Do you believe in free will?

[The Grand Nudger]

You mean things that might be found in journals like these?

http://cognitivesciencesociety.org/journal_csj.html
http://www.jneurosci.org/

But perhaps there might be something more approachable, a text that might be used in an introductory course...hmn...

http://www-psych.stanford.edu/~ashas/Cog...apter1.pdf

(A fun excerpt, no farther than the first few pages, btw. Bolding is mine.)

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The distinction between a computer’s software—its programs—and its hardware is a good first step because it focuses us on how computers operate, not simply on their physical natures. But the idea that mental activity is like software and the brain itself is like hardware isn’t quite right. If a computer program is useful, it sometimes is converted into a chip and thus “becomes” a piece of hardware. Once converted, what used to be a program (that is, the instructions to the computer) is now etched as physical pathways in the chip; the program as such no longer exists—you cannot identify parts of the chip with the different instructions in the computer program. For example, in a program we could write one instruction to make the computer add 10 numbers, and then another to have it divide the sum by 10 to find the average. In a chip, such instructions would not exist; instead circuits would accomplish the same goals. Even so, the chip can be described as doing what the program does: adding the numbers and dividing by the number of digits to find the average. Here’s the important point: in spite of the fact that software—a program—does not exist, we can still describe what the hardware is doing using the same vocabulary we used to describe the program.

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Fuck these guys at Stanford and their textbooks though, what would they know, you and some buddhists contend otherwise. Right?

But perhaps we could begin our search more generally, and crawl around with whatever interests us at any given moment in search of this evidence. I like the references and links Wikipedia is so often full of.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroscience
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_science

So, again, we are an effect of our brains. It is not some "thing" inside our brain. You demand complete knowledge, which we do not have, about a very, very large and complicated subject. Perhaps you should pick something to focus on, some particular thing which you take issue with, maybe explain why, offer an alternative, provide some evidence. There's probably a nobel prize in it for you. Tell me all about "cognitive science proper", how you've got it right, and these guys have it wrong.

And yes, you beat around the bush and blather on about ancillary points, interjecting your notions of where materialists handwave this or that, attempting to hide their ignorance. Reread the thread title, Mr. "Incompetent and Negligent Reading". I understand how we got here though. If we don't argue against our understanding of the self, free will (and a whole host of other things) become shaky positions. Something about materialism really irks you, and you feel the need to express it. It wouldn't bother me so much if you didn't stress your knowledge of cognitive science by contradiction to what cognitive science has to say on the subject.

By the by, I know very little other than what is presented in the text I linked above, and most of that I've either forgotten or never learned. So how is it, precisely, that I managed to get something as simple as "The brain gives rise to the mind, the mind is not some thing hiding inside the brain" right and you did not? How much could you possibly know about the subject starting from that point? How could any argument that begins by stating the direct opposite have any merit whatsoever? But hell, that text is 6 years old, so maybe we've had a revolutionary breakthrough since I last had to pass a test. Maybe they did find a ghost in the machine after all. Or maybe, you aren't even up to date on 6 year old information?