Our brains reveal our choices before we're even aware of them

13 Replies, 1122 Views

Now THAT was funny Laird. Smile
Oh... if so, then I'm an accidental comedian, but glad to have entertained, however unintendedly. :-)
(2019-03-07, 02:01 PM)Laird Wrote: Yeah, you seem not to "get" the way we've structured things.


Oh, come on. The nature of this forum emphasises consciousness. We have a forum dedicated to consciousness science. We have guidelines for where to post other threads related to science. Surely it's not too much to expect of you to post a thread about neuroscientific experiments in the subforum titled "General Consciousness Science"?

Fore going details I forgot about the link to other subforums. It won't happen again.
[-] The following 1 user Likes Steve001's post:
  • Laird
Might be relevant to this question of decision making, though even Dennet has had long standing criticisms of Libet-type experiments for precisely this reason of studying arbitrary decisions of no consqeuence:

Neural precursors of deliberate and arbitrary decisions in the study of voluntary action

Quote:Abstract

The readiness potential (RP)—a key ERP correlate of upcoming action—is known to precede subjects’ reports of their decision to move. Some view this as evidence against a causal role for consciousness in human decision-making and thus against free-will. Yet those studies focused on arbitrary decisions—purposeless, unreasoned, and without consequences. It remains unknown to what degree the RP generalizes to deliberate, more ecological decisions. We directly compared deliberate and arbitrary decision-making during a $1000-donation task to non-profit organizations. While we found the expected RPs for arbitrary decisions, they were strikingly absent for deliberate ones. Our results and drift-diffusion model are congruent with the RP representing accumulation of noisy, random fluctuations that drive arbitrary—but not deliberate—decisions. They further point to different neural mechanisms underlying deliberate and arbitrary decisions, challenging the generalizability of studies that argue for no causal role for consciousness in decision-making to real-life decisions.

That said, will be interesting to see if this is replicated.
'Historically, we may regard materialism as a system of dogma set up to combat orthodox dogma...Accordingly we find that, as ancient orthodoxies disintegrate, materialism more and more gives way to scepticism.'

- Bertrand Russell


[-] The following 2 users Like Sciborg_S_Patel's post:
  • Brian, Valmar

  • View a Printable Version
Forum Jump:


Users browsing this thread: 1 Guest(s)