Submitted by Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
The bedrock of modern Western jurisprudence is the supposition that we are free to choose our actions from a range of choices. Some of these choices are socially acceptable and we deem them “legal.” Other choices made in specified contexts are socially unacceptable, and we deem these “illegal.” For those extremely unacceptable actions denominated as “crimes” we reserve progressive punishments to deter their occurrence. Gratuitous violence is one of the most important of these condemned actions, and we have striven for centuries to overcome this endemic feature of our nature. The basic assumption being that we can deter conduct that is the product of free will by imposing undesirable consequences on the actor. How have we done? I suppose the obvious answer is that despite a multitude of approaches ranging from severe punishment to compassionate rehabilitation, we haven’t yet mastered a way to banish senseless violence from our midst. Perhaps it is time to question that basic assumption that violence is purely volitional conduct.
The philosophical roots of free will stretch back at least to ancient times. Greco-Roman thinkers like Epicurus believed in causal determinism but allowed for an element of chance in the physical world by assuming that the atoms sometimes swerve in unpredictable ways, thus providing a physical basis for a belief in free will. Others like Cicero had doubts about the purity of free will observing:
“By ‘fate’, I mean what the Greeks call heimarmenê – an ordering and sequence of causes, since it is the connexion of cause to cause which out of itself produces anything. … Consequently nothing has happened which was not going to be, and likewise nothing is going to be of which nature does not contain causes working to bring that very thing about. This makes it intelligible that fate should be, not the ‘fate’ of superstition, but that of physics, an everlasting cause of things – why past things happened, why present things are now happening, and why future things will be.
Later, Christianity postulated free will as one of its basic tenets, arguing that grace is bestowed by acting in accordance with the Creator’s will and rejecting contrary temptations. In City of God, Augustine explained that, “For the first freedom of will which man received when he was created upright consisted in an ability not to sin, but also in an ability to sin; whereas this last freedom of will shall be superior, inasmuch as it shall not be able to sin. This, indeed, shall not be a natural ability, but the gift of God.” To depart voluntarily from God was then the foundation of sin.
For two centuries Western law has adopted this basis for meting out punishments as a means of modifying behaviors. Enter then the discipline of neuroscience and the strange case of Phineas P. Gage. Gage was a railroad worker living a peaceful life in late 19th Century New England. In 1848, Gage had the curious fate to suffer an iron crowbar being thrust squarely thorugh his left frontal lobe. He survived but changes to his demeanor and personality were so pronounced that his family and friends began to remark that “Gage was no longer Gage.” Damage to his prefrontal cortex had rendered a once courteous and diligent 25 year-old man unalterably and explicitly anti-social.
His physician John Harlow noted that:
He is fitful, irreverent, indulging at times in the grossest profanity (which was not previously his custom), manifesting but little deference for his fellows, impatient of restraint or advice when it conflicts with his desires, at times pertinaciously obstinate, yet capricious and vacillating, devising many plans of future operations, which are no sooner arranged than they are abandoned in turn for others appearing more feasible. A child in his intellectual capacity and manifestations, he has the animal passions of a strong man. Previous to his injury, although untrained in the schools, he possessed a well-balanced mind, and was looked upon by those who knew him as a shrewd, smart businessman, very energetic and persistent in executing all his plans of operation.
What are the implications then for free will in the context of obvious cases of impaired thinking like that suffered by Gage? The law has sought to address ”crimes” committed by those without sufficient faculty to appreciate the moral character of their actions or those persons who act through irresistible impulse. The first attempts were the British M’Naghten rule which excused conduct, though volitionally done, which was the product of a diseased or impaired mind and which rendered the perpetrator so impaired as to extinguish his ability to divine right from wrong. The corollary irresistible impulse test sought to mitigate criminal responsibility for one who would have acted through the effects of mental disease or defect even though a constable was at his side at the time of the conduct. Both of these tests have proven unworkable and prison statistics continue to show that the psychologically impaired are statistically more likely to be incarcerated than ”normal” persons.
