4 ms·

Morality is modified in the lab

26 points by aeurielesn 16y ago

aeurielesn 16y ago
Original article (full text): http://www.pnas.org/content/107/15/6753.full http://www.pnas.org/content/107/15/6753.full
powrtoch 16y ago
"You think of morality as being a really high-level behaviour. To be able to apply a magnetic field to a specific brain region and change people's moral judgments is really astonishing." Where do people think that high level behavior comes from, if not the lower levels? "You think of WoW as being a high-level program, but I replaced your CPU with the one from my phone and look, it doesn't work."
- joshrule 16y ago
  You make a great point. If morality is a high-level behavior, which is seems to be, then it should be fairly easy to disrupt. Just monkey with any of the several moving parts that combine to create the emergent property of 'morality', and the emergence shouldn't happen, at least not in the same way. It's not astonishing, it's to be expected.
- hvs 16y ago
  I don't think "morality" is equivalent to "processor".
  - pygy_ 16y ago
    In his example, morality is WoW, and the analogy is sound. By disrupting the low level activity, you prevent high level processes from emerging. Try to degauss your cell phone, just to see what happens...
- bambax 16y ago
  Mmm. The CPU is the whole brain, and WoW is the totality of human behavior; so a more correct analogy would be: "I disabled the arithmetic co-processor and look, this character behaves erratically -- while the rest of the game seems unaffected".
planckscnst 16y ago
I would be very interested in this applied to psychophathic individuals since they apparently lack moral judgement.
- pygy_ 16y ago
  I'm no longer keeping track of TMS research, but from what I know (up to date as of 1 year, minus the fog of not having slept last night): The plasticity induced by rTMS is relatively short lived (10-60 minutes, usually), especially for high frequency stimulation (that potentiates the activity of the stimulated zone, which would perhaps be useful if we wanted to activate the TPJ of for psychopaths). To get maximal stability, you have keep people in a quiet room, because distractions / other activities tend to dissolve the effects of the stimulation. You may get longer lasting results using a thêta burst paradigm. All in all, TMS is mostly a research/diagnostic tool. TMS-based treatments are yet to be discovered (discounting irrelevant, anecdotal case reports).
Bjoern 16y ago
Have a curious question. What is morality? I mean how do I explain that e.g. to a machine? I have no background in AI or psychology but taking this research. Definition of morality, e.g. "concern with the distinction between good and evil or right and wrong; right or good conduct" So if we have morality which is in one part the outcome of a situation what is the other part which makes up morality? Morality = Outcome + X What do you think?
joshrule 16y ago
Unlike a lot of articles reporting on science, this one doesn't make any gigantic claims. They note that morality can be manipulated in the lab, not that scientists have cured evil or that science has found a way to reprogram your mind. Even better, they quote the scientist's ideas on potential next steps for this line of work and do a decent job of detailing the actual procedures used in the research. There's a lot of crummy science reporting out there, so when a good job is done, it should be noticed. Good job, BBC.

26 points by aeurielesn 16y ago

Original article (full text): http://www.pnas.org/content/107/15/6753.full http://www.pnas.org/content/107/15/6753.full

"You think of morality as being a really high-level behaviour. To be able to apply a magnetic field to a specific brain region and change people's moral judgments is really astonishing." Where do people think that high level behavior comes from, if not the lower levels? "You think of WoW as being a high-level program, but I replaced your CPU with the one from my phone and look, it doesn't work."

joshrule 16y ago
You make a great point. If morality is a high-level behavior, which is seems to be, then it should be fairly easy to disrupt. Just monkey with any of the several moving parts that combine to create the emergent property of 'morality', and the emergence shouldn't happen, at least not in the same way. It's not astonishing, it's to be expected.
hvs 16y ago
I don't think "morality" is equivalent to "processor".
- pygy_ 16y ago
  In his example, morality is WoW, and the analogy is sound. By disrupting the low level activity, you prevent high level processes from emerging. Try to degauss your cell phone, just to see what happens...
bambax 16y ago
Mmm. The CPU is the whole brain, and WoW is the totality of human behavior; so a more correct analogy would be: "I disabled the arithmetic co-processor and look, this character behaves erratically -- while the rest of the game seems unaffected".

planckscnst 16y ago

I would be very interested in this applied to psychophathic individuals since they apparently lack moral judgement.

pygy_ 16y ago
I'm no longer keeping track of TMS research, but from what I know (up to date as of 1 year, minus the fog of not having slept last night): The plasticity induced by rTMS is relatively short lived (10-60 minutes, usually), especially for high frequency stimulation (that potentiates the activity of the stimulated zone, which would perhaps be useful if we wanted to activate the TPJ of for psychopaths). To get maximal stability, you have keep people in a quiet room, because distractions / other activities tend to dissolve the effects of the stimulation. You may get longer lasting results using a thêta burst paradigm. All in all, TMS is mostly a research/diagnostic tool. TMS-based treatments are yet to be discovered (discounting irrelevant, anecdotal case reports).

Bjoern 16y ago

Have a curious question. What is morality? I mean how do I explain that e.g. to a machine? I have no background in AI or psychology but taking this research. Definition of morality, e.g. "concern with the distinction between good and evil or right and wrong; right or good conduct" So if we have morality which is in one part the outcome of a situation what is the other part which makes up morality? Morality = Outcome + X What do you think?

joshrule 16y ago

Unlike a lot of articles reporting on science, this one doesn't make any gigantic claims. They note that morality can be manipulated in the lab, not that scientists have cured evil or that science has found a way to reprogram your mind. Even better, they quote the scientist's ideas on potential next steps for this line of work and do a decent job of detailing the actual procedures used in the research. There's a lot of crummy science reporting out there, so when a good job is done, it should be noticed. Good job, BBC.