Your limbs move milliseconds before you conciously think you move them?

Question

that has been figured by scientists ..
now this raises the question ... how concious are we ?
any input welcome...
sources even more welcome ...

Answer 1

Hi Blondnirvana,

This is really an interesting question about free will. If we don't move because we are consciously telling ourselves to move, then do we really have the complete ability to make our own decisions about what we do in the world? Benjamin Libet was one of the first people to figure this out. This is a very good article about this:

http://jeromekahn123.tripod.com/spiritualism/id11.html

And

http://www.amazon.com/Explaining-Consciousness-Problem-Jonathan-Shear/dp/026269221X

This is a really fascinating problem. I hope this helps.


In 1983, Benjamin Libet and his colleagues at the University of California, San Francisco published a profoundly influential paper on the source of control. In this study, participants watched a small clock hand that completed one full revolution in 2.56 seconds. While fixated on the clock, a participant voluntarily flexed his wrist at a time of his choosing. After the movement, the clock hand continued to rotate for a random time and then stopped. Then, a participant reported the position of the clock hand at the time when she first became aware of the will to move. Libet and his colleagues called this subjective judgment W, for "will." In other parts of the experiment, participants judged when they actually moved, and Libet called this judgment M, for "movement." The timing of the W and the M told Libet and his collaborators when—subjectively speaking—a participant formulated a will to move and actually moved.

For a couple of good background books on this take a look at "The Blackwell Guide to Consicousness" editor Max Velmans

http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/book.asp?ref=9781405120197&site=1
AND
http://www.amazon.com/Explaining-Consciousness-Problem-Jonathan-Shear/dp/026269221X

This is a really fascinating problem. I hope this helps.

Answer 2

Your question is "how conscious are we"? My uneducated guess is that we're maybe 5% to 25% conscious of our total actions. There are those who say that it has been measured that a physical action and the thought to take that action differ by a few fractions of a second, and amazingly the action happens first. They then state that we are therefore processing ALL actions after we have already completed them.

I think that is a bad conclusion. I think it is true that many of our actions, even things that come out of our mouths as statements, are unconscious actions. A well trained athlete can make blazing fast moves on the field that are probably happening subconsciously, on instinct. Similarly, you might notice that you just reach for something or make a movement and it just happens without any thought. When you're asleep, you're totally out. But there has been no proof that ALL actions happen without the brain registering them as a conscious though before they happen.

There are times when you consciously make a decision and take an action. This is where memory and pre-meditation come in. You plan to do something and then you do it. There is a consciousness, even if it is turned off for the majority of daily activities.

Answer 3

I believe this proves that our unconscious is much more important than we give it credit for. It seems our unconscious decides to move a limb and then we experience the conscious thought, "I'll move that limb" after the movement has already been set in motion.
There's more intriguing experiments out there. For example, there are people whose left and right brains have been disconnected. A command can be given to the nonverbal side of the brain by just showing it to the eye that corresponds to that side of the brain, for example a command to raise your arm. Often the arm raises, but since it is the nonverbal side of the brain that recieved the command and raised the arm, when asked why they raised their arm, the person says something like, "Oh, just felt like stretching." So that's something interesting that also indicates that our conscious mind is often one step behind our unconscious.

Answer 4

I was watching this national geographic study special they did called Fight Science. I dont know if any of you have seen it but its amazing.

They gathered all these martial artists of all types and of course a bunch of scientists and equipment.
One of the tests they did was measuring reaction time.

They had these LED's that would light up and then they measured how long it took for a synaptic response . they also measure other odd things like how long it takes for the person to blink on average.

They got this guy who is a Tae Kwon Do champ and hooked up electrodes and had an LED next to each of these sparring pads.
He was supposed to strike the adjacent pad with a punch or kick as quick as he could upon seeing the LED light up.

It took the average person .25 seconds I think it was just to realize they had see the light and and know they needed to strike.
This martial artist had already hit the pad in .18 seconds.

Obviously this says that the time taken to for this guys brain to perceive the light was much faster than the average persons.
Somehow we not only can get our muscles to move faster through training but can also train our mental reactions to work faster also.

Answer 5

Your limbs need to move much faster than you can think and come to a decision about how to move them. Imagine if they didn't! You would never be able to hit the brakes on your car in time. You'd never be able to hit a baseball, if you were a pro baseball player, considering the speed at which the ball travels. Worst of all, you would never be able to have sex unless you managed to seduce your wife before her lip muscles could form the words, "Not, tonight, honey; I have a headache.".

Answer 6

It's possible there's some signal those scientists failed to detect. Some also found out that large bio molecules have shown to be capable of being entangled. Look up entanglement and how entangled particles can transmitt information.

Answer 7

Well I know at least one of mine does. Consciousness cannot be scientifically proved, so at what speed does thought occur?
Are we any more conscious then a drainpipe? We both have form, function and purpose....How can we prove the drainpipe id not aware?

Answer 8

Well, myself being a string player (violin, viola, cello) this is true. It is very handy during sight reading.LOL. Anyway, I haven't done much research into this topic, but my guess it to check out the contraction theory & its relativity to nerve impulses.

Answer 9

Your brain is always plotting and predicting. By estimating what will happen in the future and what you want to be doing it can send commands in advance so that actions happen on time.

This is especially useful when playing music.