Slashdot Log In
Brain Study Calls Free Will Into Question
Posted by
kdawson
on Sun Apr 13, 2008 08:49 PM
from the choose-wisely-young-jedi dept.
from the choose-wisely-young-jedi dept.
siddster notes an account up at Wired of research indicating that brain scanners can see your decisions before you make them. "In a study published Sunday in Nature Neuroscience, researchers using brain scanners could predict people's decisions seven seconds before the test subjects were even aware of making them... Caveats remain, holding open the door for free will... The experiment may not reflect the mental dynamics of other, more complicated decisions... Also, the predictions were not completely accurate. Maybe free will enters at the last moment, allowing a person to override an unpalatable subconscious decision."
Related Stories
[+]
Predicting Human Errors From Brain Activity 123 comments
Hugh Pickens writes "Researchers report that brain activity can be used to predict the likelihood of someone making an error about six seconds in advance, with gradual changes starting as much as 30 seconds ahead of time. The team used an imaging machine to scan the brains of a group of volunteers who performed a task in the presence of distracting information. When performing correctly the volunteers' brains showed increased levels of activity in those parts associated with cognitive effort, as would be expected. However, these areas gradually became less active before errors were made and at the same time another set of regions in the brain became more active. These regions are part of a so-called "default mode network" and show increased use when people are resting or asleep [PDF]. While imaging machines are far too big and complex to be used in workplaces to monitor the brain activity of people engaged in important tasks, the team hopes to correlate errors to changes in electrical activity in the brain with electroencephalography (EEG), using electrodes placed on the scalp. If EEG features can be found that correspond to the change in brain activity, then a hat that gives warning of an imminent mistake might one day become reality. We've previously discussed similar studies of brain activity."
[+]
If We Have Free Will, Then So Do Electrons 610 comments
snahgle writes "Mathematicians John Conway (inventor of the Game of Life) and Simon Kochen of Princeton University have proven that if human experimenters demonstrate 'free will' in choosing what measurements to take on a particle, then the axioms of quantum mechanics require that the free will property be available to the particles measured, or to the universe as a whole. Conway is giving a series of lectures on the 'Free Will Theorem' and its ramifications over the next month at Princeton. A followup article strengthening the theory (PDF) was published last month in Notices of the AMS." Update: 03/19 14:20 GMT by KD : jamie points out that we discussed this theorem last year, before the paper had been published.
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
Brain Study Calls Free Will Into Question
|
Log In/Create an Account
| Top
| 733 comments
(Spill at 50!) | Index Only
| Search Discussion
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
(1)
|
2
(1)
|
2
Predict the prediction. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Predict the prediction. (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Predict the prediction. (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Predict the prediction. (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Predict the prediction. (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Its pretty simple, really (Score:5, Interesting)
If your first premise is "not A" then any subsequent premise which affirms "A" will be seen as the logical contradiction that it is.
So long as reduction is king, we shouldn't expect to find "free will" lurking among the emergent phenomena either...wherever it emerges it will just again be reduced to deterministic expressions, and hence seem to be deterministic (and hence profoundly unfree).
Our analysis of the brain doesn't disprove free will anymore than the English language disproves that nouns have tenses. Nor, by the same token, does any mystical tradition prove it.
The key is in how you model it, and whether or not your model is useful. That is all.
Parent
Re:Its pretty simple, really (Score:5, Insightful)
Something that could be tested as present or not in a defined experiment.
If such a definition cannot be found, then questions about "free will" are unscientific and better left to philosophy and religion.
The mystical associations people have regarding the very words surrounding the study of cognition is a great hindrance to meaningful research.
Marvin Minksy has a great deal to say about this.
Parent
Re:Its pretty simple, really (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Its pretty simple, really (Score:5, Insightful)
I always hated the cog-sci cultists (Dennet, mostly) attacking free will, as if it was his personal calling to do so. I think the very discussion is rather dumb.
