My third thought about this is that it appears that the test subject was already aware of the nature of the decision they'd have to make before the experiment started. I would like to know if the six second delay is consistent if they have the situation "Thrusted" upon them. Does the patient being surprised by the dilemma effect the delay at all?

edit1: A possible explanation for the delay. Maybe there is a decision threshold that has to be satisfied before we will act. The emergent pattern of brain activity that allows the docs to predict what decision the patient will make may be below the threshold needed for action to be taken. More Data would be helpful.

The problem with that explanation is that every time one of the two patterns is detected, it results in him pressing one or the other button (respectively), without failure. What's the point of this "decision threshold" if it's going to lead to the action being executed every single time?

It would be extremely interesting to see what happens when the person pressing the buttons is presented with real-time predictions made by the computer. I.e., each time he decides to press the left button (which is six seconds before he realises he made the decision), the computer would show "Left" on a screen visible to him. Would his brain go into overload trying to fool the computer?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7J6qdei7vs is most likely what would happen.

We don't have enough data in this case. This one experiment was a non-controversial decision, with fore-knowledge of the choice to be made and no knowledge of what the predicted decision would be. Experiments with some variation, such as surprising the patient or telling them what the predicted outcome is, need to be conducted to find out whether or not the six-second delay is consistent and whether or not pattern detection is consistently possible. But, there is a use for a decision threshold if it's possible for the pattern to change from one to the other prior to action. (which the experiment in the documentary didn't preclude from being a possible occurance.) If the pattern can in fact change, a "decision threshold" would be a check to ensure certainty is achieved. It would also explain why the patient isn't aware of the decision until after the six seconds.

But that is still rather ridiculous when you think about it.

Conscious: "Have we decided yet?"
Unconscious: "No, wait, we still need to check something."
C: "Oh come on, what's taking so long?!"
U: "Wait, what if he thinks that we think that he thinks that we are going to press the left button?!"
C: "Oh [censored] you, just stop it and tell me what we've decided!"
U: "Ok ok... we'll press the right button."
C: "Oh yes, my supreme awareness and consciousness has decided to press the left button, so I am going to write it in my memory that it was my supreme decision to press the right button at this very moment and immediately send the signal to the thumb."
U: "WHAT?! [censored] you!!! No fair, you always get all the credit!!!"

Hah. That's a good one. Obviously we became very poorly streamlined at some point.

Sum scattered thoughtz:

I feel like what the researcher begins saying in the video at 53:06 is pretty substantial; there is no real mind/brain dualism, and in the same way there isn't really a conscious/unconscious dualism. "Your consciousness is your brain activity, and that's what's leading your life."



I feel like that's flawed thinking. When in human history has there NOT been a conscious self? The study in the video is a study of the idea of consciousness itself, its fundamental mechanisms, and couldn't be performed on any living thing but a human. An animal couldn't be given those instructions and have made a conscious decision about something so meaningless. The "self" is a manifestation of many factors and does not exist merely to make decisions. I think it's wrong to draw conclusions based around the idea of a divided conscious or unconscious mind, as it all is the same brain.

Why not? Everything I do I am aware of what I'm going to do, where I'm going etc, that's enough evidence for me that I am deciding what to do.

According to the results of this experiment, that is completely wrong - you are only aware of thinking that you've made a decision that has already been made six seconds ago.

I am not surprised. I think there's not really "free will". With the way people grow, they'll always react to situtations the same ways, and some decision may, in fact, be impossible to make. That is what makes me, "me". Unless i go insane, then everything is possible! :wacko:

This purely from a physical point of view, that only involves brain chemistry and neuron connections. My views on higher things are agnostic (sometimes called "weak atheism"); i know that i know nothing, and that is all.

That, however, means that you do know something, so you don't know nothing, but whatever.

People won't react to the same situations the same way always - only if the state of all particles in their entire body (brain included) were identical and the situation were identical would they react identically. That's simple causality. However, that will never happen because it would involve both time travel into the past and "magically" setting particles in someone's entire body in the exact same state they were in that point in the past. Also, the person would have to occupy the exact same location he/she has occupied at that point in time so the double (or original, depending on your perspective) would have to be replaced.

I'm not sure how that makes sense. :S

I think that we will find that everything is deterministic, so meh.

But it is interesting on this division between the conscious and the sub conscious. The real question is what we do in that 6 seconds. Is it that we do additional anolysis. E.g. I know I am going to pick up this meat, but are there any other predators in the area? I can see that being a useful survival trait.

TD;DR Can we change our mind in that 6 seconds if we notice something wrong? I am guessing the answer is yes.

I know



Well, i didn't think it quite that deeply, to me it just seems that people are bound to make similar decisions in similar circumstances. That may be more psychology than physics, though :shrug:

I think you're debating and issue of cognition.

Our brains process a lot of data without our conscious minds being aware of any of it.

Many "decisions" are the product of lower-level functions doing what they do. We become cognizant of a decision only once it's obvious to our conscious minds.

Hence, if you can monitor the decision-making process, you can predict what choice will be made before it is carried out because you are actively monitoring that which normally happens behind the scenes.

If your brain has to make a choice it still has to decide what it's going to pick. So you step into a grocery store and immediately you think about potato chips or a salad and your really not sure which one you want. Your debating all the pro's and con's of which one you want ect. Eventually after a minute or two you come to your decision. Except that all of the actual thinking and brain activity was happening six seconds in advance. So maybe it was the signal of pulling into the parking lot at the grocer that triggered your mind to start working in advance. You only became aware of the thought process after the lag time. If this makes any sense.

It makes perfect sense once you accept that conscious decision-making (and most probably consciousness itself) is just an illusion.


