Free Will is an Illusion: Brain Scanners Can See Your Decisions Before You Make Them

You may think you decided to read this story — but in fact, your brain made the decision long before you knew about it.

In a study published Sunday in Nature Neuroscience, researchers using brain scanners could predict people’s decisions seven seconds before the test subjects were even aware of making them.

The decision studied — whether to hit a button with one’s left or right hand — may not be representative of complicated choices that are more integrally tied to our sense of self-direction. Regardless, the findings raise profound questions about the nature of self and autonomy: How free is our will? Is conscious choice just an illusion?

“Your decisions are strongly prepared by brain activity. By the time consciousness kicks in, most of the work has already been done,” said study co-author John-Dylan Haynes, a Max Planck Institute neuroscientist.

Haynes updated a classic experiment by the late Benjamin Libet, who showed that a brain region involved in coordinating motor activity fired a fraction of a second before test subjects chose to push a button. Later studies supported Libet’s theory that subconscious activity preceded and determined conscious choice — but none found such a vast gap between a decision and the experience of making it as Haynes’ study has.

In the seven seconds before Haynes’ test subjects chose to push a button, activity shifted in their frontopolar cortex, a brain region associated with high-level planning. Soon afterwards, activity moved to the parietal cortex, a region of sensory integration. Haynes’ team monitored these shifting neural patterns using a functional MRI machine.

Taken together, the patterns consistently predicted whether test subjects eventually pushed a button with their left or right hand — a choice that, to them, felt like the outcome of conscious deliberation. For those accustomed to thinking of themselves as having free will, the implications are far more unsettling than learning about the physiological basis of other brain functions.

Caveats remain, holding open the door for free will. For instance, the experiment may not reflect the mental dynamics of other, more complicated decisions.

“Real-life decisions — am I going to buy this house or that one, take this job or that — aren’t decisions that we can implement very well in our brain scanners,” said Haynes. Also, the predictions were not completely accurate. Maybe free will enters at the last moment, allowing a person to override an unpalatable subconscious decision.

“We can’t rule out that there’s a free will that kicks in at this late point,” said Haynes, who intends to study this phenomenon next. “But I don’t think it’s plausible.”

That implausibility doesn’t disturb Haynes.

“It’s not like you’re a machine. Your brain activity is the physiological substance in which your personality and wishes and desires operate,” he said. The unease people feel at the potential unreality of free will, said National Institutes of Health neuroscientist Mark Hallett, originates in a misconception of self as separate from the brain.

“That’s the same notion as the mind being separate from the body — and I don’t think anyone really believes that,” said Hallett. “A different way of thinking about it is that your consciousness is only aware of some of the things your brain is doing.”

Hallett doubts that free will exists as a separate, independent force. “If it is, we haven’t put our finger on it,” he said. “But we’re happy to keep looking.” - wired

Wow. That’s sort of big news. Free will is an illusion. I had to say this. I did not decide to say it.

Fancy meeting you here!

A German man survived a 25ft plunge down a lift shaft when he landed on a woman who had fallen down it a day before. Jens Wilhelms, 27, was unhurt after landing on the 57-year-old woman and managed to free himself from the shaft at the apartment block in Frankfurt am Main where he lived.

He called out rescue services who took the woman to hospital. Doctors said she is in a critical condition after sustaining injuries in her original fall - and then again when Wilhelms landed on her. Police spokesman Manfred Vonhausen said: “The woman had been lying unconscious in the shaft for some time already.

“Although it made her injuries worse it also probably saved her life that he fell on her as it meant he knew she was there and managed to get help.” Rescue workers said that without Wilhelm’s plunge the woman would have died from internal bleeding. “It sounds really bizarre,” one rescue worker said afterwards, “When Wilhelms fell down on her his weight caused additional damage to her body, but without that she could have laid there for days.”

Wilhelms said he had slipped as he walked past the lift shaft which had been left open as it was undergoing repairs. “I live on one the top floor and it was quite a nuisance to always climb the stairs,” he said. “I saw the door open and I just wanted to check whether somebody was finally working on the elevator. “I took a closer look inside the shaft as it was pitch black, and must have slipped off the edge somehow.” - annanova

Hormones ‘may fuel market crises’

Hormone surges among City traders could be partly responsible for driving “boom and bust” economics, say researchers.

A Cambridge University team found testosterone levels were directly linked to the profit they made.

The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences study also found levels of the stress hormone cortisol could affect the risks they took.

A psychologist who works with investment bankers said it may help explain seemingly irrational behaviour.
The Cambridge study measured testosterone levels in a small group of male City of London traders at both 11am and 4pm, and matched these to the levels of profit or loss recorded for that day.

They found that daily testosterone levels were significantly higher on days when traders made more than their average profit.

They ascribe this to the “winner effect”, seen in sportsmen, in which success increases testosterone levels, which in turn increase feelings of confidence and ability to take risks, which then increase the chances of further profits.

However, if repeated too much, they say, the rising testosterone levels could eventually compromise their ability to make rational decisions, as the traders take bigger and bigger risks during so-called “bubbles”, where the market rises sharply.

Prof Joe Herbert, one of the study’s authors, said: “Our work suggests that these decisions may be biased by emotional and hormonal factors that have not so far been considered in any detail.

“Hormones may be important for determining how well an individual trader performs in the stressful and competitive world of the market.” - bbc

Nuked coral reef bounces back

What does a coral reef look like 50 years after being nuked? Not so bad, it seems. Coconuts growing on Bikini Atoll haven’t fared so well, however.

