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On May 19 2012 00:55 CyDe wrote:
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.
That's pretty wild about the kid on meth. I think on the issue of crimes caused by drug use, people should be held partially responsible, because it was their decision to take the drug, and they chose to take it in a manner that wasn't safe. Maybe if they were driving on mushrooms and they killed someone crossing the street, they should get a hefty manslaughter sentence and not first-degree murder. I think that a lot of people who have been in similar situations under the influence of alcohol get manslaughter? But I'm not positive.
I think that one of the unfortunate but unavoidable things about our legal system is that so much of all of it is context dependent. From the details about the crime itself, to the judge's and/or jury's interpretations and perceptions, to the efficacy of the defense and prosecution teams. Right and wrong are delicate ethical issues, and they vary from eye to eye. In my example of the man with frontal lobe damage, I believe he wasn't fully responsible for his behavior, because the part of his brain that would make him able to be responsible wasn't intact. Maybe a jury might think differently on that because they see that the man is able to conduct himself in the court room in a rational manner. That's a different topic in itself, but a serious issue in relation to the topic at hand.
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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's completely not true.
there are tonnes of different ways to approach psychology, such as neurology and animal behaviorist which relies of scientific method and there are others that are set theories and experiments such as psychoanalysis
the thing is, everyone has a difference in mental health and everyone has a bit of one and another mental illness, it's just how much it is to be considered as a medically recognized illness.
There isn't a "normal, healthy" human mind.
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On May 19 2012 02:04 Pantythief wrote:Show nested quote +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. 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.
I think this is an unbased assumption,
If you haven't notice we are the only relatively intelligent animal that willingly kills its own when he has other options with the same short term results.
Bears, wolfs, dolphins, sea lions, lions... those are all animals that fight each other for dominance, but they never willingly kill one another.
A human is the only animal, as far as i know, that goes out of his way to kill another individual... not because he is a threat to him mating, feeding himself or what not... because he could be a threat in the future or simply because he fells that he has been wrong by said individual and sees death as fit punishment for him ( because he is intelligent, because he learns, because he is so much more conscious than other animals ).
There are other animals who kill one another but its due to there instincts and its usually ether a mistake for the fact that the individual was indeed a hinder for the "specie".
Animals don't kill to show there greatness... they beat each other up, that is for sure ( and sometime in the process the loser or even the winner dies ), but its not actually "natural" to fell good by killing one of your own species... its natural to fell bad, the "adrenalin rush" , the "powerful felling" you are said to get if you kill someone its actually the felling you get from dominating another member of your species that overcomes the part of you that fells bad because he killed one of his own.
I might be wrong, i have in no way shape of from "professional" knowledge about this type of thing but i don't think that you do ether cuz if laws and society were the only thing keeping us from killing one another we would be all dead by now, and everyone with a little bit of knowledge in field varying from biology to scio economy would laugh at what you just said.
Again, im not saying im right but what you said is wrong and you brought no argument to sustain it, you are likely confusing the "kill someone" with the "dominate someone so that you get his position in a social structure or certain materials required for survival and comfort"... it is society itself and our "evolved" thought process that makes us want to kill other people.
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On May 18 2012 23:15 bonifaceviii wrote:
Free will doesn't really exist, but society functions better when it's assumed that it does.
User was warned for this post
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Czech Republic11293 Posts
I have a strong opinion on this so here we go.
I absolutely approve of this "brain blaming" and I do think it is a way forward. It just has to be understood.
When someone is blaming their brain, psychologists diagnose this person with some kind of mental health problem that so many people consider bullcrap, it is nothing more than explanation. Obviously if such diagnosis is abused just to shorten the sentence, it IS pretty stupid.
The thing is, if you know the explanation, you can treat such a person better. You can lock him up for life, or you can use behavioral therapy or similiar stuff to "cure" him, or at least teach him to behave responsibly. Obviously I consider the latter option preferable, because it is 1. potentially cheaper 2. better for the criminals themselves 3. I also think that such intelligent, humane and efficient way of "dealing" with criminals is an important part of a more civilized culture, something that should be desired.
Unfortunately, as of yet, we don't know all the possible ways one can be screwed up between his ears, so we have to lock people up for life. But I think that as psychology moves forward we will be able to correct the behavior and feelings of our fellow criminals and allow them a better life.
As a side note, I do not think the family and friends of the victims of our cured criminals should have any say in what's to happen with them. Whenever something like this happens, there is always the mother of the victim, all shocked and appaled that they released or gave any leeway to the criminal. It is a normal behavior, but an emotional and irrational one.
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On May 19 2012 04:09 Aterons_toss wrote:Show nested quote +On May 19 2012 02:04 Pantythief wrote: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. 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. I think this is an unbased assumption, If you haven't notice we are the only relatively intelligent animal that willingly kills its own when he has other options with the same short term results. Bears, wolfs, dolphins, sea lions, lions... those are all animals that fight each other for dominance, but they never willingly kill one another. A human is the only animal, as far as i know, that goes out of his way to kill another individual... not because he is a threat to him mating, feeding himself or what not... because he could be a threat in the future or simply because he fells that he has been wrong by said individual and sees death as fit punishment for him ( because he is intelligent, because he learns, because he is so much more conscious than other animals ). There are other animals who kill one another but its due to there instincts and its usually ether a mistake for the fact that the individual was indeed a hinder for the "specie". Animals don't kill to show there greatness... they beat each other up, that is for sure ( and sometime in the process the loser or even the winner dies ), but its not actually "natural" to fell good by killing one of your own species... its natural to fell bad, the "adrenalin rush" , the "powerful felling" you are said to get if you kill someone its actually the felling you get from dominating another member of your species that overcomes the part of you that fells bad because he killed one of his own. I might be wrong, i have in no way shape of from "professional" knowledge about this type of thing but i don't think that you do ether cuz if laws and society were the only thing keeping us from killing one another we would be all dead by now, and everyone with a little bit of knowledge in field varying from biology to scio economy would laugh at what you just said. Again, im not saying im right but what you said is wrong and you brought no argument to sustain it, you are likely confusing the "kill someone" with the "dominate someone so that you get his position in a social structure or certain materials required for survival and comfort"... it is society itself and our "evolved" thought process that makes us want to kill other people.
About the future threat comment...... I don't know if that is true or not but maybe that has something to do with animals perception of time? I've always heard animals don't have a perception of time but I've never really understood how someone could come to that conclusion.
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On May 18 2012 23:15 bonifaceviii wrote:
Free will doesn't really exist, but society functions better when it's assumed that it does.
I don't even need to post. This is just right.
But, because I've nothing better to do:
Everything that everyone and everything that is doing, has done, or will do is predetermined by the miniscule, almost immeasurable amount of physics that plays out in existence. In this way, fate is real and unbreakable, but we cannot accurately determine it. Nothing is anyone's, "fault," as it was destined to happen since the dawn of the world's creation.
The universe's existence was done by the exact mount of force and matter pushed in a certain direction, at a certain speed, over a certain time and applying the constant rules of physics. This pattern just kept going until every little thing was created, as a result of this innevitable action, resulting in innevitable solar systems, innevitable planets, innevitable life, and innevitable evolutionary patterns that made us into what we are (chemical-following brains (who run off of innevitable patterns) hooked up to an innevitably designed body).
In this way, nothing is anyone's fault. But, unfortunately, reacting in any way to this knowledge changes nothing. As my moment of typing was innevitable, as your (possible) reading, and response to it. Even with this being known, apparent, and true, our reactions would just be part of the nearly infinite chain of events. So, I guess that I'd be best to not over complicate everything and just ignore truth and reason, and replace it with ignorance?
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Czech Republic11293 Posts
I don't know or actually think that we need the concept of fault and blame to explain our dealing with criminals.
For example, if our criminal murders someone, he has demonstrated his capability to murder and as such is dangerous to the society. In an ideal world, we would determine what is wrong with his mind and try to treat it using advanced psychological methods. Or if we don't know, we lock him up.
Notice how this process doesn't need any concept of guilt or fault. It is just a simple demonstration of capability/likeness to do unsocial acts. Also notice that this process can be applied to someone who has been diagnosed with the same mental problem, but hasn't commited any crime yet. He too, should be treated appropriately.
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Good, bad, right and wrong are simply classifications of actions based on perspective. Morality is a societal construct; it's subjective.
There is no objective "right" or "wrong" or "evil" because each person has their own relative experience, values (existentialism), and perspective to evaluate the situation with. An action is just an action. Just because we've evolved the capacity to create a construct by which to classify actions does not equate it to being objective.
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In some sense, we really don't have much control over our subliminal actions unless we are able to recognize what we are doing before we do it.
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People lack the courage to take responsibitilynowadays.
They have to blame it on everything but themselves.
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Czech Republic11293 Posts
On May 19 2012 04:46 divito wrote:
Good, bad, right and wrong are simply classifications of actions based on perspective. Morality is a societal construct; it's subjective.
There is no objective "right" or "wrong" or "evil" because each person has their own relative experience, values (existentialism), and perspective to evaluate the situation with. An action is just an action. Just because we've evolved the capacity to create a construct by which to classify actions does not equate it to being objective.
I disagree with that.
Obviously if you want to give right/wrong/evil some divine properties, you are going to hit a wall. Or indeed if you try to argue the validity of these as given by religion.
But in a simple natural world, wrong/evil mean nothing more than behaviors that lead to a more unstable, undesirable and unhappy society. You can argue that different people want different societies, still there are some core values necessary for a functioning, technologically advanced society. And defying those values is therefore wrong and evil.
(I am not hating on religion, but some of them have values that do not necessarily lead to a more stable society)
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The only reason why 'blame the brain, not the person' isn't all over mainstream psychology yet is because it is a taboo subject and people don't want to find out it is true even if it is.