If freewill isn't real, it doesn't matter, we subjectively must still act as if it is true. If free will is real, we must still act as if it is true. We must, too, in any case, also treat others as if they have free will (as it is the basis of law, society, and most human empathy and ethics). The idea of free will, if not it-itself, is built into our head, and all of our actions.
I think the freewill/not-freewill debate is just like the "God doesn't exist" debate, trite, and the grounds for amateur philosophers. It makes a good argument, but not much truth value. For one it isn't falsifiable.
In the current result (which isn't new), we could claim that the act of free-will happens with a seven second lag, or that certain potential centers are activated before the act of choosing a branch. Etc... I think, also, there is a large cultural element to the debate, the current trends in cultural interpretation is towards removing all individual culpability and responsibility (as we can see in the rise of psychotropic drug prescriptions, and "Twinkie" defenses).
As a philosophy buff, lets leave it to religion. It doesn't add to any argument.
Parent
Re:Its pretty simple, really (Score:4, Insightful)
One, I have a friend, an aero engineer, who believes wholeheartedly that any kind of free will can be boiled down to the deterministic movement of particles. However, there are two problems with this--first, it seems like he is making the philosophical mistake you pointed out: if you assume that free will does not exist, you will not find it (I think we're talking way beyond simple "null hypothesis" caution here). Second, while chemistry might be reducible to atomic interactions, is it useful or meaningful to discuss chemistry in this manner? Is it useful to reduce biology to Newtonian motion? Useful meaning, "Does it help us understand what's going on?" What's your take?
Second, I have noticed more and more lately people attacking the concept of "free will." Noted feminist and "Battlestar Galactica" fan Amanda Marcotte has been pushing this idea that free will is a meaningless concept, or at least not useful, and probably doesn't exist. Where is this coming from? Has there been an ongoing debate about this, or is this something new--something riding along with the scientific backlash against the religious conservatives, perhaps? If you can suggest any reading on the history of the debate, I would like to read it.
Finally...why so often do we see people dedicated to science who are completely unfamiliar with its philosophical underpinnings? I don't know how many researchers I know who don't really know what "empiricism" is, but who will deride religion as "magical thinking" when they themselves maintain question-begging tautologies all the time. It bothers me when I meet people who have their PhD, and so have supposedly been taught experimental design and have contributed to the body of knowledge, but who turn out to be glorified technicians
Parent
Re:Its pretty simple, really (Score:5, Insightful)
Besides unpredictability doesn't imply free will. Random events do not seem to me to offer any more opertunity for free will than non-random ones, that is if I cant influence either. What is necessary for free will is the ability to change events. If the universe always follows some prescribed rule over which I have no say, and I cant pick the initial conditions of the universe, then I have no free will.
Parent
Re:Its pretty simple, really (Score:5, Insightful)
If the events are truly genuinely RANDOM, then they also aren't influenced by your "will" whatever the hell THAT means.
"free will" requires events to be NOT pre-determined, but also NOT random. It's a tricky one.
Parent
Re:Its pretty simple, really (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Its pretty simple, really (Score:5, Insightful)
- Completely determined process, action -> reaction.
- Completely random process, governed by random quantum effects.
Our brain ofcourse is somewhere in between. I don't know how you define free will, but it can not be different from these 2 things.
If it were..
Then there would somehow be a reaction without an action, but it would NOT be random!
This is obviously impossible.
Everybody should know there is no such thing as free will.
One of the most interesting corollaries is the responsibility paradox:
- You have no free will.
- Thus you are not responsible for your actions; All your actions are the result of the total sum of your past, surroundings and genes.
- You could do whatever you like, because you are not responsible.
People say, "If I can not control what I do, I'm not responsible, so I can do anything."
They forget that 'they' are part of the action-reaction process. There is a part where you are conscious of the choices you make.
What this simply means is that you know you choose. But how you make that choice is determined but all kinds of factors you do not control.
