Re: neuropsychology and decision making
- From: "rnorman@xxxxxxxxx" <rnorman@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 23 Mar 2009 09:37:03 -0700 (PDT)
On Mar 23, 9:18 am, Paul J Gans <g...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
John S. Wilkins <j...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Paul J Gans <g...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
rnor...@xxxxxxxxx <rnor...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Mar 21, 7:27 pm, wf3h <w...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
for our resident lunatic creationist nando, the NY times reviews a
book on how humans make decisions. turns out very little metaphysics
is involved, but alot of synaptic activity (which will come as no
surprise to normal people):
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/22/books/review/Johnson-t.html?ref=books
Unfortunately, neurobiology tells us that often decisions are made
rather early in a preconscious mode of brain activity and only later
does the conscious brain scramble to produce a scenario, not matter
how far fetched, that makes the decision look "perfectly reasonable
and logical". Decision making is an enormously complex area of
investigation and one popular science book really isn't going to
settle things.
Back in the early days of the universe I wrote a very simple
computer game which was played by moving "armies" around on
a checkerboard map. A human played against the computer.
It became somewhat popular in our physics department since
it was running on *their* departmental computer. (Those
were the days between computer centers and desktops.)
I was constantly asked how I'd programmed the AI running
the computer side since it often made subtle but winnng
moves and produced clever ripostes to the human's plans.
The AI was a random number generator.
The takeaway was (1) folks quickly forgot the frequent times
when the computer made an idiotic move, and (2) the human
layered an explanation on whatever move the computer made.
This is an experimental example of the conscious brain working
very hard to produce a scenario that fit the facts it imposed
on the situation.
The worst part of it was that the code was available on the
machine and, had they looked, they'd have known that it was
a random number generator.
In my ancient age I have come to understand that my brain has
often figured out what it wants to do before it lets *me* know.
I've learned to listen to my subconcious, at least to the extent
that it lets me.
One corrolary of all this is that I no longer know what "free will"Just check the source code. If there's a random number generator in
means. I'm not at all sure I have any.
there you have free will, or so I'm told.
Who needs free will that's a random number generator?
But of course you are mainly right. But the random number
generator, if any, in my head, has its output passed through
all sorts of filters and distorters so that I'm not sure that
the eventual output would change even if the input random
number changed.
Or, more likely, the just-so story makers and the rationalizers would
work on it so that, no matter what the random number generator
produced, it would turn out to have a "really good reason" to explain
it.
More seriously, the random number generator probably produces a whole
series of actions and the one that gets selected is the one that the
story makers and rationalizers have the easiest time producing a good
reason for.
.
- References:
- neuropsychology and decision making
- From: wf3h
- Re: neuropsychology and decision making
- From: rnorman@xxxxxxxxx
- Re: neuropsychology and decision making
- From: Paul J Gans
- Re: neuropsychology and decision making
- From: John S. Wilkins
- Re: neuropsychology and decision making
- From: Paul J Gans
- neuropsychology and decision making
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