3 scientific experiment that will make you change attitudes

1. No free will

Is there free will - the ability of our consciousness spontaneously intervene in the physical processes and to direct their movement? Philosophy gives different answers to this question, but science adheres to a very definite point of view.

According to neuroscientist Benjamin Libet, every thought is born unconsciously. Consciousness has to do with the already available results. It - only a flashlight, illuminating the processes are independent of it. Free will in such a case - pure illusion.

A series of experiments conducted it confirms this view. Benjamin Libet stimulated different parts of the brain men electrodes. The delay between the brain response to the stimulus and its realization averaged half second. This is what explains the operation of the unconditioned reflexes - we remove the hand from the hot stove before being aware of the danger and pain.

However, the study Libet, this is the mechanism of not only unconditioned reflexes. Man in principle is always aware of his feelings with some delay. The brain sees first, and only then we realize Apparently, he thinks, but only after some time, we find that the idea of ​​there. We seem to be living in the past, keeping up with the reality of half a second.

However, Libet did not stop there. In 1973, he conducted an experiment whose purpose was to find out what comes first - the activity of the brain, or our desire. Intuition tells us that we have the will, which tells the brain to act in a certain way.

Libet measured the brain activity of people while taking their informed decisions. Subjects were to look at the dial with a rotating arrow at any time to stop the process by pressing the button. they were then called, when they first realized the desire to push the button.

The result was astonishing. The electrical signal in the brain that sends the decision to press the button, appeared for 350 milliseconds before making a decision and for 500 milliseconds before the action itself.

The brain is ready for action long before we make a conscious decision to perform this operation.

Onlooking experimenter can predict human choice that he has not done. In modern analogues experiment prediction volitional human solutions can be implemented 6 seconds beforeAs a man he will accept it.

Imagine a billiard ball that rolls along a certain trajectory. Experienced billiards, automatically reading the speed and direction of motion, indicate its exact location within seconds. Exactly the same balls are we to neuroscience after Libet's experiment.

Free human choice - the result of unconscious processes in the brain and free will - is an illusion.

2. Our "I" is not united

In neurobiology have a method of clarifying the functions of a division of the brain. It consists in the elimination or drowsing study area and in identifying occurring after this change in mentality and intellectual abilities.

Our brain consists of two hemispheres, which are connected to the corpus callosum. For a long time its value was unknown to science.

Neurophysiologist Roger Sperry in 1960 cut the fibers of the corpus callosum in patients suffering from epilepsy. The disease has been cured, and at first it seemed that to any negative consequences of the operation failed. However, later in human behavior, as well as his cognitive abilities were observed profound changes.

Each half of the brain start to work independently. If the person shows the written word on the right side with respect to his nose, he could easily to read it, because the processing of the information has been left brain responsible for speech ability.

But when the word appeared on the left, the subject could not pronounce it, but he could draw what the word meant. In this case, the patient said he did not see anything. Moreover, the drawing object, and he could not tell what they were shown.

During follow-up of patients who underwent callosotomy (cut the corpus callosum), were found even more amazing effects. For example, each of the hemispheres are sometimes found its own, independent of the will of another. One hand was trying to put the patient on a tie, and the other - to take it off. However dominated by the left hemisphere. According to scientists, this is due to the fact that the speech center is located there, and our consciousness and will have a linguistic nature.

Next to our conscious "I" lives a neighbor who has his own desires, but that is not capable of giving consent.

When a person with sectioned corpus callosum showed two words - "sand" and "clock", - he drew an hourglass. His left hemisphere processes the signal from the right side, that is, the word "sand". When asked why he painted hourglass, because he saw only sand, the subject go into the absurd explanation of his action.

The real causes of our action is often hidden from us. And the reason we call it an excuse that has been designed by us after the action. Thus, not cause precedes consequence, a consequence is that the constructs reason.

3. Reading other people's thoughts might

Each of us inwardly convinced that his consciousness It is a private area, not accessible to anyone. Thoughts, feelings, perceptions are the most protected property as they exist in the mind. But is it?

In 1999, neuroscientist Dan Young conducted an experiment that showed that the work of the brain, in principle, no different from the computer. Thus, knowing his character encoding, you can easily read the resulting information in the brain.

As a guinea he used a cat. Dan gave the animal on the table and put in special electrodes in the area of ​​the brain responsible for processing visual information.

Cat showed different images, and at this time the electrodes were fixed neuronal activity. Information is transmitted to a computer that converts the electrical impulses in the actual image. It projected on the screen that had seen the cat.

It is important to understand the specifics of the broadcast mechanism image. Electrodes - no cameras shoot images that occurs before a cat. Dan through technology could replicate what the brain does - convert electrical pulse into a visual image.

It is clear that the experiment was only through the visual channel, but it shows the principle of the action of the brain and shows the possibilities in this field.

Knowing how information is distributed in the brain, and having the key to its reading, it is easy to imagine a computer that can be fully read the status of the human brain.

Not so important, where it will be created a computer. What is important is whether people are willing to ensure that their thoughts, memories, character, personality as a whole - only one of the pages of a book in an unknown language, which can be read by others.