Non-Local Disbelief
[linked title]
So I'm rather disturbed by a class I just had. The title of the class is Evolutionary Psychology, taught by Christianson. It's seminar style, so only about 8 students in the class. There is no book or organized packet of readings, but we read about 100 pages for every class session, which meets twice a week. So here's what happened:
We've been discussing whether the brain has individual modules or a more holistic approach to it's organization. One of the other students starts talking about freewill. She says that it's been recorded using fMRI studies that a person will elicit a response, normally located in the amygdala/hypocampal region a discernible amount of time prior to the subject making the claim that the thought had occurred. This is normally used in choice experiments; thus the choice was made within the brain prior to the subject "deciding" to follow a certain choice. She used this example to illustrate the modularity of the mind, stating that the subcortical regions of the brain controlled all of what we refer to as volition and that it is a closed circuit: The brain modifies itself to elicit different responses depending on the circumstances without "conscious" input from one's Self. Now, I've heard this example used before and it seems rather convincing. However, since I first heard it, I've read a couple other empirical studies that I consider to be negating of this line of reasoning. One of these also uses fMRI neuroimaging to take snap shots of when the brain first becomes activated. However, the study also used galvanic skin response to correlate stress. This is because the experiment itself was set up to show the subject a cartoon drawing randomly chosen from either list 1(inoffensive, bland drawings) or list 2("offensive", highly emotive drawings). But something unexpected occurred and was also seen on subsequent tests for validity. The subject showed galvanic skin responses and activation in the amygdala and hypocampus preceding the display of the violent cartoon...and only the violent cartoon. The subject, viewing just the blank screen waiting for the randomly chosen picture to appear, without any cues or idea whether the picture would be disturbing or banal, had an emotion based stress response. Thus, the same effect was shown without any decision having to be made and without any clues as to a reason to become upset, or show any activation at all for that matter.
Now, here's the upsetting part. I offered this counterargument for the freewill modularity theory proposed by the other student. I didn't offer any reasons or beliefs in why this was the case. Yes, the authors of this study offered a couple possibilities, but since they weren't then empirically tested, I wasn't going to bring them into the equation. All I was there to say was that there could just as easily be a preceding activation of a consciousness based volition as there was with the cartoon drawing. However, as soon as I finished describing the study, everyone looks at me like, "What?!? You expect us to believe time isn't linear?!?" Now, I don't expect them to believe anything, but to have such an adverse reaction to an unexplainable phenomenon was inconceivable to me. This is a 600 level course at Tulane University. There is no reason to outcry or imposition of incredulity simply because the phenomenon is not fully explainable. The beauty of it was that I was not arguing anything about physics or the connections between time, consciousness, and space, but merely making a counterargument to the modularity of the mind. It got played off as a joke and one guy said, "Wait...we can see into the future? Why didn't somebody tell me this!" And that's fine, cause his comment caused me to chuckle a bit, but I felt like my main point wasn't taken seriously at all simply because it was attached to an experiment without a "rational" explanation to the cause. But that's all I've got to say about that, since I'm sure I've already said more than anyone's interest in my ranting could hold.
P.S. I'm currently trying to find the names associated with the study I'm referring to. When I do I'll amend this post to add them in, but I believe they're in the book I loaned to Troy.
So I'm rather disturbed by a class I just had. The title of the class is Evolutionary Psychology, taught by Christianson. It's seminar style, so only about 8 students in the class. There is no book or organized packet of readings, but we read about 100 pages for every class session, which meets twice a week. So here's what happened:
We've been discussing whether the brain has individual modules or a more holistic approach to it's organization. One of the other students starts talking about freewill. She says that it's been recorded using fMRI studies that a person will elicit a response, normally located in the amygdala/hypocampal region a discernible amount of time prior to the subject making the claim that the thought had occurred. This is normally used in choice experiments; thus the choice was made within the brain prior to the subject "deciding" to follow a certain choice. She used this example to illustrate the modularity of the mind, stating that the subcortical regions of the brain controlled all of what we refer to as volition and that it is a closed circuit: The brain modifies itself to elicit different responses depending on the circumstances without "conscious" input from one's Self. Now, I've heard this example used before and it seems rather convincing. However, since I first heard it, I've read a couple other empirical studies that I consider to be negating of this line of reasoning. One of these also uses fMRI neuroimaging to take snap shots of when the brain first becomes activated. However, the study also used galvanic skin response to correlate stress. This is because the experiment itself was set up to show the subject a cartoon drawing randomly chosen from either list 1(inoffensive, bland drawings) or list 2("offensive", highly emotive drawings). But something unexpected occurred and was also seen on subsequent tests for validity. The subject showed galvanic skin responses and activation in the amygdala and hypocampus preceding the display of the violent cartoon...and only the violent cartoon. The subject, viewing just the blank screen waiting for the randomly chosen picture to appear, without any cues or idea whether the picture would be disturbing or banal, had an emotion based stress response. Thus, the same effect was shown without any decision having to be made and without any clues as to a reason to become upset, or show any activation at all for that matter.
Now, here's the upsetting part. I offered this counterargument for the freewill modularity theory proposed by the other student. I didn't offer any reasons or beliefs in why this was the case. Yes, the authors of this study offered a couple possibilities, but since they weren't then empirically tested, I wasn't going to bring them into the equation. All I was there to say was that there could just as easily be a preceding activation of a consciousness based volition as there was with the cartoon drawing. However, as soon as I finished describing the study, everyone looks at me like, "What?!? You expect us to believe time isn't linear?!?" Now, I don't expect them to believe anything, but to have such an adverse reaction to an unexplainable phenomenon was inconceivable to me. This is a 600 level course at Tulane University. There is no reason to outcry or imposition of incredulity simply because the phenomenon is not fully explainable. The beauty of it was that I was not arguing anything about physics or the connections between time, consciousness, and space, but merely making a counterargument to the modularity of the mind. It got played off as a joke and one guy said, "Wait...we can see into the future? Why didn't somebody tell me this!" And that's fine, cause his comment caused me to chuckle a bit, but I felt like my main point wasn't taken seriously at all simply because it was attached to an experiment without a "rational" explanation to the cause. But that's all I've got to say about that, since I'm sure I've already said more than anyone's interest in my ranting could hold.
P.S. I'm currently trying to find the names associated with the study I'm referring to. When I do I'll amend this post to add them in, but I believe they're in the book I loaned to Troy.
posted by J.B.P. at 1:45 PM
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