Champions of free will, take heart. A landmark 1980s experiment that purported to show free will doesn't exist is being challenged.
In 1983, neuroscientist Benjamin Libet asked volunteers wearing scalp electrodes to flex a finger or wrist. When they did, the movements were preceded by a dip in the signals being recorded, called the "readiness potential". Libet interpreted this RP as the brain preparing for movement.
Crucially, the RP came a few tenths of a second before the volunteers said they had decided to move. Libet concluded that unconscious neural processesMovie Camera determine our actions before we are ever aware of making a decision.
Since then, others have quoted the experiment as evidence that free will is an illusion – a conclusion that was always controversial, particularly as there is no proof the RP represents a decision to move.
Sound decisions
Long sceptical of Libet's interpretation, Jeff Miller and Judy Trevena of the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand, attempted to tease apart what prompts the RP using a similar experiment, with a key twist.
They also used scalp electrodes, but instead of letting their volunteers decide when to move, Miller and Trevena asked them
to wait for an audio tone before deciding whether to tap a key. If Libet's interpretation were correct, Miller reasoned, the RP should be greater after the tone when a person chose to tap the key.
While there was an RP before volunteers made their decision to move, the signal was the same whether or not they elected to tap. Miller concludes that the RP may merely be a sign that the brain is paying attention and does not indicate that a decision has been made.
Miller and Trevena also failed to find evidence of subconscious decision-making in a second experiment. This time they asked volunteers to press a key after the tone, but to decide on the spot whether to use their left or right hand. As movement in the right limbs is related to the brain signals in the left hemisphere and vice versa, they reasoned that if an unconscious process is driving this decision, where it occurs in the brain should depend on which hand is chosen. But they found no such correlation.
Paradigm shift
Marcel Brass of Ghent University in Belgium says it is wrong to use Miller and Trevena's results to reinterpret Libet's experiment, in which volunteers were not prompted to make a decision. The audio tone "changes the paradigm", so the two can't be compared, he says. What's more, in 2008, he and his colleagues detected patterns in brain activity that predicted better than chance whether or not a subject would press a key, before they were aware of making a decision.
But Frank Durgin, a psychologist at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania, says that Brass's results do "seem to undermine Libet's preferred interpretation", though they don't contradict it outright.
На русском / In Russian: http://mikhailworld.blogspot.com/2009/09/lentaru-24092009.html
Source: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17835-free-will-is-not-an-illusion-after-all.html
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Friday, September 11, 2009
9/11: eight years on but the pain continues. 11.09.2009.
It has been exactly eight years since the simple date September 11 became an horrific watershed moment for America and the rest of the world.
Still, after these eight years, new pictures continue to be made public of the attacks on the World Trade Center, the aftermath and even the Guantanamo detainee who claims he masterminded the whole atrocity.
And after eight years, thousands of firefighters, police officers and civilians who ignored the toxic dust to clear the debris at Ground Zero are still fighting for compensation to help with respiratory illness, injury and the psychological damage. John Feal is among them.
He said: “Don’t call us heroes. Don’t parade us around and then treat us like we are common trash. Because that’s what’s happening and I take that personally. I’ve been to too many funerals, I’ve been to too many hospitals, I’ve seen too many body parts removed from men and women, while we get to see more lip service from elected officials.”
A compensation bill does exist, but still sits unpassed on desks in Congress.
Campaigners like Denis Hughes met at Ground Zero on the eve of the grim anniversary to denounce the delays in getting compensation to the victims of the clean-up operation.
“It’s an outrage that I stand before you and we haven’t got this bill passed. It is an outrage that people are denied benefits. It is an outrage that families find themselves in adverse economic conditions because this legislation has not been passed,” said Hughes.
John Gallagher, who was one of the many who helped clear the debris of the Twin Towers, echoed this feeling of injustice: “Why? Why don’t we have this bill? We can spend money to bail out car companies. We bail out sick insurance companies but we don’t want to give money to sick workers. There is no excuse for it.”
For many, after eight years, September 11 is not yet a scar but still an open wound.
Source: http://www.euronews.net/2009/09/11/911-eight-years-on-but-the-pain-continues/
Still, after these eight years, new pictures continue to be made public of the attacks on the World Trade Center, the aftermath and even the Guantanamo detainee who claims he masterminded the whole atrocity.