The new challenge for the law is just how to handle the logical implication of Gage’s case. What if all human actions were not simply the product of free will but a resulting phenomena of a host of organic and genetic markers causing conduct that is inevitable? And what if these behaviors are not the product of diease or defect but of predictable stimuli or dysfunction not rising to the level of that required by M’Naghten? Sort of an organic determinism free from the control of human “will,” but flowing not from a diseased mind but a substantially normal one. Not really such a radical position. Albert Einstein considered the question and posed the classic regressive conundrum:
Honestly, I cannot understand what people mean when they talk about the freedom of the human will. I have a feeling, for instance, that I will something or other; but what relation this has with freedom I cannot understand at all. I feel that I will to light my pipe and I do it; but how can I connect this up with the idea of freedom? What is behind the act of willing to light the pipe? Another act of willing? Schopenhauer once said: Der Mensch kann was er will; er kann aber nicht wollen was er will (Man can do what he will but he cannot will what he wills).
Sound far-fetched and too esoteric? Consider then the studies of Benjamin Libet who “showed that brain activity associated with deliberate decisions can be detected shortly before we are conscious of making the decision. In these studies, participants reported when they first felt the intention to make a spontaneous movement by noting the position of a dot moving on computer screen. They apparently first became aware of their intentions about 200 milliseconds before action execution, which is later than the onset of the so-called readiness potential (or “bereitschaftspotential”) recorded from the scalp prior to movement.” While the studies are controversial they point up a fascinating possibility — that human conduct originates organically from a host of chemical and electrical sources independent of any notion of mind/brain divergence. The mind then is the brain and functions according to incalculable threads of physical causation which we can neither differentiate nor completely understand.
The prefrontal cortex is not the only area of inquiry into brain physiology as neuroscience attempts to understand and explain human aggressiveness. “It has long been known that ablation of the monkey temporal lobe, including the amygdala, results in blunted emotional responses. In humans, brain-imaging and lesion studies have suggested a role of the amygdala in theory of mind, aggression, and the ability to register fear and sadness in faces. According to the violence inhibition model, both sad and fearful facial cues act as important inhibitors if we are violent towards others. In support of this model, recent investigations have shown that individuals with a history of aggressive behaviour have poorer recognition of facial expressions, which might be due to amygdala dysfunction. Others have recently demonstrated how the low expression of X-linked monoamine oxidase A (MAOA)—which is an important enzyme in the catabolism of monoamines, most notably serotonin (5-HT), and has been associated with an increased propensity towards reactive violence in abused children—is associated with volume changes and hyperactivity in the amygdala.”
These studies bring up an interesting derivative question: Are all murderers equal in terms of brain function? The answer is decidely ”no.” “Professor Adrian Raine and colleagues reanalysed positron emission tomography data to tease apart functional differences between premeditated psychopaths and impulsive affective murderers. Compared to controls, the impulsive murderers had reduced activation in the bilateral PFC, while activity in the limbic structures was enhanced. Conversely, the predatory psychopaths had relatively normal prefrontal functioning, but increased right subcortical activity, which included the amygdala and hippocampus. These results suggest that predatory psychopaths are able to regulate their impulses, in contrast to impulsive murderers, who lack the prefrontal “inhibitory” machinery that stop them from committing violent transgressions.” For Raine then, free will should be viewed along a “dimension rather than a dichotomy”
An even more intriguing question revolves around whether we can predict anti-social behavior from an analysis of brain dysfunction. If so, would this not dispel notions of pure free will as the moral governor of our actions? “A systematic review of studies examining mental illness in 23,000 prisoners showed that these prisoners were several times more likely to have some form of psychosis or major depression, and ten times more likely to exhibit Anti-social personality Disorder (APD) than the general population. The authors suggest that, worldwide, several million prisoners have serious mental illness. Several studies also show levels of head injury to be higher in violent and death-row criminals, while birth complications, which can often result in neurological damage (e.g., hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy) and parental mental illness, are higher in anti-social populations. More often than not, people with APD and violent behaviour have a history of childhood maltreatment or trauma; having such a history has been linked to anomalous development of regions associated with anti-social behaviour, including the PFC, hippocampus, amygdala, corpus callosum, and hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis. Early damage to the orbitofrontal cortex in particular appears to result in poor acquisition of moral and social rules, thus showing the importance of the interaction between environment and brain development.”
All of these studies raise serious ethical questions for the justice system. Is the basic premise of pure free will suspect as a producing cause of aberrant conduct? Can we say with certainty that actions are in any meaningful sense volitional if they are the product of immutable laws of science which manifests themselves in a predictable, albeit undesirable, results? Are we punishing for poor conduct choices by individuals or for organic brain function over which the individual has only limited control?
