11 ms·

There's a rumored experiment called the "precognitive carousel", supposedly run by Grey Walter, where: (1) Subjects are told to push a button to advance a slid

There's a rumored experiment called the "precognitive carousel", supposedly run by Grey Walter, where: (1) Subjects are told to push a button to advance a slide projector carousel, but not told that the button is inert (2) The carousel advances based on electrical signals measured by wires on the subjects' scalp. (3) Subjects supposedly report the uncanny feeling that the projector advances "just before" they were about to push the button -- 300-400 milliseconds before, a pretty long time. I read about this a long time ago in a since-deleted post on an old timey internet forum (everything2). The writer suggested this research supports the idea that your body chooses what to do, then informs your brain, and your consciousness convinces itself that has decided to do what the body is about to do on its own.

kelseyfrog 4y ago
I wonder if this is related to the idea of persistent non-symbolic experience[1]. Where the latter is the conscious perception of the "precognitive carousel" and its consequences. 1. https://digitalcommons.ciis.edu/conscjournal/vol8/iss8/1/ https://digitalcommons.ciis.edu/conscjournal/vol8/iss8/1/
csomar 4y ago
> that your body chooses what to do, then informs your brain, and your consciousness convinces itself that has decided to do what the body is about to do on its own. More like your subconscious is making decisions, talking with your mouth, moving your hands, etc... Then you have your consciousness (your "real" self). The subconscious makes him feel and think like he is in control so he (you, your "real" self) doesn't freak out. But he (the subconscious guy) has the real power and control.
- altcognito 4y ago
  Presuming that the subconscious isn’t all there is and the “conscious” mind isn’t just an illusion created by all the subconscious processes. It would be interesting to see experiments that try to pry back the lid a bit on the line between conscious and the subconscious and the communication therein. They must be out there.
  - csomar 4y ago
    Or there isn't. Takes a whole new meaning to "Don't bullshit yourself".
  - TheCapeGreek 4y ago
    That makes me think, if consciousness is an illusion of the subconscious, then what's the difference in terms of outward effect on the world? We're all philosophical zombies then technically since consciousness in this scenario doesn't exist.
    - krzat 4y ago
      The illusion is that concious part of the brain is the most important one. In reality we rely mostly on intuition and body automation. But it's pretty obvious to me that consciousness would not exist if it was not useful. One way it would be useful if unconcious mind made an automated decision and then ran it through conscious mind to ensure that it was a correct one.
    - kukkeliskuu 4y ago
      The difference is that if you really understand, realize that it is an illusion, it becomes possible to change the situation.
- totetsu 4y ago
  My subconscious likes to slip in triggers to play melodies from songs related somehow to events along with the control commands sometimes.
- stephen_g 4y ago
  I think the biggest reason I disagree with that is from the experience of extensive music training. I can play instruments almost automatically, and think about other stuff while playing now. But it took years and years of careful, conscious work to train my subconscious and muscles and hands to be able to do that... While you can develop actions and skills to the point where you can do them without needing almost any conscious input, it just seems ridiculous to say there's no control from the conscious part of the mind and it's just an illusion...
  - tshaddox 4y ago
    That doesn’t seem to contradict the first explanation. It’s not surprising that your subconscious mind could acquire abilities due to practice initiated by your conscious mind, just like it’s not surprising that your muscles can grow due to exercise initiated by your conscious mind.
    - robotresearcher 4y ago
      You are missing the radical claim being made here. Your conscious mind only discovers you are playing an instrument by observing that you are doing it.
  - mr_toad 4y ago
    > But it took years and years of careful, conscious work If all it took to be a musician was conscious will, then I’d be able to play the guitar, instead of constantly procrastinating.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - stephen_g 4y ago
      Yeah, that much of the conscious work is while actually sitting down and playing was kinda implied (some is theory though but mostly while physically practicing).
- red75prime 4y ago
  You presume that subconsciousness is something unified and, hm, intelligent. While in reality it seems to be a complex collection of more or less elaborate procedures that were learned partly under supervision of consciousness. Moreover, consciousness (that is you) has veto power (there's research on that). If you predict that your "subconscious guy" will do some dumb thing (like flipping light switch during blackout), you can override it and with enough overrides "the guy" will learn to be a bit less dumb (the procedure will be adjusted to take more context into account). Of course, "you" isn't magic, it's just another procedure, but it has potential access to the entirety of stored knowledge (including knowledge about procedures that weren't yet internalized into subconsciousness).
  - kukkeliskuu 4y ago
    You are close, but there is a subtle problem. Most people do not really believe that the subconscious impacts our decisions. They may even theoretically say they do, but in practice their executive function believes it decided the decisions that were really done subconsciously. Ironically, if you believe that you are making the decisions, you cannot override them, and then you are actually not making the decisions. The key to free will is to really understand that you do not have it.
    - red75prime 4y ago
      I don't see anything actionable in "you have no free will" statement to care to deeply internalize it. Regardless of a flavor of "free will" interpretation.
      - kukkeliskuu 4y ago
