Free will from the neuroscience point of view

Armando Freitas da Rocha1 and Fbio Theoto Rocha2

RANI Research on Artificial and Natural Intelligence
1
armando@braineconomics.com
2
fabio@enscer.com.br
Abstract

There is still a controversy if human volitions and actions are governed by causal laws
or obeys free will. Neurosciences start to study the neural correlates of free will by
investigating how brains make decisions. Here, some of questions about free will are
discussed from the neurosciences point of view taking into consideration a
neuroeconomic model of decision making. This model is used here with the purpose of
providing very formal definitions of key concepts raised in any free will discussion such
as goals, necessity, motivation, etc., and to provide a formal background for discussing
decision making. One of the conclusions of this discussion is that free will is
computable but unpredictable, therefore not submitted to causal laws. In addition, the
electroencephalogram was recorded in an experiment about choice selection of
alternative actions and it presented here as an example of how neurosciences may study
the neural correlates of free will.
1. Introduction

As put by Mill in his A System of Logic: the question, whether the law of
causality applies in the same strict sense to phenomena, is the celebrated controversy
concerning the freedom of the will. Those asserting human volitions and actions to be
determined and necessary are called Necessitarians and their theory is either called
Necessity Theory or Determinism. The metaphysical Theory of Free Will opposes such a
conception and it is fundamental for religious, moral, legal and ethical issues. This
negative maintains that the will is not determined, like other phenomena, by specific
causes (antecedents), but linked to motives.
Although the human brain is endowed for attributing a cause/effect relationship
to events that are frequently observed in temporal order, and to deduce natural laws
from these observations, most of us firmly believed that motives and volition did not
obey such rule. Volition is assumed to influence the way we see the world1 and to be
determined by individual needs.
Neurosciences start to study the neural correlates of free will by investigating
how brains make decisions. But as in any other field of science, the success of this
endeavor is mostly dependent on choosing the adequate questions to investigate, what
implies to clearly defining the meaning of words such as necessity, motivation,
intention, purpose, etc. First it is necessary to clearly define the fundamental concepts
involved in the understanding of free will, in order to search for their neural correlates.
Any living being has to use available resources to maintain its identity in space
and time. This means that any living being has as primordial goals to at least obtain the
resources to synthesize their constituent chemicals, to obtain energy to support the
chemical transactions and to allow it to creating other similar living beings, that is to
say, reproduce itself (Rocha and Rocha, 2011, Rocha, 2013). Because resources are
finite, goal achievement and maintenance creates necessity for goods and services. Such
necessities motivate the animal to act in order to obtain these goods and services.
Decision making about how to satisfy needs is, therefore, the key issue in living (Rocha
and Rocha, 2011). As life complexity increases other goals are implemented to maintain
individual identity. Men, for example, free their goals from being linked only to
survival and reproduction in the pursuit of comprehending more than just the world of

1
For this purpose see: The world as will and representation (Schopenhauer, 1818)
causes and effects2. The complexity of motivations increases as life evolutes on Earth,
and put increasingly demands upon computation resources to support decision making.
Mechanic laws describe the effects of mechanic forces upon objects and they
have always to be obeyed. Quantum mechanics deals with probabilistic relations
between events and its laws have to incorporate these uncertainties. However, these
laws establish fixed relations between successive events such that results obey fixed
proportions.
Decision-making is, on the contrary, subject to priorities. Necessity of nutrients
motivates eating whose priority depends on other pending necessities. How priorities
are determined is a fundamental issue in discussing free will, because priority
distinguishes motivated guided action from caused ones.
Preferences and aversions dictate priority and there is no preference or aversion
in the realm of causality. Preferences and aversions are handle by widespread circuits in
the brain and subject to both brain biochemistry diverstity and learning (Bernstein,
2008; Fehr and Krajbich , 2014; Obashi et al, 2009; Rocha et al, 2009; Rocha, 2013,
Symmonds and Dolan, 2012; Tusche et al, 2013). Due to human diversity, supported
both by genetics and learning, some people dislike what other persons prefer.
Choice is another key issue in decision making. Necessity of nutrients motivates
eating but most of the time anyone has a choice of. Necessity satisfaction may be
supplied by alternative actions, each one providing a given benefit at a specific cost and
risk (Furman and Wang, 2008; Rocha et al, 2009, Wright et al, 2013). Choice is
dependent on considering benefits, costs and risks of opportunity that is on comparison
between the expected benefit, cost and risk for each alternative action (Rocha et al,
2009, Rocha and Rocha, 2011). Deciding about alternative actions is a high cost
reasoning process that not all individuals may always support.
The purpose of the present paper is to discuss some of questions about free will
from the neurosciences point of view taking into consideration the neuroeconomic
model of decision making proposed by Rocha et al (2009). This model is used here with
the purpose of providing a very formal definition of the key concepts raised in any free
will discussion. For this purpose it is organized as follows. Section 2 sets the
background on which concepts like goals, necessity, motivation, willingness, etc. are to
be understood in this paper. Section 3 outlines the neuroeconomic model for decision