Valid questions that may need answering and soon. In 1995, “Stephen Mobley, 25 with a long and violent criminal record, admitted shooting a pizza store manager in the back of the head during a failed robbery four years before. His lawyers argued he should be spared the death penalty because of a defect in his genetic make-up. Mobley’s family tree is littered with incidents of criminal and violent behaviour. His mitigation focused on a direct chain of antisocial behaviour that could be traced from his great- grandfather.
His lawyers tried to adduce expert evidence to show that a gene mutation had been passed along this line and was ultimately responsible for the disastrous events on 17 February 1991 at the pizza parlour in County Hall, Georgia. As long ago as 1969, genetic evidence was first admitted in a New York court. Lawyers then put forward a genetic-defect defence concerning the XYY chromosome syndrome. They argued that the extra Y chromosome indicated greater “maleness” or aggression. However, it failed to gain widespread judicial acceptance.
Mobley’s lawyers introduced evidence of a recent Dutch study, which associated this sort of family aggression with chemical imbalance caused by a mutating gene. Nevertheless, the Georgia Supreme Court held this evidence to be inadmissible on the basis that the theory of ‘genetic connection is not at a level of scientific acceptance that would justify its admission.’”
Now 16 years later science is grappling with proofs that might impress a court with the idea that certain human predispositions exist which bear directly on anti-social conduct. If neuroscience can answer this proposition affrimatively, the larger question will be how will we deal with this knowledge and how then will we deal with the perpetrators.
Sources: The Independent; Plos Biology; Wired; Neurophilosophy; and SamHarris.org
~Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
This is one of the best and most thoughtful articles I have seen here to date.
These issues are some I have been struggling with for more than four decades. Given that the brain is the organ controlling all behavior, emotion and bodily function, it seems to me the law has given short shrift to the damaged or malfunctioning brain. As far as M’Naghten goes, following the acquittal of M’Naghten, Queen Victoria was alleged to have exclaimed, “Anyone who tries to kill a government minister cannot possibly be insane.”
Consequently, Lord Chief Justice Tindal was assigned the task of coming up with a rule on the jurisprudence of insanity as guidance for the courts. The unspoken aspect of those proceedings were that they wanted to come up with something that would look good on paper, but more or less assure that no one else would be found NGRI. The M’Naghten Rule came close to succeeding on that. Those 54 words made the ability of a truly mentally ill person to be excused well-neigh impossible.
We now know that brain chemistry, organic changes to the brain (as in the case of Gage) and heredity play a huge role in behavior. Obviously, some behavior is willful, but other behavior is about as much under the control of the individual as the moth can will itself to not go toward a flame.
One thing that amazes me is the requirement that a finding of mental retardation must have manifested itself before the defendant’s 18th birthday. First of all, I have worked on cases where school records have been lost or destroyed, so it becomes impossible for a defendant to prove he or she was of low IQ before the age of 18. Second, how about acquired mental handicap after the age of maturity? Disease or injury can lower an IQ as much as being born that way.
We had a judge in this area who recently (mercifully) retired. She did not believe in mental illness. I sat in the courtroom observing when two doctors from the State Hospital testified the defendant was schizophrenic and was as sick as any defendant they had ever evaluated. They testified he was not competent to stand trial. The defendant insisted on testifying, and the lawyer asked me what I thought. I knew the guy was a sick as anyone I had ever seen, so I told him to go for it, because it might actually help. The man spent an hour on the witness stand rambling in an incoherent word salad. This judge said she did not believe he was mentally ill as claimed and pronounced him fit to stand trial.
Go figure.
“Some of these choices are socially acceptable and we deem them “legal.” Other choices made in specified contexts are socially unacceptable, and we deem these “illegal.”
As a layman I can apply this thought to what people think of the same sex marriage.
Being that it was such an ordeal in New York last night,and the violence part of this piece,there seems to be no answer from what has happened in peoples live with so much senseless violence going on I am at a lost.
A correction to my post should have said “what some people think of same sex marriage”
Can you reverse the behavior of anti-social people?
Behaviorists have been arguing for many decades that “free will” is a misunderstanding of events. For example, see “Beyond Freedom and Dignity”, by B. F. Skinner, published in 1971.
See: http://is.gd/lEJa22
To depart voluntarily from God was then the foundation of sin.
And the only possible means to effectuate the freedom.
Excellent article. It demonstrates that we are still in a position of using sledge hammers to sculpt our models of justice – but also that refinement is at least both desirable and plausible.
Thanks, OS.
