Free Will Called into Question by Brain Study

What if a machine could know when you are going to make a decision before you yourself know you are going to make a decision? Eerily, researchers have demonstrated just this phenomenon: fMRI machines are capable of predicting a person's decision up to seven seconds before the person is even aware of making a decision. Does this mean that our decisions are predetermined by our brain, beyond our conscious control?

The Ames Room Illusion: How Cultural Norms Influence How The Brain Sees

While it is true that certain optical illusions result from imperfections in the biology of our visual system (see Biological Cause of Optical Illusions), some types of illusions are implicit and unavoidable consequences of the nature of visual information - it is impossible to even construct a machine capable of perfect resistance to optical illusions. To understand why, we have to first appreciate that visual information is infinitely ambiguous, and that as a result, we require an interpreter of the information - the brain - to assist in telling us what we are seeing. The problem is, the tricks that the brain uses to help resolve ambiguities can sometimes backfire.

Blindsight: Can you see without knowing it?

Blindsight is a medical phenomenon in which patients who are clinically blind actually show response to and predict aspects of visual stimuli at rates well above chance. To a blindsight patient's conscious perception, he cannot see. However, if forced to guess the characteristics of a visual stimulus, or to, say, navigate an obstacle course, the patient does so with a high degree of accuracy, even without any conscious knowledge that there are objects in the way! If you don't believe it, watch this video, annotated by Scientific American, of the famous patient TN before reading on: http://bcove.me/eq5aqeoh.

How String Theory Actually Accomplishes Grand Unification

Many introductory explanations of string theory tend to feel mysteriously unsatisfying. The focus is usually on its implication of extra dimensions or the now popularized metaphor of the strings in the theory being akin to the strings on a violin, with the different vibrations of the infinitesimal strings producing different elementary particles just as the vibrations of a violin string produce musical notes.  Yet, digesting this information alone fails to connect it to the claim that has brought string theory its popular glory, that it is a potential “Theory of Everything” capable of uniting the previously irreconcilable pillars of modern physics. This part is usually glossed over with the simple assertion that this is just what it does.  In the midst of trying to grasp string theory’s profound and novel view of the universe it’s easy to lose sight of this issue of foremost importance: how exactly does it purport to seam together quantum mechanics and general relativity? Here, we will try to understand first, what the rift between QM and GR actually is, and second, how string theory resolves it.

Transcending the Human Experience: Math and Meditation

Although it is not something we usually think about during the course of our lives, the fact of the matter is that humans exist in and experience only a tiny snippet of reality. This is not just in the sense of everyday constraints to our travel and psychological experiences - for instance, the difficulty of riding on an asteroid or putting one's self in the position of another enduring the hardships of living in a third world country. Although awareness of these constraints and an effort to overcome them are just as important to living a mindful and enriching life, the universe limits the human experience in a more profound and fundamental way - one necessitating a diligent open-mindedness just to recognize and appreciate, and a boundless, indefatigable passion to truly escape from.

Modern Physics Parallels Buddhism on Views of a Cyclic, Timeless Universe

"You often hear cosmologists say that the Big Bang is the moment when space and time began, there's no such thing before the Big Bang. The truth is the Big Bang is the moment where our understanding ends. We don't know what happened before the Big Bang, but it's absolutely possible that something did." So says Caltech theoretical physicist, Sean Carroll. Carroll's proposal that there once was a realm of space and time that preceded our universe's Big Bang is part of a cosmological model first toyed with by theoretical physicists, including Einstein, in the 1930's. It is known as the Cyclic Model or Oscillatory Universe. A basic form of the theory posits that the universe we live in is one component of an interconnected, dual system of bouncing universes. The first begins with a Big Bang and expands for a period of time. Upon reaching some thermodynamic limit of expansion, it then experiences a "Big Crunch", as the universe begins to shrink back toward a singularity. This force then propels the Big Bang of a second universe outward in the "opposite direction", and the cycle continues back and forth perpetually. Within this framework, a Big Bang can therefore be defined as the event after a period of contraction and before a period of expansion. Furthermore, our universe may be the first, sixth, billionth, or some infinite number universe to exist in this cycle.

Is There a Limit to Our Intelligence?