2
See the Doctrine of Transcendental Elements (Kant, 1781)
making. Section 4 discusses neurosciences evidences of genetic inheritance and learning
influences on motivation diversity, considered here a fundamental issue against free will
determinism. Section 5 discusses and clearly proposes free will as computable but
unpredictable. Section 6 discusses reasoning supporting choice decision as another key
issue in discussions about free will. Section 7 describes a simple experiment to show
how free may be studied from the neuroscience point of view. Section 8 concludes the
present discussion.

2. To live is to decide

Individual identity is defined by two sets of goals. Goals that individuals strive
to achieve and maintain because they are supportive of their identity (called here
Fundamental Set of Values, FSV ) and goals that individuals strive to avoid (denoted
______
here as FSV ) because they are destructive of their identity. Pleasure is associated with
______
FSV and goals in FSV are unpleasant. Because of this, individuals prefer those goals in
______
FSV and are averse to those goals in FSV . Goals in FSV are ranked by preference and
______
those in FSV by aversion. Individuals are proud of achieving and maintaining goals
______
in FSV as well as of avoiding those in FSV . In the same way, individuals are afraid of
______
achieving goals in FSV and failing in doing so in case of FSV . Due to human diversity,
______
composition of both FSV and FSV varies among humans and cultures.
Because resources are finite on Earth, to live is continuously to decide about
how to obtain resources to reach and maintain goals in FSV and to avoid the goals in
______
FSV . Resource scarcity generates, therefore, necessities of good and services
______
concerning the goals in both FSV and FSV . In this context, to live requires continuously
deciding about food, partners, shelter, job, leisure, etc., including doing nothing, but
always taking into account preferences and aversions (Figure 1). Necessities motivate
people to act to satisfy them. Inherited or acquired knowledge maps necessities into
possible actions and generates motivations to implement or not these actions. The
degree of motivation is directly proportional to the amount of goods or services required
satisfy the necessities of the associated goals. Willingness to implement these actions is
dependent on degree of their motivation as well as on the preferences or aversions of the
associated goals (Figure 1).

Figure 1 Deciding and learning

3. Neuroeconomic reasoning

Each action has a cost, implies a risk and provides a benefit. The amount of
benefit is the amount services or good provided by the action compared to that required
to satisfy the motivating necessity. In this way, benefit is also dependent on motivation,
and therefore on individuals preferences and aversions. The amount of risk is
dependent on both the possibility of failure in implementing the action and the amount
of harm this implementation may cause to the individual. Failure possibility is inversely
related to the individual skills. Harm is either physical or psychological. Risk is high if
failure possibility and harm are high. The cost is the amount of resources required to
implement the action. From the neuroscience point of view, cost implies the amount of
energy required for action implementation, which in turn is dependent on the
individuals skills. In case of man, cost may also imply amount of money (wealth
resources) if action is to buy goods or services.
 During action planning, previous experiences (knowledge) are used to estimate
expected cost, risk and benefit. If action is implemented, the incurred cost and risk as
well as the obtained benefit are used to evaluate the success in getting the desired goods
or services (Figure 1).
Emotional feelings are used to measure benefits, risks and costs. Pleasure is the
coin of benefit; it increases with expected and experienced benefits. Fear encodes
evaluated risk while pain measures incurred risk. In general, people fear acting risky,
although the amount of this fear varies among individuals. Pain measures incurred risk,
and relief measures the avoided (not incurred) amount of expected risk. Tranquility and
apprehension encodes evaluated cost. Low cost inspires tranquility, while anxiety
encodes high cost. Regret signals when incurred cost is high than the expected one,
while proud signals the opposite3.
The willingness of implementing a give action is mainly determined by the ratio
risk
( ) between the expected action benefit and risk, once high cost reduces benefit
benefit
and increases risk. If benefit is high concerning risk, action implementation is highly
possible. In the contrary, if risk is high concerning benefit, action implementation has
risk
low possibility. Whenever the ratio approaches 1, conflict about action
benefit
implementation increases and induces procrastination. In this context, Rocha and Rocha
(2011) proposed:

possibility of acting + possibility of not acting + procrastination = 1 (1)

If conflict is low because either benefit or risk is high, procrastination tends to zero

probability of acting + propability of not acting 1 (2)

Also, because to identify procrastination is difficult, many times it is assumed that

propability of not acting = possibility of not acting + probability of acting

and
3
People may disagree about the feelings and their correlations that are described in this paragraph, but all
of us will agree that feelings are partners of our actions.
 probability of acting = possibility of acting (3)

Figure 2 Neural structures involved in evaluating preferences, aversions, risk

and benefit. OFC Orbitofrontal cortex; MPF Medialprefrontal crtex; Amig
Amgidala; Ins Insula; NAc Nucleus Accumbens. Images from
http://www.med.harvard.edu/aanlib

There is a rich neuroscience literature showing that benefit evaluation involves

dopamine circuits (e.g., Berridge, 2003; Ernst et al, 2004; van Gaalen et al, 2006;
Obayashi et al, 2009; ODoherty et al, 2001); Panksepp, 1998); risk assessment enrolls
serotoninergic neurons (e.g., Graeff, 2003); Ledoux,1996); Panksepp, 1998); Wright et
al, 2013), and cost evaluation is a subject for adrenergic circuits (e.g., Ledoux, 1996;
Panksepp, 1998; Rocha and Rocha, 2011). In addition, it is a consensus now that
Orbitofrontal and Medialprefrontal cortices (see Figure 2) are involved in preference
encoding (e.g., Platt and Padoa-Schioppa, 2009; Obayashi et al, 2009); Amigdala is a
key structure in fear assessment (e.g., Ledoux, 1996); ODoherty et al, 2001; Panksepp
(1998); Symmonds and Dolan, 2012); Insula has an important role in aversion and risk
assessment (e.g., Ledoux, 1996; ODoherty et al 2001; Panksepp,1998); Wright et al,
2013; Paulus et al 2002, 2003); Nucleus Accumbens is a key structure in handling
reward prediction and assessment (e.g., Ernst et al, 2004; van Gaalen et al, 2006;
Obayashi et al, 2009; ODoherty et al, 2001; Panksepp, 1998). Finally, it was proposed
that calculation of both intention and probability of acting enrolls neuron located in
parietal areas (e.g., Glimcher and Rustichini, 2004; Paulus et al, 2002; Rogers et al,
2006; Wright et al 2013).

