Neuroscience Determining the Validity of Determinism

Keywords: Neuroscience, Philosophy, Voluntarism, Determinism, Choice, Materialism,

Stoicism, Contemporary.

Abstract

Contemporary philosophy has been starved with respect to being reconciled with

contemporaneously established scientific findings. With epistemological questions of

how humans learn being better understood with neuroscientific discoveries of

operationalization of external stimuli into encoded action potentials being translated into

potentiation of neuropil, Kant’s capstone of the Modern era with position that the mind

conforms itself to reality triumphed. With this example of philosophical reasoning

proving valid with the development of science, the opportunity for philosophy to catch up

to the unrealized potential of the ocean of scientific developments and capabilities the

contemporary scene swims in. This reality looms especially with respect to the topic of

determinism as the world is encumbered in materialism reinforced with a materialist

society. The work ahead attempts to reconcile contemporary neuroscience with three

major consequences of determinism: “Is there such thing as a free act?” “Are we

condemned to be free?” “Is there such thing as a free will?” Taking a materialistic

hermeneutic, the discussion explores these topics and the consequences of determinism in

light of choice, rehabilitation, and health disorders and how they endure in contrast with

stoicism and voluntarism.

 The history of philosophy can be traced along time as an understanding of man finding

out what his role is in the universe. The ancient philosophers began the process of philosophizing

as they tried to understand the bare elements of the universe, what the nature of the human

person was, and wondering how to find the truth more fully. This epoch was followed by the

medieval philosophers that began to understand the world Christo-centrically and how God could

be understood as the way to find the truth through imitating what God would be like. Modern

philosophy would follow this and begin turning the focus to an anthropocentric model and

realizing that man is able to do many things formerly purported to be limited to God’s level,

made more pronounced with the abundance of sciences and deeper understanding of the

elements of the world. After this tilt the contemporary scene began to face the consequences of

life and finding meaning in the world after the death of God as both a mode of operation and as

grounds for philosophy, for the horrors of the Second World War have helped humankind realize

that they had to face the consequences of having lived as though there was no God.

Today’s world is still lingering in the wake of contemporary philosophy without God,

sitting in a stupor surrounded by so much technology and scientific advancement but remaining

directionless. However, with all of the progress the world has made in STEM-based fields, it

might be time for a technocentric reorientation of philosophical effort in order to help man find

more of himself among this world, as is the typical approach of any existential philosophy. The

world of philosophy might even be able to be aided with how far science has come. In fact, the

realm of philosophy is malnourished with the unrealized potential of how far science has come.

The discussion hereafter is attempting to reconcile philosophy of choice with the advances that

sciences have made. Science has been able to venture into the uncharted territories of realities

formerly deprived of fuller understanding as result of a lack of understood potential in

technology. This paper will attempt to guide the discussion of human choice with contemporary

findings of neuroscience, to be the Vergil to the Dante of philosophical discussion.

To begin the discussion on choice, or voluntarism, it should first be defined properly. As

is the focus of analytic philosophy, a term is like a problem: it must first be properly defined and

dissolved before being able to move on to solve it. Voluntarism is known as the principle of

seeing actions as freely chosen and not being predetermined or forced, which would be

characteristic of an opposing philosophy known as determinism. To be human means to be a

rational animal and to have a free will, whether one subscribes to theological implications or not.

It is with voluntarism that many systems of operation are based upon in the world, for the justice

system would be devoid of its power if criminals were determined to commit their crimes. Going

into further ramifications in the realm of faith, determinism would render the sacrament of

reconciliation from such a foundational part of the Church to be admitting imminent actions.

With voluntarism being formally defined, one should next explore the history of the

philosophical discussion of choice. As far back as the ancients, Plato discussed it possible to rise

above the impulses of the flesh and order oneself to ponder the forms, the real structures of

reality beyond this corporeal realm. The Stoics would later discuss in ancient philosophy the

notion of not being able to control anything but one’s assent to the bodily impressions and urges

that one is met with. Frankly, they held that one cannot even control being able to cross the street

as they cannot control the world and external influences that might stop them: they can only

control their assent to the desire to cross the street. Later in contemporary philosophy, Jean Paul

Sartre would come to see the human person as his famously quoted line: “condemned to be free.”