        It is a good idea anyway not to internalize such a fundamental idea based on comments by a random person on the internet, regardless of whether it is actionable or not. It just appeared to me that this question is something that interests you, so I wanted to point you to a direction that I have found helpful. The general process, which appears to be common to various approaches, is to practice specific kind of meditation long enough that you start to see your automatic reactions to the sub-consciously made decisions to slow down, so you are in a way creating room for something before the immediate reaction, and then you can verify the truth in what I describe by yourself. So there is no need to believe what I say or nothing directly actionable that I can transmit through this medium that would be helpful to you. Few books I have found interesting on the subject: Gallwey: Inner Game of Tennis, Ouspensky: In Search of the Miraculous, Nicoll: Psychological Commentaries on the Teaching of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky
vvilliamperez 4y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroscience_of_free_will#Notable_experiments https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroscience_of_free_will#Nota...
pmontra 4y ago
The body should take instructions tough. Reacting quickly to somebody's else actions (a ping pong match, a very contested overtake in motorsport) can be totally unconscious but we must have consciously decided at least the general way of performing those activities: the guy on the car ahead suddenly steers left so I'm feinting right than go left again. Or fencing, or riding a horse in a race. Training could prepare the body to handle any action on autopilot but consciousness has a short leash on it.
Sevrene 4y ago
This reminds me of an article that talks about how sensory consciousness comes too late for conscious responses and how that might be 'rescued' by some yet to be proven quantum effects. I've linked it below, but here's a snippet from it that talks about the ms delay: Neural correlates of conscious perception occur 150–500 ms after impingement on our sense organs, apparently too late for causal efficacy in seemingly conscious perceptions and willful actions, often initiated or completed within 100 ms after sensory impingement. Velmans (1991, 2000) listed a number of examples: analysis of sensory inputs and their emotional content, phonological, and semantic analysis of heard speech and preparation of one's own spoken words and sentences, learning and formation of memories, and choice, planning and execution of voluntary acts. Consequently, the subjective feeling of conscious control of these behaviors is deemed illusory (Dennett, 1991; Wegner, 2002). In speech, evoked potentials (EPs) indicating conscious word recognition occur about 400 ms after auditory input, however semantic meaning is appreciated (and response initiated) after only 200 ms. As Velmans points out, only two phonemes are heard by 200 ms, and an average of 87 words share their first two phonemes. Even when contextual effects are considered, semantic processing and initiation of response occur before conscious recognition (Van Petten et al., 1999). Gray (2004) observes that in tennis “The speed of the ball after a serve is so great, and the distance over which it has to travel so short, that the player who receives the serve must strike it back before he has had time consciously to see the ball leave the server's racket. Conscious awareness comes too late to affect his stroke.” McCrone (1999): “[for] tennis players … facing a fast serve … even if awareness were actually instant, it would still not be fast enough ….” Nonetheless tennis players claim to see the ball consciously before they attempt to return it. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnint.2012.00093/full https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnint.2012.0009...
- andreareina 4y ago
  I think it's much more likely that we're measuring the wrong thing than it is that quantum effects allow us to react faster than our neutral circuitry.
edgyquant 4y ago
I've always disliked this interpretation of the data. All it suggests is the real system responsible is deeper that we currently think. Not that you are an illusion or whatever
- ixsploit 4y ago
  What difference does it make if you real self is an illusion or just something deep down outside our consciousness?
  - jstanley 4y ago
    The consciousness isn't the illusion, the consciousness is the audience. An illusion doesn't trick anyone if there's noone to observe it.
    - naasking 4y ago
      > An illusion doesn't trick anyone if there's noone to observe it. An illusion is arguably a perception that, taken literally, entails a false conclusion, so I don't see a need to tie it to a subject.
      - edgyquant 4y ago
        The only thing I know for sure isn’t an illusion is my consciousness.
taberiand 4y ago
Or alternatively, the brain-body system isn't strictly a top-down hierarchy for decision making but a complex interconnected web of impulses and feedback loops. I remember hearing, for example, that making a smile can make a person feel happier (even though the subject is aware they are just making a happy face). Or in this particular case, perhaps the feeling of "deciding to press the button" is in fact the brain confirming that the muscles in the fingers have responded appropriately to the impulse provided, and sending out the appropriate messages?
- tshaddox 4y ago
  Still, isn’t the point that this clearly demonstrates that the system directly causing the physical movement is not the same system you identify as your “self”? That still seems profound, at least for anyone who places a lot of importance on that feeling of identity.
  - aikendrum 4y ago
