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| andy-k |
 Posted: Mon Apr 14, 2008 12:24 am |
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Guest
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From
http://www.metro.co.uk/news/article.html?in_article_id=142594&in_page_id=34
"You might think you just decided to read this story on a passing whim - but
your brain actually decided to do it up to ten seconds ago, a new study
claims.
In tests, researchers tracked people's thoughts by using a brain scan called
functional magnetic resonance imaging.
Each volunteer was then asked to view a screen and decide which of two
buttons to press and when to press it.
Neural activity in parts of the brain called the prefrontal and parietal
cortex showed people made decisions long before they carried them out.
Prof John-Dylan Haynes, who lead the research in Leipzig, Germany, said: 'We
found the outcome of a decision can be encoded in brain activity up to ten
seconds before it enters awareness. This delay presumably reflects the
operation of a network of high-level control areas that begin to prepare an
upcoming decision long before it enters awareness.'
He added: 'The impression that we are able to freely choose between
different possible courses of action is fundamental to our mental life.
'However, the findings suggest our subjective experience of freedom is no
more than an illusion and our actions are initiated by unconscious mental
processes long before we become aware of our intention to act.'
The research, carried out by the Max Planck Institute, is published online
in Nature Neuroscience." |
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| Ed |
| Posted: Mon Apr 14, 2008 5:47 am |
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Guest
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On Apr 14, 1:24 am, "andy-k" <spam.free@last> wrote:
Quote: Fromhttp://www.metro.co.uk/news/article.html?in_article_id=142594&in_page...
"You might think you just decided to read this story on a passing whim - but
your brain actually decided to do it up to ten seconds ago, a new study
claims.
In tests, researchers tracked people's thoughts by using a brain scan called
functional magnetic resonance imaging.
Each volunteer was then asked to view a screen and decide which of two
buttons to press and when to press it.
Neural activity in parts of the brain called the prefrontal and parietal
cortex showed people made decisions long before they carried them out.
Prof John-Dylan Haynes, who lead the research in Leipzig, Germany, said: 'We
found the outcome of a decision can be encoded in brain activity up to ten
seconds before it enters awareness. This delay presumably reflects the
operation of a network of high-level control areas that begin to prepare an
upcoming decision long before it enters awareness.'
He added: 'The impression that we are able to freely choose between
different possible courses of action is fundamental to our mental life.
'However, the findings suggest our subjective experience of freedom is no
more than an illusion and our actions are initiated by unconscious mental
processes long before we become aware of our intention to act.'
Free will is not dependent on full consciousness of all mental
processes. We are not conscious of the processes by which we recall a
memory but that recalling is definitely done by "I". Consciousness
does not cover all the activities, mental and physical, that make up a
human identity. It's that total identity that decides and then acts.
We are conscious of some parts of this process and not conscious of
other parts.
Quote: The research, carried out by the Max Planck Institute, is published online
in Nature Neuroscience." |
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| Art |
| Posted: Mon Apr 14, 2008 6:41 am |
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Guest
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On Mon, 14 Apr 2008 05:24:59 GMT, "andy-k" <spam.free@last> wrote:
Quote: From
http://www.metro.co.uk/news/article.html?in_article_id=142594&in_page_id=34
"You might think you just decided to read this story on a passing whim - but
your brain actually decided to do it up to ten seconds ago, a new study
claims.
In tests, researchers tracked people's thoughts by using a brain scan called
functional magnetic resonance imaging.
Each volunteer was then asked to view a screen and decide which of two
buttons to press and when to press it.
Neural activity in parts of the brain called the prefrontal and parietal
cortex showed people made decisions long before they carried them out.
Prof John-Dylan Haynes, who lead the research in Leipzig, Germany, said: 'We
found the outcome of a decision can be encoded in brain activity up to ten
seconds before it enters awareness. This delay presumably reflects the
operation of a network of high-level control areas that begin to prepare an
upcoming decision long before it enters awareness.'
He added: 'The impression that we are able to freely choose between
different possible courses of action is fundamental to our mental life.
'However, the findings suggest our subjective experience of freedom is no
more than an illusion and our actions are initiated by unconscious mental
processes long before we become aware of our intention to act.'
The research, carried out by the Max Planck Institute, is published online
in Nature Neuroscience."
I'm having difficulty reconciling the long "up to ten seconds" delay
with split-second decisions people make when engaged in competitive
sports and other situations such as near-accidents. Maybe split-second
decisions involve the psyche's ability to communicate paranormally
with other psyches and compute future probabilities instantaneously,
as in clairvoyance and precognition. Top notch athletes, for example,
go into a "zone" and practically run "on automatic". They presumably
aren't aware of all their decisions ... things happen too fast for
such sluggish feedback. We've all had experiences of acting/deciding
very quickly and thinking it over later.
