Antisocial Personality Disorder
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=2155495
The more and more we begin to look into the human brain, the more and more it seems that the notion of "free will" is becoming obsolete. I'm sure some would scoff at the notion that the soldier who is accused of raping and killing in Iraq should be found innocent because of APD, but what if his neurological profile really was an important factor? It's all kind of scary when we think about how we are all just at the mercy of our particular brain chemistry. Personally, I've never believed in free will or a "soul," but for those that do, brain imaging evidence must seem like a threat. :neutral:
Our nervous system is composed of the same raw materials as the rest of the universe, thus it must obey the laws of physics like every other physical object. So, unless one believes that there is some "magical" quality to a human being, then one must accept that we are essentially automatons.
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=2155495
I've never believed in free will or a "soul," but for those that do, brain imaging evidence must seem like a threat. :neutral:
You don't believe in free will??
Even people with neurological or brain defects can learn to control SOME THINGS.
That said I think when people kill there is too much labeling as if we will say, "oh, that explains it" Why not just say,
"He went bizirk! after all, WAR IS HELL"
Our nervous system is composed of the same raw materials as the rest of the universe, thus it must obey the laws of physics like every other physical object. So, unless one believes that there is some "magical" quality to a human being, then one must accept that we are essentially automatons.
The ability to reason is not a 'magical quality' . A self -actualized person is just 'aware'.
Do you actually believe we are robots?? Or do things without thinking?? I mean aside from picking up that occassional frito bag.
Okay, say we are robots, and a rapist/murderer is completely unaccountable for his actions. The fact remains that he hurts people, and the majority of society can agree that that's a bad thing. If there's nothing we can do to fix his brain chemistry--and so far there isn't--I don't care if it's his fault or not. We'll just change the sign over the prison door to "malfunctioning brain chemistry ward" and be done with it.
I'm not arguing the implications, I'm just stating the facts.
I'm not arguing the implications, I'm just stating the facts.
fact- self actualization is not a magical quality it is a biological function not some vauge implication.
Do you believe we are robots? It is a yes or no question. If the answer is yes, Then say something that supports it otherwise it's it's just bs. -sorry it's true. It's bs.
self actualization is not a magical quality it is a biological function
Biological functions are carried out by physical materials which must obey the laws of physics. Draw your own conclusions, I'm not thinking for you.
Biological functions are carried out by physical materials which must obey the laws of physics. Draw your own conclusions, I'm not thinking for you.
I wouldn't want you to think for me.
You obviously have too much on your plate. Your statements are full of errors.
Your own conclusions are drawn so no sense in trying. Have a nice day. :)
This is automation.
Tea anyone?
I learned tonight, because we had 20-20 on the television at work that I am no longer responsible for my comfortably messy house or my need to obsessively purchase books and other cool things. I now have a soft addiction.
Isn't that cool? This is going to go really well with my Binge Eating Disorder (which replaced my just plain overeating) and Intermittent Explosive Disorder (which is my insurance-eligible road rage).
`snip - soft addiction.
ugg, 'soft addiction' more labeling.
There is just something so sweet in calling things as they are. I am a lazy , greedy , cream puff. There that feels better.
I am acquisitive.
That word is so lady like. Like you've got to have your pinky finger up when you say it. :p
I learned tonight, because we had 20-20 on the television at work that I am no longer responsible for my comfortably messy house or my need to obsessively purchase books and other cool things. I now have a soft addiction.
Isn't that cool? This is going to go really well with my Binge Eating Disorder (which replaced my just plain overeating) and Intermittent Explosive Disorder (which is my insurance-eligible road rage).
I saw that enabling crap too.:greenface
That word is so lady like. Like you've got to have your pinky finger up when you say it. :p
It's a leftover from a short story I read when fairly young. I think it may have been one of Isaac Asimov's Black Widowers stories.
I saw that enabling crap too.:greenface
My only real regret about that story is that I am not a $500 per session consultant to help you deal with your feelings of guilt related to your soft addiction.
No shit... I pity drill sergeants today, I really do.
Yeah, no kidding. According to policy, there is
no such thing as someone unfit for the army- there're only drill sergeants who fail at their job. Bullshit, if you ask me. Imagine having to pass, by whatever means necessary, some shitbag shmuck, or worse, some kid you
know is not going to cut it in his MOS.
As for those with an apparent pre-disposition to violent criminal behavior- I remember reading about a discovery made last year: there was an abnormality found in the brain of repeat violent offenders (
serious offenders, not bar-fighters or whatnot). Now here's the thing: you can have the abnormality and have a decent upbringing with no unusual effect. You can have a screwed up upbringing and no abnormality with no unusual effect. If you have both, you
are going to be screwed up. Wayne Gayce style. Well, maybe not that bad, but rape, murder, and serious assault are gonna be your hobbies. So essentially, there's a biological disposition, that requires a trigger. How true is it? *Shrugs* Too lazy to google for details and creds right now.
I've got a neurologist in the family, and there's
nothing more depressing than listening to a long list of evidence supporting the theory that our "personalities", choices, free will, etc. are all an illusion, just purely the result of chemical reactions and such.
Gotta say, though, I think it's
mostly crap. To back that up, I'm going to bring out a reference written by a guy who, as far as I can tell, could be an absolute loon. Wrote a really good book about consciousness and death, though- if you get the time, check it out, it's free and online. No, it's neither religious or Hubbardish. It's called Zen Physics.
http://www.daviddarling.info/works/ZenPhysics/ZenPhysics_front_1.html
If nothing else, it will give you actual answers to questions you've always wondered about, like "What actually happens when you show porn to someone who effectively has two brains, and how does that relate to me?"
Seriously, though, I'm a big fan of the theory that consciousness is its own thing, neither created by nor ending with the mind itself. Your mind may limit or give shape to your consciousness, thus limiting your actions somewhat, but "free will" still exists in varying degrees.
In special education, I run into learned helplessness a lot. These are the kids who have learned that they don't control their surroundings, because care-takers do too much for them. They wait for the world to act on them rather than acting on the world. It is pretty sad and if we let this excuse making nonsense go far enough, we'll have a whole society wired this way.
if we let this excuse making nonsense go far enough, we'll have a whole society wired this way.
We already DO have a society wired this way. I see the wasteland everywhere. My twenty-something nephew lived with me for a few months last year and his complete lack of motivation astounded me. It was so pure it was a thing of beauty.
As for the 'soft addiction'--where do I sign up for one of those? It would be a pleasant change from the hard-core stuff I currently deal in. Does anybody watch A&E's INTERVENTION on Sunday nights? Great show.
A big problem with considering humans to be nothing more than automations is that if we are, then why is it wrong to harm or kill someone? It would essentially be the same as a fox killing a chicken to eat it, we don't object to that. Although people react in predictable ways to external stimuli you cannot discount the basic reality that any person has the power to control that reaction.
you cannot discount the basic reality that any person has the power to control that reaction.
I agree. Sometimes it FEELS like you can't control it, but you can.
There's another theory of human nature that I learned about last night while watching Sci-Fi's THE SEARCH FOR ATLANTIS (I watch too much TV, I realize that now) This theory says that people who are corrupt and greedy and anti-social are just displaying MORE of their ALIEN nature. Alien as in 'alien's came down and mated with humans a long time ago.' I'm a sucker for this kind of shit.
Does anybody watch A&E's INTERVENTION on Sunday nights? Great show.
I usually am to busy on weekends to catch TV, but I should probably watch this, if only to see the stupid shit families try to do before they involve me.
(I once read a family's "intervention plan" that had been written by a design engineer and computer programmer. He had plotted the intervention in excrutiating detail, including which chair the intended victim would sit in, how everyone would behave at the family party that was being held beforehand, and how everyone would say goodbye to the victim before said person was, of course, to be hauled off to rehab because they now understood the power and goodness of sobriety. Let's just say it didn't quite come off that way.)
A design engineer and a computer programmer...sounds like some control issues. :D
Yes, I really don't believe in free will. So what? I'm still going to make choices and act accordingly. Who cares if those choices and actions are "free" or not? It's still me and my body. My present brain chemistry is based on genetics, experience, environment, and probably some chaos thrown in. And if I have a propensity toward self-examination, I can analyse myself and perhaps change my own behavior. I often think about why I think about what I think about. Yes, it can get confusing.
I have no shame in being a materialist. And there is no "right" or "wrong" either. That is why behaving ethically is hard; because we don't really have to.
They keep coming up with new explanations for why people do what they do and probably will as long as there's grant money and talk shows.
BUT, we are still liable for our actions. You have a brain tumor? chemical imbalance? bad childhood ? so what? If you cook and eat your children you pay. :smack:
Well, the only use for prying into the whole thing in the first place is not to get people off the hook- if we can understand it, we can mess with it. This is not for the courtroom, it's for the lab.
Which is a scary thought. Would you rather continue to have violent crime, or have that capability removed from people at (or before, more likely) birth? It's not sarcasm, it's something I ponder sometimes. I'd almost rather have the crime than have mass genetic tinkering someday (which is a stance I'd be hard pressed to justify to a victim of rape or child abuse, or a relative of a murder victim). I'll bet it happens though, sooner or later.
I agree completely AG, I touched on it
here in the stem cell post. I think it'll happen eventually but I think it'll make people a good deal more uncomfortable than any other recent advance in science. Brave New World and Gattaca are interesting looks at the concept.
That isn't necessarily true. They could also chemically alter offenders and eliminate the need for jails and the death penalty. Your worse case scenario isn't the only possible outcome.:cool:
Your statements are full of errors.
Care to elaborate on what those errors are? Please be specific.
Your own conclusions are drawn so no sense in trying.
Care to elaborate on what those conclusions are? Please be specific.
In special education, I run into learned helplessness a lot. These are the kids who have learned that they don't control their surroundings, because care-takers do too much for them. They wait for the world to act on them rather than acting on the world. It is pretty sad and if we let this excuse making nonsense go far enough, we'll have a whole society wired this way.
I too have been working in special education for a good twenty five years. People are resilient and strong. We are automomous but not automations.
We create.As a people we fight against the laws of nature to achieve some incredible things. Simple organisms might have only their biological functions, like the ants and sea urchins. They might not have a thinking choice but people are not bound by the seeming limitaions of mind or body, no matter how imperfect they maybe. They do have a choice regardless of what the body wants to do we can make it do something else to a degree. Sometimes living life by degrees is all some people have. I'd not like that reduced to simple cause and effect without the will involved. That's all I was saying.
Well said. Sure we're acted upon but in the end we choose. I've seen kids over-come learned helplessness, so I think the rest of us can as well.
We see eye to eye then. Thank you sir.
We already DO have a society wired this way. I see the wasteland everywhere. My twenty-something nephew lived with me for a few months last year and his complete lack of motivation astounded me. It was so pure it was a thing of beauty.
