ABOLISHED FREE WILL
Interview with Wolf Singer
Kill, have faith in God, preferring pants to skirts, to betray a friend, choose a meal or a television program. In short, our life, as an expression, we explain millennia of philosophy, human free will. But no: according to the latest scientific research on the brain, according to which every human being would be the container of a genetic code, a programming brain and hormonal basis on which you would go to embed experiences. The result is a chemical mix that orders and regulates all our actions. To the point of becoming a kind of puppet. We spoke to the champion of this new theory, the guru of European neurophysiology Wolf Singer, director of the Max Planck Institute in Frankfurt.
Based on what neurophysiologists argue that human beings are deprived of free will?
"The neurobiologists and neurophysiologists have shown, with a mass of scientific evidence that attitudes, feelings and human emotions are induced by neuronal processes. And this allows us to predict even when we observe animal's brain, the behavior they adopt. In the human brain are the same neurons and the same substances found in animals. The only difference is that in the human brain increases the number of cells and the complexity of neuronal connections. Everything you think is the result of processes that are affected by many factors: hormones, neurotransmitters, synaptic connections to name a few, and it is these factors determine a person's behavior. "
What can change, then, the behavior of a person?
"It is obvious that the slightest change in the composition of substances in the brain, induced by stress or an imbalance hormone, can push the individual, in an unconscious way, to take the one o'clock or other decision. "
Karl Grammar, University of Vienna, says that for a woman to choose to wear a skirt rather than trousers depends largely on the hormonal cycle. considers it possible?
"Certainly. This alleged act of free will indicates that she wants to attract attention just when it is fertile. That is, the brain requires it to be more available for more opportunities for trade opportunities and therefore sexual reproduction. All this with the conviction of having committed an act of free choice ".
When you have several alternatives, often choose what pleases us most. According to this she also indicates that we are governed by a will of another?
"In the brain there are reward systems that influence behavior and cause the person to take those actions that can best ensure the survival of the organism and species. These systems produce substances similar to opiates that give pleasure and are placed in the body when the individual performs an action or its cost to the survival of the species. The system is calibrated so that the amount of emotional satisfaction that comes once soothed the feelings of hunger and thirst or desire sex, is regulated according to the intensity of the accumulated needs. We strive to find food or make love if not pleasure in activities that ensure survival. The evolution has been great pleasure in establishing the system as a reward, to impel us to satisfy the needs of mentally and physically and to take certain decisions. "
The human being has a choice between two or more options: do not believe this is already a form of free will?
"I would not choose this option of" freedom. " I would call it, rather, a "space of possibility." But what makes us choose which of the options put in place, depending on the organization of the brain, its various parts, by factors such as hormones and other substances.
not think it is simplistic to human dignity zero free will?
"We continue to talk as long as we are aware that it is an illusion. But it is not, because most of the people marks a clear dividing line between spirit and body. Yet, the experiments of Benjamin Libet, for example, played recently with more sophisticated techniques, clearly show that the training of all mental processes begin at an earlier stage of our being aware of it. "Then we
unconscious automatons?
" the Unconscious us to the point that, as discovered by Charles Winick of the City University of New York, the man has a relationship with the television-like an addict with drugs or alcohol. Television has very serious consequences: in addition to bringing the viewer to a specific point of view, induces him to accept the image they are looking at in its entirety. As the environment and the objects displayed have been selected by others, the viewer is led to a passive perception. And this is harmful. It was further observed that children are mesmerized by the images mounted in quick succession, a rate for the devastating brain forgets to stretch over time their ability to focus and concentration. The younger generation is lacking even the minimum concentration required to follow conversations.
It even threatened the cognitive development of future generations?
"The task of neurobiology is to understand who is responsible for the education and training of children, the brain, to the puberty has immense potential for development. Scientists and educators should cooperate in placing the maximum attention to the first years of life, so that those connections, those structures are ready to put environmental questions, receive answers. This is why the Pontifical Academy of Sciences has wanted to do a conference on "neuroeducation".
Professors Persinger, Newberg and D'Aquila have found that there are specific areas in the brain have been delegated to the perception of mystical-religious areas neurobiologist VS Ramachandran has called "the form of God." Do you believe?
"Both the median forebrain bundle, the area of \u200b\u200bthe brain that makes us feel in complete harmony, as well as other areas of the left temporal lobe, allow to have metaphysical sensations, are the areas of the brain that make us feel a whole with the universe. By stimulating this area in some volunteers, as was done with a magnetic stimulator Persinger, one has the feeling of being part of the immensity, a sensation that is perceived as a divine gift, but in reality is only an induction neurons of our brain. "
And God?
"When we superimpose the feeling of expansion in the immensity of the cultural notions about gods, we get the concept of God taught us. In reality it is a cultural construct that in other cultures find different explanations. Meditator, for example, and the Newberg has shown, even though I feel these feelings, do not report having had contact with God, but he experienced a mystical sense of oneness with the universe. So, there is a brain area dedicated to God, but only an area that allows a feeling of expansion of the self, free of physical boundaries in space. "
She found that self-awareness does not occupy a specific place in the brain, but that is the result synchronicity of neuronal activity. How do you explain that?
"In our institute in Frankfurt, we investigated how the activation of neurons in response to external stimuli is synchronized. And the results show that there is no center in the brain that brings together this work, an anatomical center where I have complete perception of its existence. The brain is a decentralized system in which the feelings and mental states are formed after a sort of competition between the different interpretations of the various received signals. We delude ourselves to decide, in reality the decisions are already decided by the brain ".
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