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OfflineNewbieS
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Free will debunked?
    #8281230 - 04/14/08 08:55 AM (16 years, 1 month ago)

Brain Scanners Can See Your Decisions Before You Make Them
By Brandon Keim Email 04.13.08 | 1:00 PM

This schematic shows the brain regions (green) from which the outcome of a participant's decision can be predicted before it is made. Courtesy John-Dylan Haynes.

You may think you decided to read this story -- but in fact, your brain made the decision long before you knew about it.

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.

The decision studied -- whether to hit a button with one's left or right hand -- may not be representative of complicated choices that are more integrally tied to our sense of self-direction. Regardless, the findings raise profound questions about the nature of self and autonomy: How free is our will? Is conscious choice just an illusion?

"Your decisions are strongly prepared by brain activity. By the time consciousness kicks in, most of the work has already been done," said study co-author John-Dylan Haynes, a Max Planck Institute neuroscientist.

Haynes updated a classic experiment by the late Benjamin Libet, who showed that a brain region involved in coordinating motor activity fired a fraction of a second before test subjects chose to push a button. Later studies supported Libet's theory that subconscious activity preceded and determined conscious choice -- but none found such a vast gap between a decision and the experience of making it as Haynes' study has.

In the seven seconds before Haynes' test subjects chose to push a button, activity shifted in their frontopolar cortex, a brain region associated with high-level planning. Soon afterwards, activity moved to the parietal cortex, a region of sensory integration. Haynes' team monitored these shifting neural patterns using a functional MRI machine.

Taken together, the patterns consistently predicted whether test subjects eventually pushed a button with their left or right hand -- a choice that, to them, felt like the outcome of conscious deliberation. For those accustomed to thinking of themselves as having free will, the implications are far more unsettling than learning about the physiological basis of other brain functions.

Caveats remain, holding open the door for free will. For instance, the experiment may not reflect the mental dynamics of other, more complicated decisions.

"Real-life decisions -- am I going to buy this house or that one, take this job or that -- aren't decisions that we can implement very well in our brain scanners," said Haynes.

Also, the predictions were not completely accurate. Maybe free will enters at the last moment, allowing a person to override an unpalatable subconscious decision.

"We can't rule out that there's a free will that kicks in at this late point," said Haynes, who intends to study this phenomenon next. "But I don't think it's plausible."

That implausibility doesn't disturb Haynes.

"It's not like you're a machine. Your brain activity is the physiological substance in which your personality and wishes and desires operate," he said.

The unease people feel at the potential unreality of free will, said National Institutes of Health neuroscientist Mark Hallett, originates in a misconception of self as separate from the brain.

"That's the same notion as the mind being separate from the body -- and I don't think anyone really believes that," said Hallett. "A different way of thinking about it is that your consciousness is only aware of some of the things your brain is doing."

Hallett doubts that free will exists as a separate, independent force.

"If it is, we haven't put our finger on it," he said. "But we're happy to keep looking."




That was quite an interesting read for me. I like the fact that even though our brains have already made the decision, we can still chose to go against it without even realizing it.

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Invisiblejohnm214
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Re: Free will debunked? [Re: Newbie]
    #8281350 - 04/14/08 09:33 AM (16 years, 1 month ago)

what a poorly written article


How are we to conclude anything when they don't discuss the methods and results?


And what does the fact that they can predict which hand we're going to use have to do w/ free will?  It seems to suggest to me that your initial inclination in a trivial decision is apt to be executed.  Its not like there's some reason why you're intuitive response wouldn't be adopted when the decision has no bearing on any advantage for the subject.

And even if you adopt the supposition that your "brain" decides which button to push, how does this negate free will, as they call it?  Are you completely aware of your own asthetic judgements?  Does this mean that its not your choice as to which pair of pants looks better?


(no disrespect to the original poster, its an interesting article, I was just pissed at the way they reported it, thanks for posting :smile:



edit:

I tried to find the article but apparently it wasn't published sunday as stated, it was made available in the advanced online section of the website, so you can't get the damn thing unless you pay shitloads of moeny or have a subscription

(do journals just do this to screw people w/ database access or what?_)

Edited by johnm214 (04/14/08 09:50 AM)

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OfflineNewbieS
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Re: Free will debunked? [Re: johnm214]
    #8281421 - 04/14/08 09:51 AM (16 years, 1 month ago)

Yeah scientific articles are usually either short and sweet, or overloaded and 10 pages long. :lol:

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OfflineVisionary Tools
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Re: Free will debunked? [Re: Newbie]
    #8281669 - 04/14/08 10:46 AM (16 years, 1 month ago)

We are all playing our parts. The free will is the will to be free. It's never been more than that, and I'm happy knowing what drives me to do what I do.


--------------------

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Invisibleleoside
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Re: Free will debunked? [Re: Newbie]
    #8282139 - 04/14/08 12:51 PM (16 years, 1 month ago)

Whos to say that what we're about to do isnt already programmed into our brains by something :flowstone:


--------------------
I watched with glee
While your kings and queens
Fought for ten decades
For the gods they made

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Invisiblebadchad
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Re: Free will debunked? [Re: leoside]
    #8282676 - 04/14/08 03:00 PM (16 years, 1 month ago)

Nature of Neuroscience is a solid journal.