    Two possibilities - 1 - we take actions that are preconscious and reactive, and add consistency in later post hoc explanations. Or 2 - the conscious reflective self is more like a saccade of attention moving between various systems operating according to its overall supervision. I think two makes much more sense, since we don't observe the actions of others to be random or inconsistent (in ordinary circumstances), no matter how quickly they're responding. If George is on edge, and we throw a ball at George, George will do what he generally does - flinch, react with anger etc. George won't catch the ball perfectly in contrast with his emotional state. If Sue sees a famous criminal on the street, Sue will generally react as Sue would be expected to based on her priors - scream, run, freeze etc. Sue is unlikely to smile and raise her hand for a shake. Circumstances where we and others deviate from the 'reasonable' instantaneous response are rare, comical and associated with inattention, distraction or visceral symptoms (like illness). Therefore either we presuppose another personality operating at a preconscious level - or we are queuing classes of responses that make sense on some general level, even if they occur too fast for linguistic reflection or 'conscious' perception. The language example in the comment above is a great reflection of this. We are able to carry out coherent, situationally appropriate conversation including symbolic reasoning. So I'm not sure what kind of conditioned mechanism or second personality is supposed to be responsible if consciousness is eliminated.
leobg 4y ago
BF Skinner would have said: There is only behavior. Behavior is shaped by the environment. Thinking, speaking, and explaining are nothing but a special kind of behavior. Thus it is perfectly possible to be proficient at walking down stairs without being able to explain how exactly it is that you are doing it. In the same way, someone might be very proficient at explaining how to play tennis, without actually being able to hit a ball. these are just two very different kinds of behavior.
- Grustaf 4y ago
  He would have said that. But he would have been, and was, completely wrong. Surely nobody thinks Skinner explains anything on a deeper level anymore?
  - naasking 4y ago
    I don't see how Skinner could be wrong unless you reject materialism. Everything reduces to the behaviour of particles in the end. Of course it's possible that behaviour is not an effective way to model and study human beings, just like using particle physics is not an effective way to study English literature, but there's little doubt that English literature reduces to particle physics in the end.
    - shkkmo 4y ago
      Sure, if you stretch the meaning of "behavior" far enough, that quote is true because it becomes a tautology. However, Skinner had some pretty specific ideas about what "behavior" meant and probably wouldn't have included stuff like playing a chess game against oneself in one's head.
  - rendall 4y ago
    > Surely nobody thinks Skinner explains anything on a deeper level anymore? I know an academic animal behaviorist who swears that his is the only predictive model of any use, and that includes human behavior.
  - leobg 4y ago
Gh0stRAT 4y ago
The experiment you describe reminds me of a short story "What's expected of us" by my favorite author Ted Chiang. [0] I won't spoil it too much because it's a fun short read, but it revolves around these little toys called "Predictors" which have a light that turns on exactly 1 second BEFORE you push the button. (no matter what you do to try to game it) [0] https://www.nature.com/articles/436150a https://www.nature.com/articles/436150a
- MandieD 4y ago
  Oh, he’s also the author of one of my favorite short stories, “The Great Silence”[0] Ironically, the endangered species[1] the narrator belongs to has managed to outlive the giant human object discussed, but it’s still at high risk of being wiped out in the wild the next time a hurricane hits Puerto Rico. [0] https://nautil.us/the-great-silence-237510/ https://nautil.us/the-great-silence-237510/ [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puerto_Rican_amazon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puerto_Rican_amazon
  - fredoliveira 4y ago
    The Great Silence is my personal favorite short story. It is absolutely beautiful (and sad too, in a way).
vishnugupta 4y ago
Somewhat related, I read a while ago (there's even a book on this topic, can't recall the title) that our brain/mind is a hypothesis testing machine. i.e., it expects the world to be in a certain way and ask our body to act accordingly and if the hypothesis turns out to be false then it'll act surprised. The converse of it was quite interesting. If you force your body to behave a certain way then corresponding emotion will follow. Example; forcing your face to smile will lead to happy feeling. Goes to show mind-body connection is way stronger than what we imagine it to be.
- criddell 4y ago
  I heard something similar and I’ve always wondered if it was true. In patients who have had the two hemispheres of their brain disconnected, two distinct consciousnesses become apparent. They perceive differently and have different capabilities. I think the theory was there in each of us are multiple consciousnesses and our experience of reality is the result of consensus among them.
dan_mctree 4y ago
I'm confused about the conclusion. The way you laid it out, it seems that it could well just be electric signals from the conscious mind triggering the carousel. In which case the experiment would just show that the conscious thought happens first and the body movement after. The subjective experience of it being just before they were going to press the button, could just be explained by a correct built in assumption that every action takes some time
- Grustaf 4y ago
  Yes, that's exactly what it sounds like to me. They have "decided" to press the button, but the body hasn't yet followed the instruction. This situation will of course feel weird and unusual, but I don't think it says anything about consciousness being an illusion, whatever that might even mean.
  - adamsmith143 4y ago
    This just isn't the right interpretation. How can you have made a conscious choice before you were aware you made it. In another similar experiment the subjects were told to choose one of two buttons to press and to take note of when they had decided. In all cases the experimenters were able to not only know when the decision was made, well before the subject noted they had decided, but also could predict what button they would press with some accuracy. https://www.nature.com/articles/nn.2112 https://www.nature.com/articles/nn.2112
kukkeliskuu 4y ago
