Walter J.Freeman How Brains Make Up Their Mind

Phoenix 1999 pg 10 Volition - Intentionality I will begin by giving a name to the process by which goal-directed actions are generated in the brains of humans and other animals. Such goal directed actions would often be called "voluntary" when they are done by humans but not by animals, because many people think that only humans have the capacity to will their actions.  Neural bases for goal directed actions As an alternative to this understanding of volition, I want to describe a neural bases for goal directed actions that is common to both humans and other animals, because it reflects the evolution of human mechanisms from simpler animals, in which intent can operate without will. The concept - intentionality - was first described by Thomas Aquinas in 1272 to denote the process by which humans and other animals act in accordance with their own growth and maturation.  An "Intent" is the directing of an action towards some future goal that is defined and chosen by the actor.  It differs from a "motive", which is the reason or explanation of the action, and from a "desire" which is the awareness and experience stemming from the intent.  A man shoots another with the intent to kill, which is separate from why he does it and with what feeling. I believe that animals have awareness, but not awareness of themselves, which is well developed only in humans.  Self-awareness is required for volition: animals cannot volunteer.       Chapter 2 Meaning   In chapter 2 I describe my conception of meaning, how it is created by the processes of intentionality, and how it is expressed in symbols, gestures and words comprising representations.  I propose that meanings arise as the brain creates intentional behaviours and then changes itself in accordance with the sensory consequences of those behaviours.  Aquinas and Jean Piaget  both called this process "assimilation".  It is the process by which the self comes to understand the world by adapting itself to the world.  The contents of meaning derived from the impact of the world, principally the social impact of actions of other humans upon ourselves, and they include the entire context of history and experience we have already acquired.  Although the contents of meaning are largely social in origin, the mechanisms of meaning are biological and have to be understood in terms of brain dynamics. Meaning is a kind of living structure that grows then changes, yet endures. Chapter 3 Nonlinear dynamics In chapter 3 we shall address the problem of the origin of such structure through nonlinear dynamics.  Structure comes from chaos, which is an expression of self-determination.  Here we need to grasp the hierarchical nature of the way neurons are organised at two levels of size and scale, including the concepts of the state of a neuron and neuron population in a brain, its state variables and state space, the stability of states, and state transitions between states through destabilisation. Chapter 4 Perception In chapter 4 these concepts of dynamics will be applied to the first steps of perception following environmental impact on to the senses, in which the brain responds to the world by destabilising the primary sensory cortices of the brain.  The result is the construction of neural activity patterns, which provide the elements of which meaning is made.  When the freshly made patterns are transmitted to other parts of the brain, the raw sense data are that triggered them are washed away.  What remains is what has been made within the brain. Chapter 5 In chapter 5, we shall see how the sensory portals co-operate with deeper structures in the brain to construct brain activity patterns in which inputs from all the senses are blended.  This blending is the original meaning of common sense, rather than the streets smart worldliness that is often taken for folk wisdom.  No one is neuron or part of the brain takes charge to control the other parts.  Coordination is invitational, not domineering. The key to brain function lies in the massive recurrent pathways by which each part of the brain broadcasts its output to other parts and receives from them, rather like singers in the chorus hearing and reacting to all the others. These interactions provide the bases for neural consensus that is necessary for the self organisation of behaviour. Chapter 6 Awareness In chapter 6, we will look at the relation of awareness to the formation and representation of meaning.  Most intentional behaviours occur without the need for awareness, so intentionality operates before awareness and consciousness, up to a point.  That point is reached when, in order to understand intentionality, we need to think about meaning and represent our thoughts and words.  We need to hear and read the words of others to enhance our own meanings.  Effective use of language requires consciousness.  We will approach the biology of consciousness by looking at the concepts of linear and circular causality. The way we think about causes can be explained in neural biological terms is coming from the way we are aware of and experience our own intentionality.  This step shows the limits of linear causality and helps us to understand circular causality, which is a kind of halfway house between the comfortable shelter of belief in causality and the rather terrifyingly inhuman open range of acausal processes. Chapter 7 Assimilated Meaning In chapter 7, we shall see how brains surmount solipsistic isolation and form societies, through which some contents of meaning are partially assimilated by the members of society and represented in knowledge.  The most common method of assimilation of meanings is in the give and take of conversation.  The deep formation of trust requires more complex behaviours, which involves the induction of altered states of consciousness, including trances among the many techniques used are behavioural aids such as chanting, drumming and dancing. The essence of these procedures is to loosen the self-conscious control of individuals and dissolve their cognitive and emotional structures in a meltdown of meanings that are counter to socialisation.  I call this process "unlearning".  It is an essential precursor to new learning leading to socialisation that takes place through cooperative and nurturing behaviours.  Hints of the brain chemistry involved are found in the mammalian revolution of parental bonding to offspring that need prolonged care by adults in order to survive. Unlearning is mediated by neuromodulators in the brain stem, particularly oxytocin and vasopressin, which are released in brains during reproductive behaviours that include sexual intercourse, giving birth and nursing.  Consciousness My final conclusion is that consciousness, as it is understood among people for whom it is self-evident, is a social contract that governs the ethical behaviours and attitudes we adopt with respect to other people and all living things.  What ever it is in humans that makes the choices, it cannot fail to be a social being immersed in a cultural merely over from years of personal socialisation and millennia of cultural history.

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