In a way not surprising but I find the 10 sec delay suspicious. It is also a
simple decision making process(left or right button). I don't think that is
representative of most decision making processes.

http://www.nature.com/news/2008/080411/full/news.2008.751.html

Your brain makes up its mind up to ten seconds before you realize it,
according to researchers. By looking at brain activity while making a
decision, the researchers could predict what choice people would make before
they themselves were even aware of having made a decision.

In a way not surprising but I find the 10 sec delay suspicious. It is also a
simple decision making process(left or right button). I don't think that is
representative of most decision making processes.

http://www.nature.com/news/2008/080411/full/news.2008.751.html

Your brain makes up its mind up to ten seconds before you realize it,
according to researchers. By looking at brain activity while making a
decision, the researchers could predict what choice people would make before
they themselves were even aware of having made a decision.

...

In a way not surprising but I find the 10 sec delay suspicious. It is also a
simple decision making process(left or right button). I don't think that is
representative of most decision making processes.

http://www.nature.com/news/2008/080411/full/news.2008.751.html

Your brain makes up its mind up to ten seconds before you realize it,
according to researchers. By looking at brain activity while making a
decision, the researchers could predict what choice people would make before
they themselves were even aware of having made a decision.

...

On Apr 13, 6:19 pm, "John Hasenkam" <jo...@goawayplease.com> wrote:
In a way not surprising but I find the 10 sec delay suspicious. It is also a
simple decision making process(left or right button). I don't think that is
representative of most decision making processes.

http://www.nature.com/news/2008/080411/full/news.2008.751.html

Your brain makes up its mind up to ten seconds before you realize it,
according to researchers. By looking at brain activity while making a
decision, the researchers could predict what choice people would make before
they themselves were even aware of having made a decision.

Yeah, 10 seconds is surprising. The interesting part is that if
consciousness plays a part in certain decision making it isn't
direct.

In a way not surprising but I find the 10 sec delay suspicious. It is also a
simple decision making process(left or right button). I don't think that is
representative of most decision making processes.

http://www.nature.com/news/2008/080411/full/news.2008.751.html

Your brain makes up its mind up to ten seconds before you realize it,
according to researchers. By looking at brain activity while making a
decision, the researchers could predict what choice people would make before
they themselves were even aware of having made a decision.

...

On Apr 14, 6:19 am, "John Hasenkam" <jo...@goawayplease.com> wrote:
In a way not surprising but I find the 10 sec delay suspicious. It is
also a simple decision making process(left or right button). I don't
think that is representative of most decision making processes.

http://www.nature.com/news/2008/080411/full/news.2008.751.html

Your brain makes up its mind up to ten seconds before you realize it,
according to researchers. By looking at brain activity while making a
decision, the researchers could predict what choice people would make
before they themselves were even aware of having made a decision.

...

Ten seconds seems a bit too much. What about split second decisions
like the ones we have to take while driving or playing ?

Also, it is
the brain which takes the decision and it is the brain itself which
gives the feeling to the individual that 'he' has taken a decision, so
the delay between taking the decision and feeling the decision might
very well be a property of our brain.

Pranav Peshwe <pranavpes...@gmail.com> wrote:
On Apr 14, 6:19 am, "John Hasenkam" <jo...@goawayplease.com> wrote:
In a way not surprising but I find the 10 sec delay suspicious. It is
also a simple decision making process(left or right button). I don't
think that is representative of most decision making processes.

http://www.nature.com/news/2008/080411/full/news.2008.751.html

Your brain makes up its mind up to ten seconds before you realize it,
according to researchers. By looking at brain activity while making a
decision, the researchers could predict what choice people would make
before they themselves were even aware of having made a decision.

...

Ten seconds seems a bit too much. What about split second decisions
like the ones we have to take while driving or playing ?

They are no trying to claim that _all_ behavior can be predicted 10 seconds
before it happens or before we can report being aware of our decision, just
this one very specific type of test which had no time limit on the
decision.

Also, it is
the brain which takes the decision and it is the brain itself which
gives the feeling to the individual that 'he' has taken a decision, so
the delay between taking the decision and feeling the decision might
very well be a property of our brain.