You too, culheath. Excellent points by all.
Mespo: “What if all human actions were not simply the product of free will but a resulting phenomena of a host of organic and genetic markers causing conduct that is inevitable? And what if these behaviors are not the product of disease or defect but of predictable stimuli or dysfunction not rising to the level of that required by M’Naghten? Sort of an organic determinism free from the control of human “will,” but flowing not from a diseased mind but a substantially normal one.”
Mark,
The day you can explain how some mere epiphenomena of biochemical processes within the brain would find the foregoing passage ‘far fetched’ is the day you can change the laws to fit your new paradigm and thence open the hatcheries and fill the castes envisioned by Huxley in Brave New World.
Lest we forget how unreliable the foundation of medical science is; i.e. induction.
A century after Newton wrote the book on physics and calculus, medical science was claiming that you could save drowning victims with a tobacco smoke enema!
The invention of the PET and FMRI scans are game-changers. My experience has been that parts of the legal system have fought tooth and nail to keep neuropsychological testing out of evidence. Worker’s Comp has been a major offender in that department, at least in states where I have worked. One judge told me that the neuropsychological testing would have to be done by a medical doctor in order to be accepted as evidence. That is bogus, of course, since physicians know as much about such testing as the average neuropsychologist knows about orthopedic surgery.
Can we say with certainty that actions are in any meaningful sense volitional if they are the product of immutable laws of science which manifests themselves in a predictable, albeit undesirable, results?
This is the wrong question; we cannot say anything with certainty. Even the highest standard of law is “beyond a reasonable doubt,” not “beyond any shadow of doubt.”
I have been arguing about free will for over 30 years; and these are the points I make:
Science is incomplete. Read any popular science magazine and see for yourself; a recent “New Scientist” article has a cover page, “Half the Known Universe is Missing (and we’re not even counting dark matter).”
Quantum ChromoDynamics (QCD) is incompatible with Einstein’s General Relativity, which is know to have flaws, and QCD has flaws too, hence the rise of Super String theory, which nobody can solve either, and nobody knows how to resolve gravity with quantum effects, or why objects have mass, or how to fix the Inflation theory of the universe (which I think is hopelessly patched and irretrievably broken), and on, and on.
So we know a great deal, many thousands of times more than our ancestors knew, but our knowledge is probably one hundred twenty years away from being complete. Many of the things we think we know will be overturned.
So it is actually premature to say we know the universe is a deterministic clock-work Newtonian-style universe (there are plausible speculations by peer-reviewed physicists that may eliminate the randomness from quantum physics), or is deterministic but unpredictable because of random events (like spontaneous nuclear fission or alpha-particle emissions from a single atom).
There is no scientific certainty that free will is excluded. As scientists, we are not required to have some mechanism by which something is possible IF it is observable.
I will justify that claim with Darwin’s theory of evolution. Darwin (along with others) made the observation that traits are heritable, but children still differ from their parents. Chickens don’t lay eggs that hatch into cockatoos, but upon close examination even two chicks may not be completely identical.
Darwin was able to develop a theory of evolution almost a century before we understood the DNA basis of hereditary traits (and let me point out that even THAT remains incompletely understood, half a century later).
We all believe that we can make choices and our choices can be good or bad, legal or illegal, honorable or dishonorable, principled or not. That is an observation, just as valid as Darwin’s observation that children (somehow) primarily inherit their traits from their parents, or that one species of fish cannot fertilize the eggs of another. Darwin did not know WHY these patterns held true, just as we don’t know the origins of free will. Just as early man did not know WHY the sun rose and set, or why one season followed another, but was able to discern reliable patterns (and use them) without ever understanding the celestial mechanics that explained them.
I feel the same about free will. I may personally never know what mechanism explains it, but to me it is an observable phenomenon, in myself and in those I know. Any physicists that claim it is impossible are really just bad scientists, they are claiming something as fact they cannot possibly know, unless they have an indisputable grand unified theory of everything in their pocket that they aren’t telling us about.
I am not a supernaturalist, I am an atheist, and professional scientist, and I don’t believe that free will is magical. But I believe there is a very good chance it exists, because I observe it. Institute a punishment for an unfair act and people choose to engage in it less, that is empirically proven for thousands of laws over thousands of years. I do not require more proof of free will than that simple observation, and I would require far more definitive proof than the flawed physics we currently have that free will does NOT exist before I would change my mind. As long as physicists are still speculating about mysteries we have not yet solved, we do not yet have the tools to rule out “free will.”