4. Inheritance and Learning determine motivation

All neural transmitters and modulators influencing benefit, risk and cost
assessment are genetically encoded and subjected to the genetic variation of human
species. This is because different people are prone to like or dislike different goals; to be
risk seeking or risk avoiding; high or low energetic, etc., and therefore vary in their
preferences and aversions. Genetic variation makes also people to have different
necessities even sharing similar goals. All of this contributes to distinct individuals
differ on their motivations and therefore behaving and learning differently.
There is a rich literature showing that gene expression influences neuronal
connectivity and activity of neural circuits, and because of this, to be one of the
determinants of cognition, affection, personality and pathological behavior (e.g., Alcar,
et al, 2007; Alsi, Olszewski et al 2010; Berman et al, 2002; Bjorklund, Dunnett, 2007,
Bromberg-Martin et al, 2010; Graff-Guerrero et al, 2005; Hariri and Holmes, 2006;
Judith etl al, 2012; Jnsson et al, 2003; Kazantseva et al, 2011; Laucht et al, 2007;
Mizuno et al, 2006; Myers et al, 2007; Nilsson et al, 2012; Shinichiro et al, 2013;
Waldman and Gizer, 2006). In addition gene expression is subject to environmental
influence and learning (e.j., Bjorklund, Dunnett, 2007; Graff-Guerrero et al, 2005;
Judith etl al, 2012; Rocha et al, 2006; Rocha, 1997) such that both genetic and
environmental variability make motivation to vary among people and during their life
time.
Once action is implemented or not, the outcome is evaluated. This evaluation
guides learning that may modify preferences or aversions as well as knowledge used to
map necessities into motivation (Figure 1). Pleasant outcomes reinforce knowledge that
maps necessity into the implemented actions, while unpleasant outcomes contribute to
reinforce mapping of necessity to alternative actions other than the implemented ones.
Pleasant outcomes strength preferences and reduce aversions; unpleasant outcomes do
the opposite. Because learning may change preferences or aversions, it may result in
______
changing either FSV or FSV .
 Although initially influenced by their genetic pattern, people learn from living
______
and adjust their FSV or FSV , preferences or aversions, and knowledge of how to
satisfy their necessities in order to better adapt themselves to their living environment.
The degree of success of this adaptation determines the degree of
______
happiness/unhappiness of each individual. The capacity to adapt their FSV and FSV to
the resources available to them, is the key of a happy life. But because people have
different inheritances and experiences different learning, they have different capacities
of balancing necessities and available resources. In summary, different people make
different decisions because they have different motivated lives.
It have been shown (e.g, Bayer and Glimcher, 2005; Rocha, 1997; Rocha et al,
1998, 2005; Schultz, 2002; Schultz, 2004; 2007) that neurons in various areas of the
brain evaluate experienced benefit concerning the expected one, having their activity
increased if experienced exceeds expected benefit or decreased in the opposite case.
Activity in these circuits remains the same if experienced matches expected benefit.
Learning occurs according to these evaluations, and preferences, aversions and
knowledge are updated accordingly. In the same way, other neural circuits are in charge
of monitoring risks and costs and promoting the required adjustment of preferences,
aversions and knowledge. Learning, therefore, makes motivation to vary during the
individual life time.

5. Free will is computable but not predictable

From all the above, it may be affirmed that decision making is computable. Each
______
one of us, use our neural circuits to define our goals in FSV and FSV ; to identify our
necessities of goods and services to handle these goals; to know how to act in order to
satisfy these necessities; to evaluate how success we are in satisfy our, and to adapt
ourselves to the available resources to keep life running. We may differ in our success
of doing all of this, but we are able to reason (compute) about all of these things. This is
true unless we are cognitively impaired by illness or genetic inheritance. But this
discussion is not a subject for the present paper.
The fact that decision making is computable makes free will computable, too,
but not necessarily completely predictable either by us as well as by our peers. Short
term unpredictability is associated with procrastination; hence it is a function of
risk
conflict, which in turn depends on the expected ratio . Unpredictability in the
benefit
long run is a consequence from learning; hence it is influenced among other by
available resources and individuals skill.
Motivated reasoning differs from causal reasoning. An effect has always to
follow the cause, even in case of probabilistic systems when different effects have to
follow a given cause at fixed probabilities. A given action has not always to follow a
given necessity, because for instance, preferences or aversions vary in time and among
people. It does not strictly follow that necessity of nutrients makes the individual to eat,
because the decision is subject to preference concerning other concurrent necessities,
too. A mechanical force has always to make a body to move; to move or not is not a
matter of preference either of the force or the body.