:)

The brain _is_ the "he". It's one and the same. It's not "might very will
be", it's "obviously is".

All this experiment shows is that behavior in one part of the brain can
predict behavior in another part of the brain 10 seconds before it happens
in this one very specific and very unusual type of experiment.

It's not valid to claim that "the brain made the decision was made 10
seconds before the person was aware of it". The behavior which happened 10
seconds _before_ the decision was simply a precursor which was highly
predictive of what the decision would turn out to be.

Think for example what would happen if we took this experiment out of the
brain, and simply asked people to make a simple binary decision but to talk
about what they were thinking leading up to the decision and the hitting of
one of the buttons. Ask them to repeat this many times, then analyze
everything they said and did leading up to the hitting the button and see
if you can find any "tells" in their words or their patterns of behavior
that were predictive of which button they were going to hit. Maybe, every
time they hit the black button, they scratched their nose 10 seconds before
picking the black button.

If you carefully carefully analyzed everything they did, it's _highly_
likely you could isolate some behavior which was predictive of the decision
they would make that could show up 10 seconds before they hit one of the
buttons.

Just because they scratched their nose, and the nose scratch was predictive
of them picking one button over the other, is that justification to say the
brain made the decision 10 seconds before the person was aware of the
decision? I don't think so.

The fact is, we are machines which do what we do for very deterministic
reasons. Whether we can understand what those reasons are is not
important.

Pranav Peshwe <pranavpes...@gmail.com> wrote:
On Apr 14, 6:19 am, "John Hasenkam" <jo...@goawayplease.com> wrote:
In a way not surprising but I find the 10 sec delay suspicious. It is
also a simple decision making process(left or right button). I don't
think that is representative of most decision making processes.

http://www.nature.com/news/2008/080411/full/news.2008.751.html

Your brain makes up its mind up to ten seconds before you realize it,
according to researchers. By looking at brain activity while making a
decision, the researchers could predict what choice people would make
before they themselves were even aware of having made a decision.

...

Ten seconds seems a bit too much. What about split second decisions
like the ones we have to take while driving or playing ?

They are no trying to claim that _all_ behavior can be predicted 10 seconds
before it happens or before we can report being aware of our decision, just
this one very specific type of test which had no time limit on the
decision.

Also, it is
the brain which takes the decision and it is the brain itself which
gives the feeling to the individual that 'he' has taken a decision, so
the delay between taking the decision and feeling the decision might
very well be a property of our brain.

:)

The brain _is_ the "he". It's one and the same. It's not "might very will
be", it's "obviously is".

All this experiment shows is that behavior in one part of the brain can
predict behavior in another part of the brain 10 seconds before it happens
in this one very specific and very unusual type of experiment.

It's not valid to claim that "the brain made the decision was made 10
seconds before the person was aware of it". The behavior which happened 10
seconds _before_ the decision was simply a precursor which was highly
predictive of what the decision would turn out to be.

Think for example what would happen if we took this experiment out of the
brain, and simply asked people to make a simple binary decision but to talk
about what they were thinking leading up to the decision and the hitting of
one of the buttons. Ask them to repeat this many times, then analyze
everything they said and did leading up to the hitting the button and see
if you can find any "tells" in their words or their patterns of behavior
that were predictive of which button they were going to hit. Maybe, every
time they hit the black button, they scratched their nose 10 seconds before
picking the black button.

If you carefully carefully analyzed everything they did, it's _highly_
likely you could isolate some behavior which was predictive of the decision
they would make that could show up 10 seconds before they hit one of the
buttons.

Just because they scratched their nose, and the nose scratch was predictive
of them picking one button over the other, is that justification to say the
brain made the decision 10 seconds before the person was aware of the
decision? I don't think so.

The fact is, we are machines which do what we do for very deterministic
reasons. Whether we can understand what those reasons are is not
important.

Think for example what would happen if we took this experiment out of the
brain, and simply asked people to make a simple binary decision but to talk
about what they were thinking leading up to the decision and the hitting of
one of the buttons.  Ask them to repeat this many times, then analyze
everything they said and did leading up to the hitting the button and see
if you can find any "tells" in their words or their patterns of behavior
that were predictive of which button they were going to hit.  Maybe, every
time they hit the black button, they scratched their nose 10 seconds before
picking the black button.

