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The practice of Psychology in America is getting more and more controversial.
Consider the following:
Is a nine-year-old who pushes a toddler into the deep end of a swimming pool because he’s curious to “see someone drown” mentally impaired or evil? Does the Octomom suffer from “compulsive hoarding disorder” or “breeding disorder” or narcissistic personality disorder – or is she just a freak? And what about Patricia Krentcil, the “tanorexic” New Jersey mom charged with child endangerment for allegedly bringing her five-year-old daughter into a tanning booth – is she crazy with a small “c” or a big “C”? Should a person like Mel Gibson be viewed as mentally ill or morally repugnant? What about Bernie Madoff, and the “psychopaths” of Wall Street?
These concerns, like so much in America today, are deeply politicized. For the right, brain-disorder-talk portends a dangerous de-centering of moral values, religious belief and free will as the most important drivers of human behavior. For the left, contemporary neuropsychology threatens to let society off the hook for its responsibility in generating the toxic relational, environmental and ideological influences believed to foster mental illness.
Is there really value on this in the sense that humans are really not in complete control of their thoughts and actions? Can the brain be blamed for actions that we normally have control over, and those that define our humanity - ethics, morality? Or will this be used to shield immoral and even criminal acts and just put the blame anywhere except on the responsible conscientious person?
Source: http://ideas.time.com/2012/05/18/the-latest-trend-blaming-brain-science/
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Free will doesn't really exist, but society functions better when it's assumed that it does.
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Well, first off, I don't think that anyone is evil. That is all in perspective (the Nazis believed they were improving the human race).
Second, I think that many people get many so-called "evil" thoughts, but the major difference between somebody that is insane and not insane is acting on these thoughts. There have been times, when I truly felt like I could kill somebody. I didn't, because I understood the ethical, legal, and moral issues that would arise from doing so, but I had the thought. Most people aren't that different, in this regard, I think.
Again, just what I have observed, I have no scientific evidence to back me up.
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psychology is bullshit. this is why america's education and free givesaway of phd at random subjects such as psychology, sociology, or any social sciences lack any value.
as for a person "being evil", it is only evil in perspective. to a strict buddhist monk, consuming meat is evil. to a person who views the same specie killing each other is part of survival to their fittest. but when it comes to humans inspecting other humans, it becomes "good" or "bad" but in really it is neither. what makes KangarooA killing KangarooB different from HumanA killing HuamnB. Nothing, it is all about perspective. Each has their own motive, but neither is wrong or right, but rather "happened" or "didnt happen"
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I think psychology often gets confused with things like this. Bernie Madoff, and psychopaths in general are people created out of certain social situations, which usually are not the norm. The age old, the consequences dictate the actions is totally at play. But those consequences are perceived consequences, and the person's perception of them based on the early experiences as people.
I don't think everybody is a psychopath, its just people are raised under and expierence an insane variety of social influences, and that can cause a person to vary incredibly from a norm, and do something that somebody would consider crazy.
Also, micro. You're stupid.
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The people I say are evil, are evil.
People can be evil, good or stupid. No reason to know learn 100 000 000 different medical terms for different kinds of people and their mental states.
Dont listen to what others say.
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On May 18 2012 23:29 Sea_Food wrote:
The people I say are evil, are evil.
People can be evil, good or stupid. No reason to know learn 100 000 000 different medical terms for different kinds of people and their mental states.
Dont listen to what others say.
Don't you think that you might be oversimplifying human behavior by plugging it in 3 categories?
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On May 18 2012 23:29 Sea_Food wrote:
The people I say are evil, are evil.
People can be evil, good or stupid. No reason to know learn 100 000 000 different medical terms for different kinds of people and their mental states.
Dont listen to what others say.
Lets say some parents abused and tortured their child, and naturally this child turned out to be "evil" as you describe it. Is it wrong of us to want to learn about his disorder and try and treat it, so he can have a fair chance at a real life?
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On May 18 2012 23:16 CyDe wrote:
Second, I think that many people get many so-called "evil" thoughts, but the major difference between somebody that is insane and not insane is acting on these thoughts. There have been times, when I truly felt like I could kill somebody. I didn't, because I understood the ethical, legal, and moral issues that would arise from doing so, but I had the thought. Most people aren't that different, in this regard, I think.
Interesting topic, my opinion would be very close to what this guy just said but with one slight variation. I believe that the difference between somebody that is insane and someone who isn't is in the feelings.
A psychopath, in it's core definition isn't a mad killer or someone who aims at destroying society or any of the things most TV shows are showing us. At it's very basis, a psychopath is someone who doesn't feel emotions. Therefore he can't relate to most other people, doesn't have any empathy and doesn't experience things like doubts, love, hatred etc ... Now don't get me wrong, a psychopath will still see people experiencing these feelings every day so he will know or at least get a grasp of how to react when experiencing these but technically he's only mimicking them, not feeling anything. Why am I talking about psychopaths? Well the main reason is because I believe that what distinguishes a psychopath from a "normal" person is somehow the same thing that distinguishes any normal people from an insane one: feelings. Even though a psychopath is an extreme example because it basically doesn't have any feelings, the comparison seems relevant to me because what makes an insane person insane is that core idea of twisted feelings. Someone is considered insane because he's feelings doesn't seem to fit his acts (e.g: enjoys hurting animal = insane). So of course society influences how we react, how we are conditioned to feel in each situation etc. But when once's feelings aren't developing according to the logic of the society he's leaving in, this society is very likely to consider him/her as insane.
My answer to the initial question would be that someone is judged sane or insane based on how he feels after doing something. But the judgement made of those feelings can be different according to the society he's leaving in .... And even knowing that, every judgement will still be biased because most people will never be perfectly honest about how they feel (mostly because they can't identify it themselves). So I'll just end saying that what matters isn't really whether people are good or evil because as someone previously stated, it's a heavily culturally biased question, but rather about whether they are sane or not. Because most culture judge sanity on the same thing: feelings (you're not insane because you killed someone, you're insane because you enjoyed doing it).
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First, I think psychology will move much further towards molecular biology and will soon become non-speculative (but strongly evidence based)
As Emix_Squall said, feeling is very important in knowing how to constitute yourself. It must be very difficult to feel absolutely nothing at all, as some of those feelings could lie at the core of why one loves.
However, one must also look at brain composition and individual placement.
Brain composition is an easy concept, but something very hard to fully grasp (and research).
It is the most concrete part about psychology, neuropsychology or neurosciences (or whatever's in between) which tells us that how the brain acts to certain stimuli and how it's made up of from it's core down, makes us act the way we do. And it can explain alot. Someone being schizophrenic will not simply put on schizomode and go berserk on everybody. No, there are certain triggers that can make an episode happen.
Let's assume that someone who is considered crazy, has a fundamentally flawed brain. This can be formed through faulty development, toxicity (pollution), trauma (physically, mentally), disease, intrinsic factors and so on..
This flawed brain acts how it should in circumstances that don't activate the symptoms of a mentally ill person, but certain impulses can let the brain act in strange ways.
This is also a problem, trying to find WHAT and WHY these people act the way they do.
The individual placement is simply about how a certain person grows up in the world and how the brain adapts to it. Someone brought up in a family with alot of violence, nonunderstanding and wrong ethical views will probably be more open to a fucked up way of braindevelopment (unless this person learns to relativate from a very early age).
Somebody else may be brought up like the perfect child, but his genome doesn't lend to a good brain composition, and makes him permanently depressed or gives him a psychose lurking somewhere.
Blaming the brain is like blaming a car or a truck. It's been driving all this time, with you behind the wheel, it's been made by people (mom, dad, friends, teacher, yourself, ..), but sometimes it breaks down or you lose control and you kill someone in the process.. Looked like the roads were too sippery to drive today, but you were the only one not to notice it.
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Two thoughts on this:
1) Whether or not a person has the capacity to obey the laws because of some psychological problem, that does not change the fact that they are a part of society. For the protection of society, the damage these people inflict needs to be minimized.
2) It is also important that neurological/psychological considerations are factored into the administration of justice for these people.
Take for example three different instances of murder, where in each instance the person claimed they could not help themselves. In the first, a man with schizophrenia killed a person during a psychotic episode because he believed the person to be an assassin sent by the president. In the second instance, a man with severe frontal lobe lesions killed a person in a fit of impulsive rage. In the third instance, a man with psychopathic personality killed someone, and claimed as his reason that he could not control his urge to murder.
In the first instance, the man was not able to think rationally and believed it was absolutely necessary to his survival to kill that person. He was in the midst of a psychotic episode, and was grossly delusional and suffered from hallucinations. Evidence can be presented to corroborate that he is schizophrenic, possibly including witness accounts, medical records, or neurological findings. It seems more fitting that this man should be confined to a psychiatric ward where attempts might be made to rehabilitate him, rather than spending his life in jail. It is possible to recover from schizophrenia and live at a functional level, and many schizophrenics are indeed responsive to medication.
According to the second instance, the man in an uncontrollable fit of rage killed another person. MRI scans show severe damage to the frontal lobes, which are by large responsible for self-control and inhibition. It is therefor very possible that he could not control himself. The death sentence does not seem to me to be fair to this person who literally did not have the brains to stop himself. It may be more fair that he gets a life in jail sentence (with amenities), or life confinement to a psychiatric institution. Complete freedom for this person, however, is apparently too dangerous for society.
This is a difficult issue and I cannot say that I know a fair and good solution to it. But I believe it is important that the neurological findings are considered, because if the legal system is supposed to be "fair," it should not ignore that the person could not behave rationally.
In the final instance, the man may cite his psychopathic personality as a defense, claiming his lack of inhibitions and empathy were the causative factors in his uncontrollable urge to kill. Neurological findings are in line with the psychopathy diagnosis. However, people with psychopathic personality do have clear and rational thinking, they understand the law, and they are able to make conscious decisions on whether or not to follow it.
Most people with psychopathic personality avoid serious trouble with the law. He claims he could not help himself, but here there is a distinction. In the prior example, the man could not help himself because the part of his brain that would do that was not intact. But for a person with psychopathy, this is more like cheesecake is your favorite food, you haven't seen it in years, and you're in a store and you see it. But you're broke, so you steal it. Does that make any sense? It's more like the person succumbed to a powerful temptation more than it's like they are literally unable to resist temptations. This person deserves either the death sentence or life in prison. He should be held fully responsible for his actions, as he was fully in control of them.
And so each of these people committed the same crime, but because of different things going on with their brains, I believe they should be considered differently, for the reasons given. Just my 2 cents, hope you liked it.
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Nothing in the OP is actual psychology. Actual psychology (the study of behaviour and it's substrates) is frequently conflated with random bullshit in the media. This thread is like saying "has medicine gone too far?" and then citing a bunch of examples of sensationalist media stories about vaccinations causing autism.
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Neuroscience may find more and more excuses, but that doesn't mean you don't punish criminals. Phrase that another way--neuroscience is finding more and more explanations for criminal behaviors. You don't let criminals off the hook just because you have excuses for them. With knowledge, you know what kind of therapy and rehabilitation the criminal needs during his sentence. This decreases the recidivism.
This isn't a black and white issue, where it's neuroscience letting criminals off the hook (because it's not) vs. simply punishing the criminals.
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On May 19 2012 00:30 xTrickyx wrote:
Two thoughts on this:
1) Whether or not a person has the capacity to obey the laws because of some psychological problem, that does not change the fact that they are a part of society. For the protection of society, the damage these people inflict needs to be minimized.
2) It is also important that neurological/psychological considerations are factored into the administration of justice for these people.
Take for example three different instances of murder, where in each instance the person claimed they could not help themselves. In the first, a man with schizophrenia killed a person during a psychotic episode because he believed the person to be an assassin sent by the president. In the second instance, a man with severe frontal lobe lesions killed a person in a fit of impulsive rage. In the third instance, a man with psychopathic personality killed someone, and claimed as his reason that he could not control his urge to murder.