What Tony C. said. Bingo!
Want to cause instant deafening silence in a meeting hall full of psychiatrists or psychologists?
Simply ask, “What is the nature of consciousness?”
To supplement Tony’s post which mirrors much of what I think about free will, I would also like to posit that free will might be a function of neural complexity. Once a certain degree of complexity is acquired, free will is a natural consequence. As all creatures with a brain innately have differing degrees of complexity in their neural networks, this would explain the differences in behavior within a species and it is also reflective of differences in brain function that are measurable by tests like PET and MRI scans and found to have correlations to behaviors we as society deem to be mental illnesses. It also speaks to the fundamental differences between conservatives and liberals. Studies conducted by Ryota Kanai of the University College London have found that self-proclaimed right-wingers had a more pronounced amygdala – a primitive part of the brain associated with emotion – but that those aligned to the left had thicker anterior cingulates – which is an area associated with anticipation and decision-making. As such, it is a lack of neural complexity in the anterior cingulates that can account for conservatives inability to deal with and accept accept new social, scientific or religious ideas. Conversely, a narrower focus as displayed by conservatives can sometimes be an asset when dealing with certain kinds of problems. This does not change, however, that focus can be purposefully narrowed by someone with a broader ability to process anticipation and exercise a greater degree of problem solving whereas someone with an innately narrow focus due to their lack of neural complexity in the anterior cingulates cannot be overcome as they are limited by their brain’s structure. In other words, their lack of complexity imposes an upper limit on their behavior and their ability to process information. They cannot exercise what we perceive as free will because they lack the complexity to process the information in the more complex ways required to reach different decisions based upon the same information. Their choices are limited by the relative complexity of the neural processing. Free will, above all, requires choices. When you cannot rationally process or are structurally incapable of seeing those choices, your free will is going to be correspondingly limited.
Excellent post, Mark, and excellent comments.
I would just like to point out that your opening sentence implies that free will is an illusion as:
It is the “range of choices” that argue against the concept of free will. The range of choices are dictated by many things: culture, social norms, laws, a person’s educational level, their upbringing, economic standing, and undoubtedly many more influences.
Of course, within the range of possibilities presented by any culture people have choices, much like we have choices when we go to a large food buffet.
Lewis Carroll best summarizes my perspective on free will with a line from Through The Looking-Glass: “If it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn’t, it isn’t so.”
“This is one of the best and most thoughtful articles I have seen here to date.”
I concur. We expect rational thinking from irrational people. And all of us are irrational to a greater or lesser degree at any time.
I am astounded and delghted at the plethora of insightful comments. On Tony C’s point, i was striving to ask if any reasonable degree of certainty could be obtained not necessarily absolute certainty. Our legal standard of a “reasonable degree of certainty” might be enough to fill the bill as I am “reasonably certain” absolute certainty is beyond our powers. The implicit point I was exploring is simply whether crime is aberrant volitional action motivated by malice (or some other emotion) or a mental disease derived from neural circumstances beyond the province of willful actions. Crime as malice versus crime as neural dysfunction? is it a matter of public safety or public health or both?
Buddha: nice incite, i concur.
The fact that we’ve caused our own coming extinction is astounding to me, but looking at it from a realistic, more balanced, inclusive and understanding view (as you stated so succinctly) it’s almost like it was “built in”. In other words, we, as a species should have been much more cerebral, conservative in our procreation (world-wide), resource allocation and use, wealth distribution, and land management (not to mention harvesting sea bounty) but much more liberal in our social arrangement, and more cooperative, diverse yet contributing, peaceful and concerned for all of us than the way it developed. We failed to learn these lessons (and others) and have strayed so far from the path that i’m sure the planet will rid itself of us before we have a chance to turn it all around.
Maybe next time.
mespo, it is both. We have to tease out the differences and similarities between personality disorders and squired dysfunction. For example, the antisocial personality disorder appears to be hard wired. Drs. Samenow and Yochelson wrote the seminal work, “The Criminal Mind.” Later, Stanton Samenow wrote, “Inside the Criminal Mind.” He found that psychopathic traits often showed up as early as age four. Little Johnny does not mind a bit rummaging around in his mother’s purse, looking for whatever he can find that interests him,and takes it. If she objects, he becomes enraged because he feels entitled. On the other hand, when she puts his clothes in his dresser, he also becomes enraged because she is getting into HIS stuff, and is in HIS room. That is what we may see in the budding criminal personality. It goes by many names: antisocial, psychopath, sociopath, and finally, criminal.