Art
http://home.epix.net/~artnpeg |
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| andy-k |
| Posted: Mon Apr 14, 2008 7:46 am |
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Guest
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Art wrote:
Quote: I'm having difficulty reconciling the long "up to ten seconds"
delay with split-second decisions people make when engaged in
competitive sports and other situations such as near-accidents.
I guess that "up to ten seconds" includes all figures "up to" ten seconds.
Libet's findings showed delays in the hundreds of milliseconds range,
but this study seems to indicate that in some cases the delay can be much
longer. |
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| Immortalist |
| Posted: Mon Apr 14, 2008 8:47 am |
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Guest
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On Apr 13, 10:24 pm, "andy-k" <spam.free@last> wrote:
Quote: Fromhttp://www.metro.co.uk/news/article.html?in_article_id=142594&in_page...
"You might think you just decided to read this story on a passing whim - but
your brain actually decided to do it up to ten seconds ago, a new study
claims.
In tests, researchers tracked people's thoughts by using a brain scan called
functional magnetic resonance imaging.
Each volunteer was then asked to view a screen and decide which of two
buttons to press and when to press it.
Neural activity in parts of the brain called the prefrontal and parietal
cortex showed people made decisions long before they carried them out.
Prof John-Dylan Haynes, who lead the research in Leipzig, Germany, said: 'We
found the outcome of a decision can be encoded in brain activity up to ten
seconds before it enters awareness. This delay presumably reflects the
operation of a network of high-level control areas that begin to prepare an
upcoming decision long before it enters awareness.'
He added: 'The impression that we are able to freely choose between
different possible courses of action is fundamental to our mental life.
'However, the findings suggest our subjective experience of freedom is no
more than an illusion and our actions are initiated by unconscious mental
processes long before we become aware of our intention to act.'
The research, carried out by the Max Planck Institute, is published online
in Nature Neuroscience."
But isn't the self involved in the "determination" of causes?
The term self-organization, after decades of specialists' interest,
has become an increasingly popular label for phenomena which appear to
determine their own form and process(es). There is now widespread
interest in applying theories of self-organization to analysis and
(re-)engineering of enterprises. 'Enterprise' is used here to denote
purposeful social collectives of any scale. This term is employed for
two reasons: (a) it carries the dual connotation of 'the actors' and
'the activity', and (b) its usage avoids confusion with the very
specific usage of the term 'organization' in the framework introduced
and discussed later -- autopoietic theory.
http://www.acm.org/sigois/auto/Main.html
AUTOPOIESIS: the process whereby an organization produces itself. An
autopoietic organization is an autonomous and self-maintaining unity
which contains component-producing processes. The components, through
their interaction, generate recursively the same network of processes
which produced them. An autopoietic system is operationally closed and
structurally state determined with no apparent inputs and outputs. A
cell, an organism, and perhaps a corporation are examples of
autopoietic systems. See allopoiesis. (F. Varela)
Literally, self-production. The property of systems whose components
(1) participate recursively in the same network of productions that
produced them, and (2) realize the network of productions as a unity
in the space in which the components exist (after Varela) (see
recursion). Autopoiesis is a process whereby a system produces its own
organization and maintains and constitutes itself in a space. E.g., a
biological cell, a living organism and to some extend a corporation
and a society as a whole. (krippendorff)
http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/ASC/indexASC.html
As a biological phenomenon, cognition is viewed with respect to the
organism(s) whose conduct realizes that phenomenon. In autopoietic
theory, cognition is a consequence of circularity and complexity in
the form of any system whose behavior includes maintenance of that
selfsame form. This shifts the focus from discernment of active
agencies and replicable actions through which a given process
('cognition') is conducted (the viewpoint of cognitive science) to the
discernment of those features of an organism's form which determine
its engagement with its milieu.
This orientation led to a systematic description of organisms as self-
producing units in the physical space. The principles and definitions
making up this systematic schema will be termed autopoietic theory's
formal aspects. Deriving from this formal foundation a set of
operational characteristics (e.g., self-regulation; self-reference),
Maturana and Varela developed a systemic explanation of cognition and
a descriptive phenomenology. The principles and definitions making up
this systemic description will be termed autopoietic theory's
phenomenological aspects. Autopoietic theory has been applied in
diverse fields such as software engineering, artificial intelligence,
sociology, and psychotherapy.
http://www.acm.org/sigois/auto/ATReview.html
Self-organization is a process where the organization (constraint,
redundancy) of a system spontaneously increases, i.e. without this
increase being controlled by the environment or an encompassing or
otherwise external system
Self-organization is a basically a process of evolution where the
effect of the environment is minimal, i.e. where the development of
new, complex structures takes place primarily in and through the
system itself.
http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/SELFORG.html
...The third fear is a fear of determinism: that we will no longer be
able to hold people responsible for their behaviour because they can
always blame it on their brain or their genes or their evolutionary
history - the evolutionary-urge or killer-gene defence. The fear is
misplaced for two reasons. One is that the silliest excuses for bad
behaviour have, in fact, invoked the environment, rather than biology,
anyway - such as the abuse excuse that got the Menendez brothers off
the hook in their first trial, or the "pornography made me do it"
defence some rapists have tried. If there's a threat to responsibility
it doesn't come from biological determinism but from any determinism,
including childhood upbringing, mass media, social conditioning, and
so on.