"Will I eat this?"
-yes, because it looks tasty (instinctive)
-no, because it will make me fat (logic, cultural knowledge)
-etc..
Your choice process is then thinking of and weighing the factors, but again these weights are not controlled by anything like free will.
It's controlled by randomness, (neural) logic and cultural influences.
The "I can do anything" phrase is simply a loopback to the choice process, however as you consider the consequenses of this new factor, you realize you are bound by external factors in everything you do.
Parent
Re:Its pretty simple, really (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Re:Predict the prediction. (Score:5, Interesting)
It turned out that no one pressed the button until 500 milliseconds after the stimulus. So, there appeared to be at least a 500ms lag between stimulation and conscious acknowledgement of the stimulus.
Here's the funny bit: a 500ms lag time to perception is incompatible with a whole bunch of human activities. Take tennis for example; if there's a 500ms lag between watching the ball getting hit and actually perceiving it as getting hit the ball has already flown past you. (assuming a ball hit at 200km/h=55 meters/sec)
Yet we play tennis.... Intriguing eh?
Parent
Re:Predict the prediction. (Score:5, Insightful)
I write code, and some of it relies on the predictable processes of other code. That is how things work. We all use the best information we have to make decisions of free will. What was painful decision making process becomes trained reactive processes after time and practice. Some people seem to have a 'knack' for some things... they usually become professionals. This happens in every walk of life. Sales people are different than engineers and both are different from sports players. Each has a set of decision making processes that are honed to a certain group of tasks. There is a reason that sports players don't generally retire to become insurance sales people.
Free will is the ability to use available information to arrive at good outcomes of any decision. This, at it's most basic, is seen in survival situations. This, survival situations, is what I like to call failure-mode analysis. It works for code, it works for anything. Break it down to failure mode and see what happens, how each component reacts. In sports we see failure mode use repeatedly. Tennis is basically run that way the entire match. Each mistake is a failure. Each failure leads to one of two outcomes: further failure or success. This is survival mode.
In that mode, we have to use free will as simply repeating what we have done before leads to failure. We have to learn and use free will to assert that learning to gain success... unless you simply wish to surrender, and that is free will also.
I choose not to replace main bearing seals on my car's engine... I surrender. If I had to, I could learn how and do it, but I CHOOSE not to.
In most cases in life where there seems to be no free will, we simply have chosen to surrender or not learn what is needed to complete the task or defeat the puzzle.
500ms is a long time in some respects, yet it is a very short time. It has been scientifically proven that when adrenaline is pumping, our body clocks (sense of time) is sped up. That is, 500ms under physical duress seems like it was 3-4 seconds, giving our brains time to react faster than what we normally perceive.
The measurements of 500ms are common in vehicle safety parlance. Seldom does anyone speak of that 1/2 second lag under duress. In sports, it's all under duress. Predictive analysis of the current events gives us the ability to see and react faster than the 500ms being discussed.
Parent
Re:Predict the prediction. (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:Predict the prediction. (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:Predict the prediction. (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, that's one theory which is absolutely impossible to prove either way. It is, after all, impossible for anyone to prove that they have subjective consciousness, rather than being puppets being guided by hallucinations - which, I presume, would still originate from a consciousness of sorts, but whatever.
Then again, it might be easy to disprove: if it happened so recently, long after the current main groups of humanity split from each other, there should still be plenty of people in this split-mind state today. So make predictions about the difference between us and them, and go find them.
Of course, it could simply be that writing at that time was mainly used for bookkeeping, not to mention philosophy hadn't yet developed to the point of making this a problem... And besides, as far as I can tell, my dog has free will, and stubborn one at that.
Anyway, this theory is very likely rubbish, because plenty of old kingdoms - such as ancient Egypt - already existed far before 3000 years ago, and it's hard to imagine how merely following hallucinations without conscious forethought could build and upkeep large and complex societies; for that matter, it is hard to imagine just how the heck such a double-mind could develop. Getting sudden hallucinations while you're hunting woolly mammoths is not a good thing.
