Freethought & Rationalism Archive

scombrid · 06-07-2003, 09:45 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by yguy

Again, you confuse guilt with shame. Obviously humans can be conditioned to respond to stimuli in Pavlovian fashion; and such humans are the stuff totalitarian dictatorships are made of.

Enlighten. Without guilt there is no shame. Differentiate between what you percieve as pavlovian guilt and legitimate shame and how someone's perception of each differs. Think about things that cause you shame and why? You were taught what was shameful.

Quote:

Because the sociopath can evade reprisal, if he's clever enough. If he's able to evade it once, he is emboldened to do something even more outrageous

Sounds rather a lot like my parents spoiled cocker. If she gets caught steeling cat food she gets booted from the kitchen. Her way around this rule is to grab a mouthful of food and leave the kitchen to chew it. Then she comes back to repeat. Is this conditioning or deliberate deception? If deception, how is a soulless animal making such choices if the brain is incapable of such without a soul in the drivers seat?

yguy · 06-07-2003, 10:15 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by scombrid
So was the dog in my example. Nobody was around to witness the transgression or scold the animal yet the dog still responded to it's own actions (not an external stimuli) with a guilt response.

Last night I was playing tug of war with my buddy's dog. Very persistant animal. I always end up relenting to her in games of tug of war. Well last night she was pulling with all she had and suddenly stopped and went to the back door. Oh well, she had to go pee. Then when she came back in she went to the other room and layed down and didn't engage anybody else to play. My friend thought she might be injured but then we noticed the wet spot. She had pulled so hard that she leaked. Nobody scolded her, nobody even knew that she had an accident, yet she still had the posture of having been berated, low head, dropped tail, dull eyes. Hardly a pavlovian conditioned response.

That dog has no more soul than I do. What is driving her decision making process?

The programming you have imparted to her. She has no free will, any more than your computer does. To the extent that humans obey their programming, neither do they have free will to act of their own volition.

Inculcated shame may be a reasonable facsimile of conscience-induced guilt, but they are light-years apart. A child on whose mind it has been impressed that the slightest hint of disobedience to a parent will earn it a place in Hell doesn't toe the line because of real guilt, but because it has been intimidated into fear.

SimplyAtheistic · 06-07-2003, 10:28 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Normal
This is more a debate on free will then anything, and no amount of studying on "neurological programming" can answer that question.

You didn't answer my question, why believe in such a faulty hypothesis?
Jake

SimplyAtheistic · 06-07-2003, 10:31 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by yguy
The programming you have imparted to her. She has no free will, any more than your computer does. To the extent that humans obey their programming, neither do they have free will to act of their own volition.

Inculcated shame may be a reasonable facsimile of conscience-induced guilt, but they are light-years apart. A child on whose mind it has been impressed that the slightest hint of disobedience to a parent will earn it a place in Hell doesn't toe the line because of real guilt, but because it has been intimidated into fear.

I still don't see how guilt proves anyone has a soul.
Jake

scombrid · 06-07-2003, 10:39 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by JakeJohnson
I still don't see how guilt proves anyone has a soul.
Jake

Apparently only a creature with a soul can experience true gilt�. Regular guilt doesn't count, even when it's a human that has been conditioned as an animal. What exactly the distinction between true gilt� and pseudo guilt is unclear. Either form serves no purpose other than to compel the animal experiencing the emotion conform to some social standard. Even soulless animals that lack free will seem to be able to override their guilt when the reward is sufficient or the chance of getting caught small. But they still don't experience true shame�.

yguy · 06-07-2003, 10:42 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by scombrid
Sounds rather a lot like my parents spoiled cocker. If she gets caught steeling cat food she gets booted from the kitchen. Her way around this rule is to grab a mouthful of food and leave the kitchen to chew it. Then she comes back to repeat. Is this conditioning or deliberate deception? If deception, how is a soulless animal making such choices if the brain is incapable of such without a soul in the drivers seat?

Likely your parents have made the mistake of allowing themselves to react emotionally to the dog's misdeeds, infusing the dog with their own willfulness. Reminds me of Mrs. Woodhouse the famous dog trainer, who claimed she could break any dog of any bad habit in six minutes or less. The dogs' owners, however, were not nearly as coachable, according to her.

SimplyAtheistic · 06-07-2003, 10:58 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by yguy
Likely your parents have made the mistake of allowing themselves to react emotionally to the dog's misdeeds, infusing the dog with their own willfulness. Reminds me of Mrs. Woodhouse the famous dog trainer, who claimed she could break any dog of any bad habit in six minutes or less. The dogs' owners, however, were not nearly as coachable, according to her.

A human has no guilt until society tells him what is wrong.
Jake

tribalbeeyatch · 06-07-2003, 11:52 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Normal
SUFFICENT TO EVOKE SUCH A CHOICE is different then THE EVOKER OF THE CHOICE. Even if you stimulate the response action, you will be evoking a certain choice, but that does not disprove my hypothesis THAT THE SOUL WOULD DO SO OTHERWISE. :banghead: :banghead: :banghead:

I don't see the need for the :banghead:. These microstimulation experiments demonstrate that electrical activity in a certain area of the brain is sufficient to explain one aspect of visual consciousness. Perhaps there is another mechanism in addition to this self-sufficient one, but it would obviously be unnecessary.

tribalbeeyatch · 06-07-2003, 12:00 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by yguy
No. As for what I mean by perception, I mean whatever input impinges on the consciousness.

Ahhh...That's where we're talking past eachother. Activity in area MT is the neural correlate of motion perception -- in other words, it is the mechanism that brings about that aspect of visual consciousness. Now, if you've decided beforehand that there must be some ineffable thing that area MT is reporting this info to, then I don't really know what I can do to convince you otherwise other than point out that it would be unnecessary.

Normal · 06-07-2003, 12:51 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by JakeJohnson
You didn't answer my question, why believe in such a faulty hypothesis?
Jake

How is it faulty? I have in fact proved it not to be faulty.

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