NW Noggin
When the world was just re-emerging at the end of COVID, Dr. Bill Griesar, a professor of neuroscience and psychology at Portland State University, already took out his treasure box of brains in formalin and microorganisms made of fluffy pipe cleaning wires, and resumed his NW Noggin outreach to local elementary and middle schools.
I learned about NW Noggin by Andrey’s introduction. He knew that I enjoyed teaching and wanted to do more for science than simply doing research myself. Indeed, I had a blast at my first Noggin Outreach at a local elementary school in 2021. Masks couldn’t distract us from learning and having fun.
The genuine desire of the students and teachers to learn touched me. It made me realize that I had more work to do, and I should give more.
Do you have free will?
Bill invited me to speak at the 2022 NogginFest. I decided to talk about free will, not as a philosophical debate or a growing trivialized pop-science topic, but a question that may have more tangible answers and make you go “huh” if you look real closely at the neurons in our brain right before we make a “decision” (Libet et al. 1983).
The audience was a crowd of 20-30 people from diverse backgrounds but with a shared interest and love for neuroscience. I was more nervous before this talk than before my PhD defense in front of three to four academics who all were 30 years more experienced in the field than me. It felt as if there would be a higher stake with this audience, and the consequence would be worse if I made mistakes or failed to explain well. I remember the audience had the look in their eyes that their minds were open, and they were ready for new perspectives, despite their own positions on the question.
It was not important if I could convince or convert anyone to a certain viewpoint. The important thing about the outreach was that we shared ideas, we expanded horizons. In a world without free will, more ideas and broadened perspectives can add to the limited degrees of freedom we have, so that we can make more informed decisions for our own realities.