ニューロンに決定されていても人間は自由か : 脳神経決定論論駁

Abstract

(1) Neuroscientific prejudices about the impossibility of free will are mainly based on two arguments: 1. There can be no 'agency' of the will within ourselves which takes its decisions independently of neuronal conditions and processes; and if there were such an agency, it would have no causal effect at all and would thus be meaningless. 2. Whatever does not stand outside of neuronal conditions and processes, is determined by neuronal laws of nature. (2) The unity and distinctness of actions and persons cannot be discerned from a strictly molecular biological perspective; that is, the latter is 'blind' to freedom and all noumenal or mental distinctions. (3) However, if, in spite of all this, one assumes that there are actions and acting persons, then it is evident that biographical episodes and bodily processes, that can be described in terms of molecular biology, do not possess the same properties. (4) Three differences between biographical episodes and bodily processes: Bodily processes: precise spatiotemporal localization with undelimitable interconnectedness (sum principle) completely describable by quantifiable physical properties any difference in the summated profile of the properties yields a difference in the bodily processes. Biographical Episodes: are always holistically ascribable to exactly one living system do not occur without systematic linkage to bodily processes (organically bound) are internal variations of the continuity of one and the same life, i.e. not only temporal but rhythmical parts of it. (5) There is confirming evidence by experiments that the characteristics of biographical episodes play a causal explanatory role for changes in the profile of bodily processes. (6) In that respect rational characteristics of biographical episodes like speaking and thinking (e.g. their transparency for opposite possibilities) could play a causal explanatory role for changes in the neuronal network of our brain. (7) Deterministic relationships represent definite but not necessary connections between determinants and what is determined. (8) Neuronally determined relationships can be connected with characteristics of biographical episodes involving alternative possibilities without becoming modally inconsistent