Parent
Re:Predict the prediction. (Score:5, Interesting)
First, I want to compliment the GP of this thread. He hit the nail on the head -- seven second lag between a decision and realizing you've made a decision is very different from not having free will. I can very easily imagine people subconsciously (or even consciously) knowing what their decision will be well before they "decide". I find personally that most of my "decision making" is trying to understand why I feel a particular choice is correct, not deciding which choice is correct.
Secondarily, to comment on the parent. I teach karate, and in fighting matches I have observed this in quite a bit of detail. If you try to decide what to do, you are invariably ~100ms too slow in reacting (varies from person to person and experience level).
One of the most critical elements of training is to move intellectual responses into the automatic response regime, which gradually reduces the reaction time while simultaneously freeing conscious brain-power for higher level guidance. For example, at a low level, your body is handling blocking and striking without your conscious intervention while at a high level, you're observing the rhythm of the fight and observing your opponent's posture and techniques.
Then, you set up a "trigger" in your reactions so that as soon as a particular opening appears again, you immediately capitalize. Usually you do this by repeating a motion many, many times, but it eventually happens. That capitalization definitely happens in under 100ms (I can punch about 6 times in one second, and in order to break the rhythm you need to get at least a factor of four faster than that).
To see this (maybe), imagine that your opponent does a quick punch. If you notice that he's a bit slow to recover, a good option is to sidestep and punch before his punch is over -- but a punch is over in 200ms, tops. You have to start your punch in at most 50ms after she starts hers (switching genders for the sake of the female karateka in my club). Of course, I might be convinced that this is more a matter of picking up on a rhythm and predicting a punch... but if you do this then you're screwed by a fake, and it wouldn't explain quick responses to the very first attack of a sequence, so I'm fairly sure it's a real reaction time.
p.s. Can you tell I teach at an engineering school? It's always entertaining when the class is completely at a loss to understand a move until I draw a force diagram.
Parent
Re:7 seconds (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:7 seconds (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh, and since this is a binary classification problem (left/right), 50% accuracy means you're not doing any better than guessing - 60% isn't very good in that light.
Parent
Re:7 seconds (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, really it should read "Sometimes people subconsciously think ahead"
Parent
Re:7 seconds (Score:5, Insightful)
The *free* means you are making a conscious decision.
Parent
Re:7 seconds (Score:5, Interesting)
A green or red square will appear every 15 seconds, along with an arrow that points right or left. If the square is green, you press the mouse button that corresponds with the direction of the arrow (if it points left hit the left button. If it points right, click the right button). If the square is red, you press the button opposite the direction the arrow is pointing.
Now, imagine doing this for an hour or more straight, with wet electrodes attached to your head. After about 10 minutes (at most), you can't help but completely wander off mentally and stop paying attention to what you are doing. Maybe that is the intention. Your goal is to do your best, because this is a "worth while" study after all on how the brain operates. Things start to flash up and you consciously don't pick up what just flashed, so you spend a good part of those 15 seconds trying to dig up any memory of the past 15 seconds. Maybe you had to be there. You don't even want to know the torture of doing these kinds of tests for HOURS inside an MRI machine.
Parent
I have free will (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I have free will (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Will or Wii? (Score:5, Funny)
My "will" is rock solid... my "Wii" challenges me evey day.
How does this eliminate Free Will? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:How does this eliminate Free Will? (Score:5, Insightful)
(unconscious decision is made in background processes) -> (person thinks they make a conscious decision using their own Free Will) -> (action occurs which matches the unconscious decision)
Under that model, Free Will is "eliminated" because the final result matches activity that occurs before they consciously deliberate on it and can utilize conscious Free Will. Essentially, Free Will becomes an unconscious process of some sort.