Sartre would understand that the human person has two parts that are essential to their being:

freedom and nothingness, which are codependent on each other. Freedom is understood in the
classical sense as being able to choose to freely do and be whatever one desires without any

impediment. Nothingness on the other hand is an understanding of things’ essence via negation.

This is understood in his famous example of walking into the café and not finding his friend,

Pierre, in the establishment. Wherever he looks for Pierre, there is an expectation of Pierre’s

presence or being, but upon looking in an area for a potential location that Pierre could be, that

area is instantly negated by Sartre. So freedom depends on negativity as there must be nothing

holding man back from actualizing more of himself, otherwise he would be fully actualized.

Then negativity depends on freedom as one must be free in thought to be able to think in

universals so as to be unbound in thought and think of what else could be.

When considering the various influences that one is met with when they are making a

choice, there are countless factors to take in. These factors could classify as internal, external, or

even supernatural if one allows the possibility of spiritual dimension. One would classify

external factors as the idols of the cave, as the modern philosopher Francis Bacon would affirm

(Klein et al., 2020), or the element of nurture as psychologists would define them. These could

be the surroundings or anything beyond what a person could control whilst growing up, such as a

person’s socioeconomic background, ethnicity, culture, religious upbringing, or even philosophy

of nationalism. These external influences relatively normalize one’s actions if they are in accord

to their society’s normative measures. One should rightfully try to purge themselves of biases if

they want to strive for the truth, for these external influences blind one to the truth and hug

people closely to the point where one might not be able to realize that they are biased. To

analogize this to psychology, it would be as if to say that one might not realize that they have a

problem with themselves or that they are addicted. Such can be seen in the example where

certain actions are seen as addictions in the United States, like alcohol or sex, while it might be
normalized or culturally accepted in other countries like Japan or Brazil. To analogize it in

theological terms, these biases are forms of pride that blind one to the true nature or noumena of

a reality. What one might call self-confidence and assertiveness might be viewed as conceited

and cocky by another, for people do not typically consider themselves as having these negative

qualities. It is instead with the view of another person that meets them as an antithesis and opens

their eyes to help them realize how they are being perceived and helps them through their pride

to see the reality of who they are and consequences of their actions. With these biases in mind,

this paper will explore the realities facing one’s choice in a classic Hegelian dialectic structure

from a neuropsychological standpoint faced with the realities that philosophy poses and try to

find a synthesis among the two.

Before imploring heavily into neuroscience, one should first map out the structure of the

topic provided by philosophy. Such is the focus of analytic philosophy to explore the nature of

words, most accurately describe a reality with language, and to dissolve the problem first before

solving it. To begin, one should put forth the two contrary views on choice in philosophy:

determinism versus voluntarism. Beginning with the former, one should appreciate the

etymology of determinism. The Latin prefix de- indicates ‘completely’ whilst terminare means

to terminate or finish. So, taking both with the common suffix -ism, which means the idea or

practice of a thing, this would mean the practice of things being completely finished or

terminated. Determinism is an idea in philosophy that holds that things are not free to act the way

in which they would want. Formally put, it is “the idea that every event is necessitated by

antecedent events and conditions together with the laws of nature” (Hoefer, 2016). Examples of

this would be insects and animals acting out of instinct and basing their actions on pleasures, the

determined nature of the interactions of the universe contained in theorems, postulates, patterns,
and other fixed phenomena of the world, or even reducing the human nature to being limited in

their choices and what they could maximally achieve based on their epigenetic factors. These

epigenetic factors would be accounted for in the dualistic perspectives on the human being where

it is nature mixed with nurture, or genes and environment to take a more biological language.

