Peter U. Tse
Retrieved June 2, 2025, from Information Philosopher
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Peter U. Tse
Peter U. Tse is a cognitive psychologist and neuroscientist at Dartmouth who argues for a novel form of mental causation that he calls "criterial causation."
The idea is that large numbers of neurons (a complex of cells or "cell assembly") are likely to be involved in even the simplest thoughts and actions. Tse argues that the brain may be able to modify dynamically the probabilities that individual neurons are "firing." He calls this "dynamical synaptic reweighting." Since the process by which a pre-synaptic neuron releases chemical neurotransmitters into the synaptic cleft is a statistical one (large numbers of neurotransmitter molecules must diffuse across the cleft to activate ion channel receptors on the post-synaptic neuron), Tse says that there is some ontological randomness in the process. He argues that this is real "ontological" indeterministic chance, quantum mechanical in origin. How exactly such weights or probabilities of firing might work is not understood, but Tse argues that weights would constitute "informational" criteria as opposed to being simply physical. They could represent mental events that supervene on the physical brain events. Tse accepts the Basic Argument of philosopher Galen Strawson, that we are not free to change the way we are at any moment, that we cannot be "causa sui." But since ontological randomness can dynamically reassign weights to the synapses, we can change mental events in the future. He says: The central argument against the possibility of free will rests on the impossibility of self-causation. [Strawson's] basic argument does not follow, given a degree of randomness in neural spike timing and given neural criterial causation, as follows: Physically realized mental events can change the physical basis not of themselves in the present, but of future mental events. How? By triggering changes in the physically realized informational/physical criteria for firing that must be met by future neuronal inputs before future neuronal firing occurs that realizes future mental events. Such criterial causation does not involve self-causation.Tse describes the requirements for a "strong" free will that resembles the requirements for two-stage models of free will, but he does not think of criterial causation as a two-stage model. In order to have a free will in the strong sense, there must be (a) multiple courses of physical or mental behavior open to us, (b) we must really be able to choose among them, (c) we must be or must have been able to have chosen otherwise once we have chosen, and (d) the choice must not be dictated by randomness alone, but by us.Tse compares his work to traditional two-stage models, but thinks of his criterial causation as having three stages: The present view is a type of incompatibilist physicalist libertarianism. Its closest relatives are found in Jamesian two-stage models of free will, where a first stage alternative possibilities for action or thought are generated in part randomly, and in a second, subsequent stage, an adequately determined volitional mechanism, where chance is no longer a factor, evaluates and selects the optimal option. James, Popper and others viewed the process as akin to a Darwinian two stage process, where indeterminism in the microscopic domain at the level of genetic reshuffling and mutation is amplified into variability at the level of animal traits, which is then selected among via natural and sexual selection. James and his followers have described the first process as one in which multiple alternative ideas or plans for action are generated in part randomly, and the second stage as one where a will or rational faculty selects from among these possibilities. The present view differs from the traditional Jamesian view in that multiple ideas are not generated, and the selecting faculty is not rational and is not the will, but is instead a postsynaptic neuron. That is, instead of modeling possibility generation and selection at the level of ideas, here the focus is on what happens at the neuronal level. The present view might more profitably be thought of as a three stage model, where (1) in the first stage new physical/informational criteria are set in a neuron or neuronal circuit on the basis of preceding physical/mental processing, including volitional processing, and (2) in the second, later stage inherently variable and therefore indeterministic presynaptic inputs arrive at the post-synaptic neuron, and (3) in the third, later stage physical/informational criteria are met or not met, leading to post-synaptic neural firing or not. Randomness can enter at stage (1)’s resetting of synaptic weights, or in (2)’s presynaptic inputs, but in (3) the threshold for firing is met or not met. Tse believes that neuroscience has been biased by a kind of dogma about neuronal causation that has hampered understanding of mental causation. That traditional view has been that neuronal causation is tantamount to action potentials triggering action potentials. But that is only half the story. The other half is that an action potential can 'rewire' the synaptic weights on a post-synaptic cell without necessarily making it fire. This effectively changes both the connectivity of a neuron in the sense that different inputs might now make it fire than before rapid synaptic resetting, and it potentially changes the informational criteria that must now be met to make the post-synaptic neuron fire.
The Neural Basis of Free Will
In March 2013, MIT Press published Tse's book, The Neural Basis of Free Will: Criterial Causation. In it he argues that criterial causation provides a model for getting around both Galen Strawson's Basic Argument against free will and Jaegwon Kim's logical argument against a non-reductive physicalism and the possibility of mental causation.
Tse defines four "very high demands" of a "strong conception of free will" I argue that it is possible to be a physicalist and ontological indeterminist and adhere to a strong conception of free will. A strong free will requires meeting some very high demands. We must have (a) multiple courses of physical or mental behavior open to us; (b) we must really be able to choose among them; (c) we must be or must have been able to have chosen otherwise once we have chosen a course of behavior; and (d) the choice must not be dictated by randomness alone, but by us. This seems like an impossible bill to fill, since it seems to require that acts of free will involve acts of self-causation. The goal of this chapter is to describe a way to meet these demands, assuming ontological indeterminism and criterial causation among neurons, that does not fall into the logical fallacy of self-causation.We agree with Tse, and can add some comments and specifics to each of his four demands.
Tse argues that criterial causation allows neurons in the present to alter the physical realization of future mental events in a way that escapes the problem of self causation, namely Galen Strawson's Basic Argument, which Tse thinks has been at the root of basic criticism of the possibility of free will and mental causation. Let's look closely at Tse's three stages:
Let's compare Tse's three stages to the traditional two stages of our Cogito model. First the "free" generation of alternative possibilities, involving indeterminism. Second the adequately determined "will" evaluates and selects one of the possibilities. Or we may recursively go back to "think again" before the final decision.
Note that the two-stage model also circumvents Galen Strawson's Basic Argument.
Tse on Creativity
Tse is correct that ontological indeterminism (in the form of "noise" in the neural system) is a critical ingredient of both free will and creativity. Tse's description of the creative process appears to be in two stages, the first indeterministic and the second adequately determined and "up to us." He describes the process going on when Mozart composes his music.
Any criterial outcome will meet the criteria preset by a given brain and so will be an outcome that is satisfactory to that brain and caused by that brain, but it will also not be a unique solution predetermined by that brain or coerced upon that brain by external forces. Imagine, for example, Mozart trying to generate a musical sequence that sounds happy. Some part of his brain, perhaps a working-memory area like the dorsal lateral prefrontal cortex, defines criteria that a melody would have to meet in order to sound happy. Various cascades of criterial satisfaction are met that result in possible sequences that might meet the happiness criteria.
Tse's BBC Videos
The Strange Idea That We Are Not in Control of Our MindsThe Physics That Suggests Our Future Is Set in Stone What's the Point of Having Free Will?
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