online review on Philosophy of psychology...

Review - Brain, Mind, and Human Behavior in Contemporary Cognitive Science

Both scientists and philosophers have a strong interest in understanding how it is that a brain, apparently made up of simple matter, has (seemingly) evolved to know and experience the world in which it exists. This issue has of course been a mainstay of philosophy throughout recorded history, but are we any closer to a satisfying approach? With the marvelous progress in the cognitive and neurological sciences in the past few decades, the relationship between mind and brain would seem a practical problem that may soon be unraveled.

free will...

Free will? Not as much as you think

You're going to press that button, right? You know you're going to press it and then . . . you make a conscious decision and you press it, right?

more stories like thisMaybe not, say German researchers in a new study published in the April 13 online edition of Nature Neuroscience.

Using sophisticated brain imaging techniques, the researchers found that they can predict people's simple decisions up to 10 seconds before they're conscious of making such a choice.

"It seems that your brain starts to trigger your decision before you make up your mind," said the study's lead author, John-Dylan Haynes of the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Germany. "We can't rule out free will, but I think it's very implausible. The question is, can we still decide against the decision our brain has made?"

update: Wired has an article on the same study... Brain Scanners Can See Your Decisions Before You Make Them

"It's not like you're a machine. Your brain activity is the physiological substance in which your personality and wishes and desires operate," he said.

The unease people feel at the potential unreality of free will, said National Institutes of Health neuroscientist Mark Hallett, originates in a misconception of self as separate from the brain.

"That's the same notion as the mind being separate from the body -- and I don't think anyone really believes that," said Hallett. "A different way of thinking about it is that your consciousness is only aware of some of the things your brain is doing.