Memory deletion drug...

[tarna]

Was just watching 60 Minutes and they were talking about some drug that while not completely removing a recent traumatic memory, would take the traumatic edge off of it. Limited studies have shown it to take some of the 'panic' away from a woman's memory of a rape and could also possibly be used for soldiers in high violence warfare areas.

 

The question to you folks is 'would you take it?' and under what circumstances?

 

Me, I don't think so. A person's memories are what make them what they are. Hardships can strengthen us ( assuming of course that they don't destroy us ) and I'm not one for tinkering with that process.

[Pop]

Of course I'd take one if there was some trauma I wanted to forget. I can't tell a rape victim that they're better off knowing what happened to them. That's assuming we dismiss the whole Freudian Id deal. I doubt a psychoanalyst would accept that a pill can wholly rid someone of a memory.

 

Then again, we have to take into account possible abuse of the drug. Would a child molester be able to drug his victims and thus be able to destroy eyewitness testimony, which is so important in prosecution of said crime?

[Hurlshort]

Didn't Jim Carey already make this movie?

[Pop]

Didn't Jim Carey already make this movie?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Michel Gondry made it in spite of Jim Carrey.

 

If only real memory loss could be so glamorous.

[Colrom]

I heard some about that.

 

We can make people forget what has happened to them - more or less.

 

I don't think we are getting the whole story.

 

Mind altering drugs are quite a research topic these days.

 

Hmmmm.

 

I don't know how we can evaluate whether a person is competent to make a decision to have such a drug used on them.

 

I don't know how I would decide - and whether that decision might be good or bad.

 

Strange.

[Aram]

Then again, we have to take into account possible abuse of the drug. Would a child molester be able to drug his victims and thus be able to destroy eyewitness testimony, which is so important in prosecution of said crime?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Or better yet, a defense lawyer trying to defend a client based on the fact that the victim can intentionally forget about the crime and therefore wasn't really hurt.

Edited November 27, 2006 by Aram

[XoXAlexOxO]

Didn't Jim Carey already make this movie?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

i was thinking the same thing , and yes i would take it. who'd be better off remembering a rape or something

[LadyCrimson]

If a memory is interfering with someone's ability to live life as they wish to, then I'd be for it...and I'd take it.

 

But I wouldn't use it indiscriminately to forget every little "bad" memory ever stored away. One of those drugs that shouldn't be prescribed without a lot of therapy evaluation first.

 

And, of course, it depends on just how exact such a drug was at erasing specific memories, without bleedover into general memory loss.

[tarna]

The med wasn't that specific folks. What is does is remove the effect of adreneline upon the nerve endings that impacted the memory thereby reducing it's 'importance' to the individual. It doesn't actually 'remove' the memory, just reduce it's impact. It's not real specific as it sounds though.

 

 

BTW - it's already available to doctors as a heart med. I'll try to locate what is actually is and post it here.

 

Aram - this could wind up as something similar as dissassociative memory syndrome as far as the courts are concerned.

[mr insomniac]

This could be just the beginning of what they can do to alter memories with drugs. I was also thinking of that Jim Carrey movie when I read this, and I would say no to ever taking the drug. Having fortunately never experienced a severely traumatic event in my life, it's easy to say that... so who knows?

[Raymond Luxury-Yacht]

How is it possible to pick individual an 'memory' to forget? How does the medicine 'know' where those 'bad memories' are, of which the effect it is supposed to alleviate, if not completely erase them? It seems a drug like this would act on the entire nervous system; the question should be, whether you want *that*.

[Rosbjerg]

alot of people are already taking drugs with some pretty extensive sideeffects.. in the end it's about choosing the lesser of two evils.

[Colrom]

I am a little confused because I thought that adreneline was already quite good at obliterating memories - of pain anyway.

 

It would be good to see some popular and some technical journal articles.

 

There has also been progress recently in identifying chemicals that help to build trust - chemicals which are apparantly produced in association with sexual arrousal - but also in other circumstances. Tests have shown they are easily administered as an inhaled spray and work well.

[astr0creep]

I was watching Star Trek V last night and I believe Cap'n James Tiberius Kirk said it best: "Our experiences make us who we are" and "I want my pain. I need my pain!"

 

:D

[Rosbjerg]

He clearly doesn't know what real pain is.. But sure, we all need every-day pain and remorse to keep us focused ..

