Neurobiology is the study of cells of the nervous system and the organization of these cells into functional circuits that process information and mediate behavior. Neurobiological experiments, conducted in the XX century, destroy the most reliable, unshakable and seemingly indisputable truths that concern our "I".
1. There is no freedom of will
Is there free will-the ability of our consciousness to spontaneously interfere in physical processes and direct their movement? Philosophy gives different answers to this question, but science follows a quite definite point of view.
According to neuroscientists , any thought is born unconsciously. Consciousness has to do with the result already prepared. It is only a flashlight illuminating processes independent of it. Freedom of will in this case is a pure illusion.
A series of experiments conducted by them confirms their opinion. Scientists stimulated different parts of people's brains with electrodes. The delay between the response of the brain to the stimulus and its awareness was an average of half a second. This explains the work of unconditioned reflexes - we remove the hand from the hot plate before we realize the danger and pain.
However, as shown by the study, this is the mechanism for the work of not only unconditioned reflexes. The person basically always realizes the sensations with some delay. The brain first sees, and only after that we realize the visible, it thinks, but only after a while we find out what kind of thought has appeared. We, as it were, live in the past, falling short of reality by half a second.
However, scientists did not stop there. In 1973, they conducted an experiment whose purpose was to find out what is primary - the activity of the brain or our desire. Intuition tells us that we have the will, which orders the brain to act in a certain way.
They measured the brain activity of people during their making informed decisions. Subjects had to look at the dial with a rotating arrow and at any time stop the process by pressing the button. Then they had to name the time when they first realized the desire to press the key.
The result was amazing. The electrical signal in the brain sending the decision to press the button appeared for 350 milliseconds before making the decision and for 500 milliseconds until the action itself.
The brain prepares for action long before we make a conscious decision to perform this action.
Observing from the side of the experimenter can foresee the choice of a person who has not already done so. In modern analogues of the experiment, the prediction of a strong-willed decision of a person can be carried out 6 seconds before the person himself accepts it.
Imagine a billiard ball that rolls along a certain trajectory. An experienced billiard player, automatically counting the speed and direction of movement, will indicate its exact location in a couple of seconds. Exactly the same balls we are for neurobiology after the experiment of scientists.
The free choice of man is the result of unconscious processes in the brain, and free will is an illusion.
2. Our "I" is not one
In neuroscience, there is a method of clarifying the functions of a particular department of the brain. It consists in the elimination or lulling of the studied area and in the identification of the changes that occur after this in the psyche and the intellectual abilities of man.
Our brain consists of two hemispheres that are connected by a corpus callosum. For a long time its importance was unknown to science.
Neuropsychologist Roger Sperry in 1960 cut the fibers of the corpus callosum in a patient with epilepsy. The disease was cured, and at first it seemed that the operation did not lead to any negative consequences. However, later in the behavior of man, as well as his cognitive abilities began to observe profound changes.
Each half of the brain began to work independently. If a person was shown a written word on the right side of his nose, he could easily read it, since the information processing is done by the left hemisphere, responsible for speech abilities.
But when the word appeared on the left side, the subject could not utter it, but could draw what the word meant. The patient himself said that he had not seen anything. Moreover, when he drew the subject, he could not determine what was depicted.
During the observation of patients who suffered a callozotomy (dissection of the corpus callosum), even more surprising effects were discovered. For example, each of the hemispheres sometimes found its own will, independent of the other. One hand tried to put a tie on the patient, and the other - to remove it. However, the dominant position was occupied by the left hemisphere. According to scientists, this is due to the fact that the speech center is located right there, and our consciousness and will are of a linguistic nature.
Next to our conscious "I" is a neighbor who has his own desires, but who is not capable of expressing will.
When a man with a dissected horny body was shown two words - "sand" and "clock" - he drew an hourglass. His left hemisphere processed the signal from the right side, that is, the word "sand". When asked why he drew an hourglass, because he saw only sand, the subject went into absurd explanations of his actions.
The real causes of our actions are often hidden from ourselves. And the reason we call that justification, which was designed by us after the action. Thus, no reason precedes the investigation, and the consequence is that it constructs the cause.
3. Reading other people's thoughts is possible
Each of us is internally convinced that his consciousness is a private area, not accessible to anyone. Thoughts, feelings, perception are the most protected property, because they exist in consciousness. But is it?
In 1999, neuroscientist Young Deng conducted an experiment that showed that the brain work in principle is no different from the computer. Thus, knowing its coding, it is easy to read the information generated in the brain.
As a test, he used a cat. Deng fixed the animal on the table and inserted special electrodes into the brain area responsible for processing visual information.
The cat was shown various images, and the electrodes at that time fixed the activity of the neurons. Information was transferred to a computer that converted electrical impulses into a real image. The screen of the monitor projected what the cat saw.
Image source
It is important to understand the specifics of the image translation mechanism. Electrodes are not cameras that take pictures that appear in front of a cat. Dan with the help of technology was able to repeat what the brain does - to convert the electrical impulse into a visual image.
It is clear that the experiment was placed only within the visual channel, but it reflects the principle of the brain and shows the possibilities in this area.
Knowing how the information spreads in the brain, and having the key to its reading, it is easy to imagine a computer that could fully read the state of the human brain.
It is not so important when such a computer is created. The important thing is whether people are prepared for the fact that their thoughts, memories, character, personality as a whole are just one of the pages of the book in an unknown language that can be read by others.
References: 1, 2, 3 and 4
