From: Ian Goddard (Ian@Goddard.net)
Date: Sun Oct 18 1998 - 23:19:26 MDT
At 12:20 AM 10/19/98 -0400, John K Clark wrote:
>He also did some work on humans. He approached several people about to
>undergo brain surgery for medical reasons, and asked them if he could implant
>some electrodes in their brain at the same time. Some agreed. In one case,
>when the electrode was fired the man would always turn his head to the left.
>The interesting thing was that the man said he felt free, he couldn't
even tell
>when the electrode was turned on. The patient was always able to come up
>with good reasons for turning to the left. He would say "I'm looking for
my slippers"
>or "I'm restless" or "I heard a noise" or "I was looking under the bed".
This man
>was intelligent and rational, he never said I'm looking for Martians, and
felt
>perfectly free. In all cases he thought turning his head was his own idea,
>he felt free because he was, he was doing what he wanted to do.
IAN: Curious. I was just wondering what remotely
induced thought/actions would appear like to the
actor, and it occurred to me that they may always
seem to be self-originated, since the brain would
assume anything coming from inside it (including
an impulse from a implant inside it) is itself; it
would evoke no anti-bodies, so to say, in responce
to the alien invasion. An implant would slip into
the thing known as "myself," and thus the mind
could not perceive it as being other than self.
The man's experience also indicates that subtle
thoughts can be induced that serve to justify
the actions the stimulus effects. The head is
not just turned, but is so for a reason ex-
pressed as a set of thoughts and/or feelings.
It's all very fascinating from a philosophical
point of view, with respect to the concepts of
self, free will, what and who is "the actor."
If remote brain control is someone controlling
another thing, what controls the brain locally?
I'd say the brain is a set of systems that have
learned to control each other. Slip a new system
in, and each subsystem assumes this new system is
one of the team, and thus "I wanted to turn my head."
**************************************************************
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______________________________________________________________
"He who pursues learning will increase every day;
he who pursues Tao will decrease every day."
Lao Tzu (Tao Te Ching)
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