This articles discusses the question of which higher brain functions are in fact completely determined by the environment and past history of a person or whether the brain is to some extent free to choose a behavioral response in order to achieve a desired aim. We attempt to approach this problem, which has an important general philosophical sense, from the point of view of current concepts of the operation of the brain. The article has four sections. The first addresses the theoretical views of the possibility that free choice exists, including concepts of free choice as a useful illusion, the applicability of quantum laws to the operation of the brain, and the theory of mentalism. The remaining three sections discuss increasingly complex manifestations of brain activity – choice reactions, thought, and creativity. We conclude that age-related increases in the complexity of brain functioning are accompanied by increases in the number of unpredictable but often effective decisions. This may be linked both with an increase in stochastic processes in the brain and with the role of top-down determinations from higher mental functions on brain processes, in accordance with the theory of mentalism.
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Translated from Zhurnal Vysshei Nervnoi Deyatel’nosti imeni I. P. Pavlova, Vol. 65, No. 4, pp. 503–512, July–August, 2015.
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Ivanitskii, A.M. Determinism and Free Choice in the Operation of the Brain. Neurosci Behav Physi 46, 1082–1089 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11055-016-0355-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11055-016-0355-1