3 ms·
A pill that makes you sad and happy
- nonrandomstring 5y ago"Imagine a drug that makes you horribly nauseous and miserable for the first 59 minutes after you take it, but then makes you feel hedonistic bliss for a final 1 minute. The other effect of this drug is that during the those first 59 minutes, it blocks the transcription of long-term memories so that by the next day you only remember the final 1 minute. Assuming you did not know the full effect profile of this drug until after taking it the first time, would you expect yourself to take it a second time?" I wouldn't be able to. This thought experiment makes a fundamental error, that the brain is the sole repository and processor of memory. Two books that will help clear-up this misunderstanding are: The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk [1] Descartes' Error by António Damásio [2] Our whole body, at the (neuro only?) cellular level, has mechanisms for "experiencing", processing and reminding us of physical and chemical experiences. No matter any ecstatic conclusion, an hour or extreme pain and trauma would leave an indelible reaction that conscious memory would not be able to explain, like a visceral phobia. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Body_Keeps_the_Score https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Body_Keeps_the_Score [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Descartes'_Error https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Descartes'_Error