Indeterminism in neurobiology

Philosophy of Science 72 (5):663-674 (2005)
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Abstract

I examine different arguments that could be used to establish indeterminism of neurological processes. Even though scenarios where single events at the molecular level make the difference in the outcome of such processes are realistic, this falls short of establishing indeterminism, because it is not clear that these molecular events are subject to quantum mechanical uncertainty. Furthermore, attempts to argue for indeterminism autonomously (i.e., independently of quantum mechanics) fail, because both deterministic and indeterministic models can account for the empirically observed behavior of ion channels

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Marcel Weber
University of Geneva

Citations of this work

Why It Is Time To Move Beyond Nagelian Reduction.Marie I. Kaiser - 2012 - In D. Dieks, W. J. Gonzalez, S. Hartmann, M. Stöltzner & M. Weber (eds.), Probabilities, Laws, and Structures. The Philosophy of Science in a European Perspective. Heidelberg, GER: Springer. pp. 255-272.
A nonreductive physicalist libertarian free will.Dwayne Moore - forthcoming - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy.
Indeterminism in the brain.Bryce Gessell - 2017 - Biology and Philosophy 32 (6):1205-1223.

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References found in this work

An essay on free will.Peter van Inwagen & A. Phillips Griffiths - 1985 - Revue Philosophique de la France Et de l'Etranger 175 (4):557-558.
The Astonishing Hypothesis.Francis Crick & J. Clark - 1994 - Journal of Consciousness Studies 1 (1):10-16.
Instrumental Biology or the Disunity of Science.Alexander Rosenberg - 1997 - Philosophical Quarterly 47 (186):120-122.
The Large, the Small and the Human Mind.Roger Penrose - 1997 - Philosophy 73 (283):125-128.

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