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 Sudden impact: Darwin on cognition and a leap of faith 19 May 2008 If scientists working in biology or a related field like psychology want to get attention, they will say something like this: Darwin was wrong, or made a mistake, or is insufficient to explain X, where X is whatever they are researching. It makes them seem to be proposing something important,… Read More
General Science Begging questions about philosophy, science and everything else 1 Sep 20121 Sep 2012 Those who know me well take great care not to say (at least when I am in earshot) “That begs the question…” and mean by that “That raises the question…”, or else they will get a dissertation delivered for a period on the right use of that phrase. That’s right, folks,… Read More
History False botanists 1 May 2009 … says Linnaeus: False BOTANISTS proclaim the Laws of the Art before they have learned them: Extol absurd Authors, and are jealous of the excellent ones: Steal from others, producing nothing of their own: Boast much of a little knowledge: Pretend they have discovered a natural Method: Assert the Genera… 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.