Consciousness

[fromderinside]

Please show the research that shows that last-second decisions are not predictable. It was my understanding that the action potentials precede the conscious awareness of the decision.

A quick Bing search found: http://exploringthemind.com/the-min...al-your-decisions-7-seconds-before-you-decide

In a kind of spooky experiment, scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences reveal that our decisions are made seconds before we become aware of them.
In the study, participants could freely decide if they wanted to press a button with their right or left hand.
The only condition was that they had to remember when they made the decision to either use their right hand or left hand.
Using fMRI, researchers would scan the brains of the participants while all of this was going on in order to find out if they could in fact predict which hand the participants would use BEFORE they were consciously aware of the decision.

The Results

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By monitoring the micro patterns of activity in the frontopolar cortex, the researchers could predict which hand the participant would choose 7 SECONDS before the participant was aware of the decision.
“Your decisions are strongly prepared by brain activity. By the time consciousness kicks in, most of the work has already been done,” said study co-author John-Dylan Haynes, a Max Planck Institute neuroscientist.
I don’t even know where to begin here! I know from the hypnosis research that the unconscious pretty much controls everything and that consciousness is extremely limited.
But, I do find it a bit disconcerting that decisions are made by unconscious me 7 seconds before conscious me…
I am not the only one.

That's completely incredible, and I am finding it very hard to accept, and not a little uncomfortable to imagine.

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I had no idea that people actually used Bing for searches.

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Just another example there are more possibilities than one presumes leading up to one's 'intent'

 

[untermensche]

My view is there are behavioral possibilities being processed all the time many competing for control or advantage in decision process. Several are at various stages of preparation at any given time. The one chosen often is not the one most likely up to the point of no return which may vary depending on the value changes at the last movement. In any case every one is prepped prior to execution responding to each of its drivers from past activity. No veto anywhere, just computations in likelihood processes.

If you've ever watched a moth or a butterfly in flight you'd know what I write is correct.

Again, you don't even entertain the possibility that consciousness can direct activity under some circumstances.

And since so little is known of brain activity and nothing of the activity that results in consciousness is understood it is easy to claim our experience of having to do "something" to move the arm is a fantasy.

 

[DBT]

My view is there are behavioral possibilities being processed all the time many competing for control or advantage in decision process. Several are at various stages of preparation at any given time. The one chosen often is not the one most likely up to the point of no return which may vary depending on the value changes at the last movement. In any case every one is prepped prior to execution responding to each of its drivers from past activity. No veto anywhere, just computations in likelihood processes.

If you've ever watched a moth or a butterfly in flight you'd know what I write is correct.

Again, you don't even entertain the possibility that consciousness can direct activity under some circumstances.

And since so little is known of brain activity and nothing of the activity that results in consciousness is understood it is easy to claim our experience of having to do "something" to move the arm is a fantasy.

There is no consciousness without the presence of a brain forming and generating consciousness in response to information inputs and memory function. It is not consciousness that responds, but the brain. It is brain response, sometimes through the means of conscious actions, sometimes not....reflex actions bypass consciousness, etc. You habitually ignore all evidence, all research and all experiments and all results.

 

[untermensche]

Again, you don't even entertain the possibility that consciousness can direct activity under some circumstances.

And since so little is known of brain activity and nothing of the activity that results in consciousness is understood it is easy to claim our experience of having to do "something" to move the arm is a fantasy.

There is no consciousness without the presence of a brain forming and generating consciousness in response to information inputs and memory function. It is not consciousness that responds, but the brain. It is brain response, sometimes through the means of conscious actions, sometimes not....reflex actions bypass consciousness, etc. You habitually ignore all evidence, all research and all experiments and all results.

Yes, consciousness is an effect.

An effect with feedback capabilities.

The only question is how.

 

[DBT]

There is no consciousness without the presence of a brain forming and generating consciousness in response to information inputs and memory function. It is not consciousness that responds, but the brain. It is brain response, sometimes through the means of conscious actions, sometimes not....reflex actions bypass consciousness, etc. You habitually ignore all evidence, all research and all experiments and all results.

Yes, consciousness is an effect.

An effect with feedback capabilities.

The only question is how.

All 'feed in' (inputs) and all 'feedback' is the work of the brain, consciousness comes after the event, after inputs, after propagation, after processing/memory integration/enabling recognition, after readiness potential. Consciousness, despite your persistent claims, is not an autonomous agent.

 

[untermensche]

Yes, consciousness is an effect.

