Slides for my presentation at the BNA festival 2013 in London at the Barbican. The talk was during a session on volition and actions.

1. Björn Brembs
Universität Regensburg
http://brembs.net

2. No empirical
support

3. Hans Flohr, neurobiologist
“Mental states are always brain
states, meaning physical
states”

4. Newton„s clockwork

5. We cannot predict the future
for principle reasons

6. No empirical support

9. Deterministic

10. Stochastic

11. Deterministic

14. Reproducibility is not
evolutionary stable

15. Behavioral variability in a constant stimulus situation:
Actions, not responses

16. Maye et al. (2007)
correlation
Nonlinear (choice)
Linear/stochastic (noise)
nonlinearity

17. Maye et al. (2007)

18. Slope of linear regression
0.02
correlation
Nonlinear
0.01
Linear/stochastic
0
nonlinearity

20. Double Gal4 c105; c232
*** p < 0.001, one way ANOVA

21. C105-GAL4
Ellipsoid body R1
R1
Ellipsoid body R3, R4d
20 µm.
Kahsai, Carlsson, & Nässel., 2012

23. Sathishkumar Raja

24. What are the functions of
spontaneous behavioral variability?

25. Pursuit-evasion contests & competition
(courtship, predator-
prey, territoriality, chess, sports etc.)

26. Exploration (find that hidden resource you
would otherwise never find.)

27. Detection of re-afferent signals in the sensory
stream (self vs. non-self) → operant
behavior/learning

28. Action – Outcome Evaluation