6. Choice selection

Choice of actions is in general available for satisfying most of (if not all)
individuals necessities. Choice selection is proposed to be based on a neuroeconomic
reasoning taking into consideration benefit and risk of opportunity (Rocha et al, 2009;
Rocha and Rocha, 2011; Rocha, 2013).
Given two possible alternative actions ai , a j that may satisfy a given necessity,

the benefit of opportunity of ai given a j is equal to its expected benefit bai for ai , plus

the difference bi , j = rj ri between their expected risks ri and r j . In other words, the

benefit of opportunity of ai given the alternative actions is equal to its expected benefit
discounted its risk referred to risk associated with the alternative actions.
In the same line of reasoning, the risk of opportunity of ai given a j is equal to its

expected risk rai for ai , plus the difference ri , j = b j bi between their expected

benefits bi and b j , respectively. In other words, the risk of opportunity of ai given the

alternative actions is equal to its expected risk discounted its benefit referred to benefit
associated with the alternative actions.
 In this context, the willingness of implementing a give action ai given the other

risk of opportunity
alternative actions is mainly determined by the ratio ( ) between
benefit of opportunity
the expected action benefit and risk of opportunity.
Reasoning about alternative actions demands more computational resources
because calculation of benefit and risk of opportunity of each alternative requires pair
wise comparisons between estimated benefits and risks of all alternatives. This
combinatorial character of benefit and risk calculations restrict individuals to handle a
small number of options when reasoning about alternative actions. This type of
reasoning is time consuming; too, what reduces its utility when quick decision making
is required.
Reasoning about alternative actions is a key issue to the freedom of decision
making, but as discussed above is not a necessary one. Time and/or neural
computational restrictions (such as neural impairment, inheritance, learning, etc.) may
difficult or impede deciding about alternative actions, but even in this condition the
individual may decide about acting or not.

7. An experiment on alternative actions

The electric (temporal electric field variation) activity recorded by a set of

electrodes ei (EEG) is a weighted sum of the electric currents (sources s l ) generated by
neurons that are activated at different cortical areas. Correlation analysis allows the
quantification of information ( H (ei ) ) provided by each electrode ei about the electric

sources si ( http://www.eina.com.br/eeg.php ), and therefore provides information about

the different sets of neurons enrolled in solving a given cognitive task. In this line of
reasoning, Principal Component Analysis (PCA) discloses H (ei ) patterns that are
associated with the activity of the different neural circuits involved in decision making.
A detailed description of this EEG analysis is found in Rocha et al (2010) and Rocha
(2013)
PCA identifies, in general, 3 different patterns of brain activity (P1, P2 and P3 in
Figure 3) explaining 80% of H (ei ) covariation and associated with of 3 different types
of neural circuits in decision making (Rocha et al, 2009, Rocha, 2013; see also
http://www.eina.com.br/index_ingles.php ):
1) Pattern P1 is proposed to disclose the activity of the neural circuits enrolled in
recognizing the possible problem solutions and evaluating their associated risks and
benefits;
2) Pattern P3 is proposed to disclose the activity of neural circuits in charge of
calculating action adequacy, fairness and willingness taking into consideration the
results calculated by P1 neural networks, and
3) Pattern P2 is proposed to disclose the activity of the executive neural systems in
charge to trigger decision making process and selecting the action to be implemented
taking into consideration information provided by P1 and P3 neural networks.
In this study, 20 individual (10 males and 10 females) saw a video about the
necessity of killing a mosquito in babys room, using either spray or plug-in insecticide
or a piece of fabric ( in experiment 1); and made 3 pair wise decisions in experiment 2
(see figures 3) while their 10/20 EEG was recorded (impedance below 10 Kohm; low-
pass filter 50Hz, sampling frequency of 256 Hz and 10 bits of resolution). For this
purpose, two networked computers were used and EEG analysis followed the
procedures described in Rocha et al, 2010. Between experiment 1 and 2, volunteers
judged 12 moral dilemmas (Rocha et al, 2013). EEG epochs of 2 seconds after possible
solution display in the video in experiment I, and 2 seconds before the volunteer select
its option in experiment II were used for PCA analysis.

Figure 1 Experiment I a video shows a flying mosquito in

the babys room (V and R) and the alternative actions: using
spray (S); or plug-in device (P) or a piece of fabric (F) to kill the
 mosquito. Experiment II - volunteer had to make pair wise
choices of alternative solutions to kill the mosquito.