[metadigital]

Of course I'd take one if there was some trauma I wanted to forget. I can't tell a rape victim that they're better off knowing what happened to them. That's assuming we dismiss the whole Freudian Id deal. I doubt a psychoanalyst would accept that a pill can wholly rid someone of a memory.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

And what about Jung's personal and collective unconsciouses?

 

The truth will out! Acausal parrallelism FTW!

[Walsingham]

Sounds like burundanga/rohypnol. I wouldn't take it because I suspect that while the memories may be unavailable to the conscious mind, they would still be laid down in the cell memory as trauma. You just would find it even harder to reconcile, and would express itself secretly. On the other hand if I had nothing else to hand, and you wanted to saw my leg off I might give it a try.

[alanschu]

Of course I'd take one if there was some trauma I wanted to forget. I can't tell a rape victim that they're better off knowing what happened to them. That's assuming we dismiss the whole Freudian Id deal. I doubt a psychoanalyst would accept that a pill can wholly rid someone of a memory.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

And what about Jung's personal and collective unconsciouses?

 

The truth will out! Acausal parrallelism FTW!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

I remember thinking Jung was a crackpot when we studied him in my psych classes.

[LadyCrimson]

The med wasn't that specific folks. What is does is remove the effect of adreneline upon the nerve endings that impacted the memory thereby reducing it's 'importance' to the individual. It doesn't actually 'remove' the memory, just reduce it's impact. It's not real specific as it sounds though.

Ah...I see. So it might reduce panic attacks/obsessive-needless worry or such when something happens to bring the memory to the forefront? That could still be useful for many.

 

I find myself wondering if it would help with those automatic reactions from memories we're not even aware of remembering, if that makes sense - like emotional imprints/patterns from traumas during the first couple years, say. Interesting.

[metadigital]

Of course I'd take one if there was some trauma I wanted to forget. I can't tell a rape victim that they're better off knowing what happened to them. That's assuming we dismiss the whole Freudian Id deal. I doubt a psychoanalyst would accept that a pill can wholly rid someone of a memory.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

And what about Jung's personal and collective unconsciouses?

 

The truth will out! Acausal parrallelism FTW!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I remember thinking Jung was a crackpot when we studied him in my psych classes.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

He may be crazy, but he also managed to

[Mortis Nai]

Yet another step further away from humanity.

 

Suicide booths, here we come!

 

If we admit for a moment that "God" is nothing more than a concept to comfort us from death, then there is no such thing as "Evil" all we are left with are positive and negative actions and experiences, or to put it simplistically, as we teach our children "Good" and "Bad."

 

If that is the case then the only thing that we can truly judge our lives against are our experiences, then by removing the emotion behind them... we are no longer human, or even truly alive.

[metadigital]

Not necessarily. you are making some crude generalisations there.

 

Jung, for example, beleived that God (and he believed in God) had to evolve with humanity, as humanity evolved. whether he was right about God being linked to the collective unconscious (or even if we can understand what he meant by the coolective unconscious).

 

Also, some people hold that there are universal truths (read definitions for evil), and they do not require a god.

[Pop]

Jung was also at least a bit insane, especially going into the end of his professional relationship with Freud. The Seven Sermons to the Dead were indicative of this descent. He reffered to it as a "creative illness", which some believe is indicative of paranoid schizophrenia that was probably mild in its severity, but Jung apparently was visited by some hallucinations and delusions (he professed to having been visited by angels) during that time, so he meets the diagnostic criteria.

 

He also has the same problem that Aquinas had. If you do not hold the premise that a Platonic spiritual world exists to be true, the entire foundation of Jung's theory becomes nonsensical.

 

As for good / evil being defined by the existence of a God, humanists generally disagree. Most at least paid lip-service to the concept of a deity, because if one is not judged for his actions after he dies, it is entirely possible to commit evil actions without consequence, and thus moral consideration becomes arbitrary. That's why Nietzche was a nihilist and not a humanist.

Edited November 30, 2006 by Pop

[metadigital]

Humanists act in an ethical manner not because of some mythical afterlife punishment, but because they believe in it. In fact, you could argue that it is a weaker form of ethics that requires a punishment: people don't really want to act ethically, and wouldn't, if they didn't think they would be punished for not acting so.

[Mortis Nai]

That's why Nietzche was a nihilist and not a humanist.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

It all depends upon your interpretation of nihilism.

 

Read "Beyond Good and Evil" and "On the Geneology of Morrals" as well as "Thus Spoke Zarathustra."

 

'To the clean are all things clean'

Edited November 30, 2006 by Mortis Nai