What's expected of us
nature.com
What's expected of us
1–10 of 59 posts
Re: What's expected of us
#2Ted Chiang's Predictor would be quite the expansion pack for Hermann Hesse's Glass Bead Game.
Re: What's expected of us
#3Anyone that liked this should definitely check this one as well by the same author:
http://infinityplus.co.uk/stories/under.htm
Re: What's expected of us
#4The predictor already exists, there's a common FMRI experiment in neuroscience where with about 80% accuracy the scientists can predict you're about to push the button about one second before you decide to do it. Someone no doubt will post a link, I don't have time to Google it now. I'm guessing it's the inspiration for this story.
I'm more curious about what you guys think. I've long thought the arguments against free will are much stronger than those for it, but it's an unsettling idea to live with.
Re: What's expected of us
#5The predictor already exists, there's a common FMRI experiment in neuroscience where with about 80% accuracy the scientists can predict you're about to push the button about one second before you decide to do it. Someone no doubt will post a link, I don't have time to Google it now. I'm guessing it's the inspiration for this story. I'm more curious about what you guys think. I've long thought the arguments against fr…
It'd be a "predictor" if an FMRI could predict that the neurons are about to light up a second before that happens, rather than just measure the delay between neuron activity and conscious perception or conscious motor control.
Regardless, if anyone finds the thought that an FMRI can detect you making a decision a significant amount of time before you're aware of making that decision particularly interesting, this book dives into that research and much more about the nature of consciousness from a neuroscience and information theory POV:
http://www.amazon.com/The-User-Illusion-Cutting-Consciousnes...
Re: What's expected of us
#6I love pieces of writing like this.
Determinism isn't something I've explored quite satisfactorily enough just yet, and reading articles such as this one sends me straight back into the depths of the literature.
Re: What's expected of us
#7This reminds me of the Isaac Asimov spoof article "The Endochronic Properties of Resublimated Thiotimoline" which describes "experiments" on a substance that reacts so aggressively with water that it reacts before the water is added. Can't find the text unfortunately, but Wikipedia has a summary: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thiotimoline
Re: What's expected of us
#8Anyone that liked this should definitely check this one as well by the same author: http://infinityplus.co.uk/stories/under.htm
I highly recommend Ted Chiang. I really enjoyed "Story of your Life" available in this short story collection of the same name: http://www.amazon.com/Stories-Your-Life-Others-Chiang/dp/193...
Some of the stuff is a but uneven but he's written some of the most thought-provoking sci-fi I've read in some time.
Re: What's expected of us
#9Even if we were free thinking individuals, able to make rational decisions on our own, we base those decisions on past events and the current situation. So even if you get to choose, you'd probably make the same rational choices as long as your past experience and the environment is the same.
This would be true one second ago, and a second ago this would be true about the second before that.
Re: What's expected of us
#10Here's a similar appearance by Vernor Vinge: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v407/n6805/full/407679a...