Re: TMS...the truth is out there...

From: Samantha Atkins (samantha@objectent.com)
Date: Sat Jun 28 2003 - 22:00:26 MDT

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    On Friday 27 June 2003 00:54, Alex Ramonsky wrote:
    > Samantha Atkins wrote:
    > >On Thursday 26 June 2003 21:04, Spike wrote:
    > >>Brett Paatsch:
    > >>
    > >>
    > >>
    > >>
    > >>Surgical removal of guilt feelings would be a wildly
    > >>popular application of such a technology, were it
    > >>to become available. Of course one would suffer
    > >>condemnation from *every* major religion, this
    > >>being their jealously guarded line of business,
    > >>in which they would not welcome additional competition.
    > >
    > >Really, such butchery to produce an artificial relief rather than facing
    > > and dealing with the feelings does seem rather contemptible.
    >
    > Oh, hasty judgement! ...have you ever _had_ PTSD? : )

    You know, you are right. That is a hasty judgment. However, I have been
    subject to doctors being all too happy to hand out a pill to make any
    difficulty go away rather than teaching real-life tools for handling at least
    some of those problems. I worry that we may reach too often for a seeming
    technological fix that makes the symptoms go away without really
    understanding or dealing with the actual issues and other causes.

    >
    > > Not that I am
    > >saying guilt is a good thing but rather that getting done with it is an
    > >important part of growth and self-responsibility.
    >
    > It's not removing guilt, it's removing _the ability to feel guilt_. In
    > my opinion 'guilt' is a symptom of mental disorder due to malfunction.
    > There is no reason for an intelligent, neurologically healthy person to
    > ever feel it. If they have done nothing deliberately that they know to
    > be bad, what is there to feel guilty about? Mistakes should not invoke
    > guilt; mistakes happen to everybody and we all know that and accept it.
    > And if someone is being an a-hole on purpose, they're unlikely to feel
    > guilty, because they're an a-hole...
    > Where does that leave a place for guilt, apart from filling you full of
    > hormones that make you sick and shortening your lifespan?
    > Also, let's not mislead people... TMS is not surgery...d'you think we
    > should change the subject title?
    >

    While I don't consider longterm guilt at all optimal I think some sense of
    remorse over misdeeds is not necessarily a bad thing. Clinging to that
    indefinitely isn't healthy.

    > >It has nothing to do with
    > >religion to disapprove of such misuse of technology.
    >
    > Yes I agree. However, wiping 'guilt' is not, for me, a misuse of
    > technology but part of the cure for a malfunction, so perhaps it is
    > hasty to use the word 'misuse'? ... a lot of people think stem-cell
    > cloning is 'misuse'...you know what I mean?
    >

    It is certainly subject to misuse though.

    > [re: guilt]
    > No, it doesn't. Not if it is dealt with intelligently.
    >
    >
    > ...That's why I asked about the PTSD...ever-increasing guilt about your
    > inability to cope, and your inability to stop experiencing horrid things
    > against your will, can utterly destroy your life.

    But this is a bit more than your run-of-the-mill guilt over some actual
    wrongdoing.

    - samantha



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