Morality Switch
How would you react if your best friend poisoned you, but you learned later that their actions were "not their own?" Scientists at MIT revealed findings from a study that could substantiate this situation.
The study involved turning off a person's "morality switch" by disrupting a part of the brain called the right "temporoparietal junction," referred to as TPJ, which is located just above and behind a person's right ear. By disrupting the brain with a magnetic field that is applied to the scalp, researchers have proven that a person's moral judgment is affected after about 25 minutes of magnetic pulses being sent to the brain. This sort of evidence may want you to reconsider using your right ear and hand when talking on your cell phone!
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- 4-6-10
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Not Really, ...
...if you actually research this, it is about making it difficult for the brain to perform certain kinds of considerations -- not actually affecting the morality or moral sense of the individual.
Really, LionKimbro?
A quote from the article: "When the right TPJ was disrupted, participants were more likely to judge as morally permissible failed attempts to harm another person than were control participants whose right TPJs were not tinkered with."
That sure sounds like the experiments, in your own words, "...actually affect[ed] the morality or moral sense of the individual".
And a further quote: "When activity in the right TPJ is disrupted, participants' moral judgments shift toward a 'no harm, no foul' mentality..."
Really, Leon Night.
I used the word "research," Leon, not "read the article and just run with my first thoughts" -- a poor choice when given a sensationalist science article.
A better article is the MIT news reporting on the situation: "To make moral judgments about other people, we often need to infer their intentions — an ability known as “theory of mind.”" ...
"MIT neuroscientists have now shown they can influence those judgments by interfering with activity in a specific brain region — a finding that helps reveal how the brain constructs morality."
This isn't about affecting the moral sense; This is about affecting the judgements that feed into the moral sense. It's as if there was a jury (comparable to the moral sense) that is being fed bogus evidence. The jury is still sound, it's just the evidence that has been tampered with.
"Previous studies have shown that a brain region known as the right temporo-parietal junction (TPJ) is highly active when we think about other people’s intentions, thoughts and beliefs. In the new study, the researchers disrupted activity in the right TPJ by inducing a current in the brain using a magnetic field applied to the scalp. They found that the subjects’ ability to make moral judgments that require an understanding of other people’s intentions — for example, a failed murder attempt — was impaired."
...
"In both experiments, the researchers found that when the right TPJ was disrupted, subjects were more likely to judge failed attempts to harm as morally permissible. Therefore, the researchers believe that TMS interfered with subjects’ ability to interpret others’ intentions, forcing them to rely more on outcome information to make their judgments."
That is, because the person's brain is impaired right when (and where) they are guaging intentions, they are unable to determine what they are, so the brain makes the decision without being able to tell -- a far cry from being zapped into immorality.
Makes me think...
It is very interesting and
Evidence
Do you have any evidence to support what you're saying?
I encourage you to learn about the people you are slandering.
Strong words
I see that you like strong words, Lion. That's okay here, of course.
But, if the object of this article was to suggest that moral judgment could be effected by brain stimulation, I think it not only succeeded but that there is credible support for such a suggestion.
If the purpose of the article had been to highlight or exhaustively cover the thesis, or to focus upon those whom you accuse Heart of slandering, then it would have been presented differently.
I believe that the possibility of manipulating the moral judgment of the general public would be very exciting to big government and big business. I'm not saying that I have proof of this, I'm just saying that I believe that it is desirable on their part to discover and then to use such an advantage to them.
"There's a monster on the loose. It's got our heads into a noose. And it just sits there... watching" - Steppenwolf
Science Journalism; Manipulation via Morality
If a person wants to manipulate 10,000 people, 1,000,000 people, there are far simpler ways to do so than by using a machine.
Scientists at MIT found that by affecting a particular part of the brain, a person has difficulty guaging intention. That's the beginning, middle, and end of the facts.
Now in order to make the story more interesting to the public (by appealing to visions of mind control, of moral recklessness, of conspiracy, of all these dramatic fantasies,) someone added to the story: "And look, guaging intention is a key part in moral decision making."
Ya' guys took the bait. "Wow! Cell phone manufacturers can click a switch, and make us immoral! The Man is after our morality! The Beast's mark is on our foreheads! Science is doing it to us!"
You've been had.
And now you're just confused; you're incoherent -- you don't even know your own paranoid delusions well enough. If you were a true cynic, you'd know that it wasn't the capacity for people to be "immoral" that controllers would be interested in -- rather, manipulative corporations and governments thrive on the sense of the moral. Masses are far more easily controlled by appeal to morality, than to immorality: Immorality just diffuses in random directions, but morality is directed and controlled.
A contradiction is really a door
“Modern cynicism, as a product of mass society, is a distrust toward professed ethical and social values, especially when there are high expectations concerning society, institutions and authorities which are unfulfilled. Cynicism can manifest itself as a result of frustration, disillusionment, and distrust perceived as due to organizations, authorities and other aspects of society” – Wikipedia
While the view of a modern cynic may appear superior to the view of the “unwashed masses” such a view does not seek to synthesize, and therefore transcend knowledge, but satisfies itself only with a cynical analysis of knowledge. A cynic’s view is useful only as a tool for the exposure of contradictory elements.
Once a satisfying array of elements from many points of view have been examined using tools such as cynicism, and the analysis is complete, all of the appropriate tools used can be set aside.
When a contradiction cannot be satisfied by the facts, it is really a door to further analysis. But where there is no apparent contradiction, the further habitual use of these tools leads one to a solidification of their particular bias.
I see no contradiction here between your interpretation and that of the article; they are simply two aspects of the same thesis. And I am sure that there could be many more valid interpretations. Will you cynically discount them all?