If determinism is to be held in the analysis of the human person, then this would mean

that the human person is limited in their choices. The human is limited to certain possible

outcomes of choice because of their genetic makeup and their upbringing in determinism, and it

also would mean that the human is fixed to be a particular essence. This leaves no room for the

human person to have choice or to be anything more than what their epigenetic makeup is, which

has many consequences. If there were to be a person that wanted to get over an addiction, the

person would not be able to do anything for themselves. They would be condemned and limited

with their own epigenetic makeup as an explanation and a limitation to their recovery: they

would not be able to cure themselves of their addiction. The gravity of determinism would also

be understood in contexts of culpability. Take the scenario of a crime committed: the murderer

would be able to tell the cops and the jury that he was not responsible for his actions. He would

argue that his limbic system was at fault as was his upbringing, as he could not have done or

known any better than to relieve his anger in any other way than violence. This would allow

people to get away without any punishment as they would point the blame to something

inanimate and something that cannot help or defend itself. This would be analogically blaming

the gun instead of the carrier, and it would be deleterious to society if choice and thereby fault

did not exist.

Next, one should take an appreciation to the opposite view of voluntarism. The

etymology of voluntarism can shine light on the meaning of the philosophical view: voluntas
means ‘will’ or ‘of one’s free will’ also having relation to velle which means ‘to wish’ (Harper,

2021), so it would be the idea or practice of willing something as one would desire. Such is not

far off from voluntarist philosophers that hold that one can will whatever they would want and of

their own control. Formally put, voluntarism is “the principle or system of doing something by

or relying on voluntary  action… that conceives will to be the dominant factor in experience or

in the world” (Merriam-Webster, 2021). This view is held often by those that posit the notion of

a free will, and this is favorable for those that argue for the existence of a soul as the soul has

been held as a free, life-giving principle that people identify their true identity with. This soul has

been often posited to be an immaterial existence, though some exceptions have posited a material

existence (Konstan, 2018), but it has been supported often by the notion of a free will that people

can choose certain options or actions in life.

The consequences of voluntarism should then be drawn. Voluntarism would admit that

all of the actions that one commits are done so freely and as products of their own willing it. This

places all of the culpability of one’s actions on their choosing it. The person that committed

crime but was born and raised to only learn and know how to get by in the world by criminal

actions would have no excuse for their crime. It does not matter as to what circumstances or

background one has, for the fact that one is found as the source of the committed act is all a

voluntarist would need to know in order to indict them. Morality would of course hinge on one’s

willing it, in contrast to determinists seeing that one’s epigenetic factors being able to produce

the instances of moral actions. Further, if one wants to do anything they would wish, they could

ideally choose between any two choices that are offered before them. This is understood in the

terms of classical Aristotelian logic as the disjunction of choice between X and not-X. The purest

form of this choice is known commonly in Christian philosophy as a freedom of indifference

(Pinckaers, 1995) whereupon one person cuts away all the ties and connections they have as

reason for making a choice. Quite literally, the person casts away reason itself in order to choose

as they are fighting for sheer freedom itself (Pinckaers, 1995). There is an irony to this however,

for they cut away all their ties to extraneous reasons or motivators for choosing yet they must be

anchored down to the one motive of fighting for freedom itself. The potency of unadulterated

choice would indicate that they are entirely free to choose whether or not to do something.

Although this freedom of indifference sounds beautiful, especially for anti-essentialists or

those that posit existence precedes essence, people are not as freely willing to do anything they

would want (Flynn, 2013). Not intending to point out the obvious, one must acknowledge there

are physical limitations to the universe. A radical example would evidently be that a human

cannot fly like a bird, for their bodies are denser than birds. Or a less extreme example would be

if a person who is lactose intolerant is faced with the choice of having cheese or not having

cheese on their sandwich, they would naturally be inclined to decline the option so long as they

had previous knowledge of their own allergy. These examples call upon the necessity for

determined and fixed limitations on the human person and what they can so choose. So there

seems to be a middle area that humans operate in between, that of the deterministic limitations

and mechanisms of the physical universe and the rational aspect of the human that can so will to

do what they want. To cop off of Nietzsche, the human seems to be a rope suspended between a

determined animal and a rational being able to will and choose (Nietzsche, 1883).