There are brain conditions which decrease inhibitions. This does not have to be associated with antisocial traits. We sometimes see that in the brain injured or mentally challenged when they may have a sweet disposition but blurt out every passing thought. There were lines in Forrest Gump that illustrated this, such as when he told President Kennedy that he needed to pee.
There are brain conditions that are more malignant, such as what happened to Phineas Gage. A perfect example of such a person was Ken Rex McElroy, the meanest man in the town of Skidmore, and possibly the meanest man in the state of Missouri. He was so dangerous that his neighbors took care of the problem when the law either could not or would not. Who shot him is still unsolved although the shooting took place in front of about thirty townspeople on July 10, 1981. Somebody like McElroy goes beyond the ordinary sociopath into territory suggesting he may have had brain damage or some sort of imbalance of catecholamines.
After his death on the Texas Tower, Charles Whitman was found to have brain tumors. They were located in such a way as to cause bouts of rage, in addition to the monumental headaches he suffered at the end of his life.
Answering these questions have profound implications for the legal system.
http://youtu.be/Qy-yqNwTf7s
My first reaction to an academic discussion on free will was, strangely enough, Al Pacino as the dark one in The Devil’s Advocate. Here’s his view on free will/ good vs. evil/ God vs. the devil:
http://youtu.be/Qy-yqNwTf7s
@Mespo: or a mental disease derived from neural circumstances beyond the province of willful actions.
I admit I haven’t thought this through entirely, but my first reaction to this statement is that I think the primary characteristic of mental illness, caused by biology or maldevelopment or some emotional trauma, is precisely an inability to choose.
What should be prosecuted as crime is a choice to commit a crime. People that are out of control of their actions, unable to choose, should be sequestered and controlled for the good of society. I believe in the insanity defense, but I also believe that if we deem somebody insane then, unless we can find an underlying physical cause of the insanity for which we can be certain (beyond a reasonable doubt) treatment will completely cure the insanity, that person should be sequestered for life. Even if their crime was unwitting and beyond their control, they have proven they are a danger to others. They must be institutionalized.
I do not, by the way, believe in the “temporary insanity” defense. Even if people have long stretches of sanity, if they have proven by example that they are prone to a bout of temporary insanity that harms others, then they have proven they are a permanent danger to society, and should be institutionalized.
My second reaction was IRONY. On Friday I received a court order granting my motion for shock probation on a motion I filed earlier this week on a client who just served 25.5 months in federal custody on a drug charge that was now being held in state custody on a felony assault charge conviction. In support of my motion, I noted, among other things, that my client was married and had two young children: GAUGE and Cash.
Now, your very interesting views on Mr. GAGE. I commented to my client’s wife about the unusal two names of their children. She was indicted with her husband on the same drug charges and she did 12 months house arrest. Are these children’s names a product of free will or something more?
Believe it or not?
An interesting article was in USA Toady on “mental illness” in the criminal justice sytsem: “About 85% of mentally ill defendants become well enough to return to court, Bonnie says.”
Loughner likely to stand trial eventually
Enlarge By Chris Morrison, AP
This courtoom sketch shows marshals restraining an agitated Jared Loughner after his outburst during a May 25 competency hearing in Tucson.
By Donna Leinwand Leger, USA TODAY
Jared Loughner, accused of killing six people and wounding Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and 12 others at a supermarket near Tucson, will spend the next four months at a prison psychiatric hospital where doctors will attempt what they do with thousands of defendants each year: get him well enough to face the charges in court.
Chances are doctors eventually will be able to get the symptoms of his newly diagnosed schizophrenia under control, and a judge will find him competent to stand trial.
“It’s a fairly routine part of criminal justice,” says Richard Bonnie, director of the Institute of Law, Psychiatry and Public Policy at the University of Virginia. He says 60,000 to 80,000 defendants in state and federal criminal courts are evaluated for mental competence each year.
Of those, judges find 15,000 to 20,000 defendants too mentally ill or disabled to face the charges against them, Bonnie estimates. They are sent to prison psychiatric facilities for treatment intended to make them competent to stand trial. About 85% of mentally ill defendants become well enough to return to court, Bonnie says.
