[lit-ideas] Re: BBC NEWS | Health | Brain scan 'can read your mind'

  • From: "John McCreery" <john.mccreery@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Sat, 17 Feb 2007 23:38:50 +0900

Other experiments have seemed to suggest that mental events follow
physical events -- playing catch-up as it were (at speeds which make
them feel simultaneous).   The discernible brain activity might actually
precede the thoughts, might even be triggering the thoughts.  Or the
brain activity might be the same as the thoughts.  ...Eerie...Eerie...

The ideas that these experiments confirm have been around for quite
some time. A fairly recent example is the following,

-------------------------

Marcus, George E., W. Russell Neuman, and Michael MacKuen Affective
Intelligence and Political Judgment. 200 p., 19 line drawings, 22
tables. 6 x 9 2000

Cloth    $55.00sc       ISBN: 978-0-226-50468-1 (ISBN-10: 0-226-50468-9)        
Fall 2000
Paper    $19.00sp ISBN: 978-0-226-50469-8 (ISBN-10: 0-226-50469-7)      Fall 
2000

Although the rational choice approach toward political behavior has
been severely criticized, its adherents claim that competing models
have failed to offer a more scientific model of political
decisionmaking. This measured but provocative book offers precisely
that: an alternative way of understanding political behavior based on
cognitive research.

The authors draw on research in neuroscience, physiology, and
experimental psychology to conceptualize habit and reason as two
mental states that interact in a delicate, highly functional balance
controlled by emotion. Applying this approach to more than fifteen
years of election results, they shed light on a wide range of
political behavior, including party identification, symbolic politics,
and negative campaigning.

-------------------------------------

The notion that conscious thought is preceded by and only partially
captures pre-conscious processes is, of course, implicit in Freud. The
earliest instance that I can cite ,however, is Leibniz's _New Essays
on Human Understanding_, where Leibniz observes that anyone awakened
by the ringing of a bell must have heard the bell before becoming
consciously aware of it.

Cheers,

John

--
John McCreery
The Word Works, Ltd., Yokohama, JAPAN
Tel. +81-45-314-9324
http://www.wordworks.jp/
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