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Walter J. Freeman Walter J. Freeman is professor of Neurobiology at the University of California, Berkeley. His research explores how we control our behavior and make sense of the world around us. Avoiding determinism both in sociobiology, which proposes that persons' genes control their brains' functioning, and in neuroscience, which posits that their brains' disposition is molded by chemistry and environmental forces, Freeman charts a new course – one that gives individuals due credit and responsibility for their actions. Drawing upon his five decades of research in neuroscience, Freeman utilizes the latest advances in his field as well as perspectives from disciplines as diverse as mathematics, psychology, and philosophy to explicate how different human brains act in their chosen diverse ways. He clarifies the implications of brain imaging, by which neural activity can be observed during the course of normal movements, and shows how nonlinear dynamics reveals order within the fecund chaos of brain function. In his book, How Brains Make Up Their Minds, Freeman set out to tackle the ancient issue of free will, but also addresses many of the other fundamental issues about consciousness and thought.
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Walter J. Freeman Neurophysiology Lab
Walter J. Freeman Quotes I propose that meanings arise as the brain creates intentional behaviours and then changes itself in accordance with the sensory consequences of those behaviours. A fundamental and enduring human activity is the search for meaning. What we're looking for is not something we can define, because the form that meaning takes is unique for each person. Nor is it necessary to try to define it, because it is universally experienced in the drawing of realising it and in the pain of losing are lacking it. People seeking meaningful relationships, experiences and causes. What distinguishes these from meaningless situations, chance encounters, and lost causes the richness of context and the promise of a continuing emergence throughout personal choices of interesting and fruitful complications. If the brain does not merely react to received stimuli, how do actions originate in the brain? If the external world is infinite in the sensory stimuli that it gives to the body, how does the brain select what is of immediate importance for it? When awareness occurs, what is its biological nature, and what does it do? Is awareness necessary for meaning, and if so, in what way? Above all, how does the activity of neurons produce the unity, wholeness and intent that characterises intentional behaviour and meaning? Humans evolved from simpler creatures, and these earlier forms exhibit precursors of our rich varied intentional behaviour.
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