Now that the problem between the conflicting philosophies on choice has been shown,

this calls on the subordinate sciences to explicate this reality. In a neuroscience experiment by

Dr. John-Dylan Haynes, he found that the brain makes a choice before the person consciously

performs it (Smith, 2008). He subjected participants to an isolated and idle situation where the
participants were in a room and asked to press a button when they wanted to. There would be

one button per hand, but while this happened a series of letters were displayed on a screen every

half second and the participants had to remember the letter that was displayed when they decided

to press the button. Haynes used an electroencephalogram (EEG) to measure the cortical activity

surrounding the choice, and he found that he could predict when the participants would make the

choice up to ten seconds before making the conscious decision. The region that elicited the

predictive measure was the frontopolar cortex in the region of the brain behind the forehead.

Another neuroscientist, Dr. Benjamin Libet, furthered the work done by Haynes. He used

a similar setup but used one button instead of two, and he was able to find predictive activity in

the regions responsible for movement within a few hundred milliseconds before the executed

decision. These experiments have not been without criticism, for some have argued there is no

free will as the neurons will be firing ahead of the person anyways. Others have offered that the

brain might merely be priming itself in anticipation of the movement. However, the fact that the

neurons have anticipatory firing before a decision is still noteworthy, for it shows that there is a

preparation for executing the choice. This draws the logical disjunction back out, for the neurons

seemingly prime themselves to fire the X option or are inhibited to choose the non-X option. In

most cases of neurons throughout the body, the X option can be understood by excitatory

dopaminergic (DOPA) neurons to bring neurons closer to threshold for launching the X option

for launching action potentials. The non-X option could then be operationalized by gamma

aminobutyric acid (GABA) or glycine neurons which would act as the executive inhibitory

neurons responsible for taking the neuron away from threshold. There are of course other

instances in which GABA could actually be excitatory or conversely DOPA that would act as an

inhibitory neurotransmitter, so the point would stand that excitatory neurons would stand as the
priming for the X option and inhibitory for non-X. It would seem, at the most basic level, that a

collection of the inhibitory and excitatory neurons surrounding and monitoring a neuron at its

soma and hillock collectively provide operational faculties for the will to choose.

One might ask then about unintentional actions. “Could forced or unintentional actions

really be accounted for by the will?”, one might wonder. Especially in light of classical

Aristotelian thought on the will described in depth throughout his work the Nicomachean Ethics

(Kraut, 2018), if one is physically forced to do something then they are not culpable for their

acts. Such an example would be seen in the situation of a direct mechanical force pushing

someone to bump into another, but that is an instance where the force is external to the person.

One should ask if this case would serve for an internal force. There is the obvious case of Alien

Hand Syndrome (AHS) where a person suffers involuntary movements not caused by motor

dysfunction. The syndrome was coined after a doctor found a few patients with corpus callosum

(CC) tumors that could not recognize their own hand. The onset of this disorder is due to

pathologies like stroke, parietal lobe or corpus callosum damage, or neurodegeneration typical to

that of the basal ganglia, and patients exhibit it more when a “patient is fatigued, stress, or has

divided attention between concurrent activities.” (Le et al., 2020). This disorder turns one’s own

body against them as some have even reported to have slapped themselves or rebelled against

their own intended course of action. In the aforementioned article, there was an older man that

woke up to his hand slapping himself. After a few visits, the doctors found that the patient’s right

parietal subcortex, right parietal cortex, and right temporal lobe had damage on them. The

parietal region is mostly responsible for “sensory, visuospatial, visual, and language function”

(Dziedzic et al., 2021) while the temporal lobe is accountable for producing and perceiving

speech, auditory and social processes, and even visuospatial information (Patel et al., 2021). If
one is reviewing the symptoms of the disorder, they can reconcile the lack of control of one’s

own limb with lacking the recognition thereof with the affected regions listed in the case report

of that patient. It would sound rather reductionistic to simplify the phenomenon of AHS to

merely the areas responsible for the symptoms, but it serves as a helpful roadmap for diagnosing

and understanding the mechanistic underpinnings of the disorder.

