4 ms·
"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
by 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