Three islands of Bikini Atoll were vapourised by the Bravo hydrogen bomb in 1954, which shook islands 200 kilometres away. Instead of finding a bare underwater moonscape, ecologists who have dived it have given the 2-kilometre-wide crater a clean bill of health.

“It was fascinating – I’ve never seen corals growing like trees outside of the Marshall Islands,” says Zoe Richards of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies in Australia.

Richards and colleagues report a thriving ecosystem of 183 species of coral, some of which were 8 metres high. They estimate that the diversity of species represents about 65% of what was present before the atomic tests.

The ecologists think the nearby Rongelap Atoll is seeding the Bikini Atoll, and the lack of human disturbance is helping its recovery. Although the ambient radiation is low, people have remained at bay.

Atomic idyll

“Apart from occasional forays of illegal shark, tuna and Napoleon Wrasse fishing, the reef is almost completely undisturbed to this day,” says Maria Beger of the University of Queensland in Australia. “There are very few local inhabitants and the divers who visit dive on shipwrecks, like the USS Saratoga, and not on the reef.”

Beger took a Geiger counter with her on dives and says that the background levels were similar to that at any Australian city. The same could not be said of coconuts growing on the islands.

“When I put the Geiger counter near a coconut, which accumulates radioactive material from the soil, it went berserk,” says Beger. - newsci

Pontianak in video causes a stir

SIGHTINGS of a pontianak (woman vampire) captured on video have caused a stir among locals in Malacca, reported Harian Metro. For the past fortnight, droves of people have gathered at a bridge near Jalan Pulau Gadong, Malacca, where the 50-second video-clip was purportedly filmed.

Many stayed up to the wee hours of the morning hoping to catch a glimpse of the spectre. The video clip, circulated via mobile phone, shows a woman with long black hair and clad in a white cloth floating in midair while whimpering.

A receiver of the video clip told the Malay daily that he had heard many stories about the pontianak. “Some say she would appear like a damsel in distress but when approached, she would turn into a pontianak.

“I’ve also heard that the police were called in by several men who stumbled upon the apparition, who was asking if they had seen her missing child. “As soon as the police arrived, she would turn into her true self and disappear,” he said. - thestar

Image In Hospital Brings Some To Tears, Prompts E-Mails

An unexplained image in a hospital prayer garden window moved some people to tears and drew groups of people to a hallway before vanishing, according to witnesses. A crowd inside the Florida Hospital Medical Complex in Orlando snapped photos of the image apparently showing the profile of Jesus Christ crying.

“There was just a whole bunch of people putting their cell phones to the window, so I went over there and I saw a glow,” witness Joel Cruzada said. “When you are standing there and there is a flurry of people talking about it, you are like, ‘Wow, I’m actually here.’”

Cruzada, who was one of several viewers to send an e-mail about the image to Local6.com, said his ex-wife was recently diagnosed with stage-3 cancer.”This was just a sign for me to not worry about what is going on in my life and that everything else is under control,” Cruzada said. “It was an enlightening experience.” Another Local 6 viewer, Lorna, said she saw the image and noticed that a chaplain was snapping photos and videotaping it.” I brought some people from my (hospital) unit and they saw it,” Lorna said.

A viewer said the image caused “a commotion” in the hallway near the prayer garden. The hospital is calling it an unexplained image. An official said as long as the image makes people feel good, that is all that matters, Local 6’s Charnel Wright said. Witnesses said after a few hours, the image vanished. - local6

German schoolboy, 13, corrects NASA’s asteroid figures: paper

A 13-year-old German schoolboy corrected NASA’s estimates on the chances of an asteroid colliding with Earth, a German newspaper reported Tuesday, after spotting the boffins had miscalculated. Nico Marquardt used telescopic findings from the Institute of Astrophysics in Potsdam (AIP) to calculate that there was a 1 in 450 chance that the Apophis asteroid will collide with Earth, the Potsdamer Neuerster Nachrichten reported.

NASA had previously estimated the chances at only 1 in 45,000 but told its sister organisation, the European Space Agency (ESA), that the young whizzkid had got it right.

The schoolboy took into consideration the risk of Apophis running into one or more of the 40,000 satellites orbiting Earth during its path close to the planet on April 13 2029.

Those satellites travel at 3.07 kilometres a second (1.9 miles), at up to 35,880 kilometres above earth — and the Apophis asteroid will pass by earth at a distance of 32,500 kilometres.

If the asteroid strikes a satellite in 2029, that will change its trajectory making it hit earth on its next orbit in 2036.

Both NASA and Marquardt agree that if the asteroid does collide with earth, it will create a ball of iron and iridium 320 metres (1049 feet) wide and weighing 200 billion tonnes, which will crash into the Atlantic Ocean.

The shockwaves from that would create huge tsunami waves, destroying both coastlines and inland areas, whilst creating a thick cloud of dust that would darken the skies indefinitely.

The 13-year old made his discovery as part of a regional science competition for which he submitted a project entitled: “Apophis — The Killer Astroid.” - physorg

Or not.

Skypecasts are great!

I’m testing Skype. Skypescasts are multi user voice chat rooms. The room I found “Computers and Technology (General English Friendly Converasation)” is much more interesting than most radio stations, plus, no advertising! People all over the world and topics have covered radiation,  politics,  learning from books, how to fix web pages, computer hardware questions, etc.