STORY: Judge: Loughner not competent to stand trial
“It’s a pretty rare scenario that someone stays incompetent and never faces their charges,” says Daniel Murrie, a forensic psychologist and professor of psychiatry at University of Virginia School of Medicine.
Steps leading to a grim day in Arizona
Loughner exhibited increasingly bizarre behavior in the year before the Jan. 8 shooting at a political meet-and-greet with Giffords, an Arizona Democrat. On Sept. 23, 2010, officials at Pima Community College suspended him and told him he would not be readmitted until a doctor evaluated his mental health. Loughner dropped out.
Police arrested Loughner at the scene, and he is charged in federal court with murdering two federal officials: U.S. District Judge John Roll and Giffords’ staffer Gabe Zimmerman. Giffords, who was shot point-blank in the head, is undergoing rehabilitation at a Houston hospital.
Last month, federal Judge Larry Burns found Loughner incompetent to stand trial after a prison psychologist and a San Diego psychiatrist concluded he likely has paranoid schizophrenia. Burns sent Loughner to the prison hospital in Springfield, Mo., for treatment and will re-evaluate Loughner’s mental status at a hearing Sept. 21.
Even if Loughner is found to be mentally competent and is tried, his attorneys can argue that Loughner was insane at the time of the shooting.
To be considered competent, Loughner must have a factual and rational grasp of the charges against him and the potential consequences, and be able to assist his lawyers in his legal defense.
“It’s a very low standard,” says Thomas Hafemeister, a mental health law expert and professor at the University of Virginia School of Law.
In the majority of cases, competency is restored within a year, Murrie says.
Treatment can take far longer. Brian David Mitchell of Utah spent six years in psychiatric treatment before facing charges of kidnapping Elizabeth Smart from her Salt Lake City home in 2002. He was sentenced May 25 to life in prison. A judge had twice declared him incompetent to face trial.
Justice delayed
In at least one high-profile case, treatment has failed.
Russell “Rusty” Weston, charged with killing two U.S. Capitol Police officers and wounding a third on July 24, 1998, has never gone to trial. In 1999, a judge found that Weston suffered from paranoid schizophrenia and was incompetent to stand trial. In 2001, a judge ordered hospital doctors to forcibly medicate Weston.
Weston took medicine for four months, with little improvement. He remains in the prison hospital in Butner, N.C., and could face the charges if his condition improves.
Schizophrenia, which can include delusions, false beliefs and disorganized thinking and behavior, is most often treated with anti-psychotic medicines, says Ken Duckworth, a psychiatrist who is the medical director for the National Alliance on Mental illness and a clinical professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.
“We’re well short of a perfect treatment, but we have enough medication choice that a skilled doctor will find something that the patient will tolerate,” he says.
First, doctors will have to persuade Loughner to accept treatment, often challenging if the illness has progressed to the point that patient cannot understand that he or she is ill, Duckworth says.
If paranoia accompanies the schizophrenia, a mentally ill person may believe his doctor is out to get him and may refuse treatment, he says.
A judge can order doctors to forcibly medicate Loughner if they determine he is dangerous to himself or others. The judge can also order forced medication if the public interest in getting him to trial is sufficiently great and there’s a reasonable expectation that the treatment will succeed, says David Bruck, a law professor at Washington & Lee School of Law.
Many defendants willingly take medication. “Some people will be very compliant, very eager, because it’s just hell on Earth to have severe mental illness,” Hafemeister says.
If the medications fail and Loughner’s competence can’t be restored, prosecutors can seek a civil commitment that would send him to a psychiatric hospital for life, Bruck says.
“The possibility of Jared Loughner being released now or at any time is not on the menu. That is not an option,” Bruck says. “That is not going to happen. Not now. Not
OS:
Kind of off point/post but you mentioned PET/MRI scans,I delivered Nuclear Medicine awhile back and was astounded at the cost of these medicines.And for awhile there was some talk going around of Doctors and Hospitals using these medical treatments more than they should.
For some interesting reading on the subject, I call your attention to the work of Dr. David Lykken at the University of Minnesota. Lykken and his associates studied twins separated at birth, who had little or no knowlege of each other. The results address some of the questions in this thread.
This is the Wikipedia link which gives an overview of the study and some informative links.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minnesota_Twin_Family_Study
This link goes to a PDF of a paper by Lykken, et al, which presents powerful evidence in the findings.
http://bernard.pitzer.edu/~dmoore/psych199s03articles/Bouchard.pdf
Lykken’s other work debunked the polygraph. See his book, “A Tremor In The Blood.”
e, the PET and FMRI are not medicines. They are massive machines that scan the brain. They are a marriage of space age scanning technology and powerful computers. PET stands for Positron Emission Tomography. FMRI is Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging.
