Free will and Neuroscience

Since Ajeesh wants to discuss this issue, I thought I will start a brief survey of this area and write something. Below is given the link to one article as a beginning. This article does not address the central issues of the dispute about 'Whether neuroscience refutes the idea od free will ?', but still is worth reading.

Does Neuroscience Refute Free Will?
Daily Article by Lucretius Posted on 10/20/2005

http://mises.org/story/1943

Well being, C B T and the work of Robert C Cloninger

Robert Cloninger has done extensive work on what constitutes well being. His theory of personality describes personality as a composite of Temperament and Character.
Temperament is the emotional core of the personality. This may be related to Freud's concept of Unconscious mind. It deals mostly with our emotions, feelings and attitudes. It is subdivided into
Novelty seeking (dependent on the neurotransmitter dopamine - people high on this get easily bored with routine tasks, are slightly impatient etc), Harm avoidance (people high on this are inhibited in front of unfamiliar people etc), Reward dependence (people high on this will do things to help or please others etc), and persistence (people high on this tend to persist on tasks). It has to be remembered that these are not mutually exclusive traits. Each of us have varying shades of each of these. The exact combination of all these determine our temperament.
Character is the conceptual core developing from our past experiences stored in our brains. It is divided into self directedness (a positive aspect with motivates and makes us do things), Cooperativeness (important for peaceful coexistence with others ) and self transcendence (the spiritual or higher attribute which helps us to accept the reality that the world had existed before us and will continue to exist after our death).
I have just tried to give very brief, and approximate sketches of ideas of C R Cloninger. This is done to ask all my readers to read another of his article which discusses well being C B T etc a bit more deeply.
This article is titled
The science of well-being: an integrated approach to mental health and its disorders
C. ROBERT CLONINGER Department of Psychiatry, Washington University School of Medicine, 660 South Euclid, St. Louis, MO 63110, USA


It can be accessed at the URL given below

http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1525119

On Well being

Robert Cloninger, the person who has described personality in terms of temperament and character has written on a topic which will interest all of us.

On Well Being; Current research trends and future direction
In Mens Sana Monographs.
The article can be accessed at the URL below.

http://www.msmonographs.org/article.asp?issn=0973-1229;year=2008;volume=6;issue=1;spage=3;epage=9;aulast=Cloninger

Dr. Robert C Cloninger had earlier described personality as composed of Temperament (the emotional core of personality based on neurobiology) and Character (the conceptual core developed from our life experiences). The emotional core depends on the brain's patterns of wiring. The conceptual core develops based on our experiences. But as the brains development is influenced by our experiences, his theory integrates the role of both nature and nurture.

Neurobiology of normal sadness and depression.

An intersting article discussing : normal sadness, clinical depresion and their neurobiological correlates.


The anatomy of sorrow: a spiritual, phenomenological, and neurological perspective
Ronald Pies,
1Department of Psychiatry, S.U.N.Y. Upstate Medical University, Syracuse, NY, USA
2Tufts University School of Medicine, Boston MA, USA

It can be accessed at the URL below:
http://www.peh-med.com/content/3/1/17

Normality, deviance and culture.

As I said in my reply to Ajeesh (CBT and Guardian article, post), I really admire the way he quickly compares the physical and psychological worlds with ease and vivid clarity. Impressive considering that you have no medical background. I agree with the observation that changing maladaptive thinking / feeling / behavior is like altering blood sugar levels / temperature etc for better health. I wish to draw your attention to an earlier post in which I have diuscussed illness and a person's attitudes to it. (07/20 to 07/27 and 07/27 to 08/03 - Health an enigma, Dimensions of health, Certain terms etc).
All is well as long as I (the patient) agrees with the opinion of the medical expert and consent to their procedures. But problems start to creep up when the medical opinion and the individual's choice start diverging. Remember the hue and cry raised when parents from ''Witnesses of Jehovah" refused permission for blood transfusion to their children. Such situation emerge rather infrequently in the practice of physical branches of medicine.
But for psychiatry which deals with intanginle aspect of the self like thoughts, feelings, emotions etc, such problems occur frequently. Similar is the issue when one is treating persons belonging to different cultures. Even though we tend to think that Kerala has a uniform culture, I often feel confused when I have to treat tribals from Wayanad or Attappady. Their concepts of normality, abnormal behavior, or even what a person ought to do with his life, are different from those held by majority of Keralites.

This is the reason why I am slightly uncomfortable when we apply the yardstick of the physical branches of medicine to psychiatry.I would like to know the valuable opinion of my readers on these issues.