Comments on: The Moral Part of the Brain?

By: Tim

Tim — Unknown, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Now this is just the kind of gobbledigook some people will use to justify… what? That scientific study of the brain can discover the source of our humanity, our character, our conscience, our morals?

In a word – Ridiculous.

By: Apple_Christmas

Apple_Christmas — Unknown, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Tim,

I think it's probably wise to view news reports like this with a healthy dose of skepticism, but I'm unclear as to whether you object to this post because you feel like people might read too much into it ("Aha! We've found the part of the brain where our morals come from!), or because you feel like science in general or neurology in particular cannot have anything to say about moral behavior.

I agree with you that this study indeed probably says very little (if anything) about where our morals really come from, but I do think that morality can be a valid subject of scientific inquiry. I have no idea how much science will actually be able to explain, but I think it's worth it to ask the questions, and it's not obvious to me that science can't have anything to say about it.

By: reluctantatheist

reluctantatheist — Unknown, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Tim:

That scientific study of the brain can discover the source of our humanity, our character, our conscience, our morals?

That's the only place all of those characteristics come from.
Sorry to burst your romantic bubble.

By: Apple_Christmas

Apple_Christmas — Unknown, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

KA:

That's the only place all of those characteristics come from.

What about the general "memosphere" (meme-pool?).

Memes (like religion and morality) of course require brains to propogate, but they don't originate in brains. Their evolution depends on their transmission between brains, so to say the brain is the only place that morality etc., can come from isn't quite correct. At least some part, maybe even most, comes from the vast web of communication in human society, which is distinctly different.

By: reluctantatheist

reluctantatheist — Unknown, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Apple:

Memes (like religion and morality) of course require brains to propogate, but they don't originate in brains.

They gotta start somewhere, don't they?

Their evolution depends on their transmission between brains, so to say the brain is the only place that morality etc., can come from isn't quite correct.

So it takes two brains. To-may-toe, to-mah-toe.
It still begins in 1 (or more) human brain(s).
Next time I'll qualify it w/a 'collective' clause.

By: mxracer652

mxracer652 — Unknown, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Just the kind of terrible response I'd expect from Tim. Not only have distinct behavioral changes happened in people who have suffered strokes, but infection with a common uncurable virus has been proven to change personality.

Check out Toxoplasma gondii. Carl Zimmer has wrote a ton about it, it infects 30-40% of the human population, it's incurable, it lives in the brain, and causes people (and all other animals) to be more socially aggressive & less risk averse.

Why does it bother the religious that consciousness & personality is material?

By: FlyingWeasel

FlyingWeasel — Unknown, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

because that suggests that conciousness and personality are mutable and temporal.

By: FlyingWeasel

FlyingWeasel — Unknown, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Tim:

I think science is on the threshold of answering a lot of questions about why we feel certain ways about certain things, as well as the physical side of the actual feelings (ie, the mechanisms by which we feel things)

as usual, it will seem too pedestrian for most people, and a few will recognise some beauty in the simplicity of the theory and the complexity of the mechanism...

By: sammorjr

sammorjr — Unknown, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

A guy I work with is a currently non-practicing Pentecostal Holiness but still a true believer. He claims to have witnessed demon possesion. What he has actually witnessed is mental illness caused by the physical brain either that or some good old holy-roller histrionics. An old lady I knew from church (I’m an apostate christian) was a nice lady but had a kind of serious personality. After a stroke she became an old “character” who would say anything to anybody. And a kindly old Methodist minister became a crotchedy cantankerous old man when he came down with Alzheimers. Some how he lived to be 81. By the way the lady who became an old “character” lived to be 97!

By: hominid

hominid — Unknown, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I don’t believe there is an adequate definition of what constitutes moral judgement in a life-or-death situation or in any other kind. Dr. Kevorkian (aka Dr. Death to some) was considered by some other people to be doing a good and necessary service with his assisted suicide. Atheists are considered not moral to some. Who is to say what or who is moral?