Ha! Tätähän mä olen sanonut...

Dailymail:





Mind over matter: But do we make conscious choices?



But now science is coming up with some fascinating - and deeply uncomfortable - answers.



This week, for instance, Professor John-Dylan Haynes and colleagues at the Max Planck Institute in Germany report the findings of an extraordinary experiment which seems to show that " free will" - the most cherished tenet of humanity, which decrees that Man has total control of his own actions - may, in fact, be little more than an illusion.



For in their experiment, the scientists found that we may not be making conscious choices at all.



Rather, our subconscious minds may be dictating our actions, long before we realise.



It is a troubling suggestion. As Prof Haynes says: " The impression that we are freely able to choose between different possible courses of action is fundamental to our mental health."



If we are not in control after all, then that makes humans little more than automatons.



In his experiment, volunteers were asked to view a stream of letters on a computer screen and told, at some point, of their choosing, to press a button either with their left or right index finger - and remember the letter that was on the screen when they did so.



The volunteers were also connected to brain-scanning MRI machines which were able to monitor and analyse brain patterns.



These " mind-reading" scanners could recognise when the brain had decided on a course of action.



To the researchers' astonishment, it turned out that the volunteers' brains would reach a decision about pressing one of the buttons several seconds before the volunteers actually thought they had made up their minds.



The implications are hugely significant, because the experiment suggests that what we think of as a " conscious decision" may, in fact, be no such thing.



The traditional " folk science" picture of the mind has our " conscious self" as a little man sitting in our heads, pushing buttons and pulling levers, filing " thoughts" , receiving messages from eyes and ears and making our muscles move.



What Prof Haynes' s experiment seems to show is that we need a new picture; instead of that little man pushing and pulling levers, he is merely a passive observer, lazing back in his chair and watching it all happen.



It is as though what we are actually aware of is no more than a film show, and the decision-making is made purely unconsciously.