If you carefully carefully analyzed everything they did, it's _highly_
likely you could isolate some behavior which was predictive of the decision
they would make that could show up 10 seconds before they hit one of the
buttons.

Just because they scratched their nose, and the nose scratch was predictive
of them picking one button over the other, is that justification to say the
brain made the decision 10 seconds before the person was aware of the
decision?  I don't think so.

The fact is, we are machines which do what we do for very deterministic
reasons.  Whether we can understand what those reasons are is not
important.  Things that happen in our past tend to be predictive of what we
will do in the future because we are deterministic machines.  Not just 10
seconds in the future, but 10 years in the future.  The fact there there is
some brain behavior (probably no more relevant than a nose scratch) which
turns out to be predictive of a behavior 10 seconds into the future should
not be a big surprise to anyone.

It's an interesting data point but that's the end of what I see is special
about it.

--
Curt Welch                                            http://CurtWelch.Com/
c...@kcwc.com                                        http://NewsReader.Com/- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

JHasen...@gmail.com wrote:
On Apr 16, 4:16 am, c...@kcwc.com (Curt Welch) wrote:
Pranav Peshwe <pranavpes...@gmail.com> wrote:
On Apr 14, 6:19 am, "John Hasenkam" <jo...@goawayplease.com> wrote:
In a way not surprising but I find the 10 sec delay suspicious. It
is also a simple decision making process(left or right button). I
don't think that is representative of most decision making
processes.

http://www.nature.com/news/2008/080411/full/news.2008.751.html

Your brain makes up its mind up to ten seconds before you realize
it, according to researchers. By looking at brain activity while
making a decision, the researchers could predict what choice people
would make before they themselves were even aware of having made a
decision.

...

Ten seconds seems a bit too much. What about split second decisions
like the ones we have to take while driving or playing ?

They are no trying to claim that _all_ behavior can be predicted 10
seconds before it happens or before we can report being aware of our
decision, just this one very specific type of test which had no time
limit on the decision.

Also, it is
the brain which takes the decision and it is the brain itself which
gives the feeling to the individual that 'he' has taken a decision,
so the delay between taking the decision and feeling the decision
might very well be a property of our brain.

:)

The brain _is_ the "he". It's one and the same.  It's not "might very
will be", it's "obviously is".

All this experiment shows is that behavior in one part of the brain can
predict behavior in another part of the brain 10 seconds before it
happens in this one very specific and very unusual type of experiment.

It's not valid to claim that "the brain made the decision was made 10
seconds before the person was aware of it".  The behavior which
happened 10 seconds _before_ the decision was simply a precursor which
was highly predictive of what the decision would turn out to be.

Think for example what would happen if we took this experiment out of
the brain, and simply asked people to make a simple binary decision but
to talk about what they were thinking leading up to the decision and
the hitting of one of the buttons.  Ask them to repeat this many times,
then analyze everything they said and did leading up to the hitting the
button and see if you can find any "tells" in their words or their
patterns of behavior that were predictive of which button they were
going to hit.  Maybe, every time they hit the black button, they
scratched their nose 10 seconds before picking the black button.

If you carefully carefully analyzed everything they did, it's _highly_
likely you could isolate some behavior which was predictive of the
decision they would make that could show up 10 seconds before they hit
one of the buttons.

Just because they scratched their nose, and the nose scratch was
predictive of them picking one button over the other, is that
justification to say the brain made the decision 10 seconds before the
person was aware of the decision?  I don't think so.

The fact is, we are machines which do what we do for very deterministic
reasons.  Whether we can understand what those reasons are is not
important.

Not quite sure what you mean by "deterministic" Curt but I'm inclined
to think that the play of randomness is important in learning and
moreso in creating. I don't think we can convincingly argue that our
behavior is determined. That may be true but at present there is
insufficient evidence to make the claim.

