Which is the more horrifying possibility about this experiment with rats?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_hand_syndrome

sorry don't mean to derail the thread from the start. is this just a rephrasing of the free will/fate conundrum?

It could be, but that's not how I'm framing it. I guess I'm asking: Is it more horrifying to be trapped by impulses you don't understand and forced to do things that aren't synched to a personal mental state, or is it more horrifying to realize that everything you do might be determined and your thoughts around normative actions are just false mental states used to reconcile a mostly mysterious process with a conscious thinking state.

depends on the level of control imo, assuming they are only controlling the motor cortex. if it's subtle enough control that the critical thinking part of the brain isn't able to notice what's going on then likely the brain will rationalize the action; if it's obvious that you're moving and your cognitive brain can't control it then you'll probably just be like "WTF." I'm going with captive because the former option seems very hard to execute.

well presumably if you can rationalize the impulses you're never going to notice the contingent option, ergo you'll never actually have a chance to be horrified by it

yeah

Right, but we can still be horrified by the idea. Doing stuff for external reasons, but believing I'm doing it for different reasons is like the basis of pathology. This could theoretically be the entire human experience.

if it's subtle enough control that the critical thinking part of the brain isn't able to notice what's going on

one of the plotpoints for inception

(Unless you're just saying that your horror in this is only bound to the horror you might experience at the time, in which case -- I totally agree. Captive would definitely be a more frightening experience.)

Doing stuff for external reasons, but believing I'm doing it for different reasons is like the basis of pathology. This could theoretically be the entire human experience.

lol, yes. My other poll idea for today: Compatibilism, libertarianism, or no free will?

It would be difficult, I say impossible, to define an absolutely pure mode of free will. Nothing in reality exists in a completely independent state.

Compatibilism! I'll start that poll at some point.

in patients with split hemisphere thingies, they often invent stories korsakoff sydnrome style for actions the opposite hemisphere took without their knowledge.
some patients who are blind but have some kind of lesions will believe they can still see, fabricating entire visual scenarios for what's happening.

i dunno if it's terrifying, but it's pretty interesting!

there was a recent experiment where people rated song preferences reliably by how high it was purportedly rated by other people, even when the ratings were bogus, which I guess is terrifying in the abstract, but also oddly comforting.

was this experiment called ILM?

would be legitimately terrifed, sick w fear, to find myself puppeted about by forces i couldn't understand - atl least initially. wouldn't be at all terrified to find myself looking at interesting paintings for this or that reason. so option a is scarier in that basic, immediate, if-this-happened-to-me sense.

otoh, they're both horrifying when looked at more abstractly. and on that level, the subtlety and secrecy of contingent control seems more monstrous.

oddly after reading this thread I just watched Ratatouille for the first time. Revenge for those poor electrically controlled rats.

Captive is horrendous, but I'm totally cool with contingent. Don't trust conscious activity much anyway.

so this is abt. capitalism

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-24455141

Likewise Queen's University philosophy Professor Michael Allen warned that the device will "encourage amateurs to operate invasively on living organisms" and "encourage thinking of complex living organisms as mere machines or tools".

The Michigan-based company has even received emails saying the the backpack - known as Roboroach - "teaches kids to be psychopaths".

the correct answer didn't win this imo

tho i dunno if "terrifying" is the word i'd use

this is making me think of alzheimer's patients subdued in cold water with electronic backpacks on their heads controlled by children with mobile phone apps

I think I would quite like someone who knew what the fuck they were doing controlling my brain, as long as I wasn't aware of it.

^^^ basic summary of Berkeley's whole philosophical oeuvre

is the possibility of this kind of mind control dealie qualitatively worse than being coerced at, say, gunpoint, if the controlled person is aware of being controlled? i don't think it is?

Actual physical device vs branding / advertising / peer pressure / etc etc etc etc etc.

that is an interesting side point altho i don't buy into a "naive" version of false consciousness i.e. i don't think people are literally controlled by their cultural milieu

All of this vs neo-liberalism.