A Brain Scan Speaks a Thousand Words
Prof. Dr. Victor Lamme is full professor of cognitive neuroscience at the department of Psychology of the University of Amsterdam. He published more than 150 papers on the workings of the brain in international journals among which Nature and Science. He was the recipient of a 2.3 million grant from the European Union. He is the author of the controversial bestseller ‘De Vrije Will Bestaat Niet’ (free will does not exist), writes columns and opinion pieces, and is a renowned invited speaker on professional meetings. He is also the founder of neuromarketing research agency Neurensics.
On brainreading, neuromarketing and free will
The possibilities to look into the living brain are ever increasing. One of the most spectacular developments is seen in the field of ‘brainreading’, a technique that literally reads out the information in your brain. Brain scanners ‘see’ what you see or dream. They enable us to communicate with coma patients. Scanners know what we really think or want, what or whom we desire, what we want to buy. In a sense, brain scanners know us better than we know ourselves, so that neuromarketing techniques will enable marketeers to ever better manipulate consumers. We may think that our conscious ‘I’ is pulling the strings, but in reality, there’s only one conclusion possible: free will is an illusion.