+ Reply to Thread
Results 1 to 4 of 4

Thread: Free Will May Just Be the Brain's 'Background Noise,' Scientists Say

  1. Link to Post #1
    United States Avalon Member Skywizard's Avatar
    Join Date
    25th August 2012
    Location
    Dixieland ~ USA
    Posts
    1,362
    Thanks
    1,575
    Thanked 15,727 times in 1,319 posts

    Default Free Will May Just Be the Brain's 'Background Noise,' Scientists Say





    It's a question that has plagued philosophers and scientists for thousands of years: Is free will an illusion?

    Now, a new study suggests that free will may arise from a hidden signal buried in the "background noise" of chaotic electrical activity in the brain, and that this activity occurs almost a second before people consciously decide to do something.

    Though "purposeful intentions, desires and goals drive our decisions in a linear cause-and-effect kind of way, our finding shows that our decisions are also influenced by neural noise within any given moment," study co-author Jesse Bengson, a neuroscientist at the University of California, Davis, wrote in an email to Live Science. "This random firing, or noise, may even be the carrier upon which our consciousness rides, in the same way that radio static is used to carry a radio station."

    This background noise may allow people to respond creatively to novel situations, and it may even give human behavior the "flavor of free will," Bengson said.

    Predetermined or random

    Sir Isaac Newton's laws of classical mechanics suggested the universe was deterministic, with an inevitable effect for every cause. By Newtonian logic, a "freely" made decision is completely predetermined by the actions that precede it.

    But quantum physics revealed that subatomic particles' behavior is inherently unpredictable. As a result, physical forces like gravity and electromagnetism can't completely dictate the future based on past events, thus leaving a tiny window for free will to operate through the random behavior of subatomic particles.

    Still, many philosophers doubted that the random behavior of miniscule particles could translate to free will, because quantum effects don't hold much sway at larger scales.

    Experiments performed in the 1970s also raised doubts about human volition. Those studies, conducted by the late neuroscientist Benjamin Libet, revealed that the region of the brain that plans and executes movement, called the motor cortex, fired prior to people's decision to press a button, suggesting this part of the brain "makes up its mind" before peoples' conscious decision making kicks in.

    Hidden signal?

    To understand more about conscious decision making, Bengson's team used electroencephalography (EEG) to measure the brain waves of 19 undergraduates as they looked at a screen and were cued to make a random decision about whether to look right or left.

    When people made their decision, a characteristic signal registered that choice as a wave of electrical activity that spread across specific brain regions.

    But in a fascinating twist, other electrical activity emanating from the back of the head predicted people's decisions up to 800 milliseconds before the signature of conscious decision making emerged.

    This brain activity wasn't strictly a signal at all — it was "noise," part of the brain's omnipresent and seemingly random electrical firing. In fact, neuroscientists usually consider this background noise meaningless and subtract it when trying to figure out the brain response to a specific task, said Rick Addante, a neuroscientist at the University of Texas at Dallas who was not involved in the research.

    In other words, some hidden signal in the background noise of the brain seemed to determine people's conscious decisions before they made them.

    "That's what's wild about it; it's not all noise," Addante told Live Science. "The question then becomes, what is it, and what is the informationthat it contains?"

    Open question

    The new study doesn't prove or disprove free will, Addante said.

    "If there's something else occurring before our conscious awareness that's contributing to our decision, that raises the question about the extent of our free will," Addante said. On the other hand, the findings might open the door to free will by suggesting it rides on, but isn't quite the same as, the random background noise in our brains, he said.

    But Ali Mazaheri, a neuroscientist at the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands, sees the results as a blow to true free will.

    The findings suggest that previous biases in the firing of the brain's sensory processing systems add up, leading people to decisions that the conscious brain later follows, said Mazaheri, who was not involved in the study.

    Useful illusion?

    But if free will is an illusion, why does it feel so real?

    Though that's still a mystery, one theory is that life would be too depressing without the illusion of choice, making it hard for humans to survive and reproduce.

    "The idea is that you have the illusion of free will as an artifact to be able to get through life," Mazaheri told Live Science.



    Source: http://www.livescience.com/46411-fre...und-noise.html


    This is really some deep shizzznit... IMO
    peace...
    ~~ One foot in the Ancient World and the other in the Now ~~

  2. The Following 5 Users Say Thank You to Skywizard For This Post:

    conk (20th June 2014), Elixir (20th June 2014), Frederick Jackson (20th June 2014), loungelizard (20th June 2014), yelik (20th June 2014)

  3. Link to Post #2
    Canada Avalon Member Tyy1907's Avatar
    Join Date
    17th February 2014
    Location
    Saskatoon SK
    Age
    42
    Posts
    1,532
    Thanks
    5,237
    Thanked 8,275 times in 1,435 posts

    Default Re: Free Will May Just Be the Brain's 'Background Noise,' Scientists Say

    Well whatever they analyze freewill to be, TPTB are trying to take it more and more.
    "Without the human request, nothing will happen."

    "This must never be forgotten, that the human has the power to prevail."

  4. The Following User Says Thank You to Tyy1907 For This Post:

    yelik (20th June 2014)

  5. Link to Post #3
    Mexico Avalon Retired Member
    Join Date
    7th November 2013
    Location
    Puerto Vallarta
    Posts
    282
    Thanks
    1,314
    Thanked 882 times in 243 posts

    Default Re: Free Will May Just Be the Brain's 'Background Noise,' Scientists Say

    Yes, this helps answer a question I have had for a number of years. This question was addressed in a piece I read (I think it was an Op Ed or something like that in the Washington Post) many years ago. The author (he may have been a scientist, but I cannot recall) make a strong point when he gave this example: You are lying in bed and you make a decision to get up. But you don't. And this may happen a few times. Then all of a sudden you jump up. What happened? The author likened the process of decision making to a bunch of ping pong balls hopping about (as in a power ball machine) until one ball just happens to find a socket to close the connection. Amazing. This "thought" experiment now finding substantial support here through these experiments.

  6. The Following User Says Thank You to Frederick Jackson For This Post:

    Skywizard (20th June 2014)

  7. Link to Post #4
    Great Britain Avalon Member
    Join Date
    2nd May 2014
    Language
    English
    Posts
    1,282
    Thanks
    6,142
    Thanked 6,647 times in 1,188 posts

    Default Re: Free Will May Just Be the Brain's 'Background Noise,' Scientists Say

    Perhaps our thoughts can be likened to a flock of migrating birds moving around the sky in what appears to be random waves. When a critical mass is attracted to the flock the decision and direction is triggered.

  8. The Following User Says Thank You to yelik For This Post:

    Skywizard (20th June 2014)

+ Reply to Thread

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts