This brainworks series looks at what is reality, and the conclusion so far is: whatever we make it to be. This post looks at another example of reality as brain (mind?) creation: even when we think we act act consciously, it seems that more often than not does our subconscious sit in the driver’s seat.
The groundbreaking research that put a question behind free will took place in 1983 at the University of California. Benjamin Libet set up an experiment in which participants were asked to make voluntary movements whenever they liked, such as lifting a finger. Using an EGG to monitor brain activity, he found that the subjects became aware of their intention to act only a few hundred milliseconds after their brain had initiated the movement. Libet was forced to conclude that what feels like a conscious decision may in fact be nothing of the sort (Brain, vol 106, p 623). Today it is an established theory in neuroscience that a major proportion of our thoughts and actions - even things we believe we are in conscious control of - actually take place in your unconscious. Most of the time we are essentially operating on autopilot.
We don’t need an EGG to test this theory; instead we can trigger at home what is known as the ideomotor effect, a psychological phenomenon wherein a subject acts without conscious awareness (examples for the ideomotor effect range from welling up tears to people responding to stage hypnotist’s suggestions; automatic writing, dowsing, facilitated communication, and Ouija boards have also been attributed to the effect of this phenomena). The idea behind this concept is that people’s actions originate solely from within themselves, at least in the vast majority of cases (which makes claims about divination etc. in most cases highly questionable).
In our case, we need to create a pendulum (e.g. with a piece of thread and a paper clip) and ask simple yes/no questions like “Do I own a car?” or “Am I at home?”. Tell yourself that if the pendulum swings clockwise, the answer is yes, while anticlockwise means no. While it seems quit spooky that the pendulum will rotate in the direction of the correct answer, there is nothing supernatural about it. The unconscious brain fires up motor preparation circuits in anticipation of the answer it expects to see. These circuits initiate subtle muscle movements that we are not normally aware of - except when they are amplified by a pendulum (or dowsing stick or Ouija board). This is your unconscious brain in action. (People being able to successfully dowse for water also demonstrate that we know much more than we are aware of; it’s all hidden in the subconscious).
Another area of subconscious reality creation is what is called ‘implicit assumptions’. Our subconscious does not only plan and execute actions, it also spends a great deal of time analysing the world around us. The conclusions it comes to are called ‘implicit assumptions’, subtle prejudices about people and events. In evolutionary terms they serves us well - most of the time. Sometimes though they can actually conflict with our conscious values and beliefs, leading for example to racist, sexist or ageist undertones in how we judge the world. Brian Nosek at the University of Virginia and colleagues have devised a test as a way to access implicit assumptions - it’s well worth taking it at https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit).
The next post will look at how we pay attention; the previous one dealt with the curious consequences of having a split brain.
[Source: New Scientist]
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