With that example in mind, one should turn towards Tourette’s Syndrome, another

disorder that produces unintentional actions. The disorder is characterized by “involuntary

movements and vocalizations, tics, accompanied frequently by specific comorbid behavioural

syndromes” which are typically “brief, meaningless movements, often involving a single muscle

group” (Albin, 2018). Patients with the disorder have been hypothesized to have dysfunctional

basal ganglia, aberrant DOPAergic activity, or even impairments in the social decision-making

network. These neurobiological underpinnings have been targeted for therapies to ameliorate the

tics’ severity and frequency, however, it has been reported that the “Tics can typically be

suppressed temporarily with conscious effort… patients concentrating intently on a task often

experience a decline in tics during performance” (Ibid). Tourette’s, is not an uncontrollable

disorder then, but one afflicted with the disorder would not be conscious of their tics or see them

as a difficulty.

With these disorders put forth, one returns to the question as to whether patients afflicted

with either disorder can be held accountable for their actions. In each instance, the patients are

technically the producers of their actions in a materialist view, so determinists would consider

them as bound to be stuck with their disorder as long as there is no external influence.

Determinists would be bound to the scientific interventions in the treating of those disorders as

they would exclude the willing of one’s self-improvement. For AHS, determinists would isolate
the brain regions supporting the exhibited symptoms like the temporal and parietal lobes. Then

for Tourette’s syndrome, determinists would target the overactive regions of the brain with

DOPAergic inhibitory drugs. This stands as the advantage of the determinist view: they use the

definite and scientifically based theorems, equations, principles, and bodies of study to be able to

diagnose, isolate, and treat diseases at the level of the specific regions established to account for

the phenomena exhibited.

This triumph of determinism cannot be had without any opposition, however. In the

voluntarist view, one can allow room for the will to come into the scene. As was seen explicitly

in Tourette’s, patients can concentrate on an activity or an object to distract themselves to exhibit

less tics. Another treatment was to put forth concerted effort to consciously avoid less incidences

of exhibited tics, so determinism would seem to pale in comparison for intentional self-

improvement. Of course, determinism would still be able to wave the finger at voluntarism about

the fact that the person would still be afflicted with the disorder for their whole life, but

voluntarism can fight back at least and show that people can want to get better. Voluntarism is

therefore embodied in the adage of leading the horse to water or for helping addicts to get better:

one must insert their will and assent to the notion before they can ever make progress on it.

Similarly, one must want to get better or have a reason to do so, otherwise they would not

willingly choose to get treatment nor would they cooperate with it. There would have to be a

greater reason for someone to do something unnatural and against their natural inclinations.

Speaking of these inclinations, research has found that there are biases contained in one’s

body that would impact one’s actions. Coined by the neuroscientist Antonio Damasio, the

somatic marker hypothesis (SMH) was formed on the findings of biomarkers and particular

biorhythms predisposing one to be inclined towards actions that would sustain or satisfy those
bodily dispositions (Olsen et al., 2015). The hypothesis was supported by the observation of

altered biochemical levels contained in the frontal cortex and throughout the body would

correlate to altered decision making, deficits in learning, and practical obliviousness to future

outcomes. All of these symptoms are exhibited by those with lesions of the frontal cortex. The

frontal lobe is generally understood to be involved with higher order processes, such as forward

thinking, personality, social and cognitive functions, and fluid intelligence. The prefrontal cortex

(PFC) is a more defined area of the frontal lobe and it has been heavily implicated in the

executive functions like “planning, monitoring, energizing, switching and inhibition” (Roca et

al., 2010). These areas taken together would be prime examples for understanding choice areas

responsible for resulting choices.

With a basic understanding of the functions of these areas, the SMH would understand

that altered levels of biochemicals in these areas would result in altered behavior. Consider the

example of low DOPAergic firing or presence in the frontal lobe: if the person were to be asked

to choose what to wear or give feedback on the quality of a service, like the waiter of a restaurant

or judging one’s presentation, they would be met with difficulties in making judgments on the

matter. The person would be willingly trying to place judgment, but they would have imprecise

and erred feelings and elaboration. Especially considering elaboration, the body might be

indicating to the person that they want or should be strongly attracted to a stimulus when in

reality they might morally disagree with it and have difficulties overriding their body’s natural

and healthy response. Another example is when sexual attractions are elicited through, say, a

visual stimulus: the secretion of sex hormones into the blood stream would affect the person not

only systemically but also mentally. No matter what the person does, the hormones will be

rushing through their system and reach the brain, activating the amygdala, the classic fight or
flight and emotional association region, and the pituitary gland, a part responsible for hormonal

production. Then, a positive feedback cycle will begin where a signal will be sent back down to

the reproductive organs which will send responses back to the brain, and so on until one is

primed for reproduction.