And yes, they are expensive. When a hospital or clinic pays a million or more dollars for a machine, the fees are high.
As far as other expenses associated with the PET and FMRI, a dedicated area of the hospital has to be set aside for them. In the case of MRI scanning, the area has to be insulated and made magnetic proof, because of the very high gauss levels present when scanning.
Also, not just any x-ray technician can do the work. It takes advanced training. That impacts pay scales.
OS:
The PET which I refer to is the dose of radioactive medicine that allows those machines to see whats going on inside you at the time of the scan.
These doses were in a needle which was housed in a medal cylinder which weighed about 25 t0 30lbs.
OK, you are referring to the radioactive dye. I am familiar with that. There are all kinds of radioactive media, and none of it is cheap. Just making and transporting the stuff is dangerous.
When my daughter was still a teenager, she had thyroid problems. Instead of disfiguring and potentially dangerous surgery, they decided to use radioactive iodine to treat the problem. She said later it did nothing to inspire confidence when the nurse came in with her pill. The nurse wore a lead-lined full-body hazmat suit. She was carrying the pill in a little cup at the end of four-foot long tongs. Came in with the pill and told my daughter to take it. Wow!
“If neuroscience can answer this proposition affirmatively, the larger question will be how will we deal with this knowledge and how then will we deal with the perpetrators.”
Mark,
One of the best posts I have ever read here. It creates so much to think about and its ending above leaves us with among the most complex of questions that need to be solved if we are ever truly to attain the justice we all aspire to. The comments have also been thoughtful, thought provoking and first rate.
In pondering my own thoughts I must admit that they are somewhat influenced by Bob’s statement:
“Lest we forget how unreliable the foundation of medical science is; i.e. induction.”
The science cited by OS, Tony and Buddha has much to persuade within it,
but when it comes to science as a finished product, I am skeptical of the validity of specific conclusions drawn, especially in medicine, skeptical even though I find much of it persuasive in the context of human behavior.
Year ago I read “The Selfish Gene” by Richard Dawkins, where he concluded in effect that we have no actual “selves,” but only exist as the repository of our genetic makeup. Dawkins is a persuasive writer, yet I came away from the book thinking, well if that’s true how does that impact my life? My answer personally has to be that I can only continue to go on if I continue to believe that I am in control and that would be true as well with respect to “free will.”
My deficiency with respect to most of you here that I so respect, is that I am limited by being more of a concrete thinker. Therefore, experience informs
much of my thinking. In that respect I think relating something that occurred to me last winter, after my heart transplant, might be somewhat instructive as to how physical processes affect behavior and mental processes.
It was unseen by my Doctors, that after my transplant I had developed sacs in my lungs that affected the amount of oxygen going to my brain. Since steroids used during transplants are known to sometimes have psychotic effects, my having hallucinations and other symptoms, was seen as the after effects of the medication, that would soon go away. Although my oxygenation levels were lower than normal, it was felt that this was just my body being accustomed to a new heart. My wife was distraught because I didn’t seem to be the “Mike” she knew and she kept confronting the hospital staff about it. Almost ten days later they sent me home, over my wife’s protests. Three days later my wife called 911, having noticed I wasn’t breathing properly, I wound up back in the hospital and underwent lung surgery within another two days.
When my wife called 911 I became angry with her because I didn’t even know I was sick. I had noticed when I was first in the hospital, after the transplant I was vaguely aware of the hallucinations since I would be having verbal conversations with people in my room, who turned out not to be there, when someone would enter the room and ask who I was talking too. The realization of psychotic behavior crept up on me, someone who so prides himself as being “together” and in control. The short of it was that I was in a psychotic state for almost three weeks, with only a vague awareness that something was wrong. Had I been stronger and more mobile, who knows what harm I could have wreaked, while in this state.
My point is obvious, if a fairly stable and “together” individual can display highly uncharacteristic behavior from simply a dearth of oxygen,
what behavior then could be explained by brain injury and/or genetics.
I think the examples shown by others here and Mark show with some certainty that behavior can be affected by ones physical condition. To add to that I personally believe that the mind/body split is the effect of religious dogma, rather than physical reality. