Related papers: Physics, Determinism, and the Brain
Current theoretical and computational models of dopamine-based reinforcement learning are largely rooted in the classical behaviorist tradition, and envision the organism as a purely reactive recipient of rewards and punishments, with…
Capacity of conscious agents to perform genuine choices among future alternatives is a prerequisite for moral responsibility. Determinism that pervades classical physics, however, forbids free will, undermines the foundations of ethics, and…
This explanation of what a brain is and does rests on informational first principles, because information theory, like its parent theory thermodynamics, is mathematically sacrosanct, itself resting on real-valued probability.Just as…
We review the recent proposal that the most fascinating brain properties are related to the fact that it always stays close to a second order phase transition. In such conditions, the collective of neuronal groups can reliably generate…
Redundancy is a ubiquitous property of the nervous system. This means that vastly different configurations of cellular and synaptic components can enable the same neural circuit functions. However, until recently very little brain disorder…
In contrast to the critical brain hypothesis in which the brain tunes itself to a critical point between $states$ of chaos and order, analysis of Coordination Dynamics suggests that a vast repertoire of $coexisting$ $tendencies$ exists for…
The roles played by decision factors in making complex subject are decisions are characterized by how these factors affect the overall decision. Evidence that partially matches a factor is evaluated, and then effective computational rules…
This chapter takes as its departure point a neural level theory of insight that arose from studies of the sparse, distributed, content-addressable architecture of associative memory. It is argued that convergent thought is most fruitfully…
We introduce a novel framework for decomposing interventional causal effects into synergistic, redundant, and unique components, building on the intuition of Partial Information Decomposition (PID) and the principle of M\"obius inversion.…
The relationship between brains and computers is often taken to be merely metaphorical. However, genuine computational systems can be implemented in virtually any media; thus, one can take seriously the view that brains literally compute.…
Free will discourse is primarily centred around the thesis of determinism. Much of the literature takes determinism as its starting premise, assuming it true for the sake of discussion, and then proceeds to present arguments for why, if…
In this essay the ontological structure of reality is explored. The question of reducibility of biology to physics is considered in the context of their ultimate principles. It is shown that biology is an ontologically autonomous science…
The brain is a highly complex organ consisting of a myriad of subsystems that flexibly interact and adapt over time and context to enable perception, cognition, and behavior. Understanding the multi-scale nature of the brain, i.e., how…
The Mind-Body Problem, which constitutes the starting point for a large part of the speculations about consciousness and conscious experience, can be re-stated in an equivalent way, using the `brain duplication' argument described in this…
Of all basic principles of classical physics, realism should arguably be the last to be given up when seeking a better interpretation of quantum mechanics. We examine the de Broglie-Bohm pilot wave theory as a well developed example of a…
Introduction. Increased efforts in neuroscience try to understand mental disorders as brain disorders. In the present study we investigate how common a neuroreductionist inclination is among highly educated people. In particular, we shed…
Since quantum mechanics (QM) was formulated, many voices have claimed this to be the basis of free will in the human beings. Basically, they argue that free will is possible because there is an ontological indeterminism in the natural laws,…
I begin by examining the question of the quantum limits of knowledge by briefly presenting the constraints of the theory that derive from its mathematical structure (in particular the no-go theorems formulated by von Neumann and Kochen and…
In this work we challenge the main conclusions of Gu et al work (Controllability of structural brain networks. Nature communications 6, 8414, doi:10.1038/ncomms9414, 2015) on brain controllability. Using the same methods and analyses on…
This paper explores the discrete Dynamic Causal Modeling (DDCM) and its relationship with Directed Information (DI). We prove the conditional equivalence between DDCM and DI in characterizing the causal relationship between two brain…