As for the 'soft addiction'--where do I sign up for one of those? It would be a pleasant change from the hard-core stuff I currently deal in. Does anybody watch A&E's INTERVENTION on Sunday nights? Great show.
Yes, and what astounds me is how those who are enabling the HELL out of the addicts act like the biggest victims in it all... it is constant.
Geez, the thread from la-la land! I gotta start paying more attention to the Cellar again. OK, listen up folks!
There are definite personality disorders such as narcissistic personality disorder, anti-social personality disorder, etc.
Most psychologists believe that these disorders have more to do with early childhood treatment or mistreatment by the kid's primary care takers. There does seem to be some familial connection with schizophrenia and NPD, etc. Thus, its possible that brain chemistry does dispose some of us to these PD's.
HOWEVER: People with PD's know right from wrong. People who are out and out psychotic may not, but this is not true of someone who is a sociopath or psychopath. They KNOW they are doing wrong and they don't give a rat's ass.
There is no cure for NPD, APD, etc. Why? Because the people who have such disorders don't care and/or are incapable of the introspection required to make the needed changes in behavior.
For someone with a PD, the rest of us are sort of like TV sets or toasters. Do you care if you hurt your toaster's feelings? If your TV tells you to change your wicked ways, will you? NOT HARDLY!
Yeah, its sad that some parents are so twisted that they grow these twisted kids who become twisted adults and continue the cycle. Does that mean I'm going to say, "Poor baby! Mama didn't love you. Go ahead and rape and murder?"
That's a negativisky to that. They KNOW right from wrong. I feel sorry for drill sergeants or anyone Else who has to encounter these individuals. I even feel sorry for people with PD's in a weird way. Does this mean I think they should get a get out of jail free card? Hell no!
Yeah, we all get to play the hand that was dealt us. Some folks have a predisposition to addiction. Many of them can overcome it if they try. Some can't. Too bad. Some of us are neat freaks and some slobs and some of us can't resist buying anything that's on sale. These things are our burden to bear. Some bear their burden better than others.
I'm all for understanding reasons and whys and wherefores. God knows, some folks got dealt miserable hands. But some folks who get dealt all low cards do amazingly well. There's such a thing as spirit and heart and soul and courage.
There's no easy answers. And there's no such thing as predestination or the "devil made me do it" either.
I just like to be specific. I like to start from a set of known facts and proceed accordingly, regardless of how I feel about where the facts are leading me. There has to be objectivity which isn't influenced by a fear of unwanted conclusions.
So, from the beginning: is our nervous system composed of physical materials? Yes. And do physical materials have to obey the laws of physics? Also, yes. That is a known set of facts.
A second set of anecdotal evidence consists of our perception that there is an "x factor" which elevates us above the mere sum of a complex organic computing system. We want to believe that our thoughts and emotions are something more than neuro-chemical phantoms generated by ordinary chemical reactions. But, what evidence is there to support this?
What is "awareness" - what is it made out of? Does it exist in a magical dimension seperate from physical reality? We don't have the answers to this question, but I like to start from what we do know.
We can't put the cart of our expectations before the horse of the available evidence. We don't want to think of a society where people are absolved of personal responsibility, so we avoid what we know about reality - in favor of what we are more comfortable with. We choose ignorance because we cannot immediately see the outcome of exploring an unknown path. That's not clear thinking, that's not good science - a flawed foundation will never produce a solid result.
Whatever makes us tick has to be either #1 a physical process that obeys the laws of physics or #2 a magical spirit from the land of fairies and unicorns. There is no fuzzy middle ground.
And by the way, Quantum Physics doesn't help tear down this Newtonian-sounding argument. Quantum Physics adds, at best, an element of pure randomness. Going on the assumption that a comfortable-feeling conclusion is desired: would one rather be a robot that obeys a set of complicated laws, or a unpredictable anamoly with no control over a series of random occurances?
You'll notice I haven't ventured one step beyond what I said in my very first post here. Like I said, I like to start at the beginning, from a set of known facts, and proceed accordingly. Also, I like to avoid acting like a shit-flinging monkey who has no response beyond personal insults and unsubstantiated non-rebuttals.
That's not clear thinking, that's not good science
How can those exist if our thoughts and emotions are..
neuro-chemical phantoms generated by ordinary chemical reactions
There is no fuzzy middle ground
Says who? :confused:
The scientific method is designed to fend off flawed assumptions. It intends to compensate for our desire to color our perceptions with personal bias. It does a pretty good job considering the impossibility of that task. Luckily, science isn't carved in stone. We peel away the layers as we go.
Whatever makes us tick has to be either #1 a physical process that obeys the laws of physics or #2 a magical spirit from the land of fairies and unicorns. There is no fuzzy middle ground.
Says who?
What other options are there? It's physical, or it's something else.
The scientific method is designed to fend off flawed assumptions. It intends to compensate for our desire to color our perceptions with personal bias. It does a pretty good job considering the impossibility of that task. Luckily, science isn't carved in stone. We peel away the layers as we go.
How can we do all that if our thoughts and emotions are nothing but "neuro-chemical phantoms generated by ordinary chemical reactions"?
What other options are there? It's physical, or it's something else.
You set up an answer with rediculous extremes and claim there can be nothing between them. Prove it. :eyebrow:
You can't prove it. But it can be disproven if a counterexample is found.
The scientific method is designed to fend off flawed assumptions. It intends to compensate for our desire to color our perceptions with personal bias. It does a pretty good job considering the impossibility of that task. Luckily, science isn't carved in stone. We peel away the layers as we go.
Yes, that's why we have the sciences of psychology, psychiatry, and neurology. Personality is NOT a "magical spirit from the land of fairy tales and unicorns." Some aspects of personality or some tendencies do seem to be inherited - autism, schizophrenia, and some forms of intelligence are examples of this.
Most neuroses and, to a large extent, personality disorders, are more the result of early childhood experiences than they are brain chemistry. I suggest you read the book by the respected psychiatrist, M. Scott Peck called
People of the Lie, if you are in doubt about what constitutes personality and what constitutes evil.
The world cannot be explained by physics alone. To attempt to do this just goes to show how ignorant of science you really are.
What other options are there? It's physical, or it's something else.
Exactly. Its physical
and a 100 if not a 1,000 "something elses." Good science does not fall back on black and white thinking. Science is subtle and complex. Try cracking a book on biology or psychology sometime. You'll be amazed.
Care to elaborate on what those errors are? Please be specific.
Flint, I am confused. I am just a country bumpkin but I am sure you mean the laws of human physiology and not the law of physics.
When something confuses me I am on it like a squirrel with a nut. ( no pun intended)
So I did a little research this am to give you the specifics you asked for.
I am looking for something that proves physics has anything to do with what you are talking about.
I think not but I try. I look up the law of physics. You know atoms,time and gravity.
http://srikant.org/core/phy11sep.html
I find a paper from a University that trys to deal with what I think you might be going for. It is the question of human physiology and consciousness.(or awareness) I don't agree with it but it is discussed from a physiology standpoint and not a physics stand point. I could'nt find anyone talking about human physics sorry
( I lost that link but if you google human physics together you might find it.)
http://scbe.stanford.edu/conference/hallett.pdf
Here is another article with the word physics in it. Even thought the classroom is called,'The Physics Classroom' the person talks about the physiology of hearing and the perceptopn of it which falls under human psychology. The only physics involved is the mechanics of how sound travels.
Care to elaborate on what those conclusions are? Please be specific.
You said :
Whatever makes us tick has to be either #1 a physical process that obeys the laws of physics or #2 a magical spirit from the land of fairies and unicorns. There is no fuzzy middle ground.
As far as my research shows there IS a fuzzy middle ground. In your own words you say there isn't but there is. Your above post is your own conclusion but they are in error.
How about these sciences for fuzzy ground?
Neuroscience - Neuropsychology
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroscience
Neuroscience is a field of study that deals with the
structure, function,
development,
genetics,
biochemistry,
physiology,
pharmacology, and
pathology of the
nervous system, consisting of the myriad nerve pathways running throughout the body. The study of behavior and
learning is also a division of neuroscience.
Psychology - Cognitive Psychology
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_psychology
Philosophy - Philosophy of Mind
[LIST]
[*]
Choice
[*]
Concept formation
[*]
Decision making
[*]
Judgment and decision making
[*]
Logic, formal and natural
reasoning
[*]
Problem solving[/LIST]
They work within that area you say dosn't exist . I must question whether you really believe what you say.
sorry you asked :thepain3:
It's a really simple concept. Physics is: what? The laws of little particles and waves and such. And what is the world as we know it made up of? This stuff, this stuff that must obey these laws. There isn’t anything that isn’t made up of this stuff, that must obey these laws. A basketball, bouncing, must obey these laws. A computer, crunching numbers, must obey these laws. And a clump of organic matter, inside your head, must obey these laws. To assume a special quality as regards ourselves in particular is highly arrogant on our part.
...the sciences of psychology, psychiatry, and neurology...
These sciences describe processes occurring in the human “mind” – and a lot of debate goes around about where the “mind” lives. However, what we do know is that the body and the brain are composed of the same material as the rest of the universe. Therefore, unless we are to believe that some outside force, some unknown force, is acting upon us, animating us in some unknown fashion (and that is an interesting possibility, and I don’t rule that out – but that possibility can be proven or demonstrated at this point), then we have to accept that we obey the same laws of physics as everything else.
...autism, schizophrenia, and some forms of intelligence...
These conditions, unless caused by mysterious invisible forces, are the playing out of complex chemical rections – that obey the laws of physics, just like everything else.
...more the result of early childhood experiences than they are brain chemistry...
The perception of the experience, and it’s result upon the individual, take place within the neuro-chemical framework of the human body - that must obey the laws of physics, just like everything else.
The world cannot be explained by physics alone.
Of course not. But you can’t just
ignore physics either. The laws of physics act upon all known materials in the universe, including us.
We aren’t special. To attempt to do this just goes to show how ignorant of science you really are.
I could say that you are ignorant, for failing to understand my very simple point, but I won’t, because hurling personal insults doesn’t do it for me. I prefer substance.
Good science does not fall back on black and white thinking. Science is subtle and complex.
This characterization of my argument is actually humorous to me. I have a simple point. I am speaking in simple terms because my point is very simple. I am highly aware of the complexity of science. I am aware, for instance, that you can’t just ignore fundamental facts. To me, that is truly ignorant.
Try cracking a book on biology or psychology sometime. You'll be amazed.
Hey, more personal insults, cool. You fail to grasp a simple point, and accuse me of not being able to see beyond that point. I can see just fine - however, I am simply discussing the one point you are failing to grasp. As long as you keep failing to grasp it, I will keep trying to explain it. Why? I guess I just have faith in humanity, in the ability of people to understand very basic concepts. Call me a dreamer...
