However, the philosophical solution kicks the problem upstairs to neurobiology, where it leaves us with a very difficult neurobiological problem. How exactly does the brain do it, and how exactly are conscious states realised in the brain? What exactly are the neuronal processes that cause our conscious experience, and how exactly are these conscious experiences realised in brain structures? We agree with Searle when he claims to be astonished by this evidence, but we
do not agree with him when he suggests that we should “kick the question upstairs to neurobiology” as if FW were not an intriguing issue anymore. This paper will attempt to take a significant step forward on this issue. Material events can be described by an external observer as a chain of causes and effects which, in turn, may be causes for Z-VAD-FMK datasheet HDAC inhibitor other effects and so on. Conversely, when we voluntarily cause an event, we do not feel that we are part of a chain; rather we consider our action to be the result of free will (FW). Wegner states that scientific explanations account for our decisions and the illusion of FW (Wegner, 2002). There must always be an objective mechanism, i.e., a precise relationship between causes and effects, underlying a voluntary action. We think that we consciously will what we are doing because we feel “free
from causes” and because we experience this feeling many times a day (Wegner, 2002). The obvious question is whether this deep-rooted subjective perception of FW is an end in itself or whether it plays some functional role in the voluntary action. In this paper, “The Bignetti Model” (TBM) suggests that
FW (even if an illusion) is so deeply rooted in the agent’s mind that it must be rooted in a real psychological mechanism of human cognition. The novelty of this model lies in its attempt to relate the psychological mechanism underlying subjective belief (illusion) in FW to the psychological motivation behind cognitive processes. The basic hypothesis behind TBM is that it is the sole idea of having FW that gives rise to the experiences of agency and responsibility of action. In turn, these experiences bring the conscious agent to judge the outcomes of the action and to rate the skill with which it is performed relative to his or her expectations. As an aid to the reader, here is a brief introduction to the main actors selleck inhibitor and their interrelationship. A popular definition of FW states that it is “an art for a particular sort of capacity for the rational agent to choose a course of action from among various alternatives” (O’Connor, 2013). Generally speaking a definition is worth since it is universally shared, i.e. all of us recognise ourselves in that definition. We believe that an outer observer of human behaviour like a machine or an electronic device could never come up with that definition since it cannot understand too many things of human mind, e.g. the meaning of “choice” or ‘alternatives’.