Significant Figures

Question 1

B.F. Skinner

Answer 1

most famous recent public argument that FW unnecessary psych construct; wrote Beyond Freedom and Dignity

Question 2

Saul Smilansky

Answer 2

it’s dangerous for the public to know there is no free will; illusionism

Question 3

William James

Answer 3

distinction between hard and soft determinism; soft = compatibilism

Question 4

Heisenberg

Answer 4

uncertainty principle of quantum mechanics

Question 5

Sam Harris

Answer 5

illusion of free will is an illusion

Question 6

Bernard Katz

Answer 6

neuroscientist; synapses; can’t study them without destroying or affecting them; they are random

Question 7

Garret Merriam

Answer 7

semantic migration & move to ‘control’ because FW and det are not good explanations

Question 8

Daniel Glaser

Answer 8

belief about how our brains work affects our behavior; Lady Macbeth effect

Question 9

Kahneman

Answer 9

Thinking fast and slow; 2nd order lady macbeth effect

Question 10

Dweck

Answer 10

kids taught about plasticity vs. fixed brain and 1st group did better

Question 11

Alfred Mele

Answer 11

funded by Templeton Foundation to prove FW exists

Question 12

Steven Pinker

Answer 12

free will but not from soul; it’s in the frontal lobe and exists for non-automatic action

Question 13

Gazzaniga (4)

Answer 13

brains are automatic, but people are free; free will is an emergent property; social rules to live by create responsibility; split brain studies; 98% of cognition is unconscious

Question 14

Neal Lawson

Answer 14

depressed Marxist; conditioned uniformity; no rebellious working class; Gucci boot replaced jackboot; neuromarketing

Question 15

Philip Zimbardo

Answer 15

Stanford prison experiment, the Lucifer effect

Question 16

Paul Bloom

Answer 16

FW doesn’t exist; so what? b/c we can still think about stuff

Question 17

Solomon Asch

Answer 17

Asch conformity experiments; groupthink

Question 18

Mahzarin Banaji

Answer 18

harvard implicit studies; social psych shows that big forces control us; ethical relativism

Question 19

Aristotle 4

Answer 19

know thyself; get nature empirically and we are natural; no free will; no moral abstract principles; immorality due to ignorance

Question 20

Al Farabi 4

Answer 20

Arabic philosopher; revived ARistotelian school; 2nd philosophy master; religion part of imagination, phil = reaso

Question 21

Maimonides 3

Answer 21

people’s will is in causal context; no free choice or will; moral values necessary for obedience; bible is political; monist; mind as naturla as body

Question 22

Spinoza

Answer 22

monist; mind embedded and affective (vs. Descartes); emotion is part of reason; no free will; like BF skinner; FW illusion due to ignorance as to actions’ cause; conatus (innate inclination to exist and enhance sense of self)

Question 23

Tversky and Kahneman

Answer 23

framing (wording etc. changes decisions); experiment with wording of killing people

Question 24

Jaak Panksepp

Answer 24

empathetic tendencies in motor neurons AND ancient primary-process emotional networks; identified limbic system as involved; rat emotion study; seven unconditioned emotional systems (huge gen-purpose motivational system designed to promote learning & resp for addictions

Question 25

Broca (+ 3 things he IDed)

Answer 25

defined initial limbic system (cerebral convergence that surrounded brain stem and central commisures; parraphippocampal and singulate gyri

Question 26

James Papez

Answer 26

refined Broca's discoveries; limbic lobe is part of bigger emotional behavior system

Question 27

Diamond and Rozenberg

Answer 27

sensory enrichment leads to more dendritic spines and thicker neocortex (support for neuroplasticity)

Question 28

Merzenich

Answer 28

modifiability of brain maps

Question 29

Konrad Lorenz & Hubel & Wiesel

Answer 29

critical periods of childhood (strong neuroplasticity)

Question 30

Kathleen D Vohs & Jonathan W Chooler

Answer 30

pro-free will study about how encouraging belief in determinism increases cheating

Question 31

Noam Chomsky

Answer 31

linguistic philosopher; believed in built-in brain-based grammar rules, has been co-opted by evolution scientists to support the idea that there are built-in moral rules

Question 32

Peggy Mason & Bartal et.al

Answer 32

Rat empathy study

Question 33

Patricia Churchland

Answer 33

built in atruism leads to morals (vs. unique human capacity from free will and language)

Question 34

Ramachandran

Answer 34

mirror neurons create empathy; they contributed greatly to rapid periods of evolution

Question 35

Gregory Hickok

Answer 35

the myth of mirror neurons; doesn't believe they play as big a part

Question 36

Stanley Milgram

Answer 36

milgram experiments; also known as yale obedience experiments

Question 37

Phineas Gage

Answer 37

iron rod driven through his brain; spec brain changes through left frontal lobe changed behavior

Question 38

Daniel Wegner

Answer 38

feeling of mental causation is an "inference we draw from juxtaposition of our thought and action, not direct pereption of causal agency."; wrote Illusion of conscious will

Question 39

Giacomo Rizzolatti

Answer 39

do mirror neurons facilitate the empathetic ability that dissolves self and other (use of Golden rule)?

Question 40

John Holland

Answer 40

complex adaptive systems exhibit coherence under change via conditional action and anticipation w/o central direction (adapts to environment on micro level)

Question 41

Murray Gell-Man

Answer 41

nobel laureate in physics; a founder of science of complexity; stars and galaxies complex and evolving but not adaptive b/c don't learn and adapt from experience; human race is complex adaptive system evolving ways of living in greater harmony with itself and other organisms that share Earth

Question 42

Teuvo Kohonen

Answer 42

self-organization and associative memory; prof emeritus of academy of finland; complex adaptive system does not settle into locked-in patterns, but keeps changing & self-correcting, producing diversity & reacting to regulation and novelty