Results show that plug-in (P) was chosen in 60% of the decisions; spray (S) was
selected in 30% of times and fabric was chosen the remaining 10% of the decisions
(Figure 4). These results may be explained by assuming, for example, that spray odor
was associated with babys harm and fabric with high possibility of failure in the
attempt to kill the mosquito. If such hypothesis holds true, the plug-in device was
assigned the smallest risk and fabric was associated with the highest one. For all
conditions, benefit, that is to protect the baby, was the same. In this condition,
willingness to act is expected to be greater for using plug-in insecticide concerning the
alternatives of spray insecticide or the piece of fabric.

Figure 4 Frequency of chosen actions and EEG mappings in experiments I and II

PCA disclosed 3 brain patterns of activity as expected. In both experiments,

pattern P1 involves mostly temporal and occipital electrodes (in charge of benefit and
risk assessment); pattern P2 is composed by frontal electrodes (executive control) and
pattern P3 enrolls central and parietal electrodes (in charge of calculating willingness to
act). All patterns differed when the different actions are taken into consideration in both
experiments, but this variation is greater for experiment 1 in comparison to experiment
2.
The most important pattern differences are observed when the two experiments
are compared. Pattern P1 in experiment 2 is composed almost exclusively by posterior
temporal (T5 and T6) electrodes and the occipital (O1, O2 and OZ) electrodes, while in
experiment 1 it also included the anterior temporal electrodes (T3 and T4). Pattern P2
included electrodes F3, F7 and F8 in experiment 1, but not in experiment 2. Finally,
pattern P3 included electrodes C3, C4 and P3 for all decisions in experiment 2 and
mostly right electrodes in experiment 1. These results support the hypothesis brain
activity associated with reasoning about alternative actions (experiment 2) differs from
that considering each action alone (experiment 1). If this holds true, then it may be
assumed that brain activity recorded in experiment 1 is associated with risk & benefit
analysis of each action per se, and that activity recorded in experiment 2 is associated
with calculations of risk and benefits of opportunity.
If the above discussion is accepted as true, then the type of experiment described
here, despite its simplicity, may be one way to study the neurodynamics of free will.
More complex and informative studies may be planed to better understand the
complexities of a free decision making, but the present results at least show that this
type of experiment is feasible.

Conclusion

Another fundamental issue on free will discussion is consciousness. This is

because many people require free will to be supported by conscious decision making.
The experiments by Libet et al (1983, 1985) call this into question. He asked volunteers
to choose a random moment to flick their wrist while recording their EEG. To
determine when subjects felt the intention to move, he asked them to watch the second
hand of a clock. After making a movement, the volunteer reported the time on the clock
when they first felt the conscious intention to move. Analyzing the readness potential
that it is an EEG signal of the pre-motor planning of volitional movement, Libet found
that the unconscious brain activity of the readiness potential leading up to subjects'
movements began approximately half a second before the subject was aware of a
conscious intention to move.
Here, a neuroeconomic model for decision making was used to discuss and
support free will without any reference about consciousness. However, it was stressed
that conflict makes decision harder and reasoning about alternative is computationally
costly. Rocha et al (2004, 2011) proposed consciousness to be promoted by quantum
events at synaptic level and to be associated with hard decisions, when either conflict is
high or choice is complex.
 Synaptic quantum events support quantum computing. In contrast to classic
computing that depends on flipping of binary states, quantum computing takes
advantage of the collapse of many entangled states into one specific state. While binary
state flipping furnishes 1 bit of information, flipping of quantum states furnishes an
amount of information (qbit) that depends on the number of entangled states. In this
condition, quantum computing devices have a computational capacity that is orders of
magnitude higher than classic computing devices. This is because conscious processing
would be required in case of hard decisions. But free will is not only about hard
decisions, it is about any decision. Therefore, consciousness is not a necessary
component of free will.
In conclusion it may be said that knowledge provided by neurosciences strongly
support free will as an inherently property of motivated guided actions in contrast to the
determinism of caused events.

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