In the first instance, the man was not able to think rationally and believed it was absolutely necessary to his survival to kill that person. He was in the midst of a psychotic episode, and was grossly delusional and suffered from hallucinations. Evidence can be presented to corroborate that he is schizophrenic, possibly including witness accounts, medical records, or neurological findings. It seems more fitting that this man should be confined to a psychiatric ward where attempts might be made to rehabilitate him, rather than spending his life in jail. It is possible to recover from schizophrenia and live at a functional level, and many schizophrenics are indeed responsive to medication.
According to the second instance, the man in an uncontrollable fit of rage killed another person. MRI scans show severe damage to the frontal lobes, which are by large responsible for self-control and inhibition. It is therefor very possible that he could not control himself. The death sentence does not seem to me to be fair to this person who literally did not have the brains to stop himself. It may be more fair that he gets a life in jail sentence (with amenities), or life confinement to a psychiatric institution. Complete freedom for this person, however, is apparently too dangerous for society.
This is a difficult issue and I cannot say that I know a fair and good solution to it. But I believe it is important that the neurological findings are considered, because if the legal system is supposed to be "fair," it should not ignore that the person could not behave rationally.
In the final instance, the man may cite his psychopathic personality as a defense, claiming his lack of inhibitions and empathy were the causative factors in his uncontrollable urge to kill. Neurological findings are in line with the psychopathy diagnosis. However, people with psychopathic personality do have clear and rational thinking, they understand the law, and they are able to make conscious decisions on whether or not to follow it.
Most people with psychopathic personality avoid serious trouble with the law. He claims he could not help himself, but here there is a distinction. In the prior example, the man could not help himself because the part of his brain that would do that was not intact. But for a person with psychopathy, this is more like cheesecake is your favorite food, you haven't seen it in years, and you're in a store and you see it. But you're broke, so you steal it. Does that make any sense? It's more like the person succumbed to a powerful temptation more than it's like they are literally unable to resist temptations. This person deserves either the death sentence or life in prison. He should be held fully responsible for his actions, as he was fully in control of them.
And so each of these people committed the same crime, but because of different things going on with their brains, I believe they should be considered differently, for the reasons given. Just my 2 cents, hope you liked it.
This was actually very interesting to me, thanks for posting 
But it is true, there are some people who simply cannot control the fact that they are unfit for society. This shouldn't mean that they exempt from the rules, but it should mean they are treated differently. I mean, let's say someone is drunk or high on some sort of hallucinogen; they physically CANNOT act on anything besides how they are interpreting reality (flawed as that perception may be). Anyone who has been high or drunk knows what I mean.
To some of these people, for instance the schizophrenic that you brought up, what they see IS REAL. It is not like there is another part of their brain that tells them, "This man is normal, he is not an assassin." It would be as though someone came up to you right now and said, "You are not using a computer, this computer is not real." It is physically impossible for you to see otherwise.
Personally, I have spoken to several meth addicts, who have shared their perception of reality with me. It is incredible. They are so convincing to ME, someone who is out of their situation, so to themselves they must truly "know" their thoughts are true. For instance, one kid began to think that people, like the government or just people, were watching him. While on his cell phone, he heard a slight echo, and he heard that that is indicative of a phone tap. He also saw some cars in his neighborhood that he had never seen before, and they were moving in a pattern that, he believed, showed that they were not from the area; they were only there to watch him. Then he heard shuffling in the crawl space of his house, and he thought about how he saw some "suspicious looking small people" earlier that could probably fit in there. So he took a baseball bat to the walls.
To him, what he was doing was perfectly logical. PERFECTLY logical. It would be like if someone actually WAS tailing him; he responded in kind. Unfortunately no one actually was tailing him, so by all accounts, he was fucking insane.
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How to prove we do or do not have control over ourselves?
I think the question is irrelevant.
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On May 18 2012 23:29 Sea_Food wrote:
The people I say are evil, are evil.
People can be evil, good or stupid. No reason to know learn 100 000 000 different medical terms for different kinds of people and their mental states.
Dont listen to what others say.
There are indeed three kind of people: The good, the bad and the ugly.
+ Show Spoiler +
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On May 19 2012 00:57 Yorbon wrote:
How to prove we do or do not have control over ourselves?
I think the question is irrelevant.