Parent
Re:How does this eliminate Free Will? (Score:5, Insightful)
I dont have to know i have free will to have free will.
Parent
Re:How does this eliminate Free Will? (Score:5, Informative)
If you haven't, I suggest looking into some Philosophy of Self and Philosophy of Mind books and essays, since I certainly don't have the time right now to get into it as deeply as a subject like this deserves.
Parent
Re:How does this eliminate Free Will? (Score:4, Insightful)
This is opinion. I notice lines such as:
Unfounded assumptions, artificial distinctions between "animals" and "persons". And we haven't even started discussing free will.
Parent
Re:How does this eliminate Free Will? (Score:4, Insightful)
I think the problem here isn't the existence of 'free will' but with out definition and our perception of it. Just because a definition exists it doesn't mean it can't redefined or proclaimed as invalid.
So maybe the title should be 'Brain Study Calls current definition of Free will into question.', but that's not as sensational.
Parent
"Free will" is not part of the Christian faith. (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't know what precisely you mean when you refer to "much of religion", but it can't be the Christian faith as described in the Bible, which makes very clear that belief in "free will" is not part of the Christian faith, see e.g. Exodus 9:16 [adaptux.com] and Romans 9:17ff [adaptux.com].
However moral responsibility for one's actions is an essential part of what the Bible teaches. You can be morally responsible for what you do even if your will isn't totally, entirely free. Such moral responsibility requires only the ability to consciously veto proposed actions that the unconscious part of the mind is proposing, and this veto ability has in fact been experimentally observed, See Benjamin Libet: "Do We Have Free Will?" [pacherie.free.fr], Journal of Consciousness Studies, 6, No. 8--9, 1999, pp. 47--57.
Therefore, free will and moral responsibilty are not the same thing. It is true that some people have been preaching a version of Chrstian religion which is based more on philosophical assertions like "free will" than on what the Bible actually says, but that is not a valid argument against religion. It only demonstrates the foolishness of listening to people who try to base religion on human philosophy instead of focusing on what the Bible says.
Parent
Re:"Free will" is not part of the Christian faith. (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re:Jedoc (Score:5, Insightful)
Its more of a Buddhist concept of suffering and the necessity of working to end the suffering of others (or at least think you are doing so) that motivates moral action in people who don't believe in free will. How much better of a world would it be if when someone broke into your car to steal, you saw that person as someone less fortunate than you and felt it was your responsibility to, instead of punishing him, make his life better?
Though lucky for us, people who have the insight to understand a world without free will are also people who are more often endowed with that kind of sentiment.
Parent
Re:Jedoc (Score:5, Insightful)
The major assumption is that the thief is indeed less fortunate than the victim by some measure. He may very well be stealing a Honda Civic from a recently divorced single mother living out of a Super 8 motel and working the night shift at Arby's.
Parent
Re:Jedoc (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Jedoc (Score:4, Insightful)
This is only true if every human in a society is born in identical circumstances, all are biologically similar enough to be considered equivalent according to the standards of that society, and there is no possibility of random events favouring some individuals over others.
Parent
Um, not so much of a newsflash (Score:5, Insightful)
The only chance we have of any free will at all is in quantum weirdness which is not much free will to speak of, and certainly not enough to be palatable to the average American who thinks his success or failure is a product of his own decisions rather than the sum total of a very complicated system that he has little control over and basically just experiences as the phenomena of his mind. We think we are in control, but largely we are along for the ride.
Used to freak me out, and it was hard to swallow since I have that Horatio Algeirs kind of narrative: Grew up on welfare in a house without indoor plumbing and now have a doctorate and am typing this on the toilet I picked (the best... I loves me a good quality toilet) in the house I just remodeled. It would feel very nice to think that I did all of this and deserve this wonderful throne. And to be honest my experience is that I think I have free will in my day to day life. But that's probably because the sum of my experiences also made me, after gaining understand that I don't have free will, accept that I live my life with that illusion and navigate life in such a way that I feel comfortable with the 'moral decisions' I think I make. So I pretend I have free will, and think I make moral choices based on that understanding.
Now I've given myself a headache. No. Wait, I was destined to have this headache as long as that electron spun to the left last Tuesday in Portugal. I'm going to go pretend to decide to take an ibuprofen.
Re:Um, not so much of a newsflash (Score:5, Funny)
Sincerely,
Mr. Pedantic
Parent
But what if you choose not to decide? (Score:4, Funny)
And kindness that can kill
I will choose a path thats clear
I will choose free will!
--oblig.
Rigged (Score:5, Insightful)
Most decisions are automatic (Score:4, Interesting)
Determinism does not invalidate free will. (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
+5 Predetermined (Score:5, Funny)
Please define free will. (Score:5, Insightful)
This experiment raises some interesting questions about the nature of existence, consciousness, and being. I don't think it's going to give us any answers on whether we have "free will" though, whatever that means.
Horrible summery (Score:4, Informative)
what utter nonsense. The ability to predict an action by looking at what your brain is doing has nothing to do with whether or not free will exists. From TFA: sounds to me that the decision making is started before people think it is, nothing more, nothing less.
Criminal Court :) (Score:5, Funny)
Judge: I sentence him to life in prison.
High Priced Trial Lawyer: But...
Judge: Don't look at me, I don't have free will either.
WHAT is exactly free will ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Free will is an incoherent concept (Score:4, Insightful)
The brain is a complex physical system like any other, and is subject to the same rules as any other physical system, like weather. There is no free will. There is only the interaction between our bodies/brains and the environment. Free will is just an illusion caused by the fact that humans are self-aware and that the brain is an extremely complex, dynamical system.
The free will debate is pointless (Score:3, Interesting)
What is "free will" anyway? (Score:4, Interesting)
Just because you start thinking about making a "random" decision a few seconds in advance, that does not mean you cannot change your mind a fraction of a second before, if something else happens (ex., a sudden external stimulus). In fact, the article points this out:
"Also, the predictions were not completely accurate. Maybe free will enters at the last moment, allowing a person to override an unpalatable subconscious decision."
I think it's pretty obvious that people can react to external stimuli in less than seven seconds, including stimuli that they had no way of predicting.
Anyway, unless our brains have some sort of mystical particles, they are essentially very complex and highly parallel (but still fundamentally deterministic) electro-chemical computers, with an insane amount of inputs. So this really boils down to consciousness and a concept of present.
What this study shows is that decision-making isn't an instant process (did anyone think it was?), that we are not conscious of the early stages of that process (did anyone think we were?) and that there is a significant subconscious stage to random decisions, possibly because our brain tries to "validate" its decisions before submitting them to the "conscious" mind, and random ones have a low confidence level, making them go through extra sanity checks.
Subconscious: Tell Mr. Conscious to hit the left button!
Mr. Conscious's P.A.: Did you say something or was that just random noise?
Sub.: I said "tell Mr. Conscious to hit the left button"!
P.A.: Why should I tell him that?
Sub.: Because he asked me to make a random decision.
P.A.: Not good enough. Mr. Conscious will need assurance that that is the ideal course of action. Please produce the complete paper trail that led you to that decision.
Sub.: What paper trail? This is a *random* decision, you idiot.
P.A.: I'm afraid you will at least have to find some evidence that hitting the left button will not have any negative effects. If Mr. Conscious simply followed every random advice he got, how would he justify his salary?
Sub.: Look, the guy conducting the study hit the button just now and nothing happened to him, right? It's safe. Just hit it.
P.A.: Well, alright. The left button, you said?
Sub.: Yes!
P.A.: I'll transmit that to Mr. Conscious.
Sub.: About bloody time, too. Wasted seven seconds of my life.
