Three days ago there was an interesting interview on ABC Australian radio, re research on how much of our actions and thoughts really are a result of a conscious me', now.
Along the idea, i think, that once mind sets are fixed, then much of what many think is conscious, 'aware', thinking now is not.
Which comes first - he asks - thought or brain (electro) activity?
The conundrum of consciousness strikes again. ie. Do mental events correspond directly with neural events? And, if one dictates the other, are the mind and brain not the same thing?
So...one rather intriguing brain phenomenon is often rolled out in this ever lively debate over consciousness and free will.
The question at the heart of the free will question is: do we really have any conscious control over our thoughts and actions, or is that just an illusion? Instead, does our brain wholly run the show, without consultation with a "me" within? Brain = mind.
Physiologist Benjamin Libet (1916-2007) made a striking discovery when he found that the brain registers a stimulus to act before we're actually consciously aware of that stimulus. There's an ever so small delay of a few hundred or so milliseconds between when our brain itself knows something, and when we know we know that something.
This electrical activity registered in the brain before an action is called Bereitschaftspotential or readiness potential.
Libet's provocative experiment suggested that the brain leads, and the mind follows. If we possessed free will over and above our biology, you'd think it was the other way round. Mind = boss. Brain/body = servant.
Of course all this has lead to much philosophical tossing and turning over whether the mind and the brain are indeed the same thing, or does dualism rule the roost? Neuroscientists, who spend their days up to their elbows in nerves and neurons, tend think that's all a bit too kooky and metaphysical.
Libet published a book about his experiments, Mind Time: The Temporal Factor in Consciousness (Harvard University Press, 2004).
Here's an obit for Libet, who died last year at 91, outlining his legacy.
And the wikipedia entry on Libet looks reasonably thorough.
Here's one take on Libet's work by UK philosopher Prof Ted Honderich (whose own thinking has in turn been taken on by others, notably Dan Dennett here)
Past All in the Mind shows I've done exploring consciousness include:
* The Mind Body Problem Down Under * The Nature of Consciousness Debate - Part 1 and Part 2 (at the Australian Science Festival) * David Chalmers on the Big Conundrum: Consciousness * Susan Greenfield Contemplates Consciousness * Zombies and Human Consciousness * Is the Visual World a Grand Illusion? * Radiant Cool: Detective Thriller takes on Consciousness * Meditation and the Mind: Science Meets Buddhism * An Intimate History of the Unconscious
Don't be losing any precious neurons over it. A few hundred more generations worth of debate is surely ahead of us. We seem to like it that way.
P.S Thanks to PhD student Patrick Hopkinson for helping me out on the Libet reference - I was racking my brains to remember again. Colleague Dr Karl rang me about this last year, wanting to repeat Libet's experiments for a Sleek Geeks episode on ABC TV.
Patrick submitted me to an EEG a few years back for a show - Listening to the Mind Listening). EEG = electroencephalogram (attractive cap sprouting with wires to measure brain electrical activity).
This bodes ill for a democracy, because most voters — the people making decisions about how the country runs — aren’t blank slates. They already have beliefs, and a set of facts lodged in their minds. The problem is that sometimes the things they think they know are objectively, provably false. And in the presence of the correct information, such people react very, very differently than the merely uninformed. Instead of changing their minds to reflect the correct information, they can entrench themselves even deeper.
“The general idea is that it’s absolutely threatening to admit you’re wrong,” says political scientist Brendan Nyhan, the lead researcher on the Michigan study. The phenomenon — known as “backfire” — is “a natural defense mechanism to avoid that cognitive dissonance.”
It seems clear that teabaggers are servant to the “natural defense mechanism to avoid that cognitive dissonance.”
Jonathan Swift said, "May you live all the days of your life!"
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