How can we do all that...
Meaning, employ the scientific method with 100% unfailing accuracy? We can't. We can only do our best. As I said, science is "designed to" and "intends to" do something that is an "impossibility" - but, it isn't "carved in stone." So, we do our best. If we want to throw out the scientific method, we may as well teach Creationism to our children.
Flint, I am confused. I am just a country bumpkin but I am sure you mean the laws of human physiology and not the law of physics.
Physiology describes physical aspects of the human body. Physical object must obey the laws of physics. Physiology doesn't make physics not exist.
Neuroscience - Neuropsychology
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroscience
Neuroscience is a field of study that deals with the structure, function, development, genetics, biochemistry, physiology, pharmacology, and pathology of the nervous system, consisting of the myriad nerve pathways running throughout the body. The study of behavior and learning is also a division of neuroscience.
Neuroscience describes physical aspects of the human body, and the functions of these physical aspects. Physical object must obey the laws of physics. Neuroscience does not refute physics - they work together. You can't just ignore one of them.
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[SIZE="4"]It is an exceedingly simple point, folks.[/SIZE]We are physical objects and everything that happens within us, no matter how complex it is, is based on physical processes that must obey the laws of physics. The only argument against this is that there is some unknown outside force that makes us, of all things, special. I doubt that. I aggressively doubt that we are special beings which defy the laws of physics. That is my point. That, and nothing else. I am simply not discussing any of the peripheral subjects here which don't address this point. Why? Because first things must be considered first. I am not ignoring the subjects put forth here, but nothing can make the basic laws of the universe just go away, nothing. Especially not us. We are nothing special.
OK, Flint. I agree that human beings follow the laws of science. But you forget that science is merely a HUMAN construct which we use to attempt to understand the world around us. Science is not God. Science is as fallible as the human beings who use it. Consider LeMarquism, for example. Consider the the discrepancies between quantum mechanics and classical physics. Consider the fact that science and scientists constantly undergo paradigm shifts with new discoveries and new ways of thinking about and explaining the world.
Here's a reducto ad absurdum for you:
Pavlov's dog hears a bell ring each time it gets fed. After a while, the ringing bell is all that is required to cause the dog to salivate at the thought of food. The dog's brain has rewired itself so that the sound of a bell rather than the smell of food causes it to produce a chemical secretion (saliva) in anticipation of being fed.
Pavlov's dog escapes from the lab, grows up and enters the upper social circles of the canine world. Alas, when the butler rings the bell for dinner, PD can't help but drool all over himself. The pedigreed poodles snicker behind PD's back. PD's girl friend is ashamed to attend social functions with him. PD himself is filled with embarrassment and shame over his uncontrollable response.
Now PD can write this off to his cruel early childhood in the lab. A zillion members of PETA will support him in his stance. Its just physics, after all.
However, if you want to study physics, try reciting for me the third law of thermodynamics without resorting to Google. If you can't do that, join me and Pavlov's Dog in his behavior modification class where he slowly and painfully learns to be an accepted member of society again.
And if you think physics is all there is to the current dominant paradigm, then stay away from anything to do with biology or medicine and die alone cursing the darkness. We'll toll a bell for you.
OK, Flint. I agree that human beings follow the laws of science. But you forget that science is merely a HUMAN construct which we use to attempt to understand the world around us. Science is not God. Science is as fallible as the human beings who use it. Consider LeMarquism, for example. Consider the the discrepancies behind quantum mechanics and classical physics. Consider the fact that science and scientists constantly undergo paradigm shifts with new discoveries and new ways of thinking about and explaining the world.
Here's a reducto ad absurdum for you:
Pavlov's dog hears a bell ring each time it gets fed. After a while, the ringing bell is all that is required to cause the dog to salivate at the thought of food. The dog's brain has rewired itself so that the sound of a bell rather than the smell of food causes it to produce a chemical secretion (saliva) in anticipation of being fed.
Pavlov's dog escapes from the lab, grows up and enters the upper social circles of the canine world. Alas, when the butler rings the bell for dinner, PD can't help but drool all over himself. The pedigreed poodles snicker behind PD's back. PD's girl friend is ashamed to attend social functions with him. PD himself is filled with embarrassment and shame over his uncontrollable response.
Now PD can write this off to his cruel early childhood in the lab. A zillion members of PETA will support him in his stance. Its all physics, after all.
However, if you want to study physics, try reciting for me the third law of thermodynamics without resorting to Google. If you can't do that, join me and Pavlov's Dog in his behavior modification class where he slowly and painfully learns to be an accepted member of society again.
And if you think physics is all there is to the current dominant paradigm, then stay away from anything to do with biology or medicine and die alone cursing the darkness. We'll toll a bell for you.
But you forget that science is merely a HUMAN construct which we use to attempt to understand the world around us.
No, I don't forget that. What makes you think I forget that? Please be specific, citing things I have posted - not your assumptions about things I have posted.
Here's a reducto ad absurdum for you: . . . Its all physics, after all.
This has nothing to do with anything I have posted, and everything to do with your assumptions about the things I have posted.
And if you think physics is all there is to the current dominant paradigm, then stay away from anything to do with biology or medicine and die alone cursing the darkness.
Again, this is directed entirely towards an imaginary position you have created in your own mind, which I have never stated. Please remember to read more carefully, and, when in doubt, just stick to taking things at face value, exactly as stated, without launching into a series of assumptions, and then coming back to me as if I have stated points which I, in fact, have never stated.
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I don't have anything else to add to my original, basic, easy to understand point. Everything in the universe, including ourselves, must obey the laws of physics. There are no special exceptions. That is the entirity of my point - nothing more, nothing less.
Any conclusions or extrapolations based upon your understanding of this basic point are not my responsibility.
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And, please feel free to keep up with the silly personal attacks, if that floats your boat. It doesn't bother me, but if it gives you a thrill, go for it.
And if you think physics is all there is to the current dominant paradigm, then stay away from anything to do with biology or medicine and die alone cursing the darkness. We'll toll a bell for you.
Biology and medicine are frameworks that abstract the physics enough to be useful for certain fields of study, but they are physics in the end.
Sure, the matter that we're made of reacts to the laws of physics. So what? That doesn't make us "essentially automatons".
It's a hell of a leap from the body obeying the laws of physics to thought/emotion is "just neuro-chemical phantoms generated by ordinary chemical reactions."
It's rediculous to say,
Whatever makes us tick has to be either #1 a physical process that obeys the laws of physics or #2 a magical spirit from the land of fairies and unicorns. There is no fuzzy middle ground.
Saying anything we don't understand, or have yet to discover, doesn't exist is stupid.
That would make all research a waste of time and money and that has been proven to be false.... repeatedly.
I
[SIZE="1"]not[/SIZE] ROBOT. :lol:
Huh? The research is to discover what the physical processes are!
"It is a consensus fast approaching unanimity in scientific circles that "we" (our selves) are no more than the consequences of our brains at work. In the modern view, we are mere epiphenomena or, more charitably perhaps, culminations, of the greatest concentration of orchestrated molecular activity in the known cosmos. And although it is true we don't yet know exactly how the trick is done — these are still frontier days in the brain sciences — it is widely held to be only a matter of time before those who are teasing apart the circuitry of the human cortex lay bare the hidden props of the illusion. The situation is as brutally materialistic as that. There is not the slightest bit of credible evidence to suggest there is more to your self, to the feeling of being you, than a stunningly complex pattern of chemical and electrical activity among your neurons. No soul, no astral spirit, no ghost in the machine, no disembodied intelligence that can conveniently bail out when the brain finally crashes to its doom. If science is right, then you and I are just transitory mental states of our brains."
http://www.daviddarling.info/works/ZenPhysics/ZenPhysics_ch2.html
Now, the above is merely an opinion, but it's a spiel that would take my simple mind an hour to articulate, so I cheated and linked. I agree with the evidence, but there's more to it than that. And I
think it's what Flint is trying to put across.
As for personal responsiblity for actions- we're still at the caveman phase when it comes to identifying and preventing the causes of mental illness. Those who violently harm others
must be contained, but as far as punishment goes, how far can you take it before you stop and realize that an individual doesn't know any more than what they've been exposed to? That the development of the brain in infancy and childhood may determine whether some people will be criminals or not?
Marichiko, it may be rare for social and mental disorders to be genetic, but if the disorder is a result of the individual's environment (specifically, parental factors), is there that much of a difference? On the one hand, they were fucked from birth; on the other, they were slowly, painstakingly fucked up over time. The real question is, can it be fixed? Here's an idea:
http://www.daviddarling.info/works/ZenPhysics/ZenPhysics_ch5.html
Keeping in mind, if someone's ability to interact healthily with society
is dependent on early experiences, once we know they're fucked up, the reasonable choices are containment and cure- punishment may be fun, but it serves no purpose other than dissuading others, and when it comes to the mentally ill and many criminals, that doesn't go very far.
That's my rational side speaking. I'd just as soon shoot 'em. Decisions, decisions.
I tend to agree with flint. And why worry that we live in physical world without any meaning other than that which we "think" it has? Just because I'm a biological robot does not mean I don't experience feelings, appreciate beauty, and even try to make the world a better place to live. I'm not afraid of the void.
Science is not God.
The above construction presupposes that such a "God" actually exists. Sure, reality is a "construction," but try saying that before jumping in front of a bus. I have more faith that the bus will run you over than I do that any god would save you; let alone exist in the first place (and don't take this to mean that I
want you to be run over by a bus).
Huh? The research is to discover what the physical processes are!
Oh? You're telling me there is a physical process to explain everything we don't understand? If they can't find one then it doesn't happen? I'd say research is to find out if there
is a physical process to explain what we don't understand.
They've figured out the whole sperm, egg, cell divide thing.... how the body mechanically functions, converts fuel to energy, etc. Lots of
hows, but a lot less
whys.
There is a good chance many
whys many never get past the theory stage, but I'm not buying rational thought is nothing more than random electro chemical reactions. That may be the
how but not the
why. :headshake
Well, there's either a physical process, or a magical one. That's the definition of supernatural - not bound by the laws of physics.
Yes, science doesn't answer why, but why doesn't answer how. In the scientific sense, whys don't even reach the theory stage, much less get past it. You can't experimentally test a why. They can only be theories in the colloquial sense, in other words guesses. You can't research a why in the scientific sense, you can only read the untestable guesses of other people.
But if the question is "what is consciousness", the why, even if known, doesn't answer the how (though it would probably, if known, point research in the right direction). And that how is, in the end, either physics or magic.
... the respected psychiatrist, M. Scott Peck
I honestly don't think those terms have ever been used in conjuction with that name. You mean the Road Less Travelled pop psychology guy, right?
