Carriers,” Journal of Neurochemistry 129 (2014): 235; R. Tas and L. Kapitein, “Exploring Cytoskeletal Diversity in Neurons,” Science 361 (2018): 231.
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M. Tegmark, “Why the Brain Is Probably Not a Quantum Computer,” Information Science 128 (2000): 155; M. Tegmark, “Importance of Quantum Coherence in Brain Processes,” Physical Review E 61 (2000): 4194; M. Kikkawa et al., “Direct Visualization of the Microtubule Lattice Seam Both in Vitro and in Vivo,” Journal of Cell Biology 127 (1994): 1965; C. De Zeeuw, E. Hertzberg, and E. Mugnaini, “The Dendritic Lamellar Body: New Neuronal Organelle Putatively Associated with Dendrodendritic Gap Junctions,” Journal of Neuroscience 15 (1995): 1587.
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J. Tanaka et al., “Number and Density of AMPA Receptors in Single Synapses in Immature Cerebellum,” Journal of Neuroscience 25 (2005): 799; M. West and H. Gundersen, “Unbiased Stereological Estimation of the Number of Neurons in the Human Hippocampus,” Comparative Neurology 296 (1990): 1.
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J. Hobbs, “Chaos and Indeterminism,” Canadian Journal of Philosophy 21 (1991): 141; D. Lindley, Where Does the Weirdness Go? Why Quantum Mechanics Is Strange, but Not as Strange as You Think (Basic Books, 1996).
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L. Amico et al., “Many-Body Entanglement,” Review of Modern Physics 80 (2008): 517; Tarlaci and Pregnolato, “Quantum Neurophysics.”
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B. Katz, “On the Quantal Mechanism of Neural Transmitter Release” (Nobel Lecture, Stockholm, December 12, 1970), nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/1970/katz/lecture/; Y. Wang et al., “Counting the Number of Glutamate Molecules in Single Synaptic Vesicles,” Journal of the American Chemical Society 141 (2019): 17507.
Footnote: J. Schwartz et al., “Quantum Physics in Neuroscience and Psychology: A Neurophysical Model of Mind-Brain Interactions,” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B I360 (2005): 1309, the quote can be found on p. 1319.
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C. Wasser and E. Kavalali, “Leaky Synapses: Regulation of Spontaneous Neurotransmission in Central Synapses,” Journal of Neuroscience 158 (2008): 177; E. Kavalali, “The Mechanisms and Functions of Spontaneous Neurotransmitter Release,” Nature Reviews Neuroscience 16 (2015): 5; C. Williams and S. Smith, “Calcium Dependence of Spontaneous Neurotransmitter Release,” Journal of Neuroscience Research 96 (2018): 335.
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Williams and Smith, “Calcium Dependence of Spontaneous Neurotransmitter Release”; K. Koga et al., “SCRAPPER Selectively Contributes to Spontaneous Release and Presynaptic Long-Term Potentiation in the Anterior Cingulate Cortex,” Journal of Neuroscience 37 (2017): 3887; R. Schneggenburger and C. Rosenmund, “Molecular Mechanisms Governing Ca(2+) Regulation of Evoked and Spontaneous Release,” Nature Neuroscience 18 (2015): 935; K. Hausknecht et al., “Prenatal Ethanol Exposure Persistently Alters Endocannabinoid Signaling and Endocannabinoid-Mediated Excitatory Synaptic Plasticity in Ventral Tegmental Area Dopamine Neurons,” Journal of Neuroscience 37 (2017): 5798.
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Determined indeterminacy under the control of:
Hormones and stress: L. Liu et al., “Corticotropin-Releasing Factor and Urocortin I Modulate Excitatory Glutamatergic Synaptic Transmission,” Journal of Neuroscience 24 (2004): 4020; H. Tan, P. Zhong, and Z. Yan, “Corticotropin-Releasing Factor and Acute Stress Prolongs Serotonergic Regulation of GABA Transmission in Prefrontal Cortical Pyramidal Neurons,” Journal of Neuroscience 24 (2004): 5000.ohol.