But none of these should be taken seriously. Even if there are parts
of the brain that compel people to do things for various reasons,
there are other parts that respond to the legal and social
contingencies that we call "holding someone responsible for their
behaviour".
For example, if I rob a liquor store, I'll get thrown in jail, or if I
cheat on my spouse my friends and relatives and neighbours will think
that I'm a boorish cad and will refuse to have anything to do with me.
By holding people responsible for their actions we are implementing
contingencies that can affect parts of the brain and can lead people
to inhibit what they would otherwise do. There's no reason that we
should give up that lever on people's behaviour - namely, the
inhibition systems of the brain - just because we're coming to
understand more about the temptation systems.
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/10/11/1034222589612.html |
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| Art |
| Posted: Mon Apr 14, 2008 9:49 am |
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Guest
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On Mon, 14 Apr 2008 12:46:15 GMT, "andy-k" <spam.free@last> wrote:
Quote: Art wrote:
I'm having difficulty reconciling the long "up to ten seconds"
delay with split-second decisions people make when engaged in
competitive sports and other situations such as near-accidents.
I guess that "up to ten seconds" includes all figures "up to" ten seconds.
Libet's findings showed delays in the hundreds of milliseconds range,
but this study seems to indicate that in some cases the delay can be much
longer.
Do you have access to the full report of the Subject article? I'm
interested in the details.
Art
http://home.epix.net/~artnpeg |
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| andy-k |
| Posted: Mon Apr 14, 2008 9:58 am |
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Art wrote:
Quote: Do you have access to the full report of the Subject article?
I'm interested in the details.
I heard it on a news broadcast, Googled for some key words,
and selected the first article that referenced it. That's all I know. |
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| brian fletcher |
| Posted: Mon Apr 14, 2008 10:07 am |
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Guest
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"Art" <null@zilch.com> wrote in message
news:gsf604d1ivftif771kb6qccp4860ak9n1g@4ax.com...
Quote: On Mon, 14 Apr 2008 05:24:59 GMT, "andy-k" <spam.free@last> wrote:
From
http://www.metro.co.uk/news/article.html?in_article_id=142594&in_page_id=34
"You might think you just decided to read this story on a passing whim -
but
your brain actually decided to do it up to ten seconds ago, a new study
claims.
In tests, researchers tracked people's thoughts by using a brain scan
called
functional magnetic resonance imaging.
Each volunteer was then asked to view a screen and decide which of two
buttons to press and when to press it.
Neural activity in parts of the brain called the prefrontal and parietal
cortex showed people made decisions long before they carried them out.
Prof John-Dylan Haynes, who lead the research in Leipzig, Germany, said:
'We
found the outcome of a decision can be encoded in brain activity up to ten
seconds before it enters awareness. This delay presumably reflects the
operation of a network of high-level control areas that begin to prepare
an
upcoming decision long before it enters awareness.'
He added: 'The impression that we are able to freely choose between
different possible courses of action is fundamental to our mental life.
'However, the findings suggest our subjective experience of freedom is no
more than an illusion and our actions are initiated by unconscious mental
processes long before we become aware of our intention to act.'
The research, carried out by the Max Planck Institute, is published online
in Nature Neuroscience."
I'm having difficulty reconciling the long "up to ten seconds" delay
with split-second decisions people make when engaged in competitive
sports and other situations such as near-accidents. Maybe split-second
decisions involve the psyche's ability to communicate paranormally
with other psyches and compute future probabilities instantaneously,
as in clairvoyance and precognition. Top notch athletes, for example,
go into a "zone" and practically run "on automatic". They presumably
aren't aware of all their decisions ... things happen too fast for
such sluggish feedback. We've all had experiences of acting/deciding
very quickly and thinking it over later.
Art
http://home.epix.net/~artnpeg
Such is the illusion of ther thinking process.
The journey is self discovery, not self creation.
This is not news to 'masters".(buyt very exciting to peopl like me who love
to see validation of such "present" (as opposed to prescient) wisdom.
Hope zinnic picks up on this thread. Something else for him to deny.:-)
BOfL |
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| brian fletcher |
| Posted: Mon Apr 14, 2008 10:08 am |
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"andy-k" <spam.free@last> wrote in message
news:rmIMj.44193$h65.22613@newsfe2-gui.ntli.net...