At his request, so that his resting place would not become the subject of "morbid veneration", Albert Einstein's body was cremated and scattered into the Delaware River. All but his brain, that is. The journey that Einstein's brain undertook after it's body's passing is an adventure in and of itself, traveling cross country in the back of his pathologist's Ford in a couple of glass cookie jars. But for all of the effort, only three significant scientific studies were published about the genius' thinking machine. One study observed that Einstein had a higher than normal ratio of glial cells to neurons in his parietal cortex, and speculated that this meant his neurons needed and used more energy. Another study suggested that his cerebral cortex was thinner than normal and contained a higher density of neurons. The third showed that the area of his brain most responsible for mathematical and spatial thinking, the inferior parietal lobe, was 15% wider than normal. Were the biophysics of Einstein's brain maximized so as to grant him some ultimate level of intelligence? Or was Einstein's brain merely the best that evolution has designed up to this point with far more powerful still to come?

"Man tries to fashion for himself a simplified and intelligible picture of the world; he then tries to substitute this cosmos for his own world of experience. . . .Each makes this cosmos and its construction the pivot of his emotional life in order to find peace and security he can't find in the narrow whirlpool of personal experience." - Albert Einstein

Extravagent Space-Time Experiment Upholds Einstein, But Was It Worth It?

As the years have passed since Albert Einstein's death in 1955, as brilliant and enormous as his contributions were to the human understanding of reality, we have come to learn and accept that the man was not infallible. Even if he were, leave it to the insatiable curiosity of physicists to put his theories to the test. Many would be surprised to hear that, even within the scientific community, debate occurs over whether our efforts and money are worth the knowledge that they buy. The most recent mission subject to this debate was that of "Gravity Probe B", which was the culmination of some 750 million dollars of funding and nearly half a century of work. The goal of Gravity Probe B was to verify the accuracy of certain predictions made by Einstein's theory of General Relativity. The results of the mission were released a little over a month ago, and reactions from scientists have ranged from epic victory to complete waste of time. The following are two articles - one published by NASA, who ran the mission, and the other published by Scientific American, which provides a less intimate perspective - describing the results and analyzing their worth (along with details about the mission, which was pretty awesome). The difference in tone is almost comedic.

NASA - http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2011/04may_epic/
Scientific American - http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=troubled-probe-upholds-einstein

It may be a shocker to many that such self-proclaimed objective thinkers as scientists can still succumb to the addictiveness of curiosity, despite the costs. It is in such contrast to many people of religion, who accept what they are told, for better or worse, with complete faith and conviction. Or to many spiritual individuals who accept what they see, feel and experience without the need for physical proof or rationalization. There are obvious benefits and drawbacks to each approach for finding truth. Perhaps some sort of middle ground is best.

The Quantum Quandary: What the Hell does it Mean?

Prerequisite: Quantum Physics For Dummies: What Is It?

The study of quantum mechanics is a lot like the study of human memory. Neuroscientists have identified a solid set of consistent facts about our memory. For example, it is known that the more times you see an object the better you are able to remember it, and that the farther in time you move away from an event the more difficult it is to remember. Furthermore, neuroscientists can make accurate predictions about someone's ability to remember something based upon equations they have developed that describe the memory process. However, neuroscientists lack a full understanding of how the memory process works; the actual biological mechanisms that allow the brain to store and later retrieve information are still being worked out. It is very similar to how Isaac Newton developed an equation that described the action of gravity with pretty decent accuracy, but still did not understand how gravity actually worked or where it came from. It was not until several centuries later that Einstein came forth with a proposal for how gravity worked (that it was a result of the warping and curvature of physical space caused by massive objects). Right now, all that memory neuroscientists have is theories. And there are many, each with different interpretations and implications. This is where quantum mechanics is right now too.

The Trick Behind Reality's Disappear/Reappear Act

Have you ever been blinded by a bright light after stepping out of the dark? Have you ever noticed the details of your dark bedroom at night slowly start to creep into focus after initially not being able to see anything? Of course, it is not reality itself that is disappearing and reappearing, but your perception of it. Why does this happen?

Occam's Razor: Which is Less Ridiculous, Parallel Universes or God?

Occam's razor is a guiding principle in scientific inquiries that proclaims that among a group of competing hypotheses, the one that introduces the fewest new assumptions is most likely the best. In other words, the simplest explanation is usually the correct one. It is important to note that Occam's razor is not a general law, but rather a heuristic, or "rule of thumb". It is also essential to realize where the principle derives from - not from logic, reason or scientific experiment, but from innate human tendencies that appeal to aesthetics. For thoughts and ideas, we more often than not prefer elegance over jaggedness, simplicity over complexity, and succinctness over superfluity. It's not like we walk around constantly trying to convince ourselves of these things, but they just seem to pervade our rationale subconsciously.

