We hosted the Second International Conference on Neuroscience and Free Will from March 14th to March 18th, 2019. The conference was organized by Uri Maoz.
This conference has been made available by the generous support of the Fetzer Franklin Fund and additional support from the President’s Office and Crean College at Chapman University.
Below are some highlights from the conference.
FRIDAY MARCH 15
Morning Session: Are We Going To Find Intentions In The Brain?
9:00am – 9:45am Mark Hallett
Are we going to find intentions in the brain?
9:45am – 10:30am Sebo Uithol
On intentions and the real causes of our actions
11:00am – 12:00pm
Philosopher Response: Richard Holton
Panel: Mark Hallett, Richard Holton, Aaron Schurger, Sebo Uithol, Gideon Yaffe
Special Session: What Can Neuroscience Contribute to the Philosophical Debate on Free Will?
Click on the participant’s name to view the question(s) they will pose.
1:30pm – 2:30pm Alfred Mele, Gideon Yaffe, Walter Sinnott-Armstrong
Afternoon Session: Freedom In A Social Setting (Click for webcast)
3:00pm – 3:45pm Marcel Brass
The influence of free will beliefs on intentional motor control and social perception
3:45pm – 4:30pm Hans Liljenström
A neuro-cognitive approach to free will in social interaction
5:00pm – 6:00pm
Philosopher Response: Eddy Nahmias
Panel: Marcel Brass, Hans Liljenström, Eddy Nahmias, Jonathan Schooler, Till Vierkant
SATURDAY MARCH 16
Morning Session: The Role of Randomness (Click for webcast)
8:30am – 9:15am Björn Brembs
Conceptualizing freedom as a composite biological process
9:15am – 10:00am Gabriel Kreiman
Do neurons play dice? And does the answer matter for free will?
10:30am – 11:30am (Click for webcast)
Philosopher Response: Tim O’Connor
Panel: Björn Brembs, Gabriel Kreiman, Tim O’Connor, Uri Maoz, Peter van Inwagen
Poster Session (Click for information)
12:00pm – 2:00pm
Afternoon Session: Are More Ecological Studies Too Confounded? (Click for webcast)
2:00pm – 2:45pm Uri Maoz
Do the Libet results generalize to deliberate decisions?
2:45pm – 3:30pm Liad Mudrik
Studying ‘real-life’ consciousness and volition: promise, challenges and perils
4:00pm – 5:00pm (Click for webcast)
Philosopher Response: Pamela Hieronymi
Panel: Pamela Hieronymi, Liad Mudrik, Uri Maoz, Gary Watson, Patrick Haggard
SUNDAY MARCH 17
Morning Session: Causality in Neuroscience (Click for webcast)
8:30am – 9:15am John-Dylan Haynes
Challenges to causal interpretation of decision-predictive brain signals
9:15am – 10:00am Frederick Eberhardt
Causal Structure Discovery from Neural Data
10:30am – 11:30am (Click for webcast)
Philosopher Response: Tim Bayne
Panel: Tim Bayne, Frederick Eberhardt, John-Dylan Haynes, Chris Hitchcock, Paavo Pylkkanen
Student-Led Session (Click for webcast)
12:00pm – 2:00pm
Panel Discussion: (Click for webcast)
Ned Block, Patrick Haggard, Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, Peter Tse
To facilitate more student engagement with the conference and their topics of interest, we have a student-led session. Here, the students decide on the format and the content. The first part of the session comprises of group discussions of 6 topics. There will be 3 simultaneously discussed topics for 40 minutes and then 3 others for the next 40 minutes. Then, in the second part of the session, there will be a panel discussion for 30 minutes.
Click here for details about the topics and participants.
Afternoon Session: What Is The Readiness Potential? (Click for webcast)
2:00pm – 2:45pm Aaron Schurger
The time course of neural activity predictive of impending movement
2:45pm – 3:30pm Patrick Haggard
The Bereitschaftspotential and the cognitive neuro-ontology of voluntary action
4:00pm – 5:00pm (Click for webcast)
Philosopher Response: Adina Roskies
Panel: Mark Balaguer, Patrick Haggard, Mark Hallet, Adina Roskies, Aaron Schurger
Poster Session Details (Click for webcast)
(Saturday 12pm – 2pm)
Click on any title to view the corresponding abstract.
Deciding or instructed to move or not move
Sanaz Attaripour Isfahani (National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke)
Picking and choosing. An ERP study of the neural correlates of meaningless and meaningful actions
Sofia Bonicalzi (Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich)
The Knobe effect attenuated in autism spectrum disorder and its neural basis
Kazuki Iijima (Tamagawa University)
Bio-Agency and Natural Freedom
Anne Sophie Meincke (University of Southampton)
Using placebo machines to influence agency over thoughts, attitudes, and behaviours
Jay Olson (McGill University)
Alice Pailhes (Goldsmiths University of London)
Do we know what we are about to do? A real-time EEG study of intention awareness
Elisabeth Parés Pujolràs (University College London)
Interpretive-Sensory Access to One’s Will
Paulius Rimkevicius (Vilnius University)
Yarden Shir (Tel Aviv University)
Testing the Conditional Ability to Do Otherwise in the Court of Popular Opinion
Siyuan Yin (Duke University)
Freedom and free will: impact of phrasing on intuitions
Jake Gavenas (Chapman University Brain Institute)
Using Pupillometry to Assess Conscious Intention
Andy Liang (Chapman University Brain Institute)
Timing the onset of deliberate and arbitrary choices
Alice Wong (Chapman University Brain Institute)
Compact 3 DOF Driving Simulator using Immersive Virtual Reality for ecological decision making
Jungsu Pak (Chapman University Brain Institute)
Student-Led Session Details
(Sunday 12pm – 2pm)
12:00pm – 12:40pm
| Topic | Moderator |
Are we going to find intentions in the brain? | Jake Gavenas |
The role of randomness | Jungsu Pak |
| Causality in neuroscience | Alice Wong |
12:40pm – 1:20pm
Topic | Moderator |
Freedom in a social setting | Jungsu Pak |
Will findings generalize to distal intentions? | Alice Wong |
Noise and responsibility | Jake Gavenas |
1:20pm – 2:00pm
Panel Discussion
Students are welcome to add questions for the 6 topic discussions and for the panel using this link. Only the students can edit the spreadsheet of questions, but everyone can view the questions.