While this is an interesting philsophical question, and the included information involves evolutionary adaptation to the environment, I am not sure you have demonstrated enough of a link to neuroscience. Stephanies question was in direct response to an article claiming that free will was an illusion and was based on neuroscience as it's basis for claim. Despite this, the thread tends to devolve to a philosophical argument, ignoring the neuroscience completely, by starting out this far from neuroscience, you have demonstrably spread the issue even further.

I am voting this topic down, because I think neuroscience is the wrong venue for it, not because it is a bad question.

If the curator of this topic considers as necessary he/she has the freedom to move it to a more appropriate topic, I do not mind at all. My only reason to post it under this topic is the fact that the question is directly related to another one posted in here. It is neither philosophy nor neuroscience in fact, if you think a bit more. It's about theory of science, how could you answer a certain question in the best way, with most appropriate instruments. Which science is best equipped to answer this type of interdisciplinary questions? It's very easy to place everything into the philosophy basket at the end of the day :)-

Yes of course, An interdisciplinary question. But that is the problem neuroscience isn't an interdisciplinary science, so much as a group of specific disciplines. Philosophy is much more interdisciplinary.

My objection is not to you linking it to stephanies question, but to the fact that it opens the discussion to more philosophical rhuminations, and away from the specific disciplines that the topic is here to service. We already have a number of sub-topics that are trending in that direction, and I for one feel that they have gone too far away from the major topics direction.

Why not start an Interdisciplinary topic? Like I said it's a good question, just not a neuroscience topic. I for one would be glad to continue discussing it under an appropriate topic heading. I might even be able to bring myself to talk about it in another manner.

Graeme Smith:” Why not start an Interdisciplinary topic? Like I said it's a good question, just not a neuroscience topic. I for one would be glad to continue discussing it under an appropriate topic heading. I might even be able to bring myself to talk about it in another manner.”

Now that the question is well rephrased thanks to Julien Colomb, I agree with Graeme: Indeed, It’s a good question. A “scientific” concept of free will is an attractive issue! Why not continue this discussion here waiting for the starting of a more appropriate topic ? To avoid negative effect of the first sincere but severe down voting once the new topic is created and the current question is removed there as suggested by Emanuela Andersson, I vote it up.

julien:" I am personally persuaded that the primary role of nervous systems are to produce such "actions"."

By bringing this closer to neuroscience, Julien has driven the conversation in a direction I can approve of. Evolution is all about random perterbations that are in a population, tamed by survival requirements. The original question suggests that adaptation is a necessarily restricted option, and in turn restricts the "Freedom" of the individual.

But Julien has reminded me, that my understanding of a naive nervous system is that it acts in a random manner until it learns its own constraints. Thus the seeds of chaos lie below even the most careful action.

Perhaps what the proponents of free will are doing is trying to keep us from over constraining a system that is based on chaos. The tendency, since constraint of a chaotic system causes movement at the population level, is to further constrain the population to damp out the movement which cannot be predicted. But this, puts pressure on the essential nature of the population, and causes the population stress, since too much constraint can't be tolerated without losing movement all together.

This suggests that it is the creative tension between freedom and constraint that drives the population.

@Julien Thank you for explaining the background of the question in terms that can be easily comprehended. I am not a natural scientist, I sit on the other side of the fence calling for some help. My personal conviction is that the questions situated on the border between two very well defined fields (such as neuroscience and adaptation) should not be ignored. Why? Because if we can't explain how the brain controls both the input and the output, how the brain operates with information, we do not fully understand what critical thinking is about either.

I can argue that critical thinking is not even possible, if the rational thought is in fact an act of backwards rationalization. I have attached a short video on neuroscience and computer gaming. The computer-game expert confesses that he used to analyze his game decisions, identifies the mistakes and eliminates these mistakes in the future. The result is that he could improve his score beyond all the records, by keeping a track of the mistakes. The most difficult for him, it was to identify the mistakes (he used statistics to achieve this goal).

Now, think how wonderful the world would be if we could prove that decision makers invested with administrative power took a certain decision fully randomly and then when the person inflicted by this decision brings an action claiming that the decision is arbitrary, all they do is to backwards rationalize it. These kind of thoughts made me to be interested in this topic.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9AJ7m_tVgDM

Although adminstration MIGHT backwards rationalize arbitrary decisions, most of them are too smart to be caught at it. Essentially arbitrariness is a sign of pettiness "That is the decision because I say it's the decision" which some administrations tend to get into.

Instead most administrative personnel have the use of their own preview models, to tell them if a solution will work, and it is limits of their ability to predict others that act to limit the usefulness of their decisions. The implication is that many administrators have personality disorders that made them seek office.

Well, smart can be synonymous with cunning, and in this case I agree with you. But if you mean smart as a skillful professional then it might be less true that they are 'smart'. They can compensate often the lack of competence with this type of contrivance, because they have the power of the state on their side. I agree also with the fact that the personality plays a certain role in choosing to work as a representative of the administrative power. It's OK that they enjoy their job, the problem is that the very pursuit of the power transfer from the individual towards the state is a different one. In fact they should act as servants of the citizens and not as masters of puppets.

At this stage only an idealist person like me, can be bothered by these realities. Every new act of law is just an attempt to bring justice back in the picture. However this remains only an attempt. Thinking is a painful and strenuous process, but also a very complex and intriguingly interesting one.

Can we ever apply dialectics on neuroscience? Can the process of knowledge accumulation in the human brain, ever be transformed into a qualitative leap, a radical change, a new and more advanced way to process information? A really 'smarter' being? I mean, can the human beings move forwards on the evolution ladder and become 'smarter' instead of 'cunning'?

Thank you, Julien!

The book- the link below- explains rationalization in general in relation to ethics in psychology. The rationalization as an excuse can either have negative or positive connotations, it all depends on the circumstances.

There is a similarity between a psychologist and a judge for instance, because these professions require the preservation of deontological rules of conduct, and therefore objectivity and critical thinking are implied. The level of expectation would be higher when the decision maker does not act in the quality of natural person, but in his/her quality as institutional representative. They are expected to think thoroughly before and not after they make a certain decision.

There must exist better sources on the rationalization. I will not give any more comment from my perspective, but I will leave the floor open for the natural scientists.

best regards

Emanuela

http://books.google.se/books?id=KwatUOmKCrUC&lpg=PA10&ots=N-GOnNL0Of&dq=rationalization%2C%20psychology&pg=PA10#v=onepage&q=rationalization,%20psychology&f=false