P.S. - Several studies have shown that top athletes don't have particularly faster reflexes than other people; they just do the "Jedi trick" of starting to react before something happens. How can they react to something that hasn't happened? Experience. Their brain knows what are the 5 or 6 most likely developments, and it starts to plan ahead for all of them. When the times comes to send the decision to the body, the actual action is already buffered. On top of that, frequently we react to indicators rather than to the event itself (ex., in tennis the other player's body position will generally allow you to guess how he's going to serve before he hits the ball; if you wait for the ball to be hit, you won't get to it on time). To put it in computer terms: speculative execution and intelligent branch prediction.
P.P.S. - In Stanislaw Lem's short story "137 seconds" a news-gathering computer develops the ability to predict reality 137 seconds in advance, so this brain scanner still has a long way to go.
Between the Mind and the Monkey. . . (Score:3, Interesting)
The human monkey is a vehicle for the soul. Left to its own devices, it is an automatic, albeit complex machine which is a sort of bridge between states of existence. --That is, souls grow and need work to develop, and the human monkey is the vehicle for this process.
If there is no exertion of the Will, then the human monkey basically is just a reaction machine, responding to stimulus and being generally predictable in its behavior as demonstrated by the neurologists in the article. The Spirit sits between the mind and the body. If the spirit is not exercised, then the monkey is happy to run on autopilot, usually being selfish in nature, seeking pleasure, avoiding pain and thinking of no other individual other than itself unless in a manner to better attain pleasure and avoid pain. The psychopath is just a broken monkey which has learned how to feed on others but with a failure of its own survival circuits. (Psychopaths are very good at feeding, but their actions are ultimately self-destructive. Regular monkeys are more balanced and know how to survive better).
With the introduction of the soul, which as it grows learns how to care and feel for others, the whole equation becomes more complex and more interesting.
When you, as a soul, choose to be aware of the flow of instructions between mind and body, and decide to act in a manner different than that which would be automatic, then you are exercising your Will. This takes effort and the monkey and mind push back because it is no longer acting along the path of least resistance, as it were. But the monkey will obey, (that's what it's there to do), and through continued exertion, the spirit and soul grow and become strong and increasingly self-aware.
A note of interest. . . The point of alchemy is not, as I see it, about turning lead into gold; I think those are just metaphors for the creation and purification of the soul; the effort and resistance of exerting the Will creates 'heat'. In the various alchemical texts, repeated heating of the 'crucible' are described. With repeated heating, the soul is purified until enlightenment comes within reach.
Anyway, it seems to me that if one pays attention, then one can become ever more aware of the mind/body communication, (during the seven seconds indicated by the experiment under discussion?) Perhaps I am fooling myself in this, but that's the sensation I seem to experience when I observe my own mind in its workings.
-FL
Original research abstract (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.nature.com/neuro/journal/vaop/ncurrent/abs/nn.2112.html [nature.com]
Unconscious determinants of free decisions in the human brain
Chun Siong Soon1,2, Marcel Brass1,3, Hans-Jochen Heinze4 & John-Dylan Haynes
There has been a long controversy as to whether subjectively 'free' decisions are determined by brain activity ahead of time. We found that the outcome of a decision can be encoded in brain activity of prefrontal and parietal cortex up to 10 s 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.
Uh, what? (Score:4, Insightful)
First, just because there is an inherent lag between the action of the brain and our conscious awareness of that action, doesn't mean the action is not willful. Second, even if the action was being planned by the unconscious brain, again, how does that make the action unwillful? I am not conscious of every calculation my brain performs when I decide to lift my coffee cup to my lips, but this does not mean I did not consciously decide to do it.
Our brains are chemical devices. Our sense of self has evolved to mask the fact that we are actually "lagging behind reality" by a little bit, because being aware of the lag would serve no purpose except to distract us. That a scientist could leap from this to the "insight" that we are not in control of our own actions is ludicrous.