Could Inner Zombie be Controlling your Brain?

#1

Post by DanielBMarkham » Wed, Sep 17, 2008, 11:21 AM UTC

Could Inner Zombie be Controlling your Brain?
msnbc.msn.com

Re: Could Inner Zombie be Controlling your Brain?

#2

Post by swombat » Wed, Sep 17, 2008, 12:30 PM UTC

Sensationalist (and quite lame) title. This is an article about how a large part of our behaviour is driven by subconscious thought - nothing new there except for the title.

Re: Could Inner Zombie be Controlling your Brain?

#3

Post by aslkjdf » Wed, Sep 17, 2008, 12:45 PM UTC

Crappy MSN articles made for bored soccer moms. Keep HN pure and away from the border tabloid sources.

Re: Could Inner Zombie be Controlling your Brain?

#4

Post by gruseom » Wed, Sep 17, 2008, 1:28 PM UTC

I agree that the article is marred by the asinine "zombie" schtick and generally dumbed-down.

But if you're interested in research on unconscious mental processes, there's a lot of it here: at least 4 or 5 experiments that I hadn't seen cited before. I'm still hoping someone will write a good book about all this.

Re: Could Inner Zombie be Controlling your Brain?

#5

Post by Allocator2008 » Wed, Sep 17, 2008, 1:30 PM UTC

My concern is the article's conclusion geared towards a sort of dichotomy - the "me" part of the brain vs. the "zombie"/unconscious part of the brain. This seems contrived and artificial, reminiscent of the discredited "Cartesian theater" models. However, subtracting the conclusion of the article, and just taking the data at face value, is interesting. I think it is consistent with the Daniel Dennet "multiple drafts" model of consciousness, where the brain is effectively a "multi-threaded application", where sometimes thread A is "observed" (conscious) or thread B is "observed" (conscious) but A and B are both still there, whether we are aware of them or not. So basically the "zombies" in the brain are all that there is - it is a multi-threaded application, where each "thread" is a "zombie" to use that terminology. Sometimes this zombie or that interacts with the environmental stimuli to the point of "awareness" but there is no "awareness" per ce, just a lot of unaware threads running around which create the illusion of "self", etc. As far as I understand it anyway. :-)

Re: Could Inner Zombie be Controlling your Brain?

#6

Post by swombat » Wed, Sep 17, 2008, 3:45 PM UTC

gruseom wrote: post #4

I agree that the article is marred by the asinine "zombie" schtick and generally dumbed-down. But if you're interested in research on unconscious mental processes, there's a lot of it here: at least 4 or 5 experiments that I hadn't seen cited before. I'm still hoping someone will write a good book about all this.

Try "Blink" and "Predictably Irrational" if you haven't read them yet. Blink is a bit light on practical things you can do about it, but not too bad. PI is quite good.

Re: Could Inner Zombie be Controlling your Brain?

#7

Post by gruseom » Wed, Sep 17, 2008, 3:55 PM UTC

swombat wrote: post #6

gruseom wrote: post #4

I agree that the article is marred by the asinine "zombie" schtick and generally dumbed-down. But if you're interested in research on unconscious mental processes, there's a lot of it here: at least 4 or 5 experiments that I hadn't seen cited before. I'm still hoping someone will write a good book about all this.

Try "Blink" and "Predictably Irrational" if you haven't read them yet. Blink is a bit light on practical things you can do about it, but not too bad. PI is quite good.

Thanks, I'll have to thumb through PI next time I'm in a bookstore. Gladwell I find too glib.

Re: Could Inner Zombie be Controlling your Brain?

#8

Post by robg » Wed, Sep 17, 2008, 4:20 PM UTC

aslkjdf wrote: post #3

Crappy MSN articles made for bored soccer moms. Keep HN pure and away from the border tabloid sources.

Except Carl Zimmer is a well-known and well-respected science writer.

http://carlzimmer.com/bio.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Zimmer

Keep HN news pure and away from troll comments.

P.s. Are you a sockpuppet? This is the second comment from you, in the five days since your account was created, with community-based concerns expressed in an anti-community sentiment.

Re: Could Inner Zombie be Controlling your Brain?

#9

Post by robg » Wed, Sep 17, 2008, 4:37 PM UTC

swombat wrote: post #2

Sensationalist (and quite lame) title. This is an article about how a large part of our behaviour is driven by subconscious thought - nothing new there except for the title.

IMO the author has provided a nice metaphor, and explanation of, "subconscious thought". Can you to come up with a better metaphor that's also as concrete? It's tougher than it seems. And I'm not so sure the idea is as widely accepted as you presume. Having taught intro neuroscience to undergraduates, they are not generally aware of these findings.

I agree the title is lame - but then it was written by someone at MS.

Re: Could Inner Zombie be Controlling your Brain?

#10

Post by swombat » Wed, Sep 17, 2008, 5:13 PM UTC

gruseom wrote: post #7

swombat wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try "Blink" and "Predictably Irrational" if you haven't read them yet. Blink is a bit light on practical things you can do about it, but not too bad. PI is quite good.

Thanks, I'll have to thumb through PI next time I'm in a bookstore. Gladwell I find too glib.

Agree, me too. It was singularly lacking in any practical advice, too.. I spent most of the book waiting for him to start explaining ways to hone one's subconscious, and was disappointed to find that he didn't bother with that part.

PI is a bit more practical and provides some actual techniques you can use to tap into that subconscious brain.