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Ben posted a link to an article in his comment which I have seen before, but I had forgotten about until recently. The article is about a study relating to the brain’s activity during tasks. The whole point of the article can be summed up with this quote:
there are telltale signs in the brain of [their] action 1/2 second before the person realizes they’ve even made a decision.
I remember seeing this article a while ago, and the implications are still very profound. If the brain reacts before somebody actually acts, does this mean that you really don’t have free will over your actions? Does it mean that there is some form of time dilation in our perception of our thoughts and our actions? Or perhaps there there is more to the mind then the brain. All of these explanations are quite intriguing.
Some other interesting points from the article:
“There is a short window of around 1/10 of a second after an idea becomes conscious in which a person can squelch it. Otherwise, it procedes.”
“Also, when we speak, we generally are not aware of the words we are about to say, but rather have the gist in mind, and allow our unconscious to come up with the words.”
“Libet has shown that, in general, it takes about 1/2 second for information in our environment to become conscious.”
Do you have any other ideas about how this could be explained?
-Hatter
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If one observes the mind(or brain), the convention does not really matter, almost every activity of the brain is thought and often followed by feeling. Or feeling followed by thought. The thought-feeling process is usually what we call emotion. If one observes the thought process alone we can see that it is only a response to memory, which is knowledge, the content of thought is images, a verbal structure and/or a combination of both. The unconscious is also a similar action/reaction response but without the image or verbal structure, the unconscious is much more rapid in its response than the conscious process of forming a verbal structure or visual imagery. The conscious & unconscious process can together be called thought. There is often a chain of thoughts linked together, meaning starting with a single image or verbal structure, the brain recalls analogous images or verbal structures, which forms a chain of thought, that means sensation (five physical senses) turns to thought, or thought can function independently from sensation. Hence the brain as thought is nothing but a response to memory & the responses are stored further & this process continues endlessly. Sensation->Memory(Recall)->Thought->Memory(Store)…….That means thought is a very mechanical process.But "Feeling", the moment it arises ("without" the subsequent instantaneous response of thought) indeed has a fantastic quality to it, it has a quality of timelessness associated with it.Coming to your question of choice, the first question one asks is "What is choice ?", i can in the physical world eject the cdrom or shut off the monitor, but what we generally mean by choice (free will) is the process of Thought choosing Thought. Hence Choice is nothing but Thought. Hence Choice is mechanical. We unnecessarily make a big deal about choice as choice is not freedom, the bottom line with choice is nothing but thought seeking pleasure and avoiding pain. This is the fundamental quality of the brain as it now functions, hence choice, free will & thought are one & the same.