In that context I mean it only loosely and not strictly deterministic.  I'm
not saying strictly deterministic such as a computer program. I'm just say
that brains, like all matter, follow the laws of physics which creates a
great deal of predictability in their behavior.  Current behavior is highly
predictive of future behavior.  The fact that a high resolution brain scan
is able to detect behavior which, under just the right condition, is
predictive of behavior 10 seconds in the future should not be seen as all
that surprising.

On the issue of needing randomness, I do agree that human behavior has some
element of that idea built until what the brain does.  But as I've worked
on trying to build neural networks to duplicate human behavior, I've found
I didn't need to build that sort of randomness into my design,

simply
because when the system is driven by complex high dimension real world
sensory data, there is so much information content data to work with (some
call it noise) that it naturally creates that sort of random search
behavior which is needed without having to build a noise source into the
hardware design.  The purpose of the hardware (and what I believe is a
prime function of the brain) is just the opposite.  Instead of "acting
randomly", the prime purpose of the brain is to counteract that and to "act
with purpose".  As such, one way to look at how this happens, is by
thinking of the brain as a sensory data filter

who's prime purpose is to
filter out enough of the noise and randomness to allow for the output of
behavior which is very non random.

 The end result however is still one of
complex random data in, and complex random-looking behavior out.

--
Curt Welch                                            http://CurtWelch.Com/
c...@kcwc.com                                        http://NewsReader.Com/- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

On Apr 16, 9:21 am, c...@kcwc.com (Curt Welch) wrote:





JHasen...@gmail.com wrote:
On Apr 16, 4:16 am, c...@kcwc.com (Curt Welch) wrote:
Pranav Peshwe <pranavpes...@gmail.com> wrote:
On Apr 14, 6:19 am, "John Hasenkam" <jo...@goawayplease.com> wrote:
In a way not surprising but I find the 10 sec delay suspicious. It
is also a simple decision making process(left or right button). I
don't think that is representative of most decision making
processes.

http://www.nature.com/news/2008/080411/full/news.2008.751.html

Your brain makes up its mind up to ten seconds before you realize
it, according to researchers. By looking at brain activity while
making a decision, the researchers could predict what choice people
would make before they themselves were even aware of having made a
decision.

...

Ten seconds seems a bit too much. What about split second decisions
like the ones we have to take while driving or playing ?

They are no trying to claim that _all_ behavior can be predicted 10
seconds before it happens or before we can report being aware of our
decision, just this one very specific type of test which had no time
limit on the decision.

Also, it is
the brain which takes the decision and it is the brain itself which
gives the feeling to the individual that 'he' has taken a decision,
so the delay between taking the decision and feeling the decision
might very well be a property of our brain.

:)

The brain _is_ the "he". It's one and the same.  It's not "might very
will be", it's "obviously is".

All this experiment shows is that behavior in one part of the brain can
predict behavior in another part of the brain 10 seconds before it
happens in this one very specific and very unusual type of experiment.

It's not valid to claim that "the brain made the decision was made 10
seconds before the person was aware of it".  The behavior which
happened 10 seconds _before_ the decision was simply a precursor which
was highly predictive of what the decision would turn out to be.

Think for example what would happen if we took this experiment out of
the brain, and simply asked people to make a simple binary decision but
to talk about what they were thinking leading up to the decision and
the hitting of one of the buttons.  Ask them to repeat this many times,
then analyze everything they said and did leading up to the hitting the
button and see if you can find any "tells" in their words or their
patterns of behavior that were predictive of which button they were
going to hit.  Maybe, every time they hit the black button, they
scratched their nose 10 seconds before picking the black button.

If you carefully carefully analyzed everything they did, it's _highly_
likely you could isolate some behavior which was predictive of the
decision they would make that could show up 10 seconds before they hit
one of the buttons.

Just because they scratched their nose, and the nose scratch was
predictive of them picking one button over the other, is that
justification to say the brain made the decision 10 seconds before the
person was aware of the decision?  I don't think so.

The fact is, we are machines which do what we do for very deterministic
reasons.  Whether we can understand what those reasons are is not
important.

Not quite sure what you mean by "deterministic" Curt but I'm inclined
to think that the play of randomness is important in learning and
moreso in creating. I don't think we can convincingly argue that our
behavior is determined. That may be true but at present there is
insufficient evidence to make the claim.

