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Thursday, August 30, 2007
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
From The Holographic Universe, by Michael Talbot, © 1991, Harper Perennial, paperback edition, Page 191c
Recently a discovery made by neurophysiologists Benjamin Libet and Bertram Feinstein at Mount Zion Hospital in San Francisco has been causing a stir in the scientific community.
(They) measured the time it took for a touch stimulus on a patient’s skin to reach the brain as an electrical signal. The patient was also asked to push a button when he . . . became aware of being touched.
Libet and Feinstein found that the brain registered the stimulus in 0.0001 of a second after it occurred, and the patient pressed the button 0.1 of a second after the stimulus was applied.
But, remarkably, the patient didn’t report being consciously aware of either the stimulus or pressing the button for almost 0.5 second. This meant that the decision to respond was being made by the patient’s unconscious mind.
The patient’s awareness of the action was the slow man in the race. Even more disturbing, none of the patients Libet and Feinstein tested were aware that their unconscious minds had already caused them to push the button before they had consciously decided to do so.
Somehow, their brains were creating the comforting delusion that they had consciously controlled the action even though they had not.
This has caused some researchers to wonder if free will is an illusion.
Later studies have shown that one and a half seconds before we “decide” to move one of our muscles, such as lift a finger, our brain has already started to generate the signals necessary to accomplish the movement.
Again, who is making the decisions, the conscious mind or the unconscious mind?
The Gazette . . . . . . . . . . . . . .B1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
CRIMINALS COULD SOON PLEAD ‘MY GENES MADE ME DO IT.’ (From The Toledo Blade, Bar Harbor, Maine)
Growing evidence that a person’s genes influence behavior may create serious dilemmas for law enforcement . . . a noted geneticist said . . . “Genes do appear to influence behavior,” said Dr. Leroy Hood, chairman of the department of molecular biotechnology at the University of Washington in Seattle.
“Since our system of law is based on free will and individual responsibility, could a future criminal argue extenuating circumstances because his genes made him commit the criminal act?”
.
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leeherald-eclectic.blogspot.com/
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BLOGS KEYWORDS
Albert, astonishing, astounding, big bang, cause, criminal, death row, defense, determinism, does, Einstein, environment, experiment, far-out, fatalism, fate, free, free will, Fundamentalist, genes, genetics, God, ideas, infinite, imagine, illusion, incompatible, issues, justice, law, lion, logic, metaphysics, myth, novel, novelist, publish, research, roar, scientific, supreme, system, the, theory, think, thoughtless, turmoil, why, writer, wrong
Recently a discovery made by neurophysiologists Benjamin Libet and Bertram Feinstein at Mount Zion Hospital in San Francisco has been causing a stir in the scientific community.
(They) measured the time it took for a touch stimulus on a patient’s skin to reach the brain as an electrical signal. The patient was also asked to push a button when he . . . became aware of being touched.
Libet and Feinstein found that the brain registered the stimulus in 0.0001 of a second after it occurred, and the patient pressed the button 0.1 of a second after the stimulus was applied.
But, remarkably, the patient didn’t report being consciously aware of either the stimulus or pressing the button for almost 0.5 second. This meant that the decision to respond was being made by the patient’s unconscious mind.
The patient’s awareness of the action was the slow man in the race. Even more disturbing, none of the patients Libet and Feinstein tested were aware that their unconscious minds had already caused them to push the button before they had consciously decided to do so.
Somehow, their brains were creating the comforting delusion that they had consciously controlled the action even though they had not.
This has caused some researchers to wonder if free will is an illusion.
Later studies have shown that one and a half seconds before we “decide” to move one of our muscles, such as lift a finger, our brain has already started to generate the signals necessary to accomplish the movement.
Again, who is making the decisions, the conscious mind or the unconscious mind?
The Gazette . . . . . . . . . . . . . .B1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
CRIMINALS COULD SOON PLEAD ‘MY GENES MADE ME DO IT.’ (From The Toledo Blade, Bar Harbor, Maine)
Growing evidence that a person’s genes influence behavior may create serious dilemmas for law enforcement . . . a noted geneticist said . . . “Genes do appear to influence behavior,” said Dr. Leroy Hood, chairman of the department of molecular biotechnology at the University of Washington in Seattle.
“Since our system of law is based on free will and individual responsibility, could a future criminal argue extenuating circumstances because his genes made him commit the criminal act?”
.
.
CLICK for MORE BLOGS
leeherald-eclectic.blogspot.com/
.
.
.
BLOGS KEYWORDS
Albert, astonishing, astounding, big bang, cause, criminal, death row, defense, determinism, does, Einstein, environment, experiment, far-out, fatalism, fate, free, free will, Fundamentalist, genes, genetics, God, ideas, infinite, imagine, illusion, incompatible, issues, justice, law, lion, logic, metaphysics, myth, novel, novelist, publish, research, roar, scientific, supreme, system, the, theory, think, thoughtless, turmoil, why, writer, wrong
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