In continuation of the post on "We" lagging behind our brains, I am quoiting Dr. Vilayanur S Ramachandran's words on this subject. Please read on ....
"Now let's go back to normals and do a PET scan when you're voluntarily moving your finger using your free will. A second to three-fourths of a second prior to moving your finger, I get the EEG potential and it's called the Readiness Potential. It's as though the brain events are kicking in a second prior to your actual finger movement, even though your conscious intention of moving the finger coincides almost exactly with the wiggle of the finger. Why? Why is the mental sensation of willing the finger delayed by a second, coming a second after the brain events kick in as monitored by the EEG? What might the evolutionary rationale be?
The answer is, I think, that there is an inevitable neural delay before the signal arising in the brain cascades through the brain and the message arrives to wiggle you finger. There's going to be a delay because of neural processing - just like the satellite interviews on TV which you've all been watching. So natural selection has ensured that the subjective sensation of wiling is delayed deliberately to coincide not with the onset of the brain commands but with the actual execution of the command by your finger, so that you feel you're moving it.
And this in turn is telling you something important. It's telling you that the subjective sensations that accompany brain events must have an evolutionary purpose, for if it had no purpose and merely accompanied brain events - like so many philosophers believe (this is called epiphenomenalism) - in other words the subjective sensation of willing is like a shadow that moves with you as you walk but is not causal in making you move, if that's correct then why would evolution bother delaying the signal so that it coincides with your finger movement?
So you see the amazing paradox is that on the one hand the experiment shows that free will is illusory, right? It can't be causing the brain events because the events kick in a second earlier. But on the other hand it has to have some function because if it didn't have a function, why would evolution bother delaying it? But if it does have a function, what could it be other than moving the finger? So may be our very notion of causation requires a radical revision here as happened in quantum physics. OK, enough of free will. It's all philosophy!"
Splendid !.
But I salute the great Lord Buddha, who declared 2500 years ago. that the notion of our 'self' is an illusion (though he could not tell us the process behind this). In fact there is only moment to moment existence.
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2 weeks ago
15 comments:
Some schizophrenics don’t feel this illusion of free will temporarily. These people write strange things, hit or grab others. Most of the patients feel that some kind of supernatural power is acting through them or making their hand moves. They may have some problems with the pathways of awareness. The necessary neural actions for the feeling of ‘free will’ may not follow the concerned actions. As a psychiatrist you will be able to describe it better than me.
A person with an illusion of free will is more normal than a person without an illusion of free will! It’s funny we need some necessary illusions to cope with the reality.
Thank you.
moment to moment existence ?! If there is an evolutionary purpose attributed to an occurrence, namely the early firing of neurons here, at the micro level, to be consistent and scientific, the same principle cannot be abandoned at the macro level. Hence moment to moment existence, implying purposelessness, and evolutinary purpose existing at the neuronal level, dont seem to go together, i think. Maybe you can clarify because i am commenting from excerpts while you have the bigger picture. Thank you.
hi ajeesh i am sorry i did not follow up on your comments addressed to me in earlier threads.
Hi Sashi
'Moment to moment existence' is a beautiful philosophical concept, may be you have heard that 'a person can not step in to a river twice'. The river will not be the same when he makes the second step. You can see things from a totally different point of view too. There is no 'moment to moment' because time is an illusion. We are suspended in a single point of time. Both views are great, one is from Buddha and the other is from Einstein. Both views can also be true at the same time, look at a necker cube, there are two opposing different views but we can't say that one view is better than the other.
The problem of 'will or action first' has another form, what happens first cause or effect? Is light a wave or a particle? Wave is the opposite of particle, entirely different and opposing. Light is both at the same time.
I do not know what the concept of 'moment to moment existence' has to do with neurology. Dr.Harish will have a better explanation.
It is difficult to integrate philosophy of Buddhism with concepts of neuroscience. I only meant to highlight that self is an illusion created by the way our brain/mind tries to create stability out of transient neural processes. It msy be better not to confuse philosophy with science. It may not be easy for us to break from this illusion of apparent stable world. Buddhist monks may be able to do that after years of rigorous meditation. I have read of experiments on such trained monks conducted by renowned neuroscientists. They are able to change their mental state and its neurophysiological correlates - for example meditation on nothingness or compassion etc shows up differently on the functional brain imaging. I think it is best to be contended with V S Ramachandran's observations quoted in the original post.
hi, i was only pointing out an apparent discrepancy in the application of the evolutinary principle at the micro and macro level. I do not necessarily endorse the position. A biological event could be a result of evolution, accident, random mutations, environmental factors or a combination of these factors.this is even more likely at the micro level. Harish, Philosophy is the precursor of science. Philosophy asks why, science finds out how. Both are enquiries. As a simple example, the question as to why an apple should fall to the ground instead of going up is essentially a philosophical one. When that question was answered by newton, the philosophical question died a natural death, nobody asks that question now, and philosophy moves on to ask other unanswered questions. So philosophy is never in conflict with science, it is the articulation of a society's needs which stimulates the development of a scientific answer. Thanj you.
hi ajeesh, is time an illusion ?! Is it not the way we percieve it an illusion ? Isnt mass, space and time undeniable realities even though we need not neccessarily agree with any postulated relationships among them ? Thank you
Hi Sashi,
Can we think of a time that is independent of our perception? When I say that the time is an illusion, I mean our perception of time. Colour, Shapes or Time, all of these things are our perception.
