Weird Things That Don't Make Sense

August 5, 2011

Interview with Michael Brooks, author of the book 13 things that don't make sense

________________

Mike Carruthers:
Might it just be that we have received communication from aliens? You see there was a signal...

Michael Brooks:
This was a signal that was received by a telescope in Ohio in 1977 and it looks exactly like a signal that we were expecting from aliens.
 

Science writer Michael Brooks, author of the book 13 things that don't make sense...

In the 1950's scientists worked out what an alien signal might look like and how they might communicate and this signal turned out to be exactly that. Unfortunately we've never had another one and we don't know what to make of this.

Michael says, science is still pondering this whole concept of free will.

The idea that you make your own decisions is actually not the view of science even though it's the view of us every day. Neuroscientists say our brains are making these decisions well before we're conscious of any intention to do something. So if you perform a measurement on somebody's brain to see when the arm is about to start moving or something like that and compare that to when the person said "I'm going to move my arm", you find that the brain has already started the movement well before the person has made the conscious decision to move.

This is a really hard idea to grasp, says Michael, however…

There was a more recent study that found that up to seven seconds could occur between the brain starting a movement and the person becoming aware of it. So it seems there's a lot to explore there in terms of, "Are we responsible for our actions?"