Darren New wrote:
> Sabrina Kilian wrote:
>> In that case, the observer does not know which button you will push
>> either, they are only predicting it. 
> 
> Or, to put it another way, they are aware of what choice you're going to
> make before you are aware of what choice you're going to make.
> 
> Do you agree that you can know whether you're hungry or not?
> Do you agree that if I ask you to write down 100 random numbers from one
> to one hundred, you don't right now know what the 80'th number is going
> to be? And you will know after you write it down?
> 
> I don't understand how you can say "know" is meaningless.
> 

As an individual, yes, knowing I am hungry or cold or in pain is simple.
As a scientist, understanding that separation of the first nerve impulse
and when it transforms into knowing, is interesting. We know the
measurable delay that it takes for pain or heat neurons to signal the
brain, and the delay the brain takes to trigger muscles to respond. We
know, scientifically, that that all happens before the individual knows
that they are in pain or on fire. So, at some point the body knows that
the stimulus exists, but the person does not yet know that they are in pain.

That is why I use know in quotes. There is a point where the stimulus
crosses from sub-conscious to conscious, if that is where you want to
define "knowing"[1]. However, there is also the sub-conscious feelings,
gut instincts, that we know we have but do not know the source of. Since
 this experiment shows that other thought processes start at this level,
should we discount them all as unknown until the entire thought gets to
the conscious level?

[1] quotes here to separate the words as the phrase being discussed.

Post a reply to this message