I think you would enjoy the work of Rodolfo Llinas, for example this interview: http://thesciencenetwork.org/programs/the-science-studio/enter-the-i-of-the-vortex http://thesciencenetwork.org/programs/the-science-studio/ent... In the interview, he describes an experiment he did on himself. When he put a strong magnet on a certain spot on his head, his foot would turn outward. He was able to do this in a stable manner. Then he repeated the experiment, but decided beforehand that he will turn his foot inward instead. When they did the experiment, his foot still turned outward. His assistant asked "what happened?" and Rodolfo Llinas said "I changed my mind". They repeated the experiment many times, and each time he changed his mind. From this he concluded that he cannot differentiate when he decides to do something or when his body decides to do it, they both feel to him like he decided to do it.
- rendall 4y ago
  This experiment is so subject to experimenter bias that conclusions drawn from it are essentially useless.
- naasking 4y ago
  > From this he concluded that he cannot differentiate when he decides to do something or when his body decides to do it, they both feel to him like he decided to do it. Which arguably disproves mind-body dualism. "You" are your whole body, not a disconnected consciousness trapped in a physical form.
  - orestarod 4y ago
    Well all decisions ARE made in the brain, conscious or not, and whatever consciousness is, it resides in those neurons. That is also influenced by various inputs of the rest of the body, of course, but I think we can safely assume "self" exists in the brain. Thinking it reversely, can we really say an organism with various complex parts but no brain has consciousness? You are not a disconnected consciousness, but some body parts are more easily discarded than others, and I think the brain tops most (all?) of the others regarding survivability - and is irreplaceable regarding the "self".
fartsucker69 4y ago
countless reasonable alternative explanations. for example, your inner voice could simply have some lag from the processing loop where you first need to perceive your inner voice which is a process that takes time, just like perceiving anything else. another example, your inner voice or however you experience your own consciousness could be a sort of separate process that just 1:1 outputs what your consciousness produces, but as a separate process just takes some time.
runsWphotons 4y ago
this sounds like you are aware the button isnt doing it and perceive there is some other mechanism, but you cant explain it? the writers conclusion doesnt seem to follow...
marginalia_nu 4y ago
> Subjects supposedly report the uncanny feeling that the projector advances "just before" they were about to push the button -- 300-400 milliseconds before, a pretty long time. There's a delay between your signal to move a muscle, and the movement of the muscle, but that is a discrepancy our brains tend to edit out of the experience. It's more noticeable with the legs where the signal needs to move farther. But if you tell your foot to curl its toes, there's like a quarter second delay that if you aren't paying very close attention to things feels like you're immediately moving the toes, even though that's clearly not it.
amelius 4y ago
If consciousness is out of the loop, then why are we discussing consciousness here? It should never come up.
fny 4y ago
This in the original paper to which the singularity hub article refers. > “They reported that just as they were ‘about to’ push the button, but before they had actually decided to do so, the projector would advance the slide—and they would find themselves pressing the button with the worry that it was going to advance the slide twice!” The commonsense view of consciousness tells us that the conscious decision to act precedes and causes the action itself. How do we explain this strange phenomenon in which motor actions occur before the conscious decisions to take these actions? How could the effect precede the cause? What advanced the slides was actually a signal from the implanted electrodes. https://journals.lww.com/cogbehavneurol/Fulltext/9900/Consciousness_as_a_Memory_System.19.aspx https://journals.lww.com/cogbehavneurol/Fulltext/9900/Consci...
- Grustaf 4y ago
  > The commonsense view of consciousness tells us that the conscious decision to act precedes and causes the action itself. I don't get it. The effect (the advancing of the slide) doesn't precede the cause (you deciding to advance it). The thing here is only that they dispensed with the middle step of physically pushing the button.
  - cksk 4y ago
    What you’re not getting is the conscious part of “conscious decision”. The brain makes the decision BEFORE the consciousness is aware of it. But that’s not how we think we decide stuff; the experience we have is that we consciously choose to do something. The experiment shows that decision is actually made by the unconscious part of the mind, and the consciousness is only made aware of it later, while still believing it was in control the entire time.
    - Grustaf 4y ago
      > "They reported that just as they were ‘about to’ push the button, but before they had actually decided to do so" It seems to me it's just a matter of definition. Clearly it was a conscious decision, since they are able to talk about it. They even say they were "just about to push the button". The only confusion is that they also claim they hadn't "decided" to do so. So clearly there is no issue with the "conscious" part, but perhaps some confusion about what constitutes a "decision"? I mean, what does it mean to be "about to push", if not that they had in fact decided to?
deleted 4y ago
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yummypaint 4y ago
I have long suspected that the feeling of struggling with math is the feeling of not closely riding the coattails of the unconscious mind, sort of the opposite of flow. When attempting something challenging for the first time, the intuition isn't developed yet and choices that aren't deliberately reasoned at some higher level are inevitably wrong. It takes a long time to train intuition and math is unforgiving about immediately telling people theyre wrong compared to most areas of thought.
OJFord 4y ago
> The writer suggested this research supports the idea that your body chooses what to do, then informs your brain, and your consciousness convinces itself that has decided to do what the body is about to do on its own. Surely it equally supports the less controversial 'your brain signals [as measured] the body to do something [push the button]'? How does it support adding 'your body signals the brain' to the front of that (roughly)?

