Day 40

40 days down. Time flies when you're having fun.

Or, as Kermit the frog says: "Time's fun when you're having flies."

A thought:

I was reading an article in Time today at the gym all about the 'science' of determining where morality comes from, and why humans behave in moral and immoral ways. It was all out of neuroscience and psychology. There was even a subheading titled: "Where moral decisions are made" in reference apparently to some part of the brain that's been associated with 'moral' decision making: ie. it lights up more under an MRI when a person is made to make moral choices.
I could go on for literally thousands of words (no pun intended) on how this makes no sense at all, but I'll keep the thoughts to just two:

1. I imagine it highly problematic to offer up an actual spatial location for any given 'decision.' As in, how the heck do I point to a literal part of your brain and say that's "where" "you" make decisions? If "you" see in a different part of the brain, hear in another, feel emotions in another, etc., where's the "you" gone to? It can't be all places at once, and it presumably can't be nowhere.
2. Any kind of ethic pre-supposes free will, obviously. So if we're to reduce 'ethical' decisions to reactionary chemical processes, we'd probably have to prepare ourselves to let everyone off the hook for everything. "Judge it ain't my fault! My right frontal lobe made me do it."

Comments

Anonymous said…
One might insist that the relevant "spacial location" of your moral decision making from the perspective of an everyday observer is simply your body and actions taken as a whole in relation to the environment which has brought upon the need to make the decision. The corresponding locus of activity in the brain is just that-- a locus of activity in a horrendously complex, unending, and diffuse process. (Just don't go poking it out...)
2:03 AM
Max said…
True that. This quite possibly could lead to the "module" notion, that, literally speaking, external objects can literally be part of the mind. For example, if my crappy memory motivates me to keep a journal/timetable, it might be said that this is an actual part of my mind.
10:48 PM
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