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On May 19 2012 04:37 Sadist wrote:Show nested quote +On May 19 2012 04:09 Aterons_toss wrote:On May 19 2012 02:04 Pantythief wrote: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. 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. I think this is an unbased assumption, If you haven't notice we are the only relatively intelligent animal that willingly kills its own when he has other options with the same short term results. Bears, wolfs, dolphins, sea lions, lions... those are all animals that fight each other for dominance, but they never willingly kill one another. A human is the only animal, as far as i know, that goes out of his way to kill another individual... not because he is a threat to him mating, feeding himself or what not... because he could be a threat in the future or simply because he fells that he has been wrong by said individual and sees death as fit punishment for him ( because he is intelligent, because he learns, because he is so much more conscious than other animals ). There are other animals who kill one another but its due to there instincts and its usually ether a mistake for the fact that the individual was indeed a hinder for the "specie". Animals don't kill to show there greatness... they beat each other up, that is for sure ( and sometime in the process the loser or even the winner dies ), but its not actually "natural" to fell good by killing one of your own species... its natural to fell bad, the "adrenalin rush" , the "powerful felling" you are said to get if you kill someone its actually the felling you get from dominating another member of your species that overcomes the part of you that fells bad because he killed one of his own. I might be wrong, i have in no way shape of from "professional" knowledge about this type of thing but i don't think that you do ether cuz if laws and society were the only thing keeping us from killing one another we would be all dead by now, and everyone with a little bit of knowledge in field varying from biology to scio economy would laugh at what you just said. Again, im not saying im right but what you said is wrong and you brought no argument to sustain it, you are likely confusing the "kill someone" with the "dominate someone so that you get his position in a social structure or certain materials required for survival and comfort"... it is society itself and our "evolved" thought process that makes us want to kill other people. About the future threat comment...... I don't know if that is true or not but maybe that has something to do with animals perception of time? I've always heard animals don't have a perception of time but I've never really understood how someone could come to that conclusion.
Its not that they have no perception of time... or at least i never heard of something like that.
But they are mainly unable to realize the long-mid term consequences of an action most of the time... at least i believe so, and it would be the most logical explanation.
Also, they are not so focused on themselves as individuals, at least certain species... but that isn't really a fact for every mammal, so its not that valid of an argument.
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Most people that act that way are a creation of the fact that our system is made NOT to fail anyone, that even those who in the past would have died or been bred out are allowed to stay in the system. EVERYONE finds "love," EVERYONE is to pass highschool, EVERYONE is to follow suggested social norms that are created for the ideal average person but not for the majority normal person. I think its quite obvious where i am going with this. Abnormal psych teaches that labelling theory - attaching labels to people is harmful because they may always stay, and even people like thomas szasz are vibrant critics of formal psychiatry saying that its not for humans to judge what is "normal" since there is no known normality within the human race. Lets face some facts, most humans have some "deviant" part of them, some people are gay (not following genetic ability to reproduce), some people are deaf/mute/blind (not following genetic sensory abilities), some people are mentally incapacitated (not autism, more like down syndrome), some people have terrible genetic diseases that are in their genes. Most of these people other than down syndrome and the blind/mute/deaf seem normal enough, but when we take a look at the supposed normal people in our lives, we still se deviantry. The average normal male would most likely love to try a 3-some or more girls, despite this being looked down upon by society if you married more than 1 girl (insert any gender here). Someone totally normal looking could have GID (gender identitiy disorder) and not identify with their biological sex but put on a facade for their own sake. Some people are psychopaths and they don't even know it. The average person is a shade of weird, going from more safe to more risque. The most safe isn't normal and the most risque isn't normal but most people fall into a bell curve of it and most are around the mean or withing the 68 percentile of "normal-ness" this doesn't make us normal by any means, only just as weird as the next guy. The issue is that we don't let psychology take its wings and fly and let them find the root reasons people act a certain way, not a label, but a reason. The reason we ask these questions is not that we can't find the answer, but that we don't feel that finding the answer will please society or in other words the ends don't justify the means.
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Are we merely flesh, blood and bones? I personally believe that thinking that way limits you instead of actually giving you more freedom.
I think the argument that somehow we are blameless for our actions speaks of incompetence and irresponsibility rather than anything else.
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On May 18 2012 23:15 bonifaceviii wrote:
Free will doesn't really exist, but society functions better when it's assumed that it does.
Not only that, but pretty much everything is based on the idea that free will exists. To say the contrary implies great changes.
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This isn't black and white. Free will does and does not exist. You do the math.
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On May 19 2012 20:00 guN-viCe wrote:
This isn't black and white. Free will does and does not exist. You do the math.
This is not a matter of degrees. If there's a small choice, then free-will exists. If every action is predetermined, then it does not.
I don't see how it can be ant not be at the same time. Keep in mind we're talking about free-will, not about choices.
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EPT