This example should be explored further, for there is significant content to be unpackaged

in this. Humans have survived thus far in the history of the universe only due to the evolutionary

advantage of having critical windows for learning key skills and abilities for survival. These

critical windows correspond to certain brain states and levels of hormonal production. The

former example can be seen in the example of a newborn that has an abundance of neural matter

or neuropil for learning which synapses to keep and potentiate and which synapses to prune and

that are inopportune for survival and daily life. Then there is the latter example of hormonal

production where a prepubescent boy entering into puberty: the boy has a release of testosterone

and androgens which result in “an exponential increase in germ cell production and testicular

size” (Pryor et al., 2000). This is followed by a series of random erections and sexual hormones

released into the blood steam that match up with critical windows of visual development and

such is basis for learned sexual attraction with visual stimuli. A similar case goes for puberty for

girls as “estrogen and progesterone treatment of prepubertal mice induces… a hallmark of the

opening of the experience-dependent critical period for establishment of ocular dominance

columns in primary visual cortex” (Sisk, 2017). It is a learned behavior that is evolutionarily

advantageous to humans that would not only set up the reproductive system but also to attract

humans to each other.

This is an advantage to determinists as they can see that it is natural and healthy for one

to go through what humans have been evolutionarily programmed to do to survive. Consider if

these evolutionary events were not to happen in an individual: for both examples, the person

would not learn the skills and activities crucial to survive. In fact, in the case of the lack of

synaptic pruning and potentiation, neurologists are able to identify that an abundance of

undeveloped neuropil has often coincided with deficits found in Autism Spectrum Disorder

(ASD) (Varghese et al., 2017). Then if the case of delayed or hindered puberty-related critical

windows, it would delay the person’s growth and sexual development which would have

evolutionarily made them weaker, as the lack of testosterone corresponds to underdeveloped

musculature, and have delayed reproduction. If humans were to have delayed reproduction as an

evolutionary trend, then there would have been less humans as they would have not reproduced

quickly enough before being faced by a predator.

Considering these critical windows and how they are, as contained in their name, critical

for the wellbeing and health of humans, it seems that one must cede that the windows are

determined to happen. There is not much that a person can do about the critical windows, for

they are bound to happen due to genetic coding. It is not like one can voluntarily keep on taking

ice baths in order to prevent the progress of puberty and physical development, nor can one

accelerate it___? It would only seem natural to each person and be healthier for them to accept

these determined physiological mechanisms, otherwise if one were to try to hinder the inevitable

they might do more damage to themselves in the long run. Such can be exemplified in

adolescents with body dysmorphia that try to starve or purge themselves in order to achieve what

they see as desirable. In so doing, however, they often deprive themselves of crucial nutrients

and lead themselves onto a vicious cycle between a damaged or interrupted gut microbiome,

known as dysbiosis, and mental health disorders like anorexia. One should accept themselves for

their body and the gifts therein, and strive for what Christian ethicists would term as “freedom
for excellence” (Pinckaers, ibid). This freedom for excellence is understood as opposed to the

aforementioned freedom of indifference, for instead of trying to rebel and be truly free from all

ties but that of the sake of being free, one rather accepts the constraints, laws, gifts, and

limitations put forth before them. It is with all of these that one can see them as a gift and discern

and choose the excellence that they were meant to achieve.

This voluntary freedom for excellence can be better understood in the situation of Leslie

Lemke. Leslie was a baby given up for adoption because he had retinopathy and various other

ailments. His eyes were surgically removed due to the retinopathy, and doctors had only

expected Leslie to live a few months after birth. However, May Lemke decided to adopt Leslie

and ironically chose to be “determined that Leslie would live” (Treffert, 2021). According to a

documentary which even more ironically is called “The Woman Who Willed a Miracle,” May

cared for Leslie, walked with him, helped him hold his fork for meals, and tried to improve his

life. This was an uphill battle for both May and Leslie as “Leslie grew up blind and cognitively

disabled” and still “has spasticity in his hands” (Treffert, ibid.), but one night May woke up to

hearing the playing of a piano and wondered if she had left the television on. She came down and

heard him playing music, though he had never successfully played the piano before (YouTube).