Alcohol: R. Renteria et al., “Selective Alterations of NMDAR Function and Plasticity in D1 and D2 Medium Spiny Neurons in the Nucleus Accumbens Shell Following Chronic Intermittent Ethanol Exposure,” Neuropharmacology 112 (2017): 164; 1983: Technicolor, 116 minutes, starring Robert De Niro, Diane Keaton, and, in his film debut, the young Ryan Gosling as the sixth frontocortical neuron from the left; R. Shen, “Ethanol Withdrawal Reduces the Number of Spontaneously Active Ventral Tegmental Area Dopamine Neurons in Conscious Animals,” Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics 307 (2003): 566.
Other factors: J. Ribeiro, “Purinergic Inhibition of Neurotransmitter Release in the Central Nervous System,” Pharmacology and Toxicology 77 (1995): 299; J. Li et al., “Regulation of Increased Glutamatergic Input to Spinal Dorsal Horn Neurons by mGluR5 in Diabetic Neuropathic Pain,” Journal of Neurochemistry 112 (2010): 162; A. Goel et al., “Cross-Modal Regulation of Synaptic AMPA Receptors in Primary Sensory Cortices by Visual Experience,” Nature Neuroscience 9 (2006): 1001.
Just to hint at a whole additional world of determined indeterminacy in the brain, particular stretches of DNA will occasionally be copied, with the copy then randomly plunked into a different place in the genome (once pejoratively called “jumping genes” by skeptics, the reality of such “transposons” resulted in a Nobel Prize for their long-dismissed discoverer, Barbara McClintock, in 1983). Turns out that the brain can regulate when such randomness occurs in neurons (for example, during stress, by way of glucocorticoids). See R. Hunter et al., “Stress and the Dynamic Genome: Steroids, Epigenetics, and the Transposome,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 112 (2014): 6828.
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See the Kavalali papers in Reference #14; F. Varodayan et al., “CRF Modulates Glutamate Transmission in the Central Amygdala of Naïve and Ethanol-Dependent Rats,” Neuropharmacology 125 (2017): 418; J. Earman, A Primer on Determinism (Reidel, 1986).
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Spontaneous neurotransmitter release: D. Crawford et al., “Selective Molecular Impairment of Spontaneous Neurotransmission Modulates Synaptic Efficacy,” Nature Communications 10 (2017): 14436; M. Garcia-Bereguiain et al., “Spontaneous Release Regulates Synaptic Scaling in the Embryonic Spinal Network in Vivo,” Journal of Neuroscience 36 (2016): 7268; A. Blankenship and M. Feller, “Mechanisms Underlying Spontaneous Patterned Activity in Developing Neural Circuits,” Nature Reviews Neuroscience 11 (2010): 18; C. O’Donnell and M. van Rossum, “Spontaneous Action Potentials and Neural Coding in Unmyelinated Axons,” Neural Computation 27 (2015): 801; L. Andreae and J. Burrone, “The Role of Spontaneous Neurotransmission in Synapse and Circuit Development,” Journal of Neuroscience Research 96 (2018): 354.
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M. Raichle et al., “A Default Mode of Brain Function,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 98 (2001): 676; M. Raichle and A. Snyder, “A Default Mode of Brain Function: A Brief History of an Evolving Idea,” NeuroImage 37 (2007): 1083. For an interesting take on a circumstance where the brain actively works to make you daydream, see: V. Axelrod et al., “Increasing Propensity to Mind-Wander with Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 112 (2015): 3314. For additional relevant papers, see: R. Pena, M. Zaks, and A. Roque, “Dynamics of Spontaneous Activity in Random Networks with Multiple Neuron Subtypes and Synaptic Noise: Spontaneous Activity in Networks with Synaptic Noise,” Journal of Computational Neuroscience 45 (2018): 1; A. Tozzi, M. Zare, and A. Benasich, “New Perspectives on Spontaneous Brain Activity: Dynamic Networks and Energy Matter,” Frontiers of Human Neuroscience 10 (2016): 247.
