5 ms·

It doesn't even need to be a data processing bug. There's nothing surprising about the experiment's results in the first place! Just because A happened a few mi

by kijin 7y ago

It doesn't even need to be a data processing bug. There's nothing surprising about the experiment's results in the first place! Just because A happened a few milliseconds before B doesn't mean that A caused B. Both could have been caused by a third event that wasn't observed. Or maybe they actually happened at the same time but B had a higher latency to the observer. It's just bad science to assume otherwise and jump to conclusions. The latency difference is actually quite a reasonable thing to suspect, since it probably takes much longer for an "I hereby make this decision" transaction to be committed to the brain's data store than it takes for an fMRI machine to detect electromagnetic signals. There's no evolutionary advantage in waiting for your logs to sync to disk before you initiate run_away_from(lion);

buboard 7y ago
You can read the original experiments for these questions. They were carefully designed and the latencies are accounted for. https://www.nature.com/news/2008/080411/full/news.2008.751.html https://www.nature.com/news/2008/080411/full/news.2008.751.h...
- speedplane 7y ago
  > They were carefully designed and the latencies are accounted for. "Free will" is a philosophical term. Brain waves and chemical latencies are not, they're in the realm of biological sciences. Explanations of how chemical and electrical reactions occur before a person is aware of their own conscious decision does not negate their consciousness or any aspect of their free will. Similarly, if you put your hand over a flame and it takes a half second before you consciously feel pain, the pain is still just as real. In a more extreme example, suppose we could perfectly model the human brain and could explain every sensation you've ever felt by mapping every chemical and electrical reaction in your brain, such an explanation would not make the sensation any less real. In fact, our own consciousness is the only thing we can authoritatively know for sure is real. When you dig deep enough, "I am" is the only thing we know for certain.
  - ppod 7y ago
    I think this is a commmon goalpost-moving strategy. The likes of Dennett et al don't deny that first-person experience is real, but rather that it is inexplicable or mysterious somehow. For the case of free will, Dennett is excellent at showing how homonuculus thinking pervades even careful thought on the issue.
    - speedplane 7y ago
      >> consciousness is the only thing we can authoritatively know for sure is real > this is a commmon goalpost-moving strategy It's not a goalpost-moving strategy, it's the ultimate one. Your comment exemplifies the difference between science and philosophy. The very idea that "once we know X, we will fully understand humanity" is a common but misguided refrain in science. Science may very well eventually discover "X", but any argument that it will provide widespread meaning or understanding is essentially a philosophical argument. Silly but fun example as an experiment: scientists create a device that allows you to read and respond to each and every neuron that fires in your head, and also know the downward effects of these firings on your senses, organs, and thoughts. On one hand, that will provide incredible insight into how humans think and process information. On the other, it will fundamentally change what we consider "thinking" and "reacting" to stimuli. Even if scientists created such a gadget, we'd need philosophers to understand how it effects us.
      - ppod 7y ago
        >any argument that it will provide widespread meaning or understanding is essentially a philosophical argument. You're just stating this, what you are saying doesn't actually mean anything. > we'd need philosophers to understand how it effects us. I have no problem with philosphy, Dennett is a philospher. But what you're saying makes no sense to me. What kind of understanding are you talking about?
  - buboard 7y ago
    > "Free will" is a philosophical term. I've heard that way too many times to know that it's a convenient argument to shut down any discussion.
- kijin 7y ago
  Your link clarifies the timeline a bit, but the key question remains unanswered: Can we trust a person's own recollection of the timestamp associated with a decision? Making a decision is one thing. Being aware that one has made a decision is a completely different thing, and the circuitry for introspection doesn't always seem to work even when you try. It can take seconds, minutes, or even weeks before you realize that you've been doing something. The prefrontal cortex is very expensive to operate, so the stupid Android battery optimizer tries to bypass it whenever possible.

by kijin 7y ago

buboard 7y ago

You can read the original experiments for these questions. They were carefully designed and the latencies are accounted for. https://www.nature.com/news/2008/080411/full/news.2008.751.html https://www.nature.com/news/2008/080411/full/news.2008.751.h...

speedplane 7y ago
> They were carefully designed and the latencies are accounted for. "Free will" is a philosophical term. Brain waves and chemical latencies are not, they're in the realm of biological sciences. Explanations of how chemical and electrical reactions occur before a person is aware of their own conscious decision does not negate their consciousness or any aspect of their free will. Similarly, if you put your hand over a flame and it takes a half second before you consciously feel pain, the pain is still just as real. In a more extreme example, suppose we could perfectly model the human brain and could explain every sensation you've ever felt by mapping every chemical and electrical reaction in your brain, such an explanation would not make the sensation any less real. In fact, our own consciousness is the only thing we can authoritatively know for sure is real. When you dig deep enough, "I am" is the only thing we know for certain.
- ppod 7y ago
  I think this is a commmon goalpost-moving strategy. The likes of Dennett et al don't deny that first-person experience is real, but rather that it is inexplicable or mysterious somehow. For the case of free will, Dennett is excellent at showing how homonuculus thinking pervades even careful thought on the issue.
  - speedplane 7y ago
    >> consciousness is the only thing we can authoritatively know for sure is real > this is a commmon goalpost-moving strategy It's not a goalpost-moving strategy, it's the ultimate one. Your comment exemplifies the difference between science and philosophy. The very idea that "once we know X, we will fully understand humanity" is a common but misguided refrain in science. Science may very well eventually discover "X", but any argument that it will provide widespread meaning or understanding is essentially a philosophical argument. Silly but fun example as an experiment: scientists create a device that allows you to read and respond to each and every neuron that fires in your head, and also know the downward effects of these firings on your senses, organs, and thoughts. On one hand, that will provide incredible insight into how humans think and process information. On the other, it will fundamentally change what we consider "thinking" and "reacting" to stimuli. Even if scientists created such a gadget, we'd need philosophers to understand how it effects us.
    - ppod 7y ago
      >any argument that it will provide widespread meaning or understanding is essentially a philosophical argument. You're just stating this, what you are saying doesn't actually mean anything. > we'd need philosophers to understand how it effects us. I have no problem with philosphy, Dennett is a philospher. But what you're saying makes no sense to me. What kind of understanding are you talking about?
- buboard 7y ago
  > "Free will" is a philosophical term. I've heard that way too many times to know that it's a convenient argument to shut down any discussion.
kijin 7y ago
Your link clarifies the timeline a bit, but the key question remains unanswered: Can we trust a person's own recollection of the timestamp associated with a decision? Making a decision is one thing. Being aware that one has made a decision is a completely different thing, and the circuitry for introspection doesn't always seem to work even when you try. It can take seconds, minutes, or even weeks before you realize that you've been doing something. The prefrontal cortex is very expensive to operate, so the stupid Android battery optimizer tries to bypass it whenever possible.