Wednesday, December 11, 2013

The "Monkey Wrench" Variations on a Neuroscientific Experiment

A continuation on the previous post.

Upon further thought, here are a couple of "Monkey Wrench" (as in "throwing a monkey wrench into") versions:

Variation Three:

Take Variation Two. So, here we have our chain of subjects (again, let's make it ten people) with their monitoring equipment and Right or Left selection devices. To be clear, the situation, if the theory is correct and the experiment works as the theory implies, looks like this:

Person A is going to choose to pick either Right or Left. According to the original experiment, Person B, who has access to the real time brain scan will know which direction Person A will click about six seconds before Person A actually "consciously" choses to click a given direction. Person B is instructed to click the direction Person A is going to click the moment he or she sees the information on the screen; that is, Person B will chose to click the direction Person A is going to click in a few moments.

Now, given the results of the initial experiment, Person B's brain scan will show which direction he or she is going to click about six seconds before he or she actually clicks it; therefore, Person C, who is monitoring the activity of person B, should be able to click the direction Person B is going to click before Person B clicks the direction.

This chain forms, given our ten people, to the final person, J, who ought to be able to click the direction that Person A is going to click about a minute before Person A actually clicks that direction.

Now, here's the Monkey Wrench:

Once we are half way through the chain, say, after Person F has clicked his or her direction, but before the remainder of the chain (from Person E to Person A--remember that the last person in the chain will actually be clicking the direction first) clicks this same direction, we tell Person A to click the opposite direction.

So, what now, brown cow?

Does someone's head explode à la Scanners (extreme graphic content: do not watch if you are squeamish or sensitive to such things):


or what?

Variation Four:

Given that it might be difficult to set up a chain of people in such monitoring conditions, and since we currently do not know for sure if such a chain would produce the suggested theoretical results, let's do it like this:

Perform the original experiment, but give the Subject being monitored a set of head phones and give the person doing the monitoring a microphone that is connected to those headphones.

Now, when the Monitor sees that the subject is about to select, say, Right, six seconds before he or she is actually going to consciously choose to select Right, have the Monitor tell the subject to select the opposite direction, so, in this instance, Left.

Given the six second differential, this should be plenty of time for the Monitor to send the signal to the Subject and give the Subject plenty of time to select the direction the Monitor suggests.

Again, I wonder what would occur? Would the person still select Right and be unable to do otherwise? Or would he or she be able to select Left, but, if so, what does that mean about the initial brain scan data that suggests he or she was going to "choose" Right? Or, once again, does someone's head explode à la Scanners (go ahead and watch the above clip again, you know you want to)?

If nothing else, this particular Monkey Wrench version really needs to be tested.

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