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J. Searle, “Free Will as a Problem in Neurobiology,” Philosophy 76 (2001): 491; M. Shadlen and A. Roskies, “The Neurobiology of Decision-Making and Responsibility: Reconciling Mechanism and Mindedness,” Frontiers in Neuroscience 6 (2021), doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2012.00056; S. Blackburn, Think: A Compelling Introduction to Philosophy (Oxford University Press, 1999), the quote is from p. 60. For a nice example of how individuality is built on consistency in the brain, and not randomness, see: T. Kurikawa et al., “Neuronal Stability in Medial Frontal Cortex Sets Individual Variability in Decision-Making,” Nature Neuroscience 21 (2018): 1764.
Footnote: M. Bakan, “Awareness and Possibility,” Review of Metaphysics 14 (1960): 231.
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D. Dennett, Freedom Evolves (Viking, 2003), p. 123; Tse: Reference #6, p. 123.
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Z. Blount, R. Lenski, and J. Losos, “Contingency and Determinism in Evolution: Replaying Life’s Tape,” Science 362 (2018): 655; D. Noble, “The Role of Stochasticity in Biological Communication Processes,” Progress in Biophysics and Molecular Biology 162 (2020): 122; R. Noble and D. Noble, “Harnessing Stochasticity: How Do Organisms Make Choices?,” Chaos 28 (2018): 106309. The two authors of this last paper are Denis Noble of Oxford and Raymond Noble of University College London; after only a moderate amount of sleuthing on my part, I think they are father and son (Denis, father; Raymond, son), which is incredibly sweet; just to add to the charm, they both appear to be accomplished English troubadour singers—singing together and publishing papers on stochasticity together. As long as we’re on that, and I feel confident that no one is reading this (Why are you reading this? Go for a walk outside somewhere nice), there’s also C. McEwen and B. McEwen, “Social Structure, Adversity, Toxic Stress, and Intergenerational Poverty: An Early Childhood Model,” Annual Review of Sociology 43 (2017): 445, by brothers Craig, sociologist at Bowdoin College, and Bruce, neurobiologist at Rockefeller University. This is interdisciplinary science and family relations at their finest. Bruce, an extraordinarily accomplished scientist, was my PhD adviser, mentor, and father figure for almost forty years. He died in 2020; I still feel his absence.
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Dennett, Brainstorms, p. 295.
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Shadlen and Roskies, “Neurobiology of Decision-Making and Responsibility.”
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Footnote: The record-holding monkey: Cited in D. Wershler-Henry, Iron Whim: A Fragmented History of Typewriting (McClelland and Stewart, 2005); R. Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe without Design (Norton, 1986); Borges’s story appears in J. Borges, Collected Fictions (Viking, 1998). I suspect binge-reading the three of these without pause would make for a pretty interesting state of mind.
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K. Mitchel, “Does Neuroscience Leave Room for Free Will?,” Trends in Neurosciences 41 (2018): 573.
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R. Kane, The Significance of Free Will (Oxford University Press, 1996), p. 130.
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Tse: See Reference #6.
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R. Kane, “Libertarianism” in Four Views on Free Will, ed. J. Fischer et al. (Wiley-Blackwell, 2007), p. 26.
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The description/prescription distinction is explored in P. Cryle and E. Stephens, Normality: A Critical Genealogy (University of Chicago Press, 2017). For an interesting read running in the opposite direction from this chapter, see J. Horgan, “Does Quantum Mechanics Rule Out Free Will?,” Scientific American, March 2022. By the way, Horgan makes respectful reference to physicist Sabine Hossenfelder; I second that. Watch her YouTube lecture “You Don’t Have Free Will, but Don’t Worry” (youtube.com/watch?v=zpU_e3jh_FY). It’s magnificent. In fact, watch it, rather than reading this book . . .