All the materials and methods are there (although I haven't read the article in its entirety). Unfortunately, journals have to charge someone to recoup production costs.


--------------------
...the whole experience is (and is as) a profound piece of knowledge.  It is an indellible experience; it is forever known.  I have known myself in a way I doubt I would have ever occurred except as it did.

Smith, P.  Bull. Menninger Clinic (1959) 23:20-27; p. 27.

...most subjects find the experience valuable, some find it frightening, and many say that is it uniquely lovely.

Osmond, H.  Annals, NY Acad Science (1957) 66:418-434; p.436

Edited by badchad (04/14/08 03:06 PM)

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OfflineNephlyte
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Re: Free will debunked? [Re: badchad]
    #8283054 - 04/14/08 04:57 PM (16 years, 1 month ago)

Ya, i don't think this article has to much to do with free will. It does show that thoughts and decisions are detectable before they occur.

Freewill will ultimately be negated by this way, but we'll need much much better scanners.

""It's not like you're a machine. Your brain activity is the physiological substance in which your personality and wishes and desires operate," he said."

Bullshit, we are completely a machine. Once we have a complete understanding of all the things that affect our physiology, we will be able to exactly predict all thoughts and actions of a person.


--------------------
"To do right is to know what you want. Now when you are dissatisfied with yourself it's because you are after something you don't really want. What objects are you proposing to yourself? Are they the objects you really value? If they are not, you are cheating yourself. I don't meant that if you chose to pursue the objects you most value, you will attain them; of course not. Your experience will tell you that. But success in getting after much labor what you really don't care for is the bitterest and most ridiculous failure." -George Santayana

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Invisiblejohnm214
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Re: Free will debunked? [Re: Nephlyte]
    #8283931 - 04/14/08 08:15 PM (16 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

Nephlyte said:
Ya, i don't think this article has to much to do with free will. It does show that thoughts and decisions are detectable before they occur.

Freewill will ultimately be negated by this way, but we'll need much much better scanners.

""It's not like you're a machine. Your brain activity is the physiological substance in which your personality and wishes and desires operate," he said."

Bullshit, we are completely a machine. Once we have a complete understanding of all the things that affect our physiology, we will be able to exactly predict all thoughts and actions of a person.





what makes you so sure?

At this point I think a belief like this is a pure philosophy/dogma


Some of us think the person is sepperate from the body, or at least on any practical level.




And I'd say, as I did before, that their is a difference between accurate prediction of a choice and the conclusion that this demonstrates a detection of what your decision will be before you make it.


This seems similar to a polygraph to me in that just cuz you can accuratly predict whether someone will be evasive before they respond, or before they formulate their response/how to answer, doesn't mean you' ve determined what they're brain will make them do.






badchad, I've got access via ebsco to this journal but couldn't get it cuz its really not published yet, like the article claims, but only online per advance copy. Ebsco says they have a 1 year period of noncoverage of this journal from printing date, but they've got the current issue, so I think I'll be able to snag it when it comes out.

I know they have a materials and methods section. My point was that this article was poor for not going into brief detail about the actual methods and results. Without that, its hard to tell whether the scientist's claims are accurately supported by this study, which I suspect they're not, and simply philosophical meanderings.

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InvisibleDisco Cat
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Re: Free will debunked? [Re: Newbie]
    #8284332 - 04/14/08 09:39 PM (16 years, 1 month ago)

If the decisions can be seen then they've already been made. Catching them while they're still at the subconscious level does nothing to affect that fact.

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Invisiblejohnm214
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Re: Free will debunked? [Re: Disco Cat]
    #8287320 - 04/15/08 03:29 PM (16 years, 1 month ago)

well, or they meerly predict what the outcome will be


If I take a 50 time murderer into a city, and watch him, and then predict, w/ 60% accuracy, that he'll commit a crime w/in a month, does that mean I didn't predict it? No of course I did, but it doesn't mean I detected something that sabotaged his free will

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Invisiblebadchad
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Re: Free will debunked? [Re: johnm214]
    #8290484 - 04/16/08 06:30 AM (16 years, 1 month ago)

So I read the actual, published study.

In essence, they identified brain areas which predicted a subjects choice on a simple task (using fMRI). These areas were activated BEFORE a subject was consciously aware of his/her choice. Thus, they tentatively concluded that the response was decided before a volunteer was even aware of it (lack of free will).

However, I would speculate that with more complex choices, the unconscious choice is consciously evaluated before it's carried out.

It would be very interesting to add some type of contingency or reward to this task. This would show that a subject could consciosuly change his/her mind after the unconscious initiated a choice.


--------------------
...the whole experience is (and is as) a profound piece of knowledge.  It is an indellible experience; it is forever known.  I have known myself in a way I doubt I would have ever occurred except as it did.

Smith, P.  Bull. Menninger Clinic (1959) 23:20-27; p. 27.

...most subjects find the experience valuable, some find it frightening, and many say that is it uniquely lovely.

Osmond, H.  Annals, NY Acad Science (1957) 66:418-434; p.436

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