"Made a lot of money" <> "respected"
Maybe there is no why, at least in the metaphysical sense. "Why are we here?" "Why do we die?" "Why do accidents kill little kids?" I see this world (and we as a species) as having no real "reason" for being here other than to manifest our bilogical imperative to reproduce. As I've posted before, just because we can "imagine" a better world as in the Lennon song doesn't mean it will occur. We sure have a bad track record.
The sun is dying and will one day engulf the earth.
Biology and medicine are frameworks that abstract the physics enough to be useful for certain fields of study, but they are physics in the end.
Please explain to me the speciation of Darwin's finches using only the laws of thermodynamics. Please explain to me the dynamics of grassland ecology in the areas of central and northern Arizona using only quantum mechanics. Please explain to me the work of Louis Pasteur using only the Grand Unified Theory. If you can do these things to my satisfaction and that of every other biologist and ecologist, I may concede your point.
Oh, yeah. Please explain the placebo effect using the law of vectors.
Thank you.
I honestly don't think those terms have ever been used in conjuction with that name. You mean the Road Less Travelled pop psychology guy, right?
"Made a lot of money" <> "respected"
From Wikipedia:
He (M. Scott Peck) graduated from Friends Seminary in 1954, after which he received a B.A. from Harvard in 1958 and an M.D. degree from Case Western Reserve University in 1963. He served in administrative posts in the government during his career as a psychiatrist. He was the Medical Director of the New Milford Hospital Mental Health Clinic and a psychiatrist in private practice in New Milford, Connecticut. His first and best-known book, The Road Less Traveled, has sold more than seven million copies.
Now, Wolf, I'm sure your academic credentials in the field of psychiatry put Dr. Peck to shame. It is especially outrageous of the man that he wrote a popular book on psychology that gave understanding of the field to millions of lay-people. TSK, TSK, Tsk! I suggest you read People of the Lie, if you can stomach reading the ideas of this charlatan.
Please explain to me the speciation of Darwin's finches using [physics]. Please explain to me the dynamics of grassland ecology in the areas of central and northern Arizona using only [physics].
Speciation is a result of sexual reproduction, which is a method for the duplication of DNA, which is very complicated chemistry which is the physics of atoms and molecules.
Grassland ecology is the interaction of the fluid dynamics of atmosphere and groundwater, bedrock, and the various forms of life in the area. Fluid dynamics is physics, geology is largely fluid dynamics and chemistry. And each individual form of life follows the biology to chemistry to physics path.
But what are you trying to get me to admit? That explaining ecology at the quantum level is overkill? That it's not useful? That nobody does it? If you look at my quote, you'll see that I already said it:
Originally Posted by
Happy Monkey
Biology and medicine are frameworks that abstract the physics enough to be useful for certain fields of study, but they are physics in the end.Well, there's either a physical process, or a magical one. That's the definition of supernatural - not bound by the laws of physics.
Yes, science doesn't answer why, but why doesn't answer how. In the scientific sense, whys don't even reach the theory stage, much less get past it. You can't experimentally test a why. They can only be theories in the colloquial sense, in other words guesses. You can't research a why in the scientific sense, you can only read the untestable guesses of other people.
But if the question is "what is consciousness", the why, even if known, doesn't answer the how (though it would probably, if known, point research in the right direction). And that how is, in the end, either physics or magic.
OK, I follow you, except some times the how solves why. Solving how water runs down hill also solves the why, for example.
For "what is consciousness", the brain appears to work on an electro-chemical thing that they haven't completely mapped out yet, but even when they do, I doubt it will explain why two different brains will give different thoughts with the same through-put.
I think we're talking about the same thing but you call it how and I call it why.
I might understand the brain better if I had one. :smack:
I think we're talking about the same thing but you call it how and I call it why.
Maybe. I intended "how" to imply mechanism and "why" to imply an underlying reason for the "how". I'm not sure how to read post 52 otherwise.
For "what is consciousness", the brain appears to work on an electro-chemical thing that they haven't completely mapped out yet, but even when they do, I doubt it will explain why two different brains will give different thoughts with the same through-put.
I've got a pretty good proposition for a possible answer to that question: No two brains are identical. Chaos theory would predict that in a system as complicated as a brain, the smallest of differences in structure could cause massively different outputs, and differences in brain structure arent that small, as brains wire themselves partially based on stimulus during development.
John Mack, M.D., is a psychiatrist with a long list of credentials, publishing credits, and was (is?) on the medical and teaching staff at Harvard.
He thinks his patients were abducted by aliens.
Having a multi-million copy best seller does not make you a good shrink. Nothing changes the fact that M. Scott Peck writes pop culture crap for the worried well.
No doubt, John Mack is suffering from some biochemical anomaly in his brain function. The aliens messed him up when they did that brain probe on him because they don't understand the biophysics of terrestial beings. :p
Here's the deal, from my perspective.
I'm one of those people with a low heart rate and stimuli threshold.
But, I'm a pacifist and don't like violence. I went through some anti-social stages early in life but made a CHOICE.
Just like I, when I was a bouncer, saw people who were troublemakers stop doing something they were doing when they saw me coming. People who later (as I was throwing them out) told me that it was not their fault because they "were sick", going so far as to show me their meds. People are nuts about clubs in a college town. But, they did not try to hit me, someone they knew was bigger and had others around to back him up? Why, if they were sick and could not help themselves? CHOICE.
If you know the difference between right and wrong, what is expected and what is required and what is not, you have the CHOICE.
Sure, for some it is harder than others, just like for me it is harder to take a shower and brush my teeth & tell my son a bedtime story because I am disabled... but I do it, I choose to.
(BTW. I made a good bouncer because I was a pacifist, it is how I got the job... I have never hit anyone out of anger or first in my life.)
NEVER hit in anger or first? Not even as a little kid?
No brothers, sisters, or neighbors... I cheated.
If you know the difference between right and wrong, what is expected and what is required and what is not, you have the CHOICE.
"Right" and "wrong" are entirely subjective and culturally biased; this can be shown through a myriad of examples.
just like for me it is harder to take a shower and brush my teeth & tell my son a bedtime story because I am disabled... but I do it, I choose to.
Choosing to do something does not mean the choice is "free," it just means that you get something that you want through the action (healthy teeth, mutual affection with your son) that is greater than what you would get from not acting.
I'm not trying to get you mad, rkzen, but if I say there is no free will I have to defend my position. And as I said before, acknowledging the essential meaninglessness of the world does not have to be a negative thing. Ironically, it's almost a kind of "zen" in itself.
Peace.
I agree with you when you say that acknowledging the essential meaninglessness of the world can be positive , Pangloss . It is a sort of heroism . It is the heroism of the tramps in Waiting for Godot .
He never came, as I recall.
No , he never came , and they never hanged themselves either .
Dr. Pangloss would understand that. So would Doris Day (Que sera sera).
No , he never came , and they never hanged themselves either .
You should really fucking warn people about spoilers.
Don't have time for a thorough read right now, but just hopping in reall quick on the last page. Don't even know where the conversation has meandered, so here goes my "broken record" . . .
CHOICE
Okay, choice. Does it occur in the brain? (And by "brain" I mean shorthand for whatever equipment we have that performs this function.) Is the "brain" a physical object? Then, the brain must follow the laws of physics, whether we fully understand them or not, right? Unless there is some "magical" influence which grants humans special excemption from the rules which govern every other particle of energy/matter in the universe.
The actions of our constituent parts must be determined by these rules - unless we are magical in some way. Neurology, Psychology, etc. - they describe the higher level functions of organized energy/matter, the top layer of function. But, the energy/matter they deal with cannot ignore the fact that it is governed by physics. You can't ignore one in favor of the other, and I'm not doing that. I'm saying physics is underneath everything, and physics means things are determined, whether we understand how they are determined or not. And we don't understand it, but we can't ignore it either. We are physical objects - unless you believe that we are magical beings endowed with the ability to defy the laws of nature. We are physical objects. Does that make me think less of myself? Does that make me feel that I am not in control of "myself"? Of course not, because I am operating within the framework of the human "operating system" - which includes everything we are able to percieve about the world as we know it. It doesn't mean I can't be aware of the fact that humans are
just another part of the world as we know it.
.
.
.
Now, many things in this are open to debate. For starters, if I were reading this, I would say my whole argument is too "Newton-esque" and discuss the relationship between conciousness and "reality" as relates to the emerging synergy between science and ancient spirituality.
Of course, I am simply discussing (in this thread) a tiny part of the subject - I really haven't moved beyond the opening line, but people seemed to struggle with that one basic concept so much that I got dragged down into a silly debate.
Some things are intelligently debatable, some things aren't.
I nipped out to buy a packet of fags just after I wrote that last post to Pangloss . I have all this spare time because I am a teacher on holiday , in case you are wondering . On the way out , I met the man who owns the building in which I live . 17th century French building with amazing architectural features . I smiled and shook his hand , and he asked me if I was aware of the tragedy .
His brother hanged himself from one of the 17th century rafters , a floor up from my floor . This happened last Friday , and I did not even know . I was probably spouting the usual Beckett existential crap on a machine at the time .
I remember seeing the brother last week by the letterboxes in the hall . Our family is moving to the Caribbean , and we exchanged polite words about how it is interesting to see differrent places .
Sorry Flint to have piggy-jumped your post , but I have to admit to feeling slightly stunned .
I have to admit to feeling slightly stunned.
Well, at least the phasers are only set to
stun!Hey Flint (and others). Check out the below article. I posted the text instead of a link because one has to suscribe to get it. It relates to this string in that we are finding out more and more just how material the brain really is. It reminds me of another article I read where they stimulated this one area of a woman's brain and all she could do was laugh. She said that when they did this, everything in the hospital room just "seemed" funny; the lab coats, the machines, they all cracked her up. Laughter used to be thought of as one of those precious, almost-spiritual things, but it too is just synapses and chemicals.:neutral:
[COLOR="Navy"]Man Uses Chip to Control Robot With Thoughts
By ANDREW POLLACK
Published: July 12, 2006
A paralyzed man with a small sensor implanted in his brain was able to control a computer, a television and a robot using only his thoughts, scientists reported today.
Seven Films Showing Matt Nagle Controlling Electronic Devices Using Thought. The development offers hope that in the future, people with spinal cord injuries, Lou Gehrig’s disease or other ailments that impair movement might be able to better communicate with or control their world.
“If your brain can do it, we can tap into it,’’ said John P. Donoghue, a professor at Brown University who led the development of the system and was the senior author of a report published today in the journal Nature.
In separate experiments, the first person to receive the implant, Matthew Nagle, was able to move a cursor, open e-mail, play a simple video game called Pong and draw a crude circle on the screen. He could change the channel or volume of a television set, move a robot arm somewhat, and open and close a prosthetic hand.
