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Human freedom and the brain

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 June 2014

Hans Helmut Kornhuber
Hans Helmut Kornhuber*
Affiliation:
Department of Neurology, Ulm University, Ulm, Germany
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Abstract:

Freedom of will does exist, it is self-leadership of man based on reason and ethos. Evidence comes from truth. Determinism cannot be proved since if you try, you mean to prove a truth; but there is no truth without freedom. By contrast for freedom there are many pieces of evidence e.g. science, arts, technology.

Freedom utilizes creative abstract thinking with phantasy. Freedom is graded, limited, based on nature, but not developed without good will. We perceive reliably freedom by self-consciousness and in other persons as long as we are sober. Freedom needs intelligence, but is more, it is a creative and moral virtue.

The basis for freedom is phylogenesis and culture, in the individual learning and experimenting. Factors in the becoming of freedom are not only genes and environment but also self-discipline. But the creativity of free will is dangerous. Man therefore needs morale. Drives and feelings become humanized, cultural interests are developed. There is a humane nobility from long good will.

Type
Academic Lecture
Information
Acta Neuropsychiatrica , Volume 21 , Issue S2: Special Issue: Abstracts of 49th Neuropsychiatric Pula Congress, 17-20 June 2009, Pula, Croatia , June 2009 , pp. 1 - 6
Copyright
Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons A/S

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