

Why does neuroscience cause people to question the roots of human behaviour? - brockf
http://www.brockferguson.com/blog/why_is_neuroscience_so_effective_in_causing_people_to_question_the_roots_of_human_behaviour

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defraction
The key scientific finding by cognition research is the timing of the
conscious and non-conscious decision making process. As you have rightly
pointed out fMRI is yet another tool in neuroscience, yet in addition it
provides profound insight in the sequence of events that happen during any
decision making process, be that buying candy or criminal behaviour. The
decision to take any action seems to be made many hundreds of milliseconds
before we consciously "think" we reach the conclusion and act on it. Thereby
fMRI based neuroscience has moved the "root" of human behaviour from the
conscious part of our selfs into the unknown depth of our subconscious mind.
Indeed we are as far from the rational decision making machine that the free
will paradigm suggests, and you don't need to look far before you see the
impact that suggestive advertising and negotiation tactics have on us. This
conclusion is hard to marry with the philosophical concept of free will and
the economic concept of the rational agent and does cause some unease amongst
legal scholars.

