Vale Wheeler, and Libet updated 14 Apr 2008 Daniel Holz at Cosmic Variance has a beautifully written obit for John Wheeler. We are grateful for the time the great thinkers spend on us students. Wired has an article on the updating of the classic experiments by Benjamin Libet on the fact that conscious choices occur after the brain has already begun a task. General Science History
Evolution Not Saint Darwin 11 Feb 200918 Sep 2017 Oh, I forgot, due to the lack of internets at home, to link to my essay that I mentioned before: Not Saint Darwin, in Resonance [PDF] Consider this my “death of Darwin” piece. Read More
General Science Storm World review in the LA Times 31 Jul 2007 Some guy named Chris Mooney got reviewed for his latest book Storm World in the LA Times. You’d think from the reviewer’s comments that he did a good job. I’ve heard the name before… now where? Hmmm…. leave that one with me for a bit. [I got my copy, Chris,… Read More
Evolution Visualising Darwin 6 Sep 2009 PZ Macrabbit has already mentioned this, but I thought I’d pile on: it’s a Javascript utility that shows you how Darwin edited the six editions of the Origin over the course of his life, by Ben Fry, who lets you download the program Processing (now that’s a name!) for free…. Read More
This (Libet) seems to be another nail in the coffin of mind/body dualism. If the brain is busy doing the requisite work for a decision long before we’re aware of our decision, then it can’t been a separate mind doing the decision making. Brain functioning seems to be the mind. This is what my psych unit teaches anyway. Add to that the fact that a immaterial brain has to violate the law of conservation of energy to affect a material brain/body and dualism seems in trouble. Or have I misunderstood everything?
This (Libet) seems to be another nail in the coffin of mind/body dualism. If the brain is busy doing the requisite work for a decision long before we’re aware of our decision, then it can’t been a separate mind doing the decision making. Brain functioning seems to be the mind. This is what my psych unit teaches anyway. Add to that the fact that a immaterial brain has to violate the law of conservation of energy to affect a material brain/body and dualism seems in trouble. Or have I misunderstood everything?
Shades of Ted Chiang’s “What’s Expected of Us” — though (@Brian) he uses it to make a point about determinism, not dualism.
What a piece of bunk. You can see a more concise description under http://www.nature.com/neuro/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nn.2112.html and the supplementary figures under http://www.nature.com/neuro/journal/vaop/ncurrent/suppinfo/nn.2112_S1.html The prediction accuracy before the conscious decision is 60% and jumps to 75% when SMA is activated (which is *after* the conscious decision). That is lousy and doesn’t legitimate the wording “Taken together, the patterns consistently predicted whether test subjects eventually pushed a button with their left or right hand”. Dear friends, 60% isn’t a “consistent prediction” and telling that “not completely accurate” is a severe understatement.