3 ms·
The whole notion of “your brain thinks …” is a common interpretation of fMRI studies, but I think it is not very accurate or useful. It contains the idea that w
by mfsch 8y ago
The whole notion of “your brain thinks …” is a common interpretation of fMRI studies, but I think it is not very accurate or useful. It contains the idea that what your brain does is somehow separate from what “you” are thinking and doing. In practice, what we see in fMRI pictures is just the what the current thinking and activity looks like in the brain. So even if you saw the same patterns of activity for people watching and playing sports, that wouldn’t mean that the brain “thinks you are playing”, it just means that your thinking might be similar during both activities. As others have mentioned the article does not reference the title, so this is a comment on the title only.
- taneq 8y ago> It contains the idea that what your brain does is somehow separate from what “you” are thinking and doing It's like those studies that can detect decision making a split second before the person is consciously aware that they've made the decision. It's usually presented as "'you' don't really make the decision", as if that person exists apart from their brain.
- mc32 8y ago>can detect decision making a split second before the person is consciously aware that they've made the decision. I think the revelation is that the decision people make is the negative one, that the affirmative one is the default and the negative one is the one which requires conscious effort.
- ggg9990 8y agofMRI studies are like studies showing which transistors are active during certain computations. Maybe it means something, maybe it doesn’t.
- Negative1 8y agoRight, seems like a better way to describe this is to say "Watching sports activates the same neural pathways as playing sports".
- izzydata 8y agoWhich is not very profound. The thought that looking at a ball being kicked and kicking a ball activates similar neural pathways sounds incredibly obvious.
- Brockenstein 8y agoOne might assume that is the case, but human beings assume a lot of things that are dead wrong. So while you might have an assumption, it's a pretty good practice to check and see if your assumptions align with reality. There's quite a few things about our brains that might seem obvious, but are actually quite counter-intuitive in practice.