In that context I mean it only loosely and not strictly deterministic.  I'm
not saying strictly deterministic such as a computer program. I'm just say
that brains, like all matter, follow the laws of physics which creates a
great deal of predictability in their behavior.  Current behavior is highly
predictive of future behavior.  The fact that a high resolution brain scan
is able to detect behavior which, under just the right condition, is
predictive of behavior 10 seconds in the future should not be seen as all
that surprising.

On the issue of needing randomness, I do agree that human behavior has some
element of that idea built until what the brain does.  But as I've worked
on trying to build neural networks to duplicate human behavior, I've found
I didn't need to build that sort of randomness into my design,

Did you build one with and one without and found that the non-random
design produced a human-level intellignece?

simply
because when the system is driven by complex high dimension real world
sensory data, there is so much information content data to work with (some
call it noise) that it naturally creates that sort of random search
behavior which is needed without having to build a noise source into the
hardware design.  The purpose of the hardware (and what I believe is a
prime function of the brain) is just the opposite.  Instead of "acting
randomly", the prime purpose of the brain is to counteract that and to "act
with purpose".  As such, one way to look at how this happens, is by
thinking of the brain as a sensory data filter

As it turns out, from an energy-consumption standpoint (which may or
can be correlated with "processing" - broadly speaking) brain is
mostly talkin to itself, not dealing with sensory data. It is about 99-
to-one or more usage toward manipulating internal, intrinsic reflexive
and feedback/feedforward signals that have nothing to do with motor
control or sensory cortex-based processing.  

See Raichle, Science Nov.
24 2006, "The Brain's Dark Energy" for example.

who's prime purpose is to
filter out enough of the noise and randomness to allow for the output of
behavior which is very non random.
 The end result however is still one of
complex random data in, and complex random-looking behavior out.

Most behavior that brain directs does not seem to be random, but
purposive in terms of the goals and attitudes and moods and knowledge
of the mind, which thence directs the salience factors of incoming
information.

On Apr 16, 4:16 am, c...@kcwc.com (Curt Welch) wrote:
Pranav Peshwe <pranavpes...@gmail.com> wrote:
On Apr 14, 6:19 am, "John Hasenkam" <jo...@goawayplease.com> wrote:
In a way not surprising but I find the 10 sec delay suspicious. It
is also a simple decision making process(left or right button). I
don't think that is representative of most decision making
processes.

http://www.nature.com/news/2008/080411/full/news.2008.751.html

Your brain makes up its mind up to ten seconds before you realize
it, according to researchers. By looking at brain activity while
making a decision, the researchers could predict what choice people
would make before they themselves were even aware of having made a
decision.

...

Ten seconds seems a bit too much. What about split second decisions
like the ones we have to take while driving or playing ?

They are no trying to claim that _all_ behavior can be predicted 10
seconds before it happens or before we can report being aware of our
decision, just this one very specific type of test which had no time
limit on the decision.

Also, it is
the brain which takes the decision and it is the brain itself which
gives the feeling to the individual that 'he' has taken a decision,
so the delay between taking the decision and feeling the decision
might very well be a property of our brain.

:)

The brain _is_ the "he". It's one and the same. It's not "might very
will be", it's "obviously is".

All this experiment shows is that behavior in one part of the brain can
predict behavior in another part of the brain 10 seconds before it
happens in this one very specific and very unusual type of experiment.

It's not valid to claim that "the brain made the decision was made 10
seconds before the person was aware of it". The behavior which
happened 10 seconds _before_ the decision was simply a precursor which
was highly predictive of what the decision would turn out to be.

Think for example what would happen if we took this experiment out of
the brain, and simply asked people to make a simple binary decision but
to talk about what they were thinking leading up to the decision and
the hitting of one of the buttons. Ask them to repeat this many times,
then analyze everything they said and did leading up to the hitting the
button and see if you can find any "tells" in their words or their
patterns of behavior that were predictive of which button they were
going to hit. Maybe, every time they hit the black button, they
scratched their nose 10 seconds before picking the black button.