kelseyfrog 4y ago

I wonder if this is related to the idea of persistent non-symbolic experience[1]. Where the latter is the conscious perception of the "precognitive carousel" and its consequences. 1. https://digitalcommons.ciis.edu/conscjournal/vol8/iss8/1/ https://digitalcommons.ciis.edu/conscjournal/vol8/iss8/1/

csomar 4y ago

> that your body chooses what to do, then informs your brain, and your consciousness convinces itself that has decided to do what the body is about to do on its own. More like your subconscious is making decisions, talking with your mouth, moving your hands, etc... Then you have your consciousness (your "real" self). The subconscious makes him feel and think like he is in control so he (you, your "real" self) doesn't freak out. But he (the subconscious guy) has the real power and control.

altcognito 4y ago
Presuming that the subconscious isn’t all there is and the “conscious” mind isn’t just an illusion created by all the subconscious processes. It would be interesting to see experiments that try to pry back the lid a bit on the line between conscious and the subconscious and the communication therein. They must be out there.
- csomar 4y ago
  Or there isn't. Takes a whole new meaning to "Don't bullshit yourself".
- TheCapeGreek 4y ago
  That makes me think, if consciousness is an illusion of the subconscious, then what's the difference in terms of outward effect on the world? We're all philosophical zombies then technically since consciousness in this scenario doesn't exist.
  - krzat 4y ago
    The illusion is that concious part of the brain is the most important one. In reality we rely mostly on intuition and body automation. But it's pretty obvious to me that consciousness would not exist if it was not useful. One way it would be useful if unconcious mind made an automated decision and then ran it through conscious mind to ensure that it was a correct one.
  - kukkeliskuu 4y ago
    The difference is that if you really understand, realize that it is an illusion, it becomes possible to change the situation.
totetsu 4y ago
My subconscious likes to slip in triggers to play melodies from songs related somehow to events along with the control commands sometimes.
stephen_g 4y ago
I think the biggest reason I disagree with that is from the experience of extensive music training. I can play instruments almost automatically, and think about other stuff while playing now. But it took years and years of careful, conscious work to train my subconscious and muscles and hands to be able to do that... While you can develop actions and skills to the point where you can do them without needing almost any conscious input, it just seems ridiculous to say there's no control from the conscious part of the mind and it's just an illusion...
- tshaddox 4y ago
  That doesn’t seem to contradict the first explanation. It’s not surprising that your subconscious mind could acquire abilities due to practice initiated by your conscious mind, just like it’s not surprising that your muscles can grow due to exercise initiated by your conscious mind.
  - robotresearcher 4y ago
    You are missing the radical claim being made here. Your conscious mind only discovers you are playing an instrument by observing that you are doing it.
- mr_toad 4y ago
  > But it took years and years of careful, conscious work If all it took to be a musician was conscious will, then I’d be able to play the guitar, instead of constantly procrastinating.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - stephen_g 4y ago
    Yeah, that much of the conscious work is while actually sitting down and playing was kinda implied (some is theory though but mostly while physically practicing).
red75prime 4y ago
You presume that subconsciousness is something unified and, hm, intelligent. While in reality it seems to be a complex collection of more or less elaborate procedures that were learned partly under supervision of consciousness. Moreover, consciousness (that is you) has veto power (there's research on that). If you predict that your "subconscious guy" will do some dumb thing (like flipping light switch during blackout), you can override it and with enough overrides "the guy" will learn to be a bit less dumb (the procedure will be adjusted to take more context into account). Of course, "you" isn't magic, it's just another procedure, but it has potential access to the entirety of stored knowledge (including knowledge about procedures that weren't yet internalized into subconsciousness).
- kukkeliskuu 4y ago
  You are close, but there is a subtle problem. Most people do not really believe that the subconscious impacts our decisions. They may even theoretically say they do, but in practice their executive function believes it decided the decisions that were really done subconsciously. Ironically, if you believe that you are making the decisions, you cannot override them, and then you are actually not making the decisions. The key to free will is to really understand that you do not have it.
  - red75prime 4y ago
    I don't see anything actionable in "you have no free will" statement to care to deeply internalize it. Regardless of a flavor of "free will" interpretation.
    - kukkeliskuu 4y ago
      It is a good idea anyway not to internalize such a fundamental idea based on comments by a random person on the internet, regardless of whether it is actionable or not. It just appeared to me that this question is something that interests you, so I wanted to point you to a direction that I have found helpful. The general process, which appears to be common to various approaches, is to practice specific kind of meditation long enough that you start to see your automatic reactions to the sub-consciously made decisions to slow down, so you are in a way creating room for something before the immediate reaction, and then you can verify the truth in what I describe by yourself. So there is no need to believe what I say or nothing directly actionable that I can transmit through this medium that would be helpful to you. Few books I have found interesting on the subject: Gallwey: Inner Game of Tennis, Ouspensky: In Search of the Miraculous, Nicoll: Psychological Commentaries on the Teaching of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky

vvilliamperez 4y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroscience_of_free_will#Notable_experiments https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroscience_of_free_will#Nota...