From then on Leslie has since been able to repeat the songs he hears not only by playing the

piano but also in singing. This rare phenomenon is known as echolalia, the perfect repetition of a

sound perceived. Leslie is a modern miracle, a savant, one that went against all odds. This is

especially of interest as the advocacy for voluntarism emerges from the ashes as not only May

but Leslie chose to actualize Leslie’s own potential. For a child that was considered almost

vegetative, May and Leslie both used the constraints and difficulties Leslie faced and helped him
actualize his freedom for excellence in an act of will. It was will on May’s side to be intentional

to keep believing in Leslie and helping him, while it was will for Leslie to cooperate with May.

From this should one return to the SMH and realize that there might be predispositions

for a freedom for excellence in somatic markers. These somatic markers might be seen as

determined to incline one to do certain acts; take anxiety for example: researchers have found at

the level of blood serum that precipitates and systemic products of the anxiogenic drug

yohimbine cause one to have more anxiety (Le-Niculescu et al., 2011). Further, they have found

at the cellular level that an increase of the adenosine receptor ADORA2A and the GABA

receptor GABBR1 to both be biomarkers strongly implicated in anxiety. People with an

increased presence of these biomarkers would be inclined to have a heightened response of

anxiety to stressors and other provoking stimuli. A similar case is held with emotion, for

“Regulation of emotion is inseparable from the ability to regulate physiological state” (Pace-

Schott et al., 2019). An example of this is the vagus nerve which sends out efferent signals to

modulate the visceral activity in response to stress. So, whether a person can help it, their nerves

will be suppressing organ activity in response to a frightening stimulus or possibly increasing

activity when anxious or saddened. With this, one can see that it is determined that the body will

carry on these activities, yet a person does not need to view them as constraints or impingements

upon the will. Instead, one can see that as a freedom for excellence to be able to have a

heightened anxiety response in the former case, or to be able to work around it if it is

debilitating. Similarly, one could see the abilities of the vagus nerve as a way to provide for

one’s excellence with the visceral suppression providing for self-preservation or the visceral

stimulation to provide more nourishment for an emotionally troubled person.

 From this, one can see that the determinist would term all this machinery of the human

body as a mode for freedom for excellence. The flooding of emotion throughout the body could

be mapped through somatic markers and used to understand what one is going through and

capable of doing through interacting with the cortisol from the body’s stress response. Beautiful

acts of love and good will can be offered with the amount of oxytocin that is given in

experiences of emotional and physical contact. Animals operate similarly to humans as well, for

both can perceive the pheromones given off by another creature to sense if the other is hostile,

saddened, sexually available, and so on. An example of this can be seen in zebrafish subjected to

an environment with pheromones of anxiety present, causing them anxiogenic outcomes (Egan et

al., 2009). These physiological mechanisms could then be said to have evolutionarily evolved in

order to provide for more survivability and physical emotional perception in creatures, for in the

example of the zebrafish they are able to sense that something alarmed other fish in the

environment. They could sense their anxiety pheromones, though they couldn’t perceive a

physical threat, and were then led to act in fight or flight.

Now, just because the physiological mechanisms are present does not mean one should

take refuge with the determinists. Consider the example of alcohol: the substance is a depressant

that people often abuse in order to induce the effects of lowered inhibitions, loss of balance, and

dysregulation of emotion among other effects. Heavy abuse of alcohol can cause a deficiency in

serotonin, which is involved in sleep regulation, and lead to substance use disorders due to

dependency and withdrawal or even depressive disorders as the machinery that underlies the

desired effects also gets abused (McHugh & Weiss, 2019). It is known as a phenomenon called

synaptic depression, where the neurons involved in the feelings or effects experienced through

the abuse of a substance lose their natural ability to produce the substance naturally. The neurons
realize that the repeated activity of synthetically introduced neurotransmitters renders it no

longer necessary to produce as much naturally, so a decrease in natural amounts of

neurotransmitters ensues. This also coincides with the high demand placed on the neuron sending

the signal to keep on releasing more of the neurotransmitter for the receiving neuron to use, so

with such a high stimulation and demand on the sending neuron this synaptic depression occurs

and causes a similar effect. Similar cases can be seen in other abuses of substances, like the

nicotine in smoking causing difficulties in blood pressure and anxiogenic effects (Oakes et al.