And after eight years, thousands of firefighters, police officers and civilians who ignored the toxic dust to clear the debris at Ground Zero are still fighting for compensation to help with respiratory illness, injury and the psychological damage. John Feal is among them.
He said: “Don’t call us heroes. Don’t parade us around and then treat us like we are common trash. Because that’s what’s happening and I take that personally. I’ve been to too many funerals, I’ve been to too many hospitals, I’ve seen too many body parts removed from men and women, while we get to see more lip service from elected officials.”
A compensation bill does exist, but still sits unpassed on desks in Congress.
Campaigners like Denis Hughes met at Ground Zero on the eve of the grim anniversary to denounce the delays in getting compensation to the victims of the clean-up operation.
“It’s an outrage that I stand before you and we haven’t got this bill passed. It is an outrage that people are denied benefits. It is an outrage that families find themselves in adverse economic conditions because this legislation has not been passed,” said Hughes.
John Gallagher, who was one of the many who helped clear the debris of the Twin Towers, echoed this feeling of injustice: “Why? Why don’t we have this bill? We can spend money to bail out car companies. We bail out sick insurance companies but we don’t want to give money to sick workers. There is no excuse for it.”
For many, after eight years, September 11 is not yet a scar but still an open wound.
Source: http://www.euronews.net/2009/09/11/911-eight-years-on-but-the-pain-continues/
Monday, September 7, 2009
The Chinese will invest $ 500 million in IFC's "The Hermitage" on the Moscow Ring Road. 07.09.2009.
Corporation of China Jin Yuan intends to invest about $ 500 million in the construction of a multifunctional complex (IFC), the Hermitage on the Moscow Ring Road. According to the newspaper "RBC daily" ( http://www.rbcdaily.ru/ ), the relevant Chinese businessmen have reached an agreement with the company "Slavyansky Mir" Valery and Vladimir Leschikovyh, which owns the building plots.
IFC, which will include 1.5 million square meters of commercial, warehouse, office and hotel space, located on-site construction fair "41-th km of Moscow Ring Road", located at the intersection of the Moscow Ring Road and the Kaluga road. The old market will be relocated to a neighboring area, also owned by brothers Leschikovym.
According to the newspaper, in exchange for participation in the project joint venture Tszinyuan and the Russia-China Center for Trade and Economic Cooperation can get the right long-term lease of land for the complex. RKTSTES also negotiated the lease for the Chinese, 30 thousand square meters of space in the central market, which is created in the area.
Before the crisis, "lavyansky Mir" planned to construct on-site fair complex in the style of the Winter Palace, which would include a million square meters of housing and two million square meters of commercial real estate. Now it is only on the construction of commercial space.
Vladimir Leschikov stated that it is now summed up the communication and soon developer intends to begin construction. According to him, the project has already invested 70-80 million dollars.
In early September it became known, the corporation Jin Yuan, specializing in the oil industry and real estate plans in the next few years to create in Russia a network of trade and logistics systems "Eurasia". At the initial stage of the project in the purchase of ready and under construction total area of 1.5 million square meters of Chinese are willing to invest nearly a billion dollars.
Source: http://realty.lenta.ru/news/2009/09/07/investments/
IFC, which will include 1.5 million square meters of commercial, warehouse, office and hotel space, located on-site construction fair "41-th km of Moscow Ring Road", located at the intersection of the Moscow Ring Road and the Kaluga road. The old market will be relocated to a neighboring area, also owned by brothers Leschikovym.
According to the newspaper, in exchange for participation in the project joint venture Tszinyuan and the Russia-China Center for Trade and Economic Cooperation can get the right long-term lease of land for the complex. RKTSTES also negotiated the lease for the Chinese, 30 thousand square meters of space in the central market, which is created in the area.
Before the crisis, "lavyansky Mir" planned to construct on-site fair complex in the style of the Winter Palace, which would include a million square meters of housing and two million square meters of commercial real estate. Now it is only on the construction of commercial space.
Vladimir Leschikov stated that it is now summed up the communication and soon developer intends to begin construction. According to him, the project has already invested 70-80 million dollars.
In early September it became known, the corporation Jin Yuan, specializing in the oil industry and real estate plans in the next few years to create in Russia a network of trade and logistics systems "Eurasia". At the initial stage of the project in the purchase of ready and under construction total area of 1.5 million square meters of Chinese are willing to invest nearly a billion dollars.
Source: http://realty.lenta.ru/news/2009/09/07/investments/
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