Given that I’m writing a PhD on intentions and intentional action, I was quite shocked to find, as the main item on The Guardian’s front-page, news that brain scan can detect people’s intentions. Apparently, neuroscientists at Max Planck were able to detect, with an accuracy of 70%, whether a person had decided to add or subtract two numbers that she was going to be given by the experimenter. Let us play the sceptic, and remind ourselves that anyone, in such a situation, could predict the other person’s decision with an accuracy of 50%.
February 9, 2007 at 3:58 pm
I love playing the sceptic, especially in cases like this one
February 9, 2007 at 4:14 pm
it was survival: i needed to make a case for my phd not being, suddenly, obsolete:-)
February 12, 2007 at 11:34 am
These scans for “intentions” must be meant for women, because male intentions never change.
THB
February 12, 2007 at 4:42 pm