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Magnets Manipulate Morality!

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turboimpala

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If reality dictated that you have a magnetic-field generator permanently strapped to your head, and you also happen to have knowledge of this research, it would be irrational for you *not* take those facts into consideration in determining whether you can make proper ethical judgments.

Free will doesn't allow you to escape reality. Your mind doesn't exist *in* your brain - it *is* your brain. Any modification to your brain modifies your mind, and can certainly impact your ability to reason. Whether that damage is done by a bullet, an axe, or a magnetic field makes no difference.

It would be absurd to demand - as the determinists do - that in order for one to be considered to have "free will", one's mind must be capable of making the same choices regardless of the damage done to the brain.

Edited by brian0918
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Magnet Brain Morality

So much for reason and choice - it's all about the magnets.

If this is supposed to provide evidence that everyday moral decision-making is not dependent upon people's choices... it doesn't. The only way that we could determine that a brain under the influence of magnets makes abnormal moral decisions is by contrasting that with a normally functioning moral center. Showing that magnets bend people away from a fully functional state implies that they would otherwise operate in a fully functional state. This research offers no reason to believe that "the norm" in terms of moral decision-making is not a choice-driven process subject to volition. In fact, it underscores such a conclusion, by showing that normal moral decison-making depends on a normally functioning brain.

Moral decision-making, like any process, only works under conditions that the brain is suited for. We can see a parallel between this and vision, for instance. It is possible to trick one's eyes by putting them in abnormal circumstances (bending light, optical illusions, etc). This does not, however, violate the principle that eyes function properly in normal circumstances. Because eyes have an identity, and work in a certain way (and only in that way), it is possible to trick them; but there is always a reason that one's eyes don't function properly. There is always some element making the circumstances abnormal. If no such element is present (if we have no reason to believe circumstances are abnormal), we are justified in relying on our vision as accurate. In the same way, if I know that I don't have magnets taped to my head, I am still justified in treating my moral-decision making as under my own control, despite the fact that there are things in the world that could interfere with my moral center.

This research adds one more thing to the list of stuff which can interfere with moral decision-making (in addition to drugs, brain damage, etc), but none of that invalidates the conclusion that in an environment where none of that stuff is present, people control their own moral decisions and are able to choose right or wrong.

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This actually seems to me like an argument against determinism, if anything (not that I'm suggesting that it is in favor of it). If our minds can be manipulated by magnets, then were our minds really "Determined" for any destiny?

The manipulators were destined to apply the magnets to the test subjects' brains. :)

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But why morality and not other types of reasoning?

Well, any type of reasoning could potentially be affected, since all of it occurs in the brain. This study only looked at specific ethical situations, so we can't comment on the effect of the magnet on other decisions, nor can we comment on moral decisions in general.

Edited by brian0918
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Okay I'm going to strap a magnet to my head to see if I can remain an Objectivist but at the same time live my life for the sake of other people's lives to find out if my "moral center" functions separately from my other reasoning centers.

I will also turn the magnet upside down to see what effect the magnet's polarity has on my morality.

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I actually heard an interesting criticism of objectivism based on a similar argument about determinism. The argument went:

1) breakthroughs in neuroscience have allowed unprecedented access into the workings of the brain

2) one of the results of this access is a measurement of electrical current in certain brain centres and how they relate to words or actions

3) one of the results of this measurement is an ability to read certain patterns in the brain and essentially know what someone is going to do even before they know that they are going to do it

4) therefore all of our words and actions could be predicated by unknown conditions within our brains that we have no conscious control over

5) therefore we have no free will.

now i am not an expert in neuroscience so i have no idea if the premises that this argument is based on are really true but the guy who made the argument is pretty credible and generally doesnt make arguments based on fantasy. assuming that it is possible for scientists to know what we are going to do before we do it, does this in fact lead one to logically conclude that our will is not free?

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1) breakthroughs in neuroscience have allowed unprecedented access into the workings of the brain

2) one of the results of this access is a measurement of electrical current in certain brain centres and how they relate to words or actions

3) one of the results of this measurement is an ability to read certain patterns in the brain and essentially know what someone is going to do even before they know that they are going to do it

4) therefore all of our words and actions could be predicated by unknown conditions within our brains that we have no conscious control over

5) therefore we have no free will.

Again, this assumes the mind body dichotomy. A person's brain is not feeding information to his "mind", and waiting for his "mind" to make decisions. Every part of his brain contributes to his mind. The fact that someone comes along with electrodes and measures brain signals means they are getting insight into the choices made in the mind.

I would be curious to know how they are certain that the person does not *know*. Are they simply asking people? Are they just making some other measurement and assuming that that measurement accurately represents what someone "knows"?

Edited by brian0918
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I actually heard an interesting criticism of objectivism based on a similar argument about determinism. The argument went:

1) breakthroughs in neuroscience have allowed unprecedented access into the workings of the brain

2) one of the results of this access is a measurement of electrical current in certain brain centres and how they relate to words or actions

3) one of the results of this measurement is an ability to read certain patterns in the brain and essentially know what someone is going to do even before they know that they are going to do it

4) therefore all of our words and actions could be predicated by unknown conditions within our brains that we have no conscious control over

5) therefore we have no free will.

Two problems with that are that, as Brian implied, the mind is only a conceptual description of the brain's activities, so to say that a scientist could know before the mind knows, would be like saying the scientist knows what the brain will do before the brain does it. This could possibly be true with regard to certain reflexes, but I find it doubtful regarding conscious thought. They might be able to make certain short term probabilistic predictions but that would not be fundamentally different from me being able to predict what a well known friend would probably do in a particular situation.

Second, without constant monitoring, it would be pretty close to impossible to know with certainty over longer periods of time unless you were to constantly monitor the brain activity of the subject. Too many random experiences and chance firings of neurons are involved to predict what conclusions and behaviors a person will come to.

I don't wish to undermine the incredible strides being made in brain mapping, but I think your friend overstates there case a bit. Not that they can't get there, but knowing that a lesion on V4(a part of the visual cortex) causes an individual to lose a sense of color is no where near predicting that once he has eggs for breakfast, it will occur to him that a dome is the only structurally sound shape for a roof on that church and he hopes that the amount of time this project causes him to work doesn't have a deleterious affect on his relationship with his wife Susie.

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