Although his cursor control was sometimes wobbly, the basic movements were not hard to learn. “I pretty much had that mastered in four days,’’ Mr. Nagle, now 26, said in a telephone interview from the New England Sinai Hospital and Rehabilitation Center in Stoughton, Mass., where he lives. He said the implant did not cause any pain.
A former high school football star in Weymouth, Mass., Mr. Nagle was paralyzed below the shoulders after being stabbed in the neck during a melee at a beach in July 2001. He said he was not involved in starting the brawl and didn’t even know what sparked it. The man who stabbed him is now serving ten years in prison, he said.
There have been some tests of a simpler sensor implant in people, as well as tests of systems using electrodes outside the scalp. And Mr. Nagle has spoken about his experiences before.
But the paper in Nature is the first peer-reviewed publication of an experiment using a more sophisticated implant in a human.
The paper helps “shift the notion of such ‘implantable neuromotor prosthetics’ from science fiction towards reality,’’ Stephen H. Scott of Queen’s University in Canada wrote in a commentary in the journal.
The implant system, known as the BrainGate, is being developed by Cyberkinetics Neurotechnology Systems of Foxborough, Mass. The company is now testing the system in three other people whose names have not been released — one with a spinal cord injury, one who had a brain-stem stroke and one with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.
Timothy R. Surgenor, the president of the company, said Cyberkinetics hoped to have an implant approved for use as early as 2008 or 2009. Mr. Donoghue of Brown is a cofounder of the company and its chief scientist. Some of the authors of the research paper work for the company, while others work at Massachusetts General Hospital and other medical or academic institutions.
The sensor measures 4 millimeters — about one sixth of an inch — on a side and contains 100 tiny electrodes. The device was implanted in the area of Mr. Nagle’s motor cortex that is responsible for arm movement, and was connected to a pedestal that protruded from the top of his skull.
When the device was to be used, technicians connected the pedestal to a computer with a cable. So Mr. Nagle was directly wired to a computer, somewhat like a character in the “Matrix” movies.
Mr. Nagle would then imagine moving his arm to hit various targets, as technicians calibrated the machine, a process that took about half an hour each time. The implanted sensor eavesdropped on the electrical signals emitted by nearby neurons as they controlled the imaginary arm movement.
Scientists said the study was important because it showed that the neurons in Mr. Nagle’s motor cortex were still active, years after they had any role to play in physically moving his arms.
Cursor control was not very smooth. In a task where the goal was to guide the cursor from the center of the screen to a target on the perimeter, Mr. Nagle hit the target about 73 to 95 percent of the time. When he did, it took an average of 2.5 seconds, though sometimes much longer. The second patient tested with the implant had worse control than Mr. Nagle, the paper said.
By contrast, healthy people moving the cursor by hand can hit the target almost every time and in only one second.
Dr. Jonathan R. Wolpaw, a researcher at the New York State Department of Health in Albany, said the BrainGate performance did not appear to be substantially better than a non-invasive system he is developing using electroencephalography, in which electrodes are placed outside the scalp.
“If you are going to have something implanted into your brain, you’d probably want it to be a lot better,’’ he said.
Dr. Donoghue and other proponents of the implants say they have the potential to be a lot better, because they are much closer to the relevant neurons. The scalp electrodes get signals from millions of neurons all over the brain.
One way to improve implant performance was suggested by another paper in the same edition of Nature. In a study involving monkeys, Krishna V. Shenoy and colleagues at Stanford University eavesdropped not on the neurons controlling arm movement but on those expressing the intention to move.
“Instead of sliding the cursor out to the target, we can just predict which target would be hit, and the cursor simply leaps there,’’ said Mr. Shenoy, an assistant professor of electrical engineering and neurosciences.
He said a patient using the system could do the equivalent of typing 15 words a minute, about four times the speed of the other devices.
Other obstacles must be overcome before brain implants become practical. The ability of the electrodes to detect brain signals begins to deteriorate after several months, for reasons that are not fully understood. Also, ideally, the implant would transmit signals out of the brain wirelessly, doing away with the permanent hole in the head and the accompanying risk of infection.
Mr. Nagle, meanwhile, had his implant removed after a bit more than a year, so he could undergo another operation that allowed him to breathe without a ventilator. He can control a computer with voice commands, so he does not really need the brain implant. But he said he was happy he volunteered for the experiment.
“It gave a lot of people hope,’’ he said. [/COLOR]
For more on the subject of "the peeling away of human arrogance"
Carl Sagan's [SIZE="3"]Pale Blue Dot[/SIZE]
Puh-lease,
Your original point, which you have now forgotten, was: since humans are governed by physics, they are automatons.
You said in post #2, So, unless one believes that there is some "magical" quality to a human being, then one must accept that we are essentially automatons.
OK, let's try it another way.
My brain, I very readily admit, is governed by the laws of physics.
So is my dog's brain. But I notice an immense difference between my dog's brain and my brain. My dog, for example, is not on the Intarwebs arguing about the nature of her brain. She is unable to even manage the simple task of selecting one particular key over another.
This difference can be explained by the laws of nature. But it is not very interesting to examine it from that point of view.
Nature, in creating man, developed an intelligence so profound that it is able to comprehend itself, the passage of time, logic, consciousness, etc. Merely through the laws of physics, it developed a meat so complex that it could use chemical/electronical means to save memories of past events. But that dosen't mean we're automatons - in fact it means the opposite.
You can dispute free will, and we know that personality is largely a product of the chemistry - the laws of nature striking again. But personality doesn't dictate our choices; it only suggests them to us. That seems pretty self-evident to me.
My dog is an automaton, in that her choices are almost entirely instinct. My choices are partly instinct, but I can override this and regularly do.
Like all people I have a gregarious nature, but I can exercise that nature differently. I can't choose not to be gregarious (lordy knows I've tried), but that doesn't mean I don't have free will to choose how to be. My basic shyness may suggest a general course of action, but I can choose to exercise it differently - I can stay in my room and sulk, or I can create an online community where I can feel a little more free to be social in ways I enjoy.
The laws of physics are specific and straight-forward, but when applied over millions upon millions of years, they have created a being so complex that it can have consciousness and be creative and make different choices.
Yes, it is complex, and we don't fully understand it. But it isn't magical. So my original point stands, logically - unless a rebuttal to the laws of physics is offered.
My dog is an automaton, in that her choices are almost entirely instinct. My choices are partly instinct, but I can override this and regularly do.
Humans are an animal that is only .0000001% more complex than bacteria -
in the big picture. That doesn't bother me. If it bothers you, then you tell yourself "I am human, I am special, I am above all things." Sorry, you aren't.
"Automaton" doesn't specify level of complexity. If you agree that your dog is an automaton, then you agree that you are an automaton. If not, then you are saying that a man is built on a different platform than a dog. That isn't the case. Sorry.
Not magical, yes - but automaton or not was your operative argument here, and you have completely dropped it.
Man is an automaton. There, now I said it again, so you won't forget.
"Automaton" doesn't specify level of complexity.
Ah, so it's your definition of "automaton" that is really the root of the argument.
We could have avoided about 80 posts with clear reading?
You claim that we are at about the same level as bacteria, so then why are we debating human rights issues in other areas of this forum? If we are as Flint says then we don't need to because human happiness is also an illusion.
Illusion or not, it's all we've got. We've still gotta live in it.
Big thanks out to Pangloss for mentioning Matt Nagle, one of my profs was involved in some research regarding the chip used. Google the term 'Utah Array' for more info.
*cue hippie music*
You guys are freaking me out...
:bong:
why are we debating human rights issues in other areas of this forum? . . . we don't need to . . .
Draw your own conclusion based on the available evidence, but don't shoot the messenger, and don't put words in my mouth. There is a whole arena of debatable topics just begging to be discussed here, but arguing that "the Earth (read: man) is at the center of the universe" is not one of them.
I think the best thing about that story is that Matt is now a REALLY important part of breakthrough research. Probably makes it easier to deal with being paralyzed. As they say, "There but for the grace of...."
Wait a minute! I'm supposed to be an atheist!:eek:
All I'm saying is that there's no reason to waste time and energy on something that isn't valuable. If happiness does not exist then there's no reason to pay attention to it. A good argument I've heard against teaching kids that we are glorified monkeys is that they will eventually make the inevitable connection, "Hey, if we're just animals then why care about them more than I would for a bird or rabbit?? 200 casualties in a firebombing? Big deal, they'll repopulate". If people are separate from animals then say so, if we arn't then stick to where that logic leads you.
It's just a way of removing accountability for people who don't want to deal with it.
I personally DO agree that humans and animals are equal, but I take the opposite approach... Humans shouldn't be treated badly, but neither should animials. Treat every creature as if it was your equal or your superior.
People are not seperate from the animals. Logic leads me there. And, it creates some interesting ethical questions and debates. But, at the first sign of trouble, I don't simply abandon logic and revert back to a state of superstition.
As individuals, we have to take responsibility for our actions because it is the right thing to do. There isn't anything coming down from above to force us into compliance - there is neither a bearded old man in the clouds, nor a biological imperative to control us into behaving correctly. We have to do that ourselves, to the best of our ability, with the tools we've been given. Being aware of what those tools are, and trying to understand them, doesn't automatically force us to a silly conclusion like "do whatever you want, it doesn't matter anyway." I don't think we should avoid clear thinking in favor of fear-based rhetoric.
I was just bringing up the inconsistancy in punishments for killing animals and humans. We treat humans as more important than animals, I'm just saying we should look for the reason we do so.
@9th: ah-hah, I gotcha, I mis-read your post
nor a biological imperative to control us into behaving correctly.
I don't know about that. If you look at primate societies (and we are primates) the biological imperitive is to maintain relative stability within that society so it survives and reproduces offspring. This results in behaviors that produce stability and increase bonding (removing lice, defending the group against enemies, etc). Look to the primates to see ourselves on the rudimentary level. Basically, our brains are too big. This results in both the benefits and pitfalls of being human.
There could even be a biological imperitive for believing in a "god" or an afterlife. As an atheist, I always feel like a mutant anyway.:3eye:
I was just bringing up the inconsistancy in punishments for killing animals and humans. We treat humans as more important than animals, I'm just saying we should look for the reason we do so.
In evolutionary terms? The answer is obvious- we treat them as more important 'cause thay are us. The emotional mechanism is called empathy, and empathy is stronger for those who are more similar to us - it's easier to put ourselves in their shoes. Unfortunately, this can also result in the various bigotries, where it becomes difficult to empathise with humans who are different from oneself in various inconsequential ways.
I gotta say that I think this entire argument got started as someone's way of wimping out on saying "I don't beleive in God or spirit or spirituality." That's fine if folks want to be atheists. More power to you, but the the whole "we are but sub atomic particles" argument sounds suspiciously like the inverse of the intelligent design b.s.
Why can't people just stand up and stay, "I don't beleive" or "I believe"? Why the hell does science always have to be dragged in as the handmaiden of someone's personal vendetta of belief or disbelief?
I was raised a Christian and trained as a scientist. For years, I was at best an agnostic. Then a bunch of stuff happened in my life which turned me into a skeptical believer in a Greater Intelligence. BFD. Its my trip, and I'm not going to apologize for what I have experienced and learned on both sides of the equation to anyone. Yeah, every being follows the natural laws of science in so far as we understand them at this point in time. You can bet that our understanding of science is going to change considerably in the next 1,000 years - should we live so long.
As a biologist, I give the human species another 500 years max before we go the way of the trilobite. That doesn't mean I believe we are mere subatomic robots. It means that I think we are a complex species which still must follow the laws of biology and ecology.
Next topic, please.
Again, this is directed entirely towards an imaginary position you have created in your own mind, which I have never stated. Please remember to read more carefully, and, when in doubt, just stick to taking things at face value, exactly as stated, without launching into a series of assumptions, and then coming back to me as if I have stated points which I, in fact, have never stated.
I don't have anything else to add to my original, basic, easy to understand point. Everything in the universe, including ourselves, must obey the laws of physics. There are no special exceptions. That is the entirity of my point - nothing more, nothing less.
Any conclusions or extrapolations based upon your understanding of this basic point are not my responsibility.
I gotta say that I think this entire argument got started as someone's way of wimping out on saying "I don't beleive in God or spirit or spirituality."
Wimping out? It was explicitly said in post #1. The discussion was over the implications of that.
I personally don't perceive a conflict between science and spirituality.
Woah, explanation please Flint. You're one of the last people I would expect to say that.
Then a bunch of stuff happened in my life which turned me into a skeptical believer in a Greater Intelligence.
You know what's weird? A bunch of stuff happened in my life that proved to me that there IS a Greater Intelligence. Bad stuff, too.
We can conclude from that:
A) There IS a God
B) He's a dick.
:lol: thanks~! I needed that!
Wimping out? It was explicitly said in post #1. The discussion was over the implications of that.
By "wimping out" I meant using science where science does not belong. You don't use science to explain your spiritual beliefs or lack there of. Belief is just that - belief. The word "science" comes from the Latin
scio - to
know. Again, I don't like Flint's argument because it reminds me of intelligent design in reverse.
Again, I don't like Flint's argument because it reminds me of intelligent design in reverse.
ahh....that's why it makes me cringe! Like de-evolution. UR-EK-KA! That's it!
Personally, I've never believed in free will or a "soul," but for those that do, brain imaging evidence must seem like a threat.
You don't use science to explain your spiritual beliefs or lack there of.
Why not? You propose that "spiritual beliefs or lack there of [sic]" are somehow seperate from the brain? How could that be? From where does this "spiritual" component emerge? Flint's basic proposition is that anything outside our physicality enters the realm of the metaphysical (magic, etc). My only intent was to get people to talk about how almost all behaviors are now being reduced to brain chemistry, with a very explicit example. I said at the beginning how I feel about free will and a soul. Starting a thread with "I don't believe in God" would not produce much useful discussion.
Either "God" or this "greater power" (or both) are indeed dicks or there are no such things. To conclude the latter does not mean we should just sit on our hands and not do anything. Nihilism does not have to be negative. It's a starting point. It's up to "us," whatever our bodies can do to improve the world and help others. The "Golden Rule" should not be the exclusive province of the religious or spiritual. Are we not men, marichiko?
By "wimping out" I meant using science where science does not belong.
There's glory for you!
And by glory, I mean a nice, knock-down argument.
Ah, so it's your definition of "automaton" that is really the root of the argument.
We could have avoided about 80 posts with clear reading?
I caught sarcasm in this post. Flints reply implied he concidered it at face value. The fact that we interpret things as we will since we have a free will to do so proves we are not automations.
plus,,,,dogs can't read. Is further proof. I can make this silly statement is further proof of my free will.
We can conclude from that:
A) There IS a God
B) He's a dick.
I thought maybe life was a useless excursion of drudgery and then you die and become food for the grubs. I like the way you say it better though.
The fact that we interpret things as we will since we have a free will to do so proves we are not automations.
No it doesn't. If you and Flint both started at identical states, with identical brains and identical bodies, with identical upbringings, and read the statement in identical settings with identical states of mind, and
then interpreted it differently, that would be evidence against the automaton proposition.
The choice of the word automaton may not be optimal, as some people may take it to imply some sort of mass production, and therefore everyone acting the same. A better word may be
deterministic.
Why not? You propose that "spiritual beliefs or lack there of [sic]" are somehow seperate from the brain? How could that be? From where does this "spiritual" component emerge?
Why not what?
Np, I do not propose that a spiritual outlook is somehow seperate from the brain. It is our highly evolved brains which allow us to have a sense of awareness as unique selves, allows us to question and argue such things as metaphysics, makes us stand in awe of the stars on a clear summer's night. Does this understanding mean that I think physics is behind all of these things? Not necessarily. I am saying that it is an act of hubris on the part of scientists who proport to know all the answers to these things. I do not know these answrs and I studied science and the scientific method for 6 years in one of the finest science departments in one of this country's better universities. I became especially intrigued by the philosophy of science and made a study of that as well. In the end, Shakespeare summed it up as well as anyone, "There is more on heaven and earth than ever dreamed of in your philosophy."
Starting a thread with "I don't believe in God" would not produce much useful discussion.
I'll accept that, but why feed into the hands of the syncophants?
The "Golden Rule" should not be the exclusive province of the religious or spiritual. Are we not men, marichiko?
We are men and we are women, both. Nowhere did I imply that the Golden Rule is not a valid precept for people of
any persuasion to attempt to follow. Try reading Edmund O. Wilson for starters. If you want to be a decent human being on purely scientific precepts, Wilson is as good a philosopher of science to start with as any. However, do not tell me that science has proved ther is no God or that science has proved we are all automotons running our predestined little lives to an extant that would make a Calvinist proud. Science has not done these things.
This thread is one big reaktion formation.
Read The Future of an Illusion, take two aspirin, and call me next week.
There is no such thing as antisocial personality disorder.
But there IS a such a thing as pompous-windbag-who-posts-once-and-thinks-they-have-any-affect-at-all-on-what-anyone-thinks personality disorder, as far as I can tell. If you're gonna join to help or to give insight, great. But don't be a dick about it. Do you have a single thing to back up your post for those of us who dont rush out to spend our precious little money on a book we wont like just to figure out what some nutcase on a forum is talking about?!
I mean, uh, welcome to the cellar, care to elaborate on that point?
(Man, I think I'm PMSing, and I'm not even a chick...)
Don't worry Ibram. That's just your gender confusion talkin'.
Well, there's either a physical process, or a magical one. That's the definition of supernatural - not bound by the laws of physics.
Yes, science doesn't answer why, but why doesn't answer how. In the scientific sense, whys don't even reach the theory stage, much less get past it. You can't experimentally test a why. They can only be theories in the colloquial sense, in other words guesses. You can't research a why in the scientific sense, you can only read the untestable guesses of other people.
But if the question is "what is consciousness", the why, even if known, doesn't answer the how (though it would probably, if known, point research in the right direction). And that how is, in the end, either physics or magic.
No, I want door #3....or maybe #4
You're doing the same think Flint did, gotta be A or B.
You can't say what we don't know is governed by physics.
Nor is it reasonable to say if we find things that don't fit the laws as they are understood now, it's magic.
"mag·ic n.
The art that purports to control or forecast natural events, effects, or forces by invoking the supernatural."
There's no reason to suppose what we don't understand has anything to do with the supernatural. :headshake
so what are they saying? Magic and physics? what does magic have to do with physics? Magic is a vague term. I think it's just screwy. I think I'll let loose like Ibram.:p
hehehe
No, I want door #3....or maybe #4
You're doing the same think Flint did, gotta be A or B.
You can't say what we don't know is governed by physics.
Nor is it reasonable to say if we find things that don't fit the laws as they are understood now, it's magic.
The physics at that level
aren't understood now. If we find something that doesn't fit the laws as they are understood now, the laws are changed. Happens all the time. All the rules haven't been discovered. But they still exist, discovered or not. And things either follow those rules - physics - or don't - magic.
...makes us stand in awe of the stars on a clear summer's night.
I can empathize with you, marichiko. It's clear you desire to have more in your experience of reality than just matter. You're not alone in this. I used to be more like that myself. But now I can't be included in the "us" that stands in "awe" of stars on a clear summer night. Besides, where I live there is no such thing as "a clear summer's night;" to much smog. Although I have been in northern Quebec on a camping trip and saw the great misty road that is the Milky Way; that was cool. Meteor showers too. I admit that watching a meteor sends a little shiver down my spine.
Alas, when I look at stars I see stars. When I see a vivid sunset, I know it's because of all the particulates in the air.
My "Are we not men?" question was a reference to DEVO, the Ohio band that promoted de-volution, a topic that is somewhere on this string; I acknowledge women, men, and hermaphrodites, of course.
Try reading Edmund O. Wilson for starters.
"for starters?" That sounds like you are some professor and I'm the naive freshman who needs direction in understanding the world.
I've read and enjoy E.O. Wilson. His Ants book was great. And Dennet is a good explicator of some of the things we're talking about. And no, I DO NOT have his robotic dog.
For the record, it's true that the only definitive thing one could say about reality is that "something exists." Perhaps we're all pawns in the dream world of some entity we've never met. I'll take my "leap of faith" into the material world. You're lucky to have faith in something greater than matter; that must be comforting.
There is no such thing as antisocial personality disorder.
And there is no such thing as bi-polar disorder or Down Syndrome.
Hope everybody is having a good weekend, materially, spiritually, or otherwise.:neutral:
But there IS a such a thing as pompous-windbag-who-posts-once-and-thinks-they-have-any-affect-at-all-on-what-anyone-thinks personality disorder, as far as I can tell. If you're gonna join to help or to give insight, great. But don't be a dick about it. Do you have a single thing to back up your post for those of us who dont rush out to spend our precious little money on a book we wont like just to figure out what some nutcase on a forum is talking about?!
I mean, uh, welcome to the cellar, care to elaborate on that point?
(Man, I think I'm PMSing, and I'm not even a chick...)
A sort of anal response.
Ban Vular Freudian!
There are only three RULES of the Cellar.[LIST=1]
[*]Do not try to break the law using the Cellar.
[*]Do not try to break the Cellar.
[*]Do not be "intolerably irritating".[/LIST] The meaning of that last item is of course open to interpretation. But basically, if you are a troll, attention whore, moron, spammer, single-issue hammer, or otherwise want to hurt or "test" this community, you WILL be removed and banned.