You are forgetting experience. As you most probably know, people memorise things that happen to them and use the gathered memory to form experience (that's probably the poorest wording of the process ever, but you know what I'm talking about so shut up ). This experience affects the person's further behaviour. If a person makes a bad decision during driving and ends up causing damage to his (and/or someone else's) car because of it, that experience will affect that person's further behaviour in similar situations so the next time he/she finds him-/herself in a similar (or even the same) situation he/she definitely won't react the same way and make the same decision again.

edit:

Precisely, and that means exactly that the decision in question was not done consciously - if it were, we would surely be conscious of the decision that was made at the very moment it was made instead of long after it's been made.

Is it really, though? Or is it simply not separate from the physical (and physio/biological) processes of the brain?

I think that this idea is the key issue in understanding the results of the experiment in question (decisions six seconds before hand). To propose that your conscious decision is inherently separate from the physical operation of the brain is to fall into the Cartesian/dualist trap that has pervaded the philosophy of the mind for centuries (Rene Descartes is the thinker who originated this idea).

So if "mind" and "brain" are separate then this experiment suggests that "minds and the mental are illusory.

If however, as nearly all modern philosophers of mind believe, they are not separate, what does this experiment show? It shows that there are facets of the mind that are physically constituted, but it does not disallow the notion of all conscious thought. Take higher-order reasoning, for example. I would be shocked indeed if current researchers were able to show how logic and complex thought are instituted in the physics of the brain. I personally think that we will find that there are essential factors of our biology and biochemistry that give rise to consciousness.

To those interested in further reading, I cannot recommend http://www.amazon.com/Mind-Brief-Introduction-Fundamentals-Philosophy/dp/0195157346/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1295370725&sr=8-2 by U.C. Berkley philosopher John Searle highly enough, it is a fantastic introduction to current issues in the philosophy of mind.

I guess that makes sense in all, it probably plays into the reasons why human nature is often predictable and "History Repeats itself"

Nowhere have I said that I think our mind (or consciousness) is separate from our brains. I have also never said that consciousness is an illusion, I just said that it probably is (drawing from recent advancements in technology and research of the human brain).

I've got a book to recommend to yourself as well, if you're curious about what exactly I mean by "consciousness is probably an illusion": http://www.amazon.com/Consciousness-Explained-Daniel-C-Dennett/dp/0316180661/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1295371300&sr=8-1 by Daniel C. Dennett.

edit: By the way, I couldn't care less about the philosophy of mind, I'm curious about science of the mind. Even though Consciousness Explained is strictly speaking a philosophical book, Dennett is vastly different compared to your usual philosophers which usually just ramble on not caring whether their ideas are testable or even if they have any impact on reality or not. In his book he actually proposes scientific experiments which could be used to test whether his ideas are valid or not.

I've read Dennett. I disagree with Dennett.

And I would argue that mind/brain duality is implicit in your argument because you seem to state that demonstrating a physical realization of decision making shows that consciousness is likely to be an illusion. If the mind is not separate from the brain and consciousness is an illusion then it follows logically that the brain is also an illusion.


With regard to your assertion of a separation between philosophy and science of mind, the two are critically linked. Cognitive science would be nothing without its underlying physicalist/computationalist philosophy.

That made absolutely no sense. If the consciousness is only an illusion it means that there is nothing to be separate from the brain. Furthermore, the only thing that could possibly create this illusion is the brain itself so the two can't possibly be separated.

Also, you have completely misunderstood what I am saying. I am not saying that mere demonstration of a physical realisation of decision, as you put it, shows that consciousness is probably an illusion. What I am saying is that demonstration that the decision has been reached at least six seconds before the brain is conscious of making the decision (and thinks that the decision has been made consciously) shows that conscious decision-making is probably an illusion. Don't twist my words.

Actually, in context it makes perfect sense, because the argument that cognitive scientists like to pursue is that there is no consciousness, only the brain, which is fundamentally different form the idea that conciousness exists and is not separate from the brain.




And you, apparently don't get what I am saying.

Conscious decision making is, in my opinion part and parcel of the physical process. So the fact that the"brain makes a decision" before the mind realizes it is not conclusive of anything, except that part of the facets of decision making occur without our awareness. I simply do not think that this study provides any grounds for assuming that any part of the conscious mind is an illusion.

Also, if conscious decision-making is an illusion what does that leave for consciousness?

Not just any part of decision making, but the decision of which button to press itself has been reached completely unconsciously (and long before the "mind" had any remotely conscious idea about it at that). The activation of that specific cluster of neurons inescapably leads to pressing of either the left or the right button, depending on the exact pattern in which the neuron cluster has been activated. That means precisely that the moment that cluster has been activated is the moment the decision has been made which button will be pressed. The fact that the moment the decision has been made is almost six seconds before the "mind" consciously realises the decision means that the decision has been made unconsciously, and the fact that the "mind" "thinks" that the decision has been made consciously after all (and only at the moment it has realised the decision) means that the consciousness of making that decision is an illusion.



Precisely.

Two points:

1. I believe that consciousness both exists and is inescapably constituted in the physical, chemical, and biological operations of the brain. Therefore the unconscious procedure of choosing which button to press is part and parcel of consciousness, not separate from or different than it, certainly it is not proof that decision-making is an illusion. To fully demonstrate that decision-making is illusory would require significantly more complex testing.

2. Precisely what? Precisely consciousness has nothing to it? But doesn't it? Are you not conscious of your thoughts with regard to our discussion? I know, without doubt, that I am. Furthermore, if consciousness is an illusion then what is the thing that the illusion is deceiving? Is it conscious?