If you carefully carefully analyzed everything they did, it's _highly_
likely you could isolate some behavior which was predictive of the
decision they would make that could show up 10 seconds before they hit
one of the buttons.

Just because they scratched their nose, and the nose scratch was
predictive of them picking one button over the other, is that
justification to say the brain made the decision 10 seconds before the
person was aware of the decision? I don't think so.

The fact is, we are machines which do what we do for very deterministic
reasons. Whether we can understand what those reasons are is not
important.

Not quite sure what you mean by "deterministic" Curt but I'm inclined
to think that the play of randomness is important in learning and
moreso in creating. I don't think we can convincingly argue that our
behavior is determined. That may be true but at present there is
insufficient evidence to make the claim.

JHasenkam@gmail.com wrote:
[...]
Not quite sure what you mean by "deterministic" Curt but I'm inclined
to think that the play of randomness is important in learning and
moreso in creating. I don't think we can convincingly argue that our
behavior is determined. That may be true but at present there is
insufficient evidence to make the claim.

In that context I mean it only loosely and not strictly deterministic. I'm
not saying strictly deterministic such as a computer program. I'm just say
that brains, like all matter, follow the laws of physics which creates a
great deal of predictability in their behavior. Current behavior is highly
predictive of future behavior. The fact that a high resolution brain scan
is able to detect behavior which, under just the right condition, is
predictive of behavior 10 seconds in the future should not be seen as all
that surprising.
[...]

Pranav Peshwe <pranavpes...@gmail.com> wrote:
On Apr 14, 6:19 am, "John Hasenkam" <jo...@goawayplease.com> wrote:
In a way not surprising but I find the 10 sec delay suspicious. It is
also a simple decision making process(left or right button). I don't
think that is representative of most decision making processes.

http://www.nature.com/news/2008/080411/full/news.2008.751.html

Your brain makes up its mind up to ten seconds before you realize it,
according to researchers. By looking at brain activity while making a
decision, the researchers could predict what choice people would make
before they themselves were even aware of having made a decision.

...

Ten seconds seems a bit too much. What about split second decisions
like the ones we have to take while driving or playing ?

They are no trying to claim that _all_ behavior can be predicted 10 seconds
before it happens or before we can report being aware of our decision, just
this one very specific type of test which had no time limit on the
decision.

Also, it is
the brain which takes the decision and it is the brain itself which
gives the feeling to the individual that 'he' has taken a decision, so
the delay between taking the decision and feeling the decision might
very well be a property of our brain.

:)

The brain _is_ the "he". It's one and the same. It's not "might very will
be", it's "obviously is".

All this experiment shows is that behavior in one part of the brain can
predict behavior in another part of the brain 10 seconds before it happens
in this one very specific and very unusual type of experiment.

It's not valid to claim that "the brain made the decision was made 10
seconds before the person was aware of it". The behavior which happened 10
seconds _before_ the decision was simply a precursor which was highly
predictive of what the decision would turn out to be.

Think for example what would happen if we took this experiment out of the
brain, and simply asked people to make a simple binary decision but to talk
about what they were thinking leading up to the decision and the hitting of
one of the buttons. Ask them to repeat this many times, then analyze
everything they said and did leading up to the hitting the button and see
if you can find any "tells" in their words or their patterns of behavior
that were predictive of which button they were going to hit. Maybe, every
time they hit the black button, they scratched their nose 10 seconds before
picking the black button.

If you carefully carefully analyzed everything they did, it's _highly_
likely you could isolate some behavior which was predictive of the decision
they would make that could show up 10 seconds before they hit one of the
buttons.

Just because they scratched their nose, and the nose scratch was predictive
of them picking one button over the other, is that justification to say the
brain made the decision 10 seconds before the person was aware of the
decision? I don't think so.

The fact is, we are machines which do what we do for very deterministic
reasons. Whether we can understand what those reasons are is not
important. Things that happen in our past tend to be predictive of what we
will do in the future because we are deterministic machines. Not just 10
seconds in the future, but 10 years in the future. The fact there there is
some brain behavior (probably no more relevant than a nose scratch) which
turns out to be predictive of a behavior 10 seconds into the future should
not be a big surprise to anyone.