TY - BOOK ID - 8137113 TI - Downward causation and the neurobiology of free will AU - Ellis, George F. R. AU - O'Connor, Timothy AU - Murphy, Nancey C. PY - 2009 SN - 3642032044 9786612459870 1282459872 3642032052 PB - Berlin ; Heidelberg : Springer, DB - UniCat KW - Consciousness. KW - Electronic books. -- local. KW - Free will and determinism. KW - Consciousness KW - Neurobiology KW - Brain KW - Personal Autonomy KW - Biology KW - Principle-Based Ethics KW - Psychophysiology KW - Freedom KW - Cognition KW - Central Nervous System KW - Neurosciences KW - Psychological Phenomena and Processes KW - Ethics KW - Biological Science Disciplines KW - Human Rights KW - Psychiatry and Psychology KW - Mental Processes KW - Nervous System KW - Humanities KW - Social Control, Formal KW - Natural Science Disciplines KW - Anatomy KW - Philosophy KW - Sociology KW - Disciplines and Occupations KW - Health Care Economics and Organizations KW - Health Care KW - Social Sciences KW - Anthropology, Education, Sociology and Social Phenomena KW - Atomic Physics KW - Psychology KW - Physics KW - Physical Sciences & Mathematics KW - Compatibilism KW - Determinism and free will KW - Determinism and indeterminism KW - Free agency KW - Freedom and determinism KW - Freedom of the will KW - Indeterminism KW - Liberty of the will KW - Physics. KW - Neurosciences. KW - Dynamics. KW - Ergodic theory. KW - Statistical physics. KW - Dynamical systems. KW - Medical laws and legislation. KW - Vibration. KW - Statistical Physics, Dynamical Systems and Complexity. KW - Vibration, Dynamical Systems, Control. KW - Dynamical Systems and Ergodic Theory. KW - Medical Law. KW - Apperception KW - Mind and body KW - Perception KW - Spirit KW - Self KW - Determinism (Philosophy) KW - Differentiable dynamical systems. KW - Public health laws. KW - Complex Systems. KW - Statistical Physics and Dynamical Systems. KW - Mathematical statistics KW - Communicable diseases KW - Public health KW - Medical laws and legislation KW - Differential dynamical systems KW - Dynamical systems, Differentiable KW - Dynamics, Differentiable KW - Differential equations KW - Global analysis (Mathematics) KW - Topological dynamics KW - Neural sciences KW - Neurological sciences KW - Neuroscience KW - Medical sciences KW - Nervous system KW - Cycles KW - Mechanics KW - Sound KW - Statistical methods KW - Law and legislation KW - Law, Medical KW - Medical personnel KW - Medical registration and examination KW - Medicine KW - Physicians KW - Surgeons KW - Medical policy KW - Medical jurisprudence KW - Ergodic transformations KW - Continuous groups KW - Mathematical physics KW - Measure theory KW - Transformations (Mathematics) KW - Dynamical systems KW - Kinetics KW - Mathematics KW - Mechanics, Analytic KW - Force and energy KW - Statics KW - Legal status, laws, etc. KW - Free will and determinism KW - Causation UR - https://www.unicat.be/uniCat?func=search&query=sysid:8137113 AB - How is free will possible in the light of the physical and chemical underpinnings of brain activity and recent neurobiological experiments? How can the emergence of complexity in hierarchical systems such as the brain, based at the lower levels in physical interactions, lead to something like genuine free will? The nature of our understanding of free will in the light of present-day neuroscience is becoming increasingly important because of remarkable discoveries on the topic being made by neuroscientists at the present time, on the one hand, and its crucial importance for the way we view ourselves as human beings, on the other. A key tool in understanding how free will may arise in this context is the idea of downward causation in complex systems, happening coterminously with bottom up causation, to form an integral whole. Top-down causation is usually neglected, and is therefore emphasized in the other part of the book’s title. The concept is explored in depth, as are the ethical and legal implications of our understanding of free will. This book arises out of a workshop held in California in April of 2007, which was chaired by Dr. Christof Koch. It was unusual in terms of the breadth of people involved: they included physicists, neuroscientists, psychiatrists, philosophers, and theologians. This enabled the meeting, and hence the resulting book, to attain a rather broader perspective on the issue than is often attained at academic symposia. The book includes contributions by Sarah-Jayne Blakemore, George F. R. Ellis , Christopher D. Frith, Mark Hallett, David Hodgson, Owen D. Jones, Alicia Juarrero, J. A. Scott Kelso, Christof Koch, Hans Küng, Hakwan C. Lau, Dean Mobbs, Nancey Murphy, William Newsome, Timothy O’Connor, Sean A.. Spence, and Evan Thompson. ER -