Blindsight: Some people who have lost their vision find a “second sight”

Re:Blindsight: Some people who have lost their vision find a... by danharaj on Monday September 28, 2015 @10:16AM (#10290550)

I would not expect the part of a brain that deals with self-awareness is all-pervading and all-entwined. I would expect that you could disconnect cognition from self-awareness. Apparently we don't even need a self to synchronize emotions! That is a fantastic find!

I also think we can see a huge bias about some of our theories of what human beings are: Many emphasize the self; a self-aware brain can become self-obsessed. Many societies are obsessed with selves. Clearly human beings are more and less. Decentralized. A plurality of cognitions embodied in one brain.

What is the implication for sociology? Has the emphasis on individuals been too strong? The human fabric is ensembles interacting with each other, not atoms. Models of rationality talk about discrete agents. What if we can't be modeled as discrete agents? What is rationality now? Processes in my brain have competing interests, but also cooperate. Cognitive processes are probably not discrete. Can one come up with a model of rationality where the 'agents' form a continuum?

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Re:Blindsight: Some people who have lost their vision find a... by taneq on Monday September 28, 2015 @10:22AM (#10290573)

> I also think we can see a huge bias about some of our theories of what human beings are: [...]

I agree. A common theme in articles like this is the suggestion that when our subconscious mind does something, it's "not us doing it", as if your conscious experience is all that counts as "you".

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Re:Blindsight: Some people who have lost their vision find a... by Eric_WVGG on Monday September 28, 2015 @10:47AM (#10290718)

There is a study that made the rounds back in 2008 where scientists claimed they could prove that people’s brains make decisions about 7-10 seconds before they consciously “decide,” suggesting that cognitive thought is really just rationalizing decisions that our brain already made for us. blah blah free will we’re all turing machines, no but it’s interesting stuff

http://www.nature.com/news/2008/080411/full/news.2008.751.ht...

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Re:Blindsight: Some people who have lost their vision find a... by KingMob on Monday September 28, 2015 @02:18PM (#10292006)

My old labmate works with them as a post-doc now.

I would argue that most of what we do is automatic, and we are quite good at post-facto rationalizing our decisions.

BUT, I would also argue that consciousness allows us to make fully-conscious decisions, so we are not 100% automatic.

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