Quote: Art wrote:
I'm having difficulty reconciling the long "up to ten seconds"
delay with split-second decisions people make when engaged in
competitive sports and other situations such as near-accidents.
I guess that "up to ten seconds" includes all figures "up to" ten seconds.
Libet's findings showed delays in the hundreds of milliseconds range,
but this study seems to indicate that in some cases the delay can be much
longer.
Regardless of the scale, the research demonstrates that time, in a mind
state , is not as it appears.
BOfL |
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| brian fletcher |
| Posted: Mon Apr 14, 2008 10:16 am |
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"Art" <null@zilch.com> wrote in message
news:bjr6049a5n6uimja7d7elkhunukjmmvuc3@4ax.com...
Quote: On Mon, 14 Apr 2008 12:46:15 GMT, "andy-k" <spam.free@last> wrote:
Art wrote:
I'm having difficulty reconciling the long "up to ten seconds"
delay with split-second decisions people make when engaged in
competitive sports and other situations such as near-accidents.
I guess that "up to ten seconds" includes all figures "up to" ten seconds.
Libet's findings showed delays in the hundreds of milliseconds range,
but this study seems to indicate that in some cases the delay can be much
longer.
Do you have access to the full report of the Subject article? I'm
interested in the details.
Art
http://home.epix.net/~artnpeg
Hi Art,
There has also been some fascinating findings at Harvard, where a particular
prof was detecting brain response befor the specific tactile connection to
patients who were undergoing surgery at the time.
On the same track ( what I believe is termed "super conectivity")
discoveries of spontanious effects are detected in parallel lasers,
regardless of the distance between the cause of the deflection, illustrating
information (or something) is travelling faster than the speed of light.
We live in interesting times  ...pun intended!!!
BOfL |
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| andy-k |
| Posted: Mon Apr 14, 2008 11:01 am |
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| TruthSlave |
| Posted: Mon Apr 14, 2008 11:13 am |
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andy-k wrote:
Quote: From
http://www.metro.co.uk/news/article.html?in_article_id=142594&in_page_id=34
"You might think you just decided to read this story on a passing whim - but
your brain actually decided to do it up to ten seconds ago, a new study
claims.
In tests, researchers tracked people's thoughts by using a brain scan called
functional magnetic resonance imaging.
Each volunteer was then asked to view a screen and decide which of two
buttons to press and when to press it.
Neural activity in parts of the brain called the prefrontal and parietal
cortex showed people made decisions long before they carried them out.
Prof John-Dylan Haynes, who lead the research in Leipzig, Germany, said: 'We
found the outcome of a decision can be encoded in brain activity up to ten
seconds before it enters awareness. This delay presumably reflects the
operation of a network of high-level control areas that begin to prepare an
upcoming decision long before it enters awareness.'
He added: 'The impression that we are able to freely choose between
different possible courses of action is fundamental to our mental life.
'However, the findings suggest our subjective experience of freedom is no
more than an illusion and our actions are initiated by unconscious mental
processes long before we become aware of our intention to act.'
The research, carried out by the Max Planck Institute, is published online
in Nature Neuroscience."
The last time i heard of this research, the delay was one full
second and it was used to conclude we had no freewill. The fact
that the decision making process was recognized in advance of
the decision was suppose to be significant rebuff to Freewill,
since, one surmise, freewill is suppose to be instantaneous.
To my way of thinking it makes sense that we would think in
parallel until the moment of the actual decision, there would
be many possible outcomes awaiting for that final determination.
These parallel processes would show up in advance as the
precursor to the final Decision. I suppose what is inferred here
is the degree of resource management which takes place in advance
of our actions. The implication is that by the time we are moved
to act, that action was already planed and prepared for.
Think of the neural net, for every converging point, there is
a whole network tangential inputs, contributories to that final
point. Typically we don't expect to see the background 'non sense'
which contributes to define the rational outcome.
Does anyone recall the older version of this experiment? |
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| John Jones |
| Posted: Mon Apr 14, 2008 3:12 pm |
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Joined: 26 Oct 2004
Posts: 4263
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andy-k wrote:
I'll stop there. That's just daft. |
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| John Jones |
| Posted: Mon Apr 14, 2008 3:13 pm |
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Joined: 26 Oct 2004
Posts: 4263
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Ed wrote:
Quote: Free will is not dependent on full consciousness of all mental
processes. We are not conscious of the processes by which we recall a
memory
Which 'processes' are we conscious of? |
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| andy-k |
| Posted: Mon Apr 14, 2008 4:02 pm |
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Immortalist wrote:
Quote: But isn't the self involved in the "determination" of causes?
We have an *idea* of a separate "me" that somehow influences the
behavior of the organism, and this idea certainly is an aspect in the
behavior of the organism, but I don't subscribe to the belief that there
really is a "me" distinct from this organism that somehow interacts
with this organism in order to control some aspects of its behavior. |
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