2012-04-22 18:32:22
The research casts serious doubts on our ability to consciously decide
Science has shown that some firmly established beliefs have ended up being revealed as false illusions, deceptions of the senses. One of the most famous is, perhaps, the illusion that the Earth is flat. The evidence finally demonstrated that the Earth is spherical and that it only appears to be flat as a result of its enormous size and the point of view from which we normally observe it: the ground, or the window of our house.
Like this illusion about the geometry of the Earth, it is possible that we still harbor others, much dearer to us, that science is nevertheless destroying. I am referring to nothing less than the freedom of conscious decision. As incredible as it may seem, scientific research in recent years casts serious doubts on our ability to consciously decide.
This may be unprecedented and unacceptable, but just like the photographs obtained by artificial satellites, from a point of view higher than the highest possible on Earth, they have ended up clearing up any doubt about the sphericity of our planet, technology Modern technology applied to the analysis of brain activity is also leaving little doubt about the fact that the decisions we make are actually made by our subconscious.
IMAGES OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS
In a series of experiments carried out in 2008, people were asked to press a button, if they wished, when they saw one of the letters that appeared every half second on a computer screen, and to remember which of the four letters letters used had seen before pressing it. The cadence of the letters was designed to determine the moment in which the subjects made the conscious decision. While they performed this task, their brain activity was analyzed using the functional magnetic resonance imaging technique.
Analysis of the images of brain activity revealed that no less than about ten seconds before the subjects were aware that they had decided to press the button, their brain had already unconsciously decided. Apparently, decisions are made by the brain well before the brain itself causes the illusion in our consciousness that the decision is made by it. Scientific data indicates that this is not true.
Perhaps due to the persistence of the economic crisis, a new study has analyzed brain activity while subjects make decisions that involve losing or gaining money. The study was carried out with patients with depression or obsessive-compulsive disorder undergoing therapy that required the implantation of electrodes in their brains. These electrodes, in addition to their usefulness in trying to mitigate depression or obsessions, could be used to analyze the activity of the neurons that were activated when making decisions.
The area of the brain that could be studied in this way was the so-called “nucleus accumbens”, the area where the electrodes were implanted. This area of the brain receives and processes important information about emotions, memories and reasoning, which are key to the decision-making process.
While with the implanted electrodes, patients were invited to play a very simple card game. The game is played in pairs and consists of dealing a card to each participant. The highest one wins. In this case, the game was played with only five cards, the even numbers 2 to 10 of spades. Each participant could see his own card, but not his opponent’s. After weighing the probability of winning or losing, they could bet either $5 (I’ll gamble, but not much because I’m not sure I’ll win), or $20 (I’m almost sure my card is the winner), by pressing one of two buttons. . The die was then cast.
ECONOMIC NEURONS
While the patients were making these decisions, the researchers analyzed the neural activity revealed by the electrodes. This analysis allowed us to detect 19 neurons involved in the financial decision-making process which, in principle, should not be very different from that which is launched when people with money bet on the stock market.
The electrical signals from these cells made it possible to predict whether a person was going to make the highest or lowest bet, that is, after observing the activity of the neurons and the behavior of the patients, the researchers observed that the pattern of neuronal activity It differed according to the bet finally placed, which allowed them to use this information to predict the bettors’ behavior. The neural activity predicted the final behavior in almost three seconds, and this activity was before the person was aware of the decision.
Together with the previous ones, these data are, to say the least, surprising. It is overwhelming to think that, probably, as I write this, my brain is unconsciously deciding which word to use before “I” is aware of the illusion that “I” chose it. You’ll forgive my subconscious if you don’t like what I write. But who or what am “I” after all? If choices are the impulse that shapes our lives, and if they happen first at an unconscious level, would life be just a disjointed set of unconscious choices that we think we make consciously? In my opinion, this question generates a certain unease that, I fear, scientific research in this field will only increase.
WORKS BY JORGE LABORDA.
One Moon, one civilization. Why the Moon tells us that we are alone in the Universe
One Moon one civilization why the Moon tells us we are alone in the universe
The intelligence funnel and other essays
The thousand and one bases of DNA and other scientific stories
#Cienciaes.com #Unconscious #decisions #Science #Podcasts