If you post a link on your first post, expect your message to disappear, and your account to be banned. If you post a message that looks like a pitch in any way, expect your message to disappear. If you post a "real" message on your first post, and a pitch message on your second, expect both messages to disappear. We are extremely effective at this, and we are paying attention.
... Alas, when I look at stars I see stars. When I see a vivid sunset, I know it's because of all the particulates in the air. ...
So, because you know it's stars and particulates that makes it less beautiful? Less awe-inspiring? Alas, indeed, how sad for you that you are not awed by the beauty of these things.
A sort of anal response.
Anal? Why yes, yes it is. Ibram was describing how an asshole acts and posts.:rolleyes:
Instead of denying that it exists at all, I deny the last word. The implications of the word 'disorder' are inapporpriate in this case. It is simply a way to describe someone's behaviour. Plus, we've all seen the bizzar side effects of labeling something a disorder, it becomes an excuse and is used in cases where it doesn't apply, as if to say "well I have a disorder so there's nothing that can be done about how I behave".
Yeah, I think I agree with 9th Engineer. I think it's the actions that make the disorder, not the disorder making you not able to not do something.
I also REALLY hate it when kids my age blame everything on ADD. "oh, sorry, I can't help being a jerk, i have ADD!" "oh, whoops, I have ADD so I can do that!" etc
Every piece of information that becomes generally accepted will be used by someone, somewhere for their own purposes even if they have to twist it to fit.
"oh, sorry, I can't help being a jerk, i have ADD!" "oh, whoops, I have ADD so I can do that!" etc
My response to them is, that's a shame but there's no reason you have to be an asshole too. ;)
how sad for you that you are not awed by the beauty of these things.
Yeah, I guess that is sad...no sense of awe, no sense of wonder, just ennui. I'm screwed. :(
Hey Ibram. I agree about the ADD. AADD. AAHDD. Add coca cola and stir.
I personally don't perceive a conflict between science and spirituality.
Woah, explanation please Flint. You're one of the last people I would expect to say that.
. . . I said
"spirituality" - not "religion"!There is magic and wonder and awesome-ness (my kid's word) all around us, every day. Just because you've broken down the process doesn't make it any less magical, etc. I can recall sitting in a class for certification as a Hearing Conservationist (occupational health) and we went into minute depth about how the ear developed and then worked. I remember thinking, "this is a truly amazing thing! THIS proves a Creative Intelligence!" and I, knowing this feeling of awe would not last, noted it for the precious moment that it was. Science IS the magic.
Oh, and having dealt with at least three bona-fide antisocial personalities I feel confident in saying that they do exsist. I don't express myself very well, I am usually tongue-tied, esp. on this board because I don't like to confront and argue and I (to my complete undoing) go with my gut far, far too often--but! My gut has served me well--it knows things that I don't. Having said that--I have worked in some pretty horrid circumstances with some pretty horrid people. In my experience not every human is "good". I've seen the BPD, the antisocials, the devious and evil. And not just in passing, but up close, every day for hours and hours. I've been spit at, punched, kicked, taken hostage, etc., all the fun things a psych nurse goes through in the regular course of a day for about three years. I came away from that experience with the very real feeling that there are antisocial (or, whatever the diagnosis is now) people and there is evil.
Just my experience.
*mentally ill does not equal evil or antisocial, lest the more aggressively stick-poke of you want to debate. There is a clear difference between a personality disorder and a mental illness, though it is very often that there is both in one person. Personality disorders can usually be overcome with time and experience (Like BPD--and UNlike antisocial) and mental illness is just that --an illness of the mind. Antisocial is an illness of something I can't quite put my finger on but I suspect it's both bio and spirit-based. {if you dispute that premis, recall that ALL addicts are asked to surrender themselves SPIRITUALLY to find respite from their affliction and if they balk, they are labled 'unwilling' to change!}
And by that I mean that I've never found a chapter of Sober Witches or Pagan's Fighting Alcoholism in Ohio anywhere. 'course, I do live in (the sorta) Bible Belt. I don't blame you personally for this. :)
~snip
OI don't express myself very well, I am usually tongue-tied, esp. on this board because I don't like to confront and argue and I (to my complete undoing) go with my gut far, far too often--but! My gut has served me well--it knows things that I don't. :)
I like your posts. You don't appear tongue-tied and as far as to "your complete undoing" If I can be bravely undone then so can you.:)
snip~ Oh, and having dealt with at least three bona-fide antisocial personalities I feel confident in saying that they do exsist. I don't express myself very well, I am usually tongue-tied, esp. on this board because I don't like to confront and argue and I (to my complete undoing) go with my gut far, far too often--but! My gut has served me well--it knows things that I don't. Having said that--I have worked in some pretty horrid circumstances with some pretty horrid people. In my experience not every human is "good". I've seen the BPD, the antisocials, the devious and evil. And not just in passing, but up close, every day for hours and hours. I've been spit at, punched, kicked, taken hostage, etc., all the fun things a psych nurse goes through in the regular course of a day for about three years. I came away from that experience with the very real feeling that there are antisocial (or, whatever the diagnosis is now) people and there is evil.
Just my experience.~snip
You don't have to confront or argue, just speak of your experiences and the opinion you hold because of them.
That's exactly what you did here. Good post. :thumbsup:
Yes, it is complex, and we don't fully understand it. But it isn't magical. So my original point stands, logically - unless a rebuttal to the laws of physics is offered.
I find the statement 'not magical' muddys the soup. [edit- muddys the water I guess is better :P]
It makes much more sense just to say "yes, it is complex, and we don't fully understand it. So my original point stands, logically - unless a rebuttal to the laws of physics is offered.
What do you define as magical? Card tricks? We are not cave men staring at awe at a lightning struck tree. ,,,,well maybe we do stare in awe but we don't bend down and worship a physical act of nature. Most people understand the diffrerence between physics and supernatural phenmenon. No body thinks that a soldier in war just goes bizerk for no reason. We know he went haywire even if we can't explain it in scientific terms.
In regards to the article, I think the kid made a bad mistake. Regardless of the reason, he chose to participate in the rape and murder of innocent people. I'm sure, "in the heat of the moment" whatever that may be, he wasn't thinking clearly...maybe he thought it would never be found out, or maybe he just didn't give a rat's ass. Maybe he just had so much resentment towards the people that he felt his actions were justified. I don't care why he did what he did, or why everyone else thinks he did what he did...I'm just saying that I think he knew what he was doing, even if he wasn't thinking of the ramifications of his actions at that time. I think the poor kids conscious caught up to him, which forced him to act out, or act differently (personality disorder), which caused him to get discharged...and now that the world knows what he did, well hell, he's got a story, he might as well stick to it.
Most people understand the diffrerence between physics and supernatural phenmenon.
That presupposes there are such things as supernatural phenomena. I have not experienced any, and presenting "proofs" for the same would not work.:neutral:
[SIZE="1"][COLOR="Gray"]@Pangloss: I'm just grabbing your quote out if convenience:[/COLOR][/SIZE]
supernatural phenomena
I reject the word supernatural. There is nature that we understand, and nature that we don't yet understand (and maybe never will). But there isn't anything outside of nature. Nature is simply
what is.
That presupposes there are such things as supernatural phenomena. I have not experienced any, and presenting "proofs" for the same would not work.:neutral:
That's the difference. ;)
[SIZE="1"][COLOR="Gray"]@Pangloss: I'm just grabbing your quote out if convenience:[/COLOR][/SIZE]
I reject the word supernatural. There is nature that we understand, and nature that we don't yet understand (and maybe never will). But there isn't anything outside of nature. Nature is simply what is.
You have hit on a peeve of mine, I hate the term "unnatural", no such thing. It is a cop-out.
I know that when someone does something horrendous like raping and murdering children it bugs the heck out of me when the neighbors say things like "I don't how a person could do this". Plus calling them inhuman monsters, wake up news folks! there are no such things as monters, only people. The guy who murdered 15 people is as human as you.
my point was the lightning striking a tree might have been unexplainable in scientific terms to the supposed cave men but it didn't make it any less scientific.
supernatural was not the right word obviously.
but there 'could be' something outside of nature. No one can know this for sure.
But how can it be outside nature? Wouldnt anything that exist be, technically speaking, part of nature? This includes man-made stuff, too... when a bird makes a nest, do you call the nest outside of nature? Humans are animals too, we're just better with our tools... and more destructive.
but there 'could be' something outside of nature.
Clearly that depends on your definition of nature. Nature, to me,
is what is. So, if something
is, it is nature. So, in that case, no, it's not possible for anything that
is to be outside of nature.
too many ins and outs , is'is and is not-ers :muse:
Come to think of it, can any personality disorder really be called a disorder?
Ritalin Cures Next Picasso
WORCESTER, MA—Area 7-year-old Douglas Castellano's unbridled energy and creativity are no longer a problem thanks to Ritalin, doctors for the child announced Monday. "After years of failed attempts to stop Douglas' uncontrollable bouts of self-expression, we have finally found success with Ritalin," Dr. Irwin Schraeger said. "For the first time in his life, Douglas can actually sit down and not think about lots of things at once." Castellano's parents reported that the cured child no longer tries to draw on everything in sight, calming down enough to show an interest in television.
© Copyright 2006, Onion, Inc.
We are losing sight of something... legally (and rightfully so) if you know the difference between right and wrong, you are sane, period.
Just because it is difficult for some of us to control our tempers does not excuse them from doing so, not at all.
I am dyslexic, have a mental disorder and had a rough childhood... I am not a criminal, worked my ass off and graduated from college with honors. I had to work harder than others to do so and did not care that it was not fair, was just my lot.
We are not all created equal, but we all have the same ability to make choices. That is the great equalizer.
It is simple, perhaps not easy (or as easy)for some, but it is simple.
If we don't know the difference between what is right and wrong, cannot make ethical distinctions, then that person has no business ever being in public anyway... problem solved.
Ritalin Cures Next Picasso
WORCESTER, MA—Area 7-year-old Douglas Castellano's unbridled energy and creativity are no longer a problem thanks to Ritalin, doctors for the child announced Monday. "After years of failed attempts to stop Douglas' uncontrollable bouts of self-expression, we have finally found success with Ritalin," Dr. Irwin Schraeger said. "For the first time in his life, Douglas can actually sit down and not think about lots of things at once." Castellano's parents reported that the cured child no longer tries to draw on everything in sight, calming down enough to show an interest in television.
© Copyright 2006, Onion, Inc.