An effect with feedback capabilities.

The only question is how.

All 'feed in' (inputs) and all 'feedback' is the work of the brain, consciousness comes after the event, after inputs, after propagation, after processing/memory integration/enabling recognition, after readiness potential. Consciousness, despite your persistent claims, is not an autonomous agent.

The conscious will to move the arm always comes before the event. Never after the event.

It may come after events you do not understand but nothing can be made of events that are not understood.

If consciousness can effect brain activity it is merely an effect that can also have an effect.

 

[DBT]

All 'feed in' (inputs) and all 'feedback' is the work of the brain, consciousness comes after the event, after inputs, after propagation, after processing/memory integration/enabling recognition, after readiness potential. Consciousness, despite your persistent claims, is not an autonomous agent.

The conscious will to move the arm always comes before the event. Never after the event.

.

You still neglect to consider the sequence of events that begin with inputs, conscious representation and motor action. It being the brain that forms both consciousness of an impending action (report) and performs the necessary motor actions related to the intended action....inputs and information processing leading to both conscious awareness of an impending action and the action being consciously performed....these distinct brain functions having been separated and confirmed in numerous experiments (provided), which you ignore in favour of your own incomplete and flawed version of cognition.

 

[untermensche]

The conscious will to move the arm always comes before the event. Never after the event.

.

You still neglect to consider the sequence of events that begin with inputs, conscious representation and motor action. It being the brain that forms both consciousness of an impending action (report) and performs the necessary motor actions related to the intended action....inputs and information processing leading to both conscious awareness of an impending action and the action being consciously performed....these distinct brain functions having been separated and confirmed in numerous experiments (provided), which you ignore in favour of your own incomplete and flawed version of cognition.

You are merely attaching labels to activity you don't understand.

You don't know how it arose or under what influence.

 

[DBT]

You still neglect to consider the sequence of events that begin with inputs, conscious representation and motor action. It being the brain that forms both consciousness of an impending action (report) and performs the necessary motor actions related to the intended action....inputs and information processing leading to both conscious awareness of an impending action and the action being consciously performed....these distinct brain functions having been separated and confirmed in numerous experiments (provided), which you ignore in favour of your own incomplete and flawed version of cognition.

You are merely attaching labels to activity you don't understand.

You don't know how it arose or under what influence.

The sequence is not hard to grasp or understand, even you yourself don't want to or cannot. Awareness of an external event cannot precede information input related to that event via the senses. Awareness of the information from that event as it enters the system cannot form before the information is propagated and processed, visual cortex, auditory cortex, etc, thoughts cannot form before readiness potential is achieved, actions cannot happen before inputs, processing, etc, etc, unless they are reflex actions initiated by nerve loops.

Basic physics. Basic physiology, response times, etc.

Because this doesn't suit you, you pretend that it cannot be understood.

 

[untermensche]

Awareness of an external event cannot precede information input related to that event via the senses.

We can be aware of an event that hasn't taken place.

I can imagine my arm moving before I actually move it.

We actually do that all the time. It is called motor planning.

 

[DBT]

Awareness of an external event cannot precede information input related to that event via the senses.

I can imagine my arm moving before I actually move it.

Which still ignores how your experience is being generated, or the unconscious activity that precedes (milliseconds) your imagination of your arm moving before your move it. Your brain producing both your conscious experience of imagining lifting your arm and the motor actions involved in lifting your arm for whatever reason the thought and desire emerged in the first place.

That is what you habitually ignore, that being what the evidence supports.

 

[fromderinside]

My view is there are behavioral possibilities being processed all the time many competing for control or advantage in decision process. Several are at various stages of preparation at any given time. The one chosen often is not the one most likely up to the point of no return which may vary depending on the value changes at the last movement. In any case every one is prepped prior to execution responding to each of its drivers from past activity. No veto anywhere, just computations in likelihood processes.

If you've ever watched a moth or a butterfly in flight you'd know what I write is correct.

Again, you don't even entertain the possibility that consciousness can direct activity under some circumstances.

And since so little is known of brain activity and nothing of the activity that results in consciousness is understood it is easy to claim our experience of having to do "something" to move the arm is a fantasy.

I need more than faith to entertain such views. You haven't overcome my contention that the conscious is an illusion, I supported that view with will debunking, the current conversation, failure to find unique causality beyond my statement on determinism below, and social social being rationals and evidence.