99.9% of the threads posted on TL are irrelevant, but we're sharing and discussing these irrelevent subjects for the sake of having something to discuss and enjoy. I personally think it's funny that people think they're knowledgeable enough on this subject to even talk about it.
Anyway, what I believe, is, that whatever you do, as a human being, it can only be right, for whatever you do should be part of our nature. However, that eliminates the illusion of free will, for if we kill another human being, it'd be considered a crime by the "illusion" that says "thou shall not kill other people -- for it is evil!", although it's technically part of our nature and instinct, since we, the homo sapiens, are supposed to hunt and kill in packs, regardless of who we're up against. To me, that explains why we're so good at killing each other, becauses it's in our nature to not really get along on a massive scale.
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Psychology is a pseudo science, its not based on actual objective theory but on percentages and experiments with not real theory to back them up.
It has changed very little from Ancient Greece to modern days and unlike physics or chemistry most of the changes are corrections to the initial theories not additions to a correct theory.
That alone shows how flawed psychology is, but no the less until we figure out close to 99% how our brain ( by that i mean the nervous system and all its interactions with out relation system ) works, which will take actual scientist years of work and billions of $, well... psychologists and there "pseudo science" is the best we have, and its generally accurate... we just have to deal with the cases when they are talking bs or when they are payed to talk bs and continue our lives.
On May 19 2012 01:07 Pantythief wrote:Show nested quote +On May 19 2012 00:57 Yorbon wrote:
How to prove we do or do not have control over ourselves?
I think the question is irrelevant. 99.9% of the threads posted on TL are irrelevant, but we're sharing and discussing these irrelevent subjects for the sake of having something to discuss and enjoy. I personally think it's funny that people think they're knowledgeable enough on this subject to even talk about it. Anyway, what I believe, is, that whatever you do, as a human being, it can only be right, for whatever you do should be part of our nature. However, that eliminates the illusion of free will, for if we kill another human being, it'd be considered a crime by the "illusion" that says "thou shall not kill other people -- for it is evil!", although it's technically part of our nature and instinct, since we, the homo sapiens, are supposed to hunt and kill in packs, regardless of who we're up against. To me, that explains why we're so good at killing each other, becauses it's in our nature to not really get along on a massive scale.
There are very few species that willingly KILL other individuals as often as humans do and used to do and in 99% of the cases a mentally healthy "wild" human will likely not kill another human
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On May 19 2012 01:44 Aterons_toss wrote:Psychology is a pseudo science, its not based on actual objective theory but on percentages and experiments with not real theory to back them up. It has changed very little from Ancient Greece to modern days and unlike physics or chemistry most of the changes are corrections to the initial theories not additions to a correct theory. That alone shows how flawed psychology is, but no the less until we figure out close to 99% how our brain ( by that i mean the nervous system and all its interactions with out relation system ) works, which will take actual scientist years of work and billions of $, well... psychologists and there "pseudo science" is the best we have, and its generally accurate... we just have to deal with the cases when they are talking bs or when they are payed to talk bs and continue our lives. Show nested quote +On May 19 2012 01:07 Pantythief wrote:On May 19 2012 00:57 Yorbon wrote:
How to prove we do or do not have control over ourselves?
I think the question is irrelevant. 99.9% of the threads posted on TL are irrelevant, but we're sharing and discussing these irrelevent subjects for the sake of having something to discuss and enjoy. I personally think it's funny that people think they're knowledgeable enough on this subject to even talk about it. Anyway, what I believe, is, that whatever you do, as a human being, it can only be right, for whatever you do should be part of our nature. However, that eliminates the illusion of free will, for if we kill another human being, it'd be considered a crime by the "illusion" that says "thou shall not kill other people -- for it is evil!", although it's technically part of our nature and instinct, since we, the homo sapiens, are supposed to hunt and kill in packs, regardless of who we're up against. To me, that explains why we're so good at killing each other, becauses it's in our nature to not really get along on a massive scale. There are very few species that willingly KILL other individuals as often as humans do and used to do and in 99% of the cases a mentally healthy "wild" human will likely not kill another human
That is because we're influenced (or controlled, if you will) by fear, law/control and reasoning. I can ensure you, "murder" is something very different in the dark corners of our "civilized" world.
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