Psychology and Philosophy L13: determinism, libert, veto, fatalism laplacian demon

What theories support determinism?

1. neuroscience

2. social psychology

3. moral psychology

4. physics: are about probability

Libert experiment is about free will.

- the brain prepares the free action in the (conscious/unconscious)

-(does/doesnt) show that measured brain activity necessarily leads to flexing your wrist

- neural processes are explained in terms of (determinism/ probabilities)

- (does/doesnt) show that we could not have done otherwise

Veto experiments show that we have free won't.

- subjects have to (consciously/unconsciously) try to stop upcoming movement

- veto (does/ doesn't) show that everything is determined by the brain

- (does/doesn't) undermine that we have alternative possibilities

Methodological issues with Libert experiments

The libert experiment (does/doesnt) make use of introspection to detect when subjects have a 'conscious intention'

(Denett: conscious intention is not a point in time, it cannot be localized in the brain)

brain is the starting point as an agent, but the conscious intention also acts as an agent (dualism), thus the agent (is/is not) in control of his action

-  Libert experiments (do/dont) allow for a causal role of conscious intention

- findings on confabulation and choice blindness (do/dont) show that conscious intention necessarily have to cause an action

determinism = what happens is necessarily the result of antecedent affairs

fatalism = you know with certainty what will happen

Determinism vs. Fatalism

"As long as you dont know what will happen, eventhough it is determined, seeing a doctor might be a way to get better" = determinsim

"You know with 100% certainty what will happen, no matter whether you see or not see a doctor" = fatalism

Laplacian demon ="An intellect that knows all the forces that set nature and motion, that can with certainty predict the future and tell what happened in the past"

- only possible by someonne who is not part of what is being predicted ex: God

-  Heisenberg's uncertainty principle argues against

Heisenbergs uncertainty principle = we cannot measure X and the momentum p of a particle with absolute precision

- against Laplacian demon

Soon et al. experiment = press button if you feel like pressing a button, accuracy only 10%, use of introspection

Mason & Just: neural representation of physical concepts =- identifying voxol clusters by identifiying physical concepts

- with voxel cluster they tried to predict what the person thinks

- accuracy 55%

- problem: too much missing background knowledge

Hacking the brain (martinovic)= - EEG extract personal info

- subjects see a row of numbers and then enter a 4 digit code

- researchers predict the code with 20% accuracy chance level: 10%

- 0.0016% to predict the full code

- subjects were not sabotaging experiment

When could brain reading be useful?

Brain computer interface to communicate with Locked-In-syndrome patients

Mindreading is (possible/ not possible)

Brainreading is (possible/ not possible)