Second I've found determinism pervasive in the world making any claim of consciousness or will impossible. To be precise

The world is governed by (or is under the sway of) determinism if and only if, given a specified way things are at a time t, the way things go thereafter is fixed as a matter of natural law.

. No logical rewriting of that results in a conscious, or, gives hope to the idea that since we don't know all that much about the brain it will be found that there is a rewriting of natural law.

 

[untermensche]

I can imagine my arm moving before I actually move it.

Which still ignores how your experience is being generated, or the unconscious activity that precedes (milliseconds) your imagination of your arm moving before your move it. Your brain producing both your conscious experience of imagining lifting your arm and the motor actions involved in lifting your arm for whatever reason the thought and desire emerged in the first place.

That is what you habitually ignore, that being what the evidence supports.

You don't have the slightest clue how any aspect of experience is generated.

Your pretend knowledge is only for some pretend world.

 

[untermensche]

I need more than faith to entertain such views. You haven't overcome my contention that the conscious is an illusion, I supported that view with will debunking, the current conversation, failure to find unique causality beyond my statement on determinism below, and social social being rationals and evidence.

Sure you need more than faith.

But all we have is our experience.

Either the brain is a great deceiver for no known reason.

Or experience is truthful and our understandings are very preliminary.

 

[fromderinside]

Sure you need more than faith.

But all we have is our experience.

Either the brain is a great deceiver for no known reason.

Or experience is truthful and our understandings are very preliminary.

Our experience is only as good as we develop it. Most do a lousy job. It is never truthful or demonstrates much fidelity. Just one example of how flawed and untruthful it is: No unarmed black would ever die at the hands of a white cop, nor ,would any cop who shot an unarmed black get off. So you great deceiver theory gets kudos. Oh, and the reasons are know which makes it all the worse.

Glittering generalities are not admitted in rational discussion.

Hope you enjoyed your teleological flag waving.

We have empiricism as an approach which tends to cancel out bias and ax grinding and we have the experimental method from which we have been building and understanding of the laws of nature to which we are privy. Experience is a poor second or third here. Even rationalism pales in the glaring light of understanding provided by those.

 

[untermensche]

Sure you need more than faith.

But all we have is our experience.

Either the brain is a great deceiver for no known reason.

Or experience is truthful and our understandings are very preliminary.

Our experience is only as good as we develop it. Most do a lousy job. It is never truthful or demonstrates much fidelity. Just one example of how flawed and untruthful it is: No unarmed black would ever die at the hands of a white cop, nor ,would any cop who shot an unarmed black get off. So you great deceiver theory gets kudos. Oh, and the reasons are know which makes it all the worse.

Glittering generalities are not admitted in rational discussion.

Hope you enjoyed your teleological flag waving.

We have empiricism as an approach which tends to cancel out bias and ax grinding and we have the experimental method from which we have been building and understanding of the laws of nature to which we are privy. Experience is a poor second or third here. Even rationalism pales in the glaring light of understanding provided by those.

We?

You have no more empirical evidence of consciousness than I do.

You don't have the slightest clue what it actually is.

Looking at brain activity and pretending to understand it is all I can see on your side here.

 

[DBT]

Which still ignores how your experience is being generated, or the unconscious activity that precedes (milliseconds) your imagination of your arm moving before your move it. Your brain producing both your conscious experience of imagining lifting your arm and the motor actions involved in lifting your arm for whatever reason the thought and desire emerged in the first place.

That is what you habitually ignore, that being what the evidence supports.

You don't have the slightest clue how any aspect of experience is generated.

Your pretend knowledge is only for some pretend world.

That being your standard line of defense. I am referring to actual experiments and actual results and what actual researchers are saying, while you just assert your beliefs then fall back to 'you don't know' or 'nobody knows' whenever your unfounded claims are challenged.

 

[untermensche]

You don't have the slightest clue how any aspect of experience is generated.

Your pretend knowledge is only for some pretend world.

That being your standard line of defense. I am referring to actual experiments and actual results and what actual researchers are saying, while you just assert your beliefs then fall back to 'you don't know' or 'nobody knows' whenever your unfounded claims are challenged.

Sorry but you have no clue how any aspect of conscious experience is generated.

Your claims that you understand how anything is generated in the brain are nonsense.

All you can do is see activity when it happens.

You never have the slightest idea why it happened.

 

[DBT]

And there it is again, right on cue.

 

[bilby]

Untermensch -

I don't know anything

Therefore nobody knows anything

Therefore you don't know anything

Therefore what I know is correct.