Noise in the brain, decision-making, determinism, free will, and consciousness

Noise from random neuronal spiking gives the brain advantages like probabilistic decision-making but makes it a non-deterministic system, raising implications for free will. Decisions are taken probabilistically between the reasoning system and the implicit reward system. The reasoning system's operation can be described as free will, and consciousness arises from using higher order syntactic thoughts (HOSTs) to correct first order thoughts. When the implicit system decides, we may confabulate a reason, making the feeling of free will an illusion.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Noise caused by randomness in the spiking times of neurons in the brain has a number of advantages, including contributing to probabilistic decision-making. However, noise results in the brain operating effectively as a non-deterministic system, which has implications for free will. Noise also results in decisions being taken probabilistically between the reasoning system and the implicit reward system. I propose that free will can be used to describe the operation of the reasoning system, and that consciousness is a property of a reasoning system that must use higher order syntactic thoughts (HOSTs) to correct its first order thoughts. When the implicit system takes a decision, we may confabulate a reason for the decision, and in that case the feeling of free will may be an illusion.