String Theory Simplified

Many of us have heard the term "String Theory" being thrown around lately as the bright new candidate for a "Theory of Everything". But thus far, knowledge of what it actually is has remained sort of murky in the public consciousness. This is probably for two reasons: 1) String Theory is largely incomplete, and so people have been reluctant to devote their energy to try and understand it if it may not be "real", and 2) It does, at first, seem quite intellectually intimidating. However, the purpose, principles and implications of String Theory can all be easily understood without invoking any complicated math or physics. Additionally, even if String Theory turns out to be an elegant yet woefully misleading conjured up picture of the world, knowledge of the story will grant you comedic hindsight of the irony of how some physicists will follow their theories, no matter how wild or outrageous, as blindly and stringently as people of religion (whom some mock) follow their book of faith.

Why Quantum Physics Ends the Free Will Debate

http://bcove.me/4xmlo5z2  A short video from Dr. Michio Kaku.

However, Holly Mandel makes a very nuanced point that seems to discredit Dr. Kaku's train of thought:

"[Dr. Kaku] is confusing two different things: (1) The ability of future events to be predicted from current states and (2) The lack of room for agency/free will if everything happens according to physical laws. There is no reason why these two should be treated as the same thing - the fact that something can be predicted doesn't necessarily preclude the possibility of free will and the fact that something can't be predicted doesn't necessarily help the cause of free will. The example he uses demonstrates exactly why: say that certain physical operations are random on a sub-atomic scale (and even say that this randomness can be significant on a macro scale). There's no reason why this randomness implies any freedom in a completely materialist view of things - it just implies that you can't make 100% accurate predictions. So if - to use an exaggerated example - there's a 50% chance that certain physical events will take place causing me to do something evil, and a 50% chance that they won't, there still does not seem to be a whole lot of personal agency involved."

Walking Through Walls

Yes, it is sort-of-possible. The phenomenon is called "Quantum Tunneling" and is a result of the wave-particle duality of matter. But don't go banging your head against a wall just yet. Although theoretically it is possible for a human being to undergo this process, the probability of its occurrence is vanishingly small, which basically means that it will never happen. However, tunneling is a daily part of being a microscopic particle, such as an electron.

How Your Brain Distorts Time

http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2010-03/how-time-flies

A fascinating look at how the brain perceives time, and in some cases, alters it, creating what is known as a "temporal illusion". Goes to show that we each may experience our own individual versions of time.

The "God" Particle: the Real Story

If you've ever wondered why scientists are spending close to ten billion dollars to build an underground, 17 mile long, high-speed merry-go-round for subatomic particles called the LHC (Large Hadron Collider), here is part of the answer - they are looking for the "God" particle. But before you get your hopes up that science and religion are getting set to put down their arms and coexist in peaceful harmony, it should be noted from the outset that the term "God" is merely used to denote the importance of the particle - it has no religious context.  Its real identity is a hypothesized elementary particle called the Higgs boson.

The Holy Grail

Humanity has an unquenchable desire for knowledge. It also has a short memory. In every era, the human race comes to believe that we are on the brink of absolute truth - that we have solved the puzzle of reality. But, invariably, soon after we discover something new and realize that we are still missing some pieces. Many argue that this cycle will continue forever, simply because humans lack the perceptual tools to view reality at its highest level, if such a thing even exists. Yet, in classic form, humanity has again reached a point where we believe we are at the threshold of a magnificent "Theory of Everything" that will perfectly encapsulate a description of reality.

*Quantum Physics* The Reality As You Know It Does Not Exist

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fWtBq8uWKE&feature=related

Self- explanatory.

Every Variation of Your Life May Coexist

The universe as a whole has every possible history, says the Many-Worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics. This does not just mean that every possible history could have happened - it means that every possible history DID happen. This is in obvious contradiction to our intuition which tells us that the past exists as one, definite series of events. How could this be possible?

Scientists Find New Particle that May Hint at New Force of Nature

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20357-mystery-signal-at-fermilab-hints-at-technicolour-force.html

Does Time Actually Exist?