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10.5. Interlude
H. Sarkissian et al., “Is Belief in Free Will a Cultural Universal?,” Mind & Language 25 (2010): 346.
Footnote: W. Phillips et al., “ ‘Unwilling’ versus ‘Unable’: Capuchin Monkeys’ (Cebus apella) Understanding of Human Intentional Action,” Developmental Science 12 (2009): 938; J. Call et al., “ ‘Unwilling’ versus ‘Unable’: Chimpanzees’ Understanding of Human Intentional Action,” Developmental Science 7 (2004): 488; E. Furlong and L. Santos, “Evolutionary Insights into the Nature of Choice: Evidence from Nonhuman Primates,” in Moral Psychology, vol. 4, Free Will and Moral Responsibility, ed. W. Sinnott-Armstrong (MIT Press, 2014), p. 347.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 1
Footnote: Loeb was knifed to death in prison by an inmate who said Loeb had aggressively propositioned him. Several pundits (which in the original isn’t clear) noted that, surprisingly for someone who was educated enough to presumably know his grammar, Loeb had “ended his sentence with a proposition” (e.g., Mark Hellinger, Syracuse Journal, February 19, 1936). His killer was exonerated.
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Society for Neuroscience, “Timeline,” n.d., sfn.org/about/history-of-sfn/1969-2019/timeline. Philosopher Thomas Nadelhoffer writes explicitly about this “threat of shrinking agency.” T. Nadelhoffer, “The Threat of Shrinking Agency and Free Will Disillusionism,” in Conscious Will and Responsibility: A Tribute to Benjamin Libet, ed. L. Nadel and W. Sinnott-Armstrong (Oxford University Press, 2011).
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11. Will We Run Amok?
D. Walker, Rights in Conflict: The Walker Report (Bantam Books, 1968); N. Steinberg, “The Whole World Watched: 50 Years after the 1968 Chicago Convention,” Chicago Sun Times, August 17, 2018; J. Schultz, No One Was Killed: The Democratic National Convention, August 1968 (University of Chicago Press, 1969); H. Johnson, “1968 Democratic Convention: The Bosses Strike Back,” Smithsonian, August 2008. For a review of anonymity and enhanced violence in traditional cultures, see chapter 11 of R. Sapolsky, Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst (Penguin Press, 2017).
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 1
M. L. Saint Martin, “Running Amok: A Modern Perspective on a Culture-Bound Syndrome,” Primary Care Companion for the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry 1 (1999): 66.
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Francis Crick, The Astonishing Hypothesis: The Scientific Search for the Soul (Scribner, 1994), p. 1.
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Footnote: For variations, see E. Seto and J. Hicks, “Disassociating the Agent from the Self: Undermining Belief in Free Will Diminishes True Self-Knowledge,” Social Psychological and Personality 7 (2016): 726.
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D. Rigoni et al., “Inducing Disbelief in Free Will Alters Brain Correlates of Preconscious Motor Preparation Whether We Believe in Free Will or Not,” Psychological Science 22 (2011): 613.
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D. Rigoni, G. Pourtois, and M. Brass, “ ‘Why Should I Care?’ Challenging Free Will Attenuates Neural Reaction to Errors,” Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience 10 (2015): 262; D. Rigoni et al., “When Errors Do Not Matter: Weakening Belief in Intentional Control Impairs Cognitive Reaction to Errors,” Cognition 127 (2013): 264.
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K. Vohs and J. Schooler, “The Value of Believing in Free Will,” Psychological Science 19 (2002) 49; A. Shariff and K. Vohs, “The World without Free Will,” Scientific American, June 2014; M. MacKenzie, K. Vohs, and R. Baumeister, “You Didn’t Have to Do That: Belief in Free Will Promotes Gratitude,” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 40 (2014): 14223; B. Moynihan, E. Igou, and A. Wijnand, “Free, Connected, and Meaningful: Free Will Beliefs Promote Meaningfulness through Belongingness,” Personality and Individual Differences 107 (2017): 54. Also see: Seto and Hicks, “Disassociating the Agent from the Self”; R. Baumeister, E. Masicampo, and C. DeWall, “Prosocial Benefits of Feeling Free: Disbelief in Free Will Increases Aggression and Reduces Helpfulness,” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 35 (2009): 260.
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M. Lynn et al., “Priming Determinist Beliefs Diminishes Implicit (but Not Explicit) Components of Self-Agency,” Frontiers in Psychology 5 (2014), doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01483.
