Raymond Tallis - Free Will and the Brain

Complete video at: http://fora.tv/2007/10/28/Battle_of_Ideas_My_Brain_Made_Me_Do_It

British gerontologist, author and cultural critic Raymond Tallis addresses questions regarding free will and the brain.

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"Battle of Ideas: My Brain Made Me Do It" at the 2007 Battle of Ideas conference hosted by the Institute of Ideas.

With the politics of behaviour in the ascendancy, there is increasing interest in what science can tell us about why people behave the way they do. The British government is funding the creation of the National Academy for Parenting Practitioners, with the express aim of training a 'parenting workforce' to provide science-based child-rearing advice to parents. In the USA, the MRI scanner and the neuroscientific community are entering the court room to give evidence about whether defendants can be regarded as being responsible for their alleged crimes. UK policymakers cite scientific 'evidence' to explain new interventions on everything from early years' education to the alleged impact of school dinners on academic performance. The science of nutrition now informs earnest discussions about how children's diets improve their classroom behaviour, in order to justify policing lunchboxes and putting school meals at the top of the political agenda. Studies of teenage brain development now regularly inform social debates about the impact of new technologies on young people.

But how much can science tell us about behaviour? Do scientific findings justify the government's many interventions into the early years of children's lives? Should neuroscience enjoy an exalted place in the courtroom? Are policies being developed because of genuine advances in scientific knowledge - or is science being (mis)used, perhaps in the place of political conviction, to justify policies? - IoI

Raymond Tallis was trained at the University of Oxford and St Thomas's Hospital, qualifying in 1970. He was a Professor of Geriatric Medicine at the University of Manchester and a consultant physician in Health Care of the Elderly in Salford (1987-2006).

Outside his medical career, he has been awarded two honorary degrees: DLitt (Hon Causa) from the University of Hull in 1997; and LittD (Hon Causa) from the University of Manchester in 2002. In 2004 he was identified in Prospect magazine as one of the top 100 public intellectuals in the United Kingdom.

His numerous medical publications include two major textbooks, while most of his research publications are in the field of neurology of old age and neurological rehabilitation. He has also published fiction, three volumes of poetry, and over a dozen books and 150 articles on the philosophy of the mind, philosophical anthropology, literary theory, the nature of art and cultural criticism.

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[JustMereArt]

@DrErkencho

No, I'm not. I know intuition came first. Actually, this is one of Tallis's arguments against the mind being a computer. The human mind judges most activity by qualia; its logical faculties are pretty small. However, a computer masters mathematics long before it 'feels' anything (if they're even able to.)

[JustMereArt]

@DrErkencho

Yeah, I know all this. We probably agree on a lot more things than you realise. I'm an atheist, determinist, UCL student - I'm just applying my empiricism very rigorously. Your arguments would be improved if you assumed more from your opponent.

Don't take any of my disagreement personally btw. It's great to be debating with somebody who clearly has a real passion for it. It's just that these conversations tend to be fuelled by a kind of academic pugnacity...

[JustMereArt]

@DrErkencho

That's true. I rather like Sam Harris's quote that "the illusion of free will is itself an illusion." It's like being told you're in a dream; you can contemplate it and accept it - but then a freight train comes crashing through the walls and the illusion becomes true again.

I wouldn't call it a "delusion" though. "Delusion" implies something that has negative consequences.

[JustMereArt]

@DrErkencho

But I was accusing you of a double standard because, in some cases, you placed logic over intuition - in others, you did the opposite.

You suggest "resigning to physics as we know it" but, to do that 100 years ago would be to disregard all of quantum mechanics as illusory. And, yeah, but Occam's Razor is starting to look more like a chainsaw. Rolling a dice twice, getting two 6s and declaring that the dice is loaded is compatible with (and favoured by) Occam's Razor.

[JustMereArt]

@DrErkencho

Well, okay, consciousness is a trick. But who is it tricking? There has to be a 'self', which is the subject of the illusion. To say otherwise is to disagree with 'Cogito Ergo Sum.'

I simply meant "un-physical" as in "unable to be explained by physics." You make a good point though; something could be un-physical by this definition because it's unable to be explained by physics yet.

[DrErkencho]

@DrErkencho

Finally, you are placing the carriage before the horses. Intuition likely came first, before, logic; just as a natural evolutionary advantage, but as soon as the structures of logic took place in our brains and proved further more effective than intuition, they expanded and "took over". Most animals live by intuitive thinking, we humans DON'T, we are logical, and logic is obviously superior to basic intuition, it enables us to perceive our "fabric" and that of nature.

[DrErkencho]

@DrErkencho

About our intuition, IT is part of a Physical process as well, it is NOT a bi-product of reality that sits on any higher level. Point made, it is our intuition -thru our reasoning- that needs to shift to the correct, more complete, and more representative scheme of what's attempting to mirror. Our "intuition" is a product of evolution, and we did not evolve looking at quantum fluctuations and the sub-atomic mayhem, so it is of little use *at that level*, right now.

[DrErkencho]

@JustMereArt

No double standard at all!! - ok let's pin it one by one -BTW nice debate ;)- Free will is an illussion because as far as we can understand it we have to come to this conclussion or resign to Physics as we know it and, well- we do not have an alternative model -for starters-, also the idea of free will being something of that nature is perfectly compatible with Occam's Razor and DOES NOT entail we cease to act as we do and will, it is a delussion that we CANNOT escape.

[DrErkencho]

@JustMereArt

Well.. yeah... just as "un-physical" (whatever that *really* means) as the *mind* of my laptop right now.

The fact we are far more complex and capable of "perceiving" the thinking process as it unfolds from within ourselves thru different stages DOES NOT imply an "un-physical" --- anything. As said before, it's been researched, and tested, so far all we can say is consciousness is just a *trick* of a region of our brain thinking -about- our thoughts, all the time.