That almost made me sad...then I saw it was from the Onion! :)
Unfortunately, it's one of those Onion articles that tells a real story in a sarcastic way. Stuff like that happens all the time. :(
When I read the below this past Sunday, I couldn't help thinking about this string. I think there are some serious flaws in its reasoning, but I'm curious what you guys think. They acutally invoke the "automaton" notion that got so many people stirred up here in the cellar. Have at it:
[COLOR="Navy"]The Insanity Defense Goes Back on Trial
By MORRIS B. HOFFMAN and STEPHEN J. MORSE
Published: July 30, 2006
IN June, the Supreme Court upheld a narrow Arizona test for legal insanity, which asked simply whether mental disorder prevented the defendant from knowing right from wrong. Last week, a Texas jury used a similarly narrow test to decide that Andrea Yates was legally insane when she drowned her five children in a bathtub, allegedly to save them from being tormented forever in hell.
Many scientists and legal scholars have complained that tests like these, used by the law to determine criminal responsibility, are unscientific. Given recent advances in our understanding of human behavior and of the brain, these critics argue, the legal test for insanity is a quaint relic of a bygone era.
These criticisms misunderstand the nature of criminal responsibility, which is moral, not scientific. On the other hand, legislation that has eliminated or unduly constrained the insanity defense, often in response to unpopular verdicts of not guilty by reason of insanity, is likewise off the mark. Between these two attacks, the concept of the morally responsible individual seems to be disappearing.
For centuries we have had a rough idea of the categories of people whom we should not hold criminally responsible. Early cases labeled them “the juvenile, possessed or insane.” The idea was that only people capable of understanding and abiding by the rules of the social contract may justly be declared criminally responsible for their breaches. Someone who genuinely believes he has heard God’s voice command him to kill another does not deserve blame and punishment, because he lacks the ability to reason about the moral quality of his action.
In an effort to hold most people accountable, and recognizing both the difficulty of establishing what was in the defendant’s mind at the time of the crime and the defendant’s incentive to lie about it, the law sought to establish strict standards for responsibility. As a result, legal insanity tests were drawn quite narrowly. They did not excuse most defendants whose intentional conduct broke the law, even if they might have suffered from mental disorders or other problems at the time of the crime.
The rise of various materialistic and deterministic explanations of human behavior, including psychiatry, psychology, sociology and, more recently, neuroscience, has posed a particular challenge to the criminal law’s relatively simple central assumption that with few exceptions we act intentionally and can be held responsible. These schools of thought attribute people’s actions not to their own intentions, but rather to powerful and predictable forces over which they have no control. People aren’t responsible for their crimes: it’s their poverty, their addictions or, ultimately, their neurons.
Lawyers and policymakers brought these academic explanations into the courts and legislatures, many of which responded to the pressure by expanding the doctrines of mitigation and excuse. Predictably, however, the public tired of many of the broader uses of the defense, especially after John Hinckley Jr. was found not guilty for reason of insanity for the attempted murder of President Ronald Reagan and others. Congress responded by adopting a narrow insanity defense, and many states followed suit. Four states have abolished the insanity defense entirely.
Once we agree that there may be some small percentage of people whose moral cognition is seriously disordered, how can the law identify those people in a way that will not allow the materialism of science to expand the definitions of excusing conditions to include all criminals? That is, if paranoid schizophrenia can provide part of the basis to excuse some criminal acts, why not bipolar disorder, or being angry, or having a bad day, or just being a jerk? After all, a large number of factors over which we have no rational control cause each of us to be the way we are.
The short answer is that we should recognize that the criteria for responsibility — intentionality and moral capacity — are social and legal concepts, not scientific, medical or psychiatric ones. Neither behavioral science nor neuroscience has demonstrated that we are automatons who lack the capacity for rational moral evaluation, even though we sometimes don’t use it. Some people suffer from mental disorder and some do not; some people form intentions and some do not. Most people are responsible, but some are not.
Punishing the deserving wrongdoers among us — those who intentionally violate the criminal law and are cognitively unimpaired — takes people seriously as moral agents and lies at the heart of what being civilized is all about. But being civilized also means not punishing those whom we deem morally impaired by mental disorder. Convicting and punishing a defendant who genuinely believed that God commanded him to kill is not unscientific, it is immoral and unjust.
We should be skeptical about claims of non-responsibility. But, if insanity-defense tests are interpreted sensibly to excuse people who genuinely lacked the ability to reason morally at the time of the crime, and expert testimony is treated with appropriate caution, the criminal justice system can reasonably decide whom to blame and punish.
Wrong insanity verdicts are possible, of course, but wrong verdicts are always possible. We should not respond by abandoning a defense that justice requires. A sensible test for legal insanity, fairly applied, can help prevent the concept of the responsible person from disappearing, either because the law naïvely accepts a cacophony of untestable excuses, or because cynical legislators overreact by permitting the conviction and punishment of blameless defendants.
Morris B. Hoffman is a state trial judge in Denver and a fellow at the Gruter Institute for Law and Behavioral Research. Stephen J. Morse is a professor of law and psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania.[/COLOR]
The
M'Naughten Rule, or whether the individual suffers from such a defect of reason that they are unable to tell the difference between right and wrong is not the legal standard for insanity in all jurisdictions.
Insanity defenses are actually quite rare. Off the top of my head, it's used in less than 3% of cases, and is not usually successful.
Much of the discourse about this issue presupposes all people agree as to what is "right" and what is "wrong." Even the most cursory overview of world culture will show that right and wrong are subjective. For some, let's say tradional Ethiopians, FGM is the correct and proper thing to practice. For some Afghanistanies, it is wholly correct for a 13-year-old girl to be the second bride of a 53-year-old man. Look at our own debates about mercy killing (murder?).
I'm not saying we should abandon the prosecution of "justice" because morality is subjective, but we should at least admit that is the case and come up with some universal criteria based upon the nature of the illegal act and its effect on the victim; yes, a more rational approach. Keep morals out of it.:neutral:
Did they try to hide what they did? If so, they knew it was wrong.
I "try to hide", as in keep out of public view and discourse, many of my activities. There's door with a lock on my bathroom, my bedroom and I keep my financial documents under lock and key. Are you implying my activities in those areas are wrong or illegal? Or could they be simply private. What would Occam say?
Insanity defenses are actually quite rare. Off the top of my head, it's used in less than 3% of cases, and is not usually successful.
Ya know what's eff'ed up? In my piddly Dayton, Oh, State Hosp. I had two NGRI on my ward and we had three wards. NGRI is not so uncommon. What is common is public disinterest in the case. I had a woman who set fires in local McDonalds and then, when rescue personnel would arrive, would demand a "get-a-way car" and "a pair of black hose!"...McDonalds was NOT eager for the publicity a trial would engender and the woman was quietly committed. Plus, she was nuts.
It took me a moment's Google-age to determine that NGRI did not stand for
National Geophysical Research Institute, of Hyderabad, India. :D
Wouldn't measuring right and wrong based on harm to one of the parties involved be another moral system? Morals can be based on rational thought you know.
There is a local NGRI defense that succeeded. Robert the Crazy Guy who Sleeps on the Porch Sometimes was talking to me about him last night. He was his roommate for a while.
He has pretty much the run of the grounds, and works in the Cafeteria. They have been letting him off grounds to attend church, which was a big amendment in his detention order. He has gotten married while hospitalized, twice. Wife #3 is someone that Richard met online. Wife #2 was a nurse at the State Hospital. She committed suicide about a year after they married. He killed Wife #1 (who was pregnant).
The photograph of him coming out of the house after killing his wife won a Pulitzer Prize.
08/03/2006
Greist has to stay put
R. JONATHAN TULEYA , Staff Writer
WEST CHESTER -- A Chester County judge denied Richard Greist’s latest attempt to be released from Norristown State Hospital, calling the institutionalized killer unmotivated to address his mental illness and too focused on getting released from Norristown State Hospital.
"Mr. Greist’s only concern is with his own release from custody and to this end he manipulates (hospital) staff and dictates his own treatment," Common Pleas Court Judge Edward Griffith wrote in a order released Tuesday. "Mr. Greist has no interest in addressing the concerns of the this court, such as his lack of empathy, his manipulative behavior, his impulsivity and triggers of stress and frustration."
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On May 10, 1978, Greist, now 54, killed his pregnant wife and their unborn son and viciously attacked his daughters, ages 5 and 6 at the time, and the girls’ grandmother.
He has been a patient at Norristown State Hospital since Common Pleas Court Judge Thomas A. Pitt Jr. ruled that Greist was not guilty by reason of insanity in December 1980.
On Thursday, Griffith listened as Greist and his attorney, Marita M. Hutchinson, argued for the killer to be moved to a less-structured, residential facility. Two of Greist’s psychiatrists -- Dr. Robert D. Polishook, his supervising psychiatrist at Norristown, and Dr. Robert F. Limoges, a therapist who sees him weekly -- testified in support of the move.
Dr. Barbara E. Ziv, a psychiatrist called to testify by the district attorney’s office, told the judge she had not seen any improvement in Greist’s mental condition, and she warned no one could predict how the stress of life outside the hospital would affect him.
In his decision, Griffith ordered Greist to stop seeing Limoges for therapy. Limoges had testified last week that he did not believe Greist currently suffered from any mental illness.
Griffin also instructed Norristown State to continue Greist’s psychiatric treatment with emphasizing "insight-oriented therapy," as had been originally called for 2003.
"Another year has passed and again (the hospital) has been non-compliant with the directive that Mr. Greist receive intensive, insight-oriented therapy," Griffith wrote. "As we have held in the past, we find such treatment is not only necessary but also critical to Mr. Greist’s recovery."
The judge’s order left a number of the conditions of Greist’s institutionalization in place.
Greist will continue to be allowed to travel off the Norristown State Hospital property to attend therapy sessions and to go to religious services at the West Norristown Congregation of Jehovah’s Witnesses.
He also will continue to be granted one 12-hour, unsupervised leave from the hospital every three months, according to Griffith’s order.
As a condition of these trips from the hospitals, the hospital must notify local law enforcement and the Chester County District Attorney’s Office.
To contact staff writer R. Jonathan Tuleya, send an e-mail to [email]jtuleya@dailylocal.com[/email].
Morals must be based on rational thought; otherwise they are not morals, but superstitions. Moral behavior is survival behavior, for both the individual and the society.
Wolf, off the top of my head, was this the case of the guy who cut the eyes out of both his daughters with a knife "because he saw the devil there" before surrendering? The older daughter said, "Please don't hurt my daddy," as she groped her way out of the house he was barricaded in.
I "try to hide", as in keep out of public view and discourse, many of my activities. There's door with a lock on my bathroom, my bedroom and I keep my financial documents under lock and key. Are you implying my activities in those areas are wrong or illegal? Or could they be simply private. What would Occam say?
That is not hiding, that is privacy... if asked what you were doing in the bathroom by the authorities you would not lie... that is the difference.
If they lie about what they did, they know it was wrong, they are
not insane. That is what Occam says.