Make a vehicle that can travel at the speed of light and escape from the earth, come back after 100 years (100 years in the earth and in the human being's sense of time - what the watches, clocks or calendars show, made by human beings). You will be at the same age (the age when you left here) when you get back here, Dr.Harish and I will not be here but died many years ago. Now it looks like that time is relative but at a closer look, I think time is an illusion. It may be interesting to read 'A brief history of time' written by Stephen Hawking, a book that changed the way I look at space and time.
A clock in a moving train has more dilated/slow time compared to a clock hanging in the railway station!
It is extremely difficult to think that Colour has nothing to do with objects or even light! But that's the truth.
Try to imagine this. Remove Name and Form from everything. What remains?
Name is our creation and Form is only in the head, not in the world.
Your comment about the relation of Science and Philosophy is so beautiful and correct. Thank you.
I agree with Sashi that philosophy is a precursor of science. Philosophers raise questions which are answered by scientifc experiments. Again it is the philosophers who explain the implications of scientific theories. Einstein has shown that space/time is a continuum, though we percieve them as different. Here I am tempted to compare mind/brain, which again we percieve as separate. We need the work of another Einstein to get rid of his dualistic ideas from all of us.
On time: Stepehn Hawking speaks of the thermodynamic arrw of time, based on the principle that entropy can only increase in a system (2nd law of thermodynamics). A broken pot cannot go back in time and become the unbroken pot as it violates the second law of thermodynamics.
Ajeesh's issue of names, forms etc are issues discussed bu western philosophers long ago. I am avoiding this discussion as it is dry philosophy. Thank You
hi ajeesh, anything xisted, and can exist, before and beyond the reach of our living senses, namely our lifespan, cannot be termed an illusion. An illusion is born with us, and dies with us. An illusion is the product of a mind, and something that is felt by another mind, or minds in a substantially similar fashion, cannot be said to be an illusion, unless one subscribes to a view of a giant collective illusion. I have one small opinion to present to the attention of the bloggers here. I think that once one has assimilated a particular knowledge, or has studied it, and presents it, it becomes the product of his own thought processes, and frequent references to mr X or mr Y's opinions are not needed.because we know it as the blogger's opinion already. Anyway any opinion should stand on it's own merits irrespective of who said it. This is just a suggestion and sometimes a quote may be so aesthetically pleasing or conclusive proof of something that it may need to be disseminated, but only in such situations please ! Thank you
Hi Sashi,
Illusion is defined as
1. a false or unreal perception or belief
or
2. a deceptive appearance or impression
I think time fits well into this definition. It has a deceptive appearance or an unreal perception to an ordinary human being. This perception of time is enough for our practical purposes in daily life. But in a true philosophical sense, I like to label time as an illusion. And in the usual meaning of time, it may not even deserve a discussion, we do not have any disagreements.
Thank you.
hi ajeesh, no disagreement at all. These chats wil protect us from Alzheimer's disease, if nothhng else ! i agree that your views are philosophically relevant. The only thing that bothers me is that we have to ouselves subject to dualistic thhnking when dealing with patients. We have to accept that their view is a reality for them as much as it is an illusion for us. I only thought we should accept a view held by a patient or others as valid to him, and then explore the deficiencies of that view, if present. I spoke of things not being an illusion in that sense only, as it can be argued that whether a thing is an illusion or a reality is in itself a result of a perception of the individual making that observation. Thank you.
Technically, illusion is a sensory deception. You perceive with youur senses (vision, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching etc. But if there is no underlying object for this perception it is called a hallucination. If there really is something, and you mistake it for something else (a rope for a snake as an example)it is an illusion. Psychiatrists differentiate these two clearly. The diagnostic significance of these two are different.
Regarding time: I do nont accpet that time is an illusion. Sashi has given one reason for this. Passage of time is an objective thing occuring independent of our perception. I think Ajeesh means a different thing. For example if u are listening to a boring lecture u thing an hour ie too long. But if u are doing something interesdting (reading or watching a favorite program), we experience time as flying fast. This differnce in subjective perception is unreal, as it can be objectively shown that the duration of an hour is 3600 seconds in both cases.
The thought experiment used by Hawking (of 2 travellers - one on earth and the other on board a train moving at the velocity of time), is another real scientifc possibility. But I am unable to discuss this further as I am not an expert on this. Anyway it falls outside the purview of psychology and related subjects.
Time dilates when the speed increases, it is relative. There are also other problems with time and space that I am not able to discuss here because of my limited knowledge in the subject. What I am trying to say is that we perceive time as an absolute or standard thing but it is relative. So I called it an illusion. I did not consider it as hallucination.
That's physics but there are also some problems in our daily life. Time is different on different places on the earth. You have to adjust your watch when you travel in a jet and landing in another place or country. We also make adjustments to our time and calendar though it is rare. Perception of the ‘passage of time’ also dependent on the mood of the person. I think it is safe to assume that both in physics and practical daily life, time acts as relative but we perceive it as absolute. Isn't it an illusion?
Thank you.
Dear Ajeesh, I agree that perception of time is relative. Yes, both in physics and in our subjective experience. But is bettere to avoid the term illusion which has a clearly defined meaning in psychology and psychiatry.
Time is not a percept in the strict sense of the word. The term illusion can be used with peception. I have not thought much on this, may be time is an experience independent of our senses. Passage of time is a reality even if there is no one to perceive it. Thanks you. Full credit is due for the analytical rigor you show in your responses.
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