pmontra 4y ago

The body should take instructions tough. Reacting quickly to somebody's else actions (a ping pong match, a very contested overtake in motorsport) can be totally unconscious but we must have consciously decided at least the general way of performing those activities: the guy on the car ahead suddenly steers left so I'm feinting right than go left again. Or fencing, or riding a horse in a race. Training could prepare the body to handle any action on autopilot but consciousness has a short leash on it.

Sevrene 4y ago

This reminds me of an article that talks about how sensory consciousness comes too late for conscious responses and how that might be 'rescued' by some yet to be proven quantum effects. I've linked it below, but here's a snippet from it that talks about the ms delay: Neural correlates of conscious perception occur 150–500 ms after impingement on our sense organs, apparently too late for causal efficacy in seemingly conscious perceptions and willful actions, often initiated or completed within 100 ms after sensory impingement. Velmans (1991, 2000) listed a number of examples: analysis of sensory inputs and their emotional content, phonological, and semantic analysis of heard speech and preparation of one's own spoken words and sentences, learning and formation of memories, and choice, planning and execution of voluntary acts. Consequently, the subjective feeling of conscious control of these behaviors is deemed illusory (Dennett, 1991; Wegner, 2002). In speech, evoked potentials (EPs) indicating conscious word recognition occur about 400 ms after auditory input, however semantic meaning is appreciated (and response initiated) after only 200 ms. As Velmans points out, only two phonemes are heard by 200 ms, and an average of 87 words share their first two phonemes. Even when contextual effects are considered, semantic processing and initiation of response occur before conscious recognition (Van Petten et al., 1999). Gray (2004) observes that in tennis “The speed of the ball after a serve is so great, and the distance over which it has to travel so short, that the player who receives the serve must strike it back before he has had time consciously to see the ball leave the server's racket. Conscious awareness comes too late to affect his stroke.” McCrone (1999): “[for] tennis players … facing a fast serve … even if awareness were actually instant, it would still not be fast enough ….” Nonetheless tennis players claim to see the ball consciously before they attempt to return it. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnint.2012.00093/full https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnint.2012.0009...

andreareina 4y ago
I think it's much more likely that we're measuring the wrong thing than it is that quantum effects allow us to react faster than our neutral circuitry.

edgyquant 4y ago

I've always disliked this interpretation of the data. All it suggests is the real system responsible is deeper that we currently think. Not that you are an illusion or whatever

ixsploit 4y ago
What difference does it make if you real self is an illusion or just something deep down outside our consciousness?
- jstanley 4y ago
  The consciousness isn't the illusion, the consciousness is the audience. An illusion doesn't trick anyone if there's noone to observe it.
  - naasking 4y ago
    > An illusion doesn't trick anyone if there's noone to observe it. An illusion is arguably a perception that, taken literally, entails a false conclusion, so I don't see a need to tie it to a subject.
    - edgyquant 4y ago
      The only thing I know for sure isn’t an illusion is my consciousness.

taberiand 4y ago

Or alternatively, the brain-body system isn't strictly a top-down hierarchy for decision making but a complex interconnected web of impulses and feedback loops. I remember hearing, for example, that making a smile can make a person feel happier (even though the subject is aware they are just making a happy face). Or in this particular case, perhaps the feeling of "deciding to press the button" is in fact the brain confirming that the muscles in the fingers have responded appropriately to the impulse provided, and sending out the appropriate messages?

tshaddox 4y ago
Still, isn’t the point that this clearly demonstrates that the system directly causing the physical movement is not the same system you identify as your “self”? That still seems profound, at least for anyone who places a lot of importance on that feeling of identity.
- aikendrum 4y ago
  Two possibilities - 1 - we take actions that are preconscious and reactive, and add consistency in later post hoc explanations. Or 2 - the conscious reflective self is more like a saccade of attention moving between various systems operating according to its overall supervision. I think two makes much more sense, since we don't observe the actions of others to be random or inconsistent (in ordinary circumstances), no matter how quickly they're responding. If George is on edge, and we throw a ball at George, George will do what he generally does - flinch, react with anger etc. George won't catch the ball perfectly in contrast with his emotional state. If Sue sees a famous criminal on the street, Sue will generally react as Sue would be expected to based on her priors - scream, run, freeze etc. Sue is unlikely to smile and raise her hand for a shake. Circumstances where we and others deviate from the 'reasonable' instantaneous response are rare, comical and associated with inattention, distraction or visceral symptoms (like illness). Therefore either we presuppose another personality operating at a preconscious level - or we are queuing classes of responses that make sense on some general level, even if they occur too fast for linguistic reflection or 'conscious' perception. The language example in the comment above is a great reflection of this. We are able to carry out coherent, situationally appropriate conversation including symbolic reasoning. So I'm not sure what kind of conditioned mechanism or second personality is supposed to be responsible if consciousness is eliminated.