As ludicrous as the question sounds, it is a legitimate one that is now raging through the scientific community.  Even though we as humans may "experience" time, this does not mean it is part of the fundamental fabric of reality.  It could very well be another trick of our intuition - an illusion created by the limitations of our biology.

The Spirit Molecule

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTZftPWbWj8

Literally the most fascinating documentary you will ever see.

High on Reality

DMT is a powerful, naturally occurring psychedelic found in plants and in trace amounts in humans.  It is the primary psychoactive in Ayahuasca, a brew of vines and DMT-containing leaves first concocted in South America. Some users of Ayahuasca report highly intense experiences, including the perception of alternate dimensions. Recently, speculative hypotheses have been proposed stating that naturally occurring DMT in the human brain may play a role in neurological and psychological processes, and even in regulating our normal conscious state:

Nature is Fundamentally Random, Not Deterministic (Says Quantum Mechanics)

Nature was at one time considered to be completely predictable.  Newton's law of motion dictated that if, at a given time, the position and velocity of an object were known, then the object's position and velocity could be determined for any point in its past and any point in its future. This is what our intuition tells us too. But, as new discoveries continue to tell us, our intuition is merely a construct built up of misconceived notions about the world.  Quantum Mechanics has shown us that nature is in fact inherently probabilistic; that regardless of our ability to build finely tuned measuring devices, it is impossible to ever know with complete certainty all of the information about an object, and thus to predict its future or extrapolate its past.

How the Brain Sees 3D (Even when we don't want it to)

Our visual system faces a major challenge: a 3D world is projected onto a 2D mosaic of photoreceptors on our retinas, and must be reconstructed into a 3D image for our perception. How does this happen? 

Biological Cause of Optical Illusions

 

Hermann Grid Illusion









 

Mach Band Illusion 

 














Two famous optical illusions are shown above. In the Hermann Grid, it seems as though small black dots are dancing around in the white circles of the grid. In reality these black dots do not exist at all. In the Mach Band, it seems as though a small, bright stripe appears just before the gradient gets darker, and that a small, dark stripe appears just after the gradient gets darker. In reality these stripes don't exist. What is causing us to paint these imaginary images in the world?

Why We See What We See

The human eye can only see a very, very small portion of all the light that is bouncing around in the universe. This is the so called "visible region" of the electromagnetic spectrum, which contains wavelengths from about 400 to 700 nanometers (1 nm = 10^-9 meters - For comparison, the whole electromagnetic spectrum ranges from wavelengths as small as 10^-12 meters to as large as 10^8 meters).  It is hypothesized that these are the wavelengths evolution designed us to see because the sun emits radiation most intensely in this range, and thus light in this range is most available to us. There are actual physical explanations for why we cannot see light of higher and lower wavelengths than the visible range. 

Quantum Physics For Dummies: What Is It? (The Ultraviolet Catastrophe)

Physics divides the universe into three "reality ranges", and currently we have a different set of laws that apply to each range.  The physics of everyday, human experience that is taught in your basic high school physics class is called "Classical Physics".  These are all the laws generalized by Newtonian mechanics and Maxwell’s laws of electromagnetism.  Then there is the physics of cosmic scale (the very big) and high velocities and energies, which falls under the realm of "General Relativity", championed by Einstein.  Finally, there is the atomic scale (the very small) of low velocities and energies, which is governed by "Quantum Mechanics", worked out by scientists such as Planck, Bohr, and Schroedinger. 

Brain and Perception of Reality

Why were we created with two eyes? It could easily be an arbitrary result of evolution.  If that is the case, why did evolution choose to give us this specific perspective of reality? Why not give us one eye to see the world in just 2 dimensions? What if additional evolutionary features could have let us view reality from more dimensions?  What if that is what is going to happen over time?

Dreams, Innate Ideas, and Perception

One baseline of normality our brain has created is a temporal relation between creation and perception, with perception coming after creation.  Dreams illustrate the ability of our mind to do both simultaneously (unless there is no free will in dreams, implying a deterministic layout planned before the dream occurs, in which case the entire dream is created first and our perception follows its layout - similar to reality, except that reality doesn’t require that there be preconceived determinism because our mind does not have to create the physical nature of the reality, only perceive what is already there).  However, it is possible for the brain to inaccurately perceive temporal events that violate causality if there are marked deviations in reality from the brain’s equilibrated baseline of normality.