![]() ![]() When they stimulate the parietal cortex, they are stimulating the brain regions that mediate the passions, which are material thoughts and intentions. Keeping that in mind, let us look again at Reilly and her co-workers’ research. A man may fall in love with a woman he knows is chronically unfaithful, despite his best judgment. ![]() Sometimes our passions can override our will. We may feel anger and be ready to strike out but our will (directed by our intellect) can prevent us from acting in a way that the intellect deems unwise. The will and the passions interact with and modulate each other. The will carries out acts in accordance with the good as the intellect defines it. The intellect and the will are wholly immaterial aspects of the soul because they deal with immaterial objects (abstractions, logic, etc.) The intellect considers things as universals - concepts, abstractions, complex judgments, etc. The immaterial aspects of the soul, as noted, are the intellect and the will. We can, we hope, modulate our passions, but that does not make them free. These passions are material they are caused directly by material processes in the brain. They are divided into six concupiscible passions (love, hatred, desire, aversion, joy, and sadness) and five irascible passions (hope, despair, fear, daring, and anger). Perception and passion can be compared to intellect and will they are its material “analogs.” The passions are also sometimes called the appetites. The material aspect of the soul consists of perception and passion. THEBRAIN FREE FREEThe will is naturally free in the sense that it is not determined by matter. The intellect thinks abstract thoughts about universal things (mathematics, morality, etc.) and the will follows on the immaterial intellect. The classical understanding of the soul derived from Plato and Aristotle - which is, I think, correct - is that the immaterial aspect of the human soul consists of the intellect and the will. However, a genuine understanding requires a bit of background on the nature of agency in human beings. The materialist interpretation of Reilly’s work is a misunderstanding of what the research actually shows. Penfield, who began his career as a materialist, finished it as a passionate dualist. A sense of will - free will - was beyond evocation by brain stimulation. Patients still knew whether a movement was done by them or to them. He found that while he could stimulate several different types of responses-sensations, movements of limbs, memories, etc.-he could not stimulate a sense of agency. The pioneer of brain stimulation studies on conscious patients, neurosurgeon Wilder Penfield, disagreed. Christof Koch, “ The Will to Power-Is “Free Will” All in Your Head?” at Scientific American (2009) The important insight here is that the consciously experienced feelings of intention and agency are no different, in principle, from any other consciously experienced sensations, such as the briny taste of chicken soup or the red color of a Ferrari. Materialists frequently cite this and similar research as evidence that the experiential illusion of free will is created by natural activities within the brain: ![]() It implies that free will is probably an illusion. Reilly’s work appears to demonstrate that a sense of agency - and free will - can be elicited by direct brain stimulation. Conscious intention and motor awareness thus arise from increased parietal activity before movement execution. Yet, patients firmly denied that they had moved. Stimulation of the premotor region triggered overt mouth and contralateral limb movements. When stimulation intensity was increased in parietal areas, participants believed they had really performed these movements, although no electromyographic activity was detected. Stimulating the right inferior parietal regions triggered a strong intention and desire to move the contralateral hand, arm, or foot, whereas stimulating the left inferior parietal region provoked the intention to move the lips and to talk. We used electrical stimulation in seven patients undergoing awake brain surgery. Parietal and premotor cortex regions are serious contenders for bringing motor intentions and motor responses into awareness. For example, the study Movement intention after parietal cortex stimulation in humans (Karen Reilly et al, 2009), cited over 100 times at Pub Med, reported on patients undergoing awake brain surgery: If an electrode is applied to a specific brain region during “awake” neurosurgery, the patient may experience a strong desire to perform a related action and may even be mistaken about whether he has done so. Share Facebook Twitter Print arroba Email ![]()
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