Are Thoughts Causal?

[shunyadragon]

You're actually supposed to provide some of that supposed evidence after making such an assertion. So we can have a look at it and seeing if it actually points to the conclusion that you claim.

more to follow . . .

This research provides confirmation of the neurological link from the mind, thinking, and changing one's mind. It describes communications between regions of the brain to coordinate the changing one's mind even in split second decisions.

Source: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-neuroscience-of-changing-your-mind/

The Neuroscience of Changing Your Mind

Scientists have long accepted that our ability to abruptly stop or modify a planned behavior is controlled via a single region within the brain’s prefrontal cortex, an area involved in planning and other higher mental functions. By studying other parts of the brain in both humans and monkeys, however, a team from Johns Hopkins University has now concluded that last-minute decision-making is a lot more complicated than previously known, involving complex neural coordination among multiple brain areas. The revelations may help scientists unravel certain aspects of addictive behaviors and understand why accidents like falls grow increasingly common as we age, according to the Johns Hopkins team.

The findings, published recently in Neuron, reveal reneging on an intended behavior involves coordinated cross talk between several brain regions. As a result, changing our minds even mere milliseconds after making a decision is often too late to alter a movement or behavior. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging—a technique that monitors brain activity in real time—the Johns Hopkins group found reversing a decision requires ultrafast communication between two specific zones within the prefrontal cortex and another nearby structure called the frontal eye field, an area involved in controlling eye movements and visual awareness.

Lead author Kitty Xu, formerly a Johns Hopkins graduate student and now a researcher at the social media site Pinterest, explains that when it comes to split-second decisions, the longer a decision has to take hold in the brain, the harder it is to reverse. “Stopping a planned behavior requires extremely fast choreography between several distinct areas of the brain, our research found,” she says. “If we change our mind about pressing the gas pedal even a few milliseconds after the original “go” message has been sent to our muscles, we simply can’t stop.” Xu adds that if we change our minds within roughly 100 milliseconds of making a decision, we can successfully revise our plans. If we wait more than 200 milliseconds, however, we may be unable to make the desired change—in other words we may land a speeding ticket or a tumble down the stairs. As we age, our neural communication slows, and that likely contributes to more of these glitches, Xu says.

To identify the brain regions involved in canceling a decision, the new study recruited 21 subjects for a modified “stop signal task,” a commonly used neuroscientific behavioral test that involves canceling a planned movement. Participants undergoing functional MRI were instructed to watch a screen and to immediately stare at a black dot when it appeared. But just after they focused on the black dot a colored dot would appear, prompting their gaze to shift to the new stimulus—essentially causing them to abandon their initial plan to fix their eyes on the black dot. The researchers watched what areas of the brain lit up during those decision-making steps, and after the volunteers terminated their plan. To confirm their findings, the authors then ran the same experiment on a single macaque. Using an implanted electrode, they saw activation in monkey brain regions analogous to those reported on in humans when the monkey stopped looking at the black circle in favor of the colored dots.

Tracking these eye movements and neural action let the researchers resolve the very confusing question of what brain areas are involved in these split-second decisions, says Vanderbilt University neuroscientist Jeffrey Schall, who was not involved in the research. “By combining human functional brain imaging with nonhuman primate neurophysiology, [the investigators] weave together threads of research that have too long been separate strands,” he says. “If we can understand how the brain stops or prevents an action, we may gain ability to enhance that stopping process to afford individuals more control over their choices.”

Xu hopes these insights into how difficult it is for the brain to amend its plans—a task that only gets harder as we age and neural communication slows—can eventually help researchers devise ways to intervene and help us make faster, safer decisions. In the short term she hopes key targets will include helping seniors avoid falls and modifying last-minute impulses in people with addictions.

“The sooner I can turn off the plan to drink or use the drug,” she says, “the less likely I am to carry out that plan.”

© Copyright Original Source

[JimL]

Are thoughts causal? I think so!

To be causal, a mental state needn't necessarily come from a distinct source (an immaterial mind) from that of the physical brain itself.

[seer]

Pansychism Chrawnus. It is the theory that mind is inherent in matter. It's not new, but it's catching on with many in the field.

Pansychism: the doctrine or belief that everything material, however small, has an element of individual consciousness.

Sounds like the omnipresent mind of God...In any case it would solve the hard problem of consciousness.

[shunyadragon]

Pansychism: the doctrine or belief that everything material, however small, has an element of individual consciousness.

Sounds like the omnipresent mind of God...In any case it would solve the hard problem of consciousness.

There is no hard problem of consciousness. Consciousness is pretty much unversal with mammals and likely other animals.

[seer]

There is no hard problem of consciousness. Consciousness is pretty much unversal with mammals and likely other animals.

