Volition = the Application of Attention/Awareness

"Scientists questioning reductive materialism believe that consciousness will turn out to be governed by natural law... As Chalmers says, 'There is no a priori principle that says that all natural laws will be physical laws; to deny materialism is not to deny naturalism.'"

"Learning and memory are based on the strengthening of synapses that occurs when pre- and postsynaptic neurons are simultaneously active...
Electrically stimulating cortical cells to fire simultaneously strengthened their synaptic connections...
Hebbian plasticity begins with the release from presynaptic neurons of the neurotransmitter glutamate. The glutamate binds to two kinds of receptors on the postsynaptic neuron. One receptor notes that its own neuron, the postsynaptic onem is active; the other notes which preynaptic neurons are simultaneously active. The postsynaptic neuron therefore detects the simultaneous occurrence of presynaptic and postsynaptic activity. "

"Actual physical practice produced changes in each volunteer's motor cortex, as expected. But so did mere mental rehearsal, and to the same degree as that brought about by physical practice. Motor circuits become active during pure mental imagery. Like actrual, physical movements, imaged movements trigger synaptic change at the cortical level. Merely thinking about moving produced brain chanes comparable to those triggered by actually moving."

"Because the observer's only freedom is the choice of which question to pose (Shall I look up at the sky?), it is here that the mind of the observer has a chance to affect the dynamics of the brain."

"Volitional processes are associated with increases in energy use in the frontal lobes... Does activity in the frontal lobes cause volition, or does volition trigger activity in the frontal lobes?" (Sean says: Activity in the frontal lobes IS volition)

"The pattern of electrical activity in the cerebral cortex shifts just before you consciously initiate a movement... between 0.4 and 4 seconds before the initiation of a voluntary movement, there appears a slow, electriclaly negative brain wave terms the Bereitschafpotential, or 'readiness potential'... But not all readiness potentials were followed by movements. 'The brain was evidently beginning the volitional process in this voluntary act well before the activation of the muscle that produced the movement.'"

-The Mind & The Brain
Jeffrey M. Schwartz, M.D.,
and Sharon Begley