2018), the cannabinoid in marijuana causing impaired reward seeking behaviors, depression,

shakiness, headaches and anxiety (Zehra et al., 2018), or even video games altering the serotonin

production due to overuse of DOPAergic neurons (Gros et al., 2020). Just because the

mechanisms are there for allowing one to do something, does not mean they should repeat doing

it, much to the dismay of the determinists. This is simply because it would not provide for as

great of a quality of life (QOL). A person, having severely depressed their neurons will no longer

be able to activate or elicit the same response let alone with the same intensity. This places a

demand for respecting the deterministic machinery in order to at least be able to have great QOL

and achieve freedom for excellence.

With this great schema explored of the deterministic machinery, it is worth noting that

the machinery is needed for at least conducting day-to-day activities. It would be valuable to

explore the situation of marijuana further in detail. Consider that one of the effects after long-

term marijuana and cannabinoid abuse is impaired decision making and considering of pleasure-

seeking behaviors. This would be damaging to the prefrontal cortex in its decision-making ability

as the person would be biased, due to somatic markers, to choose something that has a more

favorable outcome that would provide a greater pleasure response. Similarly, would the caudate
nucleus be impacted, for it is involved in threshold control of positive feedback cycles, learning,

and goal-oriented actions that calculate a favorable outcome of an activity. Damage or synaptic

depression of the caudate nucleus would then hinger one’s association between the activity and

the feedback one gets from it as to whether it corresponds to reward (Driscoll et al., 2021).

People would not want to be stuck in the vicious cycle of always craving or choosing risky,

reward-seeking behavior.

Overall, the picture is painted for choice with respect to neuroscience and philosophy.

There are some things that are deterministic by nature, such as the laws of the physical universe

and the machinery naturally programmed into the human body. However, there is hearkening to

the voluntaristic notions of choice as people should cooperate with what they are given and

achieve a freedom for excellence with it. Such is the notion of the ancient philosophy of the

Stoics, which is that there are most thing that are out of one’s control. If one wanted to try to get

to the other side of the street, they could not even control the outcome of that desire. All that a

person can do is merely assent to the desires they are presented with and the impressions placed

upon their body (Baltzly, 2019). Or as the contemporary philosopher Sartre would say in his

example of the casino, there is a nothingness that holds him back from succumbing to his

addiction. In the end of the day, a choice is merely the result of the determined mechanisms of

the body that one can choose to assent to or not.

Comments are mostly just questions, not a sign that anything is wrong or bad. Comments and

questions are a sign of respect knowing that you’ll take them into consideration and reflect on

them.
I’d kind like to see an outline version of this as well as a concept map. The space that you’re

working in is the intersection between philosophy and neuroscience in understanding human

choice and decision making. You’ve set up the contention between two philosophical views and

then adding in possible neuroscientific theories that connect to those theories. It might be helpful

to give a pretty zoomed out view of the field and then come into the focus for your paper that

means a broader view of philosophy and neuroscience, but explaining how or why you focus on

a specific area. So that’s why both an outline and a concept map help you work through this

complex thought space. In particular zooming out to then zoom in gives you the places where

you’re best able to try to find the places of overlap and contention. It might help with some of the

places that seem disconnected or like they came without a background understanding. Similarly

the subtitles might help with understanding

Mining these and related papers for references might be helpful for seeing how the bridge

between the two fields in decision making has been crossed before.

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnins.2015.00288/full

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0896627308008969

https://med-fom-neuroethics.sites.olt.ubc.ca/files/2013/06/Felsen-2011-AJOB-Neuroscience.pdf

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/A:1023380907603
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