Oh stop, you are completely clueless...

[DesertBerean]

Sounds like they propose modifying REACTION time in order to help the brain/body coordination of actions to avoid the consequences of poor decisions.

I don't relly think that applies directly to avoidance or breaking of addiction and other complusive behavior. That involves exercise of self-control - a deliberate chain of thought leading to decision.

[shunyadragon]

Oh stop, you are completely clueless...

No, just not clinging to ancient world view at the expense of science.

The best you can do with the bogus 'hard problem of consciousness is 'arguing from ignorance' in a grade D movie scifi plot.

Consciousness simply exists in the higher life forms of life on earth noting more nothing less.

[shunyadragon]

Oh stop, you are completely clueless...

Completely clueless(?) with scientific references, which you have not responded to.

[Zara]

No, just not clinging to ancient world view at the expense of science.

The only person undermining science, is you. Trust me, your hackneyed one liners are doing more harm to your precious "science" than people exercising their choice to believe in God.

The best you can do with the bogus 'hard problem of consciousness is 'arguing from ignorance' in a grade D movie scifi plot.

The problem isn't bogus, you just make it out to be so because it doesn't fit your brainless narrative. You don't know what it is, do you? Have a read: http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/..._consciousness

[shunyadragon]

The only person undermining science, is you. Trust me, your hackneyed one liners are doing more harm to your precious "science" than people exercising their choice to believe in God.




The problem isn't bogus, you just make it out to be so because it doesn't fit your brainless narrative. You don't know what it is, do you? Have a read: http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/..._consciousness

Temper, temper. . . ranting personal attacks are unwarranted and unethical on this website. Are you going to keep doing this followed up with apologies?

[Zara]

Temper, temper. . . ranting personal attacks are unwarranted and unethical on this website. Are you going to keep doing this followed up with apologies?

You don't know what it is, do you? Have a read: http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/..._consciousness

[seer]

No, just not clinging to ancient world view at the expense of science.

The best you can do with the bogus 'hard problem of consciousness is 'arguing from ignorance' in a grade D movie scifi plot.

Consciousness simply exists in the higher life forms of life on earth noting more nothing less.

The hard problem of consciousness idiot is not a bogus problem, as Sam Harris says:

The problem, however, is that no evidence for consciousness exists in the physical world.

Physical events are simply mute as to whether it is “like something” to be what they are. The only thing in this universe that attests to the existence of consciousness is consciousness itself; the only clue to subjectivity, as such, is subjectivity. Absolutely nothing about a brain, when surveyed as a physical system, suggests that it is a locus of experience. Were we not already brimming with consciousness ourselves, we would find no evidence of it in the physical universe—nor would we have any notion of the many experiential states that it gives rise to. The painfulness of pain, for instance, puts in an appearance only in consciousness. And no description of C-fibers or pain-avoiding behavior will bring the subjective reality into view...

...Most scientists are confident that consciousness emerges from unconscious complexity. We have compelling reasons for believing this, because the only signs of consciousness we see in the universe are found in evolved organisms like ourselves. Nevertheless, this notion of emergence strikes me as nothing more than a restatement of a miracle. To say that consciousness emerged at some point in the evolution of life doesn’t give us an inkling of how it could emerge from unconscious processes, even in principle.

https://samharris.org/the-mystery-of-consciousness/

[seer]

Temper, temper. . . ranting personal attacks are unwarranted and unethical on this website. Are you going to keep doing this followed up with apologies?

And Shuny you believe that humans have a spirit and that spirit interacts with the physical world as your religion teaches - correct?

[shunyadragon]

The only person undermining science, is you. Trust me, your hackneyed one liners are doing more harm to your precious "science" than people exercising their choice to believe in God.




The problem isn't bogus, you just make it out to be so because it doesn't fit your brainless narrative. You don't know what it is, do you? Have a read: http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/..._consciousness

Your book reference is over 20 years old, and I do not agree with it's philosophical conclusions of 'arguing from ignorance' as to what it claims we do not know.

I like this reference as a beginning that simple looks matter of factly at the nature of consciousness, and mind brain problems:http://www.cogsci.rpi.edu/~heuveb/te...odyProblem.pdf

[seer]

I like this reference as a beginning that simple looks matter of factly at the nature of consciousness, and mind brain problems:http://www.cogsci.rpi.edu/~heuveb/te...odyProblem.pdf

And there is no conclusion in your link, and I quote:

"Dualism states that the mind is ‘non-physical’. OK, so it is not physical. But then what is it? Dualism doesn’t say!– Materialism states that the mind is physical. OK, but how so? What is the physical explanation for the mind? How do physical processes come together to form a mind? Materialism has (as of yet!), no answer to this question, so it really doesn’t explain anything either!"