How do we exercise our will? The erosion of Descartes' concept of the soul in the machine by recent developments in neuroscience leaves us with the challenge of understanding how we control our behaviour and make sense of the world around us. Do our genes and environments determine all that goes on in our brains, or do we create ourselves through what we believe and how we behave? In How Brains Make Up Their Minds, the distinguished US neuroscientist Walter J. Freeman charts the brain's mind, progressing from single nerve cells, through cooperative assemblies of these cells, to the emergence of complex patterns of brain activity. By drawing on new developments in brain imaging and theories of chaos and nonlinear dynamics, he shows how brains create intentions and meanings. The result is an original and stimulating synthesis of neuroscience and philosophy that argues that the power to choose is an essential and inalienable property of brains, and, moreover, the foundation for the development and flourishing of individuals and societies.
A 2001 study studied this question.