Our own experience of our free will has been classified as either supernatural or an illusion because it is difficult to reconcile with macroscopic determinism as well as with microscopic quantum randomness. The former constituting a prison in which no freedom can exist, the latter signifying destructive chaos rather than creative action. Lost in this dichotomy is the demonstrated constructive combination of chance and necessity in complex systems, such as evolution. Recent converging evidence from neuroscience, ecology and genetics suggests that nervous systems, including human brains, have evolved neural circuits that harness (potentially quantum) chance events by embedding them in the controlling architecture of neuronal rules, in order to carefully inject them as creative components into ongoing goal-directed behavior. This presentation contains evidence that this form of behavioral variability may constitute a necessary neural mechanism for free will to evolve in humans.

1. Björn Brembs
http://brembs.net
Universität Regensburg

3. “If we choose to remain at rest, we may; if we choose to move, we also may”
David Hume (1711-1776)

4. “We could often have done otherwise than we in fact did”
Searle 1984

5. “I could have done otherwise”
Taylor & Dennett 2002

7. Hans Flohr

8. Dr Lisa Jones University of St Andrews

9. 1. Determinism rules out freedom
2. Randomness doesn‘t make us free either
Freedom cannot exist / is a useless concept
Double-Incompatibilists:

11. What is behavior?
“The whole neural organism, it will be remembered, is, physiologically
considered, but a machine for converting stimuli into reactions” (James, 1890,
p. 372).
BehaviorBehavior: An analysis of the world, followed by deliberation and: An analysis of the world, followed by deliberation and
planning, followed by execution of the plan.planning, followed by execution of the plan.
““sense, think, act”sense, think, act”
motor
output
sensory
input
ReactionPerception
representation
of the world
Cognition
representation
of the motor plan
William James
Source: Paul Cisek
1890

12. 1949

21. Source: Ken Catania

24. Pursuit-evasion contests & competition (courtship, predator-
prey, territoriality, chess, sports etc.)

25. H. geographicus
Variability in jumping
Royan et al., 2010
M. trinitatis

28. I. Steymans

30. “The freedom of the will consists in the impossibility of knowing actions
that still lie in the future”
Ludwig Wittgenstein

33. Phototaxis: Gáspár Jékely
Polychaete: Platynereis dumerilii
Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology

34. Light Pressure Gravity
benthic
pelagic
Temperature
Salinity
Chemicals

36. G Jékely et al. Nature 456, 395-399 (2008) doi:10.1038/nature07590

37. G Jékely et al. Nature 456, 395-399 (2008) doi:10.1038/nature07590

38. FVRIamide acTub

40. Cornelia Bargmann 302 neurons, connectome
Gordus et al. 2015, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2015.02.018

41. Gordus et al. 2015, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2015.02.018

47. Marcus Raichle fMRI

48. The limiting factor in the
evolution of brain size was
energy supply
48

49. 49
The additional energy burden associated
with […] the environment may be as little
as .5-1.0% of the total energy budget.
Marcus Raichle (2006): Science 314, p1249

51. =

53. Exploration (of resources or solutions.)

58. Romuald Nargeot

60. Behavioral variability in a constant stimulus
situation:

62. Geometric Random Inner Products: GRIP
All computations Alexander Maye, UKE Hamburg (Maye et al. 2007)

63. Maye et al. (2007)
If one simple stochastic point process is insufficient, maybe we need more…

65. Source: This is Spinal Tap

67. 1. Determinism rules out freedom
2. Randomness doesn‘t make us free either
Freedom cannot exist / is a useless concept
Double-Incompatibilists:
Freedom can arise in non-linear systems, comprising
stochastic and deterministic components

71. Determi

72. Stochast

73. Determi
nistic

74. Determi
nistic

75. Determi
nistic