leobg 4y ago

BF Skinner would have said: There is only behavior. Behavior is shaped by the environment. Thinking, speaking, and explaining are nothing but a special kind of behavior. Thus it is perfectly possible to be proficient at walking down stairs without being able to explain how exactly it is that you are doing it. In the same way, someone might be very proficient at explaining how to play tennis, without actually being able to hit a ball. these are just two very different kinds of behavior.

Grustaf 4y ago
He would have said that. But he would have been, and was, completely wrong. Surely nobody thinks Skinner explains anything on a deeper level anymore?
- naasking 4y ago
  I don't see how Skinner could be wrong unless you reject materialism. Everything reduces to the behaviour of particles in the end. Of course it's possible that behaviour is not an effective way to model and study human beings, just like using particle physics is not an effective way to study English literature, but there's little doubt that English literature reduces to particle physics in the end.
  - shkkmo 4y ago
    Sure, if you stretch the meaning of "behavior" far enough, that quote is true because it becomes a tautology. However, Skinner had some pretty specific ideas about what "behavior" meant and probably wouldn't have included stuff like playing a chess game against oneself in one's head.
- rendall 4y ago
  > Surely nobody thinks Skinner explains anything on a deeper level anymore? I know an academic animal behaviorist who swears that his is the only predictive model of any use, and that includes human behavior.
- leobg 4y ago

Gh0stRAT 4y ago

The experiment you describe reminds me of a short story "What's expected of us" by my favorite author Ted Chiang. [0] I won't spoil it too much because it's a fun short read, but it revolves around these little toys called "Predictors" which have a light that turns on exactly 1 second BEFORE you push the button. (no matter what you do to try to game it) [0] https://www.nature.com/articles/436150a https://www.nature.com/articles/436150a

MandieD 4y ago
Oh, he’s also the author of one of my favorite short stories, “The Great Silence”[0] Ironically, the endangered species[1] the narrator belongs to has managed to outlive the giant human object discussed, but it’s still at high risk of being wiped out in the wild the next time a hurricane hits Puerto Rico. [0] https://nautil.us/the-great-silence-237510/ https://nautil.us/the-great-silence-237510/ [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puerto_Rican_amazon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puerto_Rican_amazon
- fredoliveira 4y ago
  The Great Silence is my personal favorite short story. It is absolutely beautiful (and sad too, in a way).

vishnugupta 4y ago

Somewhat related, I read a while ago (there's even a book on this topic, can't recall the title) that our brain/mind is a hypothesis testing machine. i.e., it expects the world to be in a certain way and ask our body to act accordingly and if the hypothesis turns out to be false then it'll act surprised. The converse of it was quite interesting. If you force your body to behave a certain way then corresponding emotion will follow. Example; forcing your face to smile will lead to happy feeling. Goes to show mind-body connection is way stronger than what we imagine it to be.

criddell 4y ago
I heard something similar and I’ve always wondered if it was true. In patients who have had the two hemispheres of their brain disconnected, two distinct consciousnesses become apparent. They perceive differently and have different capabilities. I think the theory was there in each of us are multiple consciousnesses and our experience of reality is the result of consensus among them.

dan_mctree 4y ago

I'm confused about the conclusion. The way you laid it out, it seems that it could well just be electric signals from the conscious mind triggering the carousel. In which case the experiment would just show that the conscious thought happens first and the body movement after. The subjective experience of it being just before they were going to press the button, could just be explained by a correct built in assumption that every action takes some time

Grustaf 4y ago
Yes, that's exactly what it sounds like to me. They have "decided" to press the button, but the body hasn't yet followed the instruction. This situation will of course feel weird and unusual, but I don't think it says anything about consciousness being an illusion, whatever that might even mean.
- adamsmith143 4y ago
  This just isn't the right interpretation. How can you have made a conscious choice before you were aware you made it. In another similar experiment the subjects were told to choose one of two buttons to press and to take note of when they had decided. In all cases the experimenters were able to not only know when the decision was made, well before the subject noted they had decided, but also could predict what button they would press with some accuracy. https://www.nature.com/articles/nn.2112 https://www.nature.com/articles/nn.2112

kukkeliskuu 4y ago

I think you would enjoy the work of Rodolfo Llinas, for example this interview: http://thesciencenetwork.org/programs/the-science-studio/enter-the-i-of-the-vortex http://thesciencenetwork.org/programs/the-science-studio/ent... In the interview, he describes an experiment he did on himself. When he put a strong magnet on a certain spot on his head, his foot would turn outward. He was able to do this in a stable manner. Then he repeated the experiment, but decided beforehand that he will turn his foot inward instead. When they did the experiment, his foot still turned outward. His assistant asked "what happened?" and Rodolfo Llinas said "I changed my mind". They repeated the experiment many times, and each time he changed his mind. From this he concluded that he cannot differentiate when he decides to do something or when his body decides to do it, they both feel to him like he decided to do it.

rendall 4y ago
This experiment is so subject to experimenter bias that conclusions drawn from it are essentially useless.
naasking 4y ago
> From this he concluded that he cannot differentiate when he decides to do something or when his body decides to do it, they both feel to him like he decided to do it. Which arguably disproves mind-body dualism. "You" are your whole body, not a disconnected consciousness trapped in a physical form.
- orestarod 4y ago
  Well all decisions ARE made in the brain, conscious or not, and whatever consciousness is, it resides in those neurons. That is also influenced by various inputs of the rest of the body, of course, but I think we can safely assume "self" exists in the brain. Thinking it reversely, can we really say an organism with various complex parts but no brain has consciousness? You are not a disconnected consciousness, but some body parts are more easily discarded than others, and I think the brain tops most (all?) of the others regarding survivability - and is irreplaceable regarding the "self".

fartsucker69 4y ago

countless reasonable alternative explanations. for example, your inner voice could simply have some lag from the processing loop where you first need to perceive your inner voice which is a process that takes time, just like perceiving anything else. another example, your inner voice or however you experience your own consciousness could be a sort of separate process that just 1:1 outputs what your consciousness produces, but as a separate process just takes some time.

runsWphotons 4y ago

this sounds like you are aware the button isnt doing it and perceive there is some other mechanism, but you cant explain it? the writers conclusion doesnt seem to follow...

marginalia_nu 4y ago

> Subjects supposedly report the uncanny feeling that the projector advances "just before" they were about to push the button -- 300-400 milliseconds before, a pretty long time. There's a delay between your signal to move a muscle, and the movement of the muscle, but that is a discrepancy our brains tend to edit out of the experience. It's more noticeable with the legs where the signal needs to move farther. But if you tell your foot to curl its toes, there's like a quarter second delay that if you aren't paying very close attention to things feels like you're immediately moving the toes, even though that's clearly not it.

amelius 4y ago

If consciousness is out of the loop, then why are we discussing consciousness here? It should never come up.

fny 4y ago

This in the original paper to which the singularity hub article refers. > “They reported that just as they were ‘about to’ push the button, but before they had actually decided to do so, the projector would advance the slide—and they would find themselves pressing the button with the worry that it was going to advance the slide twice!” The commonsense view of consciousness tells us that the conscious decision to act precedes and causes the action itself. How do we explain this strange phenomenon in which motor actions occur before the conscious decisions to take these actions? How could the effect precede the cause? What advanced the slides was actually a signal from the implanted electrodes. https://journals.lww.com/cogbehavneurol/Fulltext/9900/Consciousness_as_a_Memory_System.19.aspx https://journals.lww.com/cogbehavneurol/Fulltext/9900/Consci...

Grustaf 4y ago
> The commonsense view of consciousness tells us that the conscious decision to act precedes and causes the action itself. I don't get it. The effect (the advancing of the slide) doesn't precede the cause (you deciding to advance it). The thing here is only that they dispensed with the middle step of physically pushing the button.
- cksk 4y ago
  What you’re not getting is the conscious part of “conscious decision”. The brain makes the decision BEFORE the consciousness is aware of it. But that’s not how we think we decide stuff; the experience we have is that we consciously choose to do something. The experiment shows that decision is actually made by the unconscious part of the mind, and the consciousness is only made aware of it later, while still believing it was in control the entire time.
  - Grustaf 4y ago
    > "They reported that just as they were ‘about to’ push the button, but before they had actually decided to do so" It seems to me it's just a matter of definition. Clearly it was a conscious decision, since they are able to talk about it. They even say they were "just about to push the button". The only confusion is that they also claim they hadn't "decided" to do so. So clearly there is no issue with the "conscious" part, but perhaps some confusion about what constitutes a "decision"? I mean, what does it mean to be "about to push", if not that they had in fact decided to?

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yummypaint 4y ago

I have long suspected that the feeling of struggling with math is the feeling of not closely riding the coattails of the unconscious mind, sort of the opposite of flow. When attempting something challenging for the first time, the intuition isn't developed yet and choices that aren't deliberately reasoned at some higher level are inevitably wrong. It takes a long time to train intuition and math is unforgiving about immediately telling people theyre wrong compared to most areas of thought.

OJFord 4y ago

> The writer suggested this research supports the idea that your body chooses what to do, then informs your brain, and your consciousness convinces itself that has decided to do what the body is about to do on its own. Surely it equally supports the less controversial 'your brain signals [as measured] the body to do something [push the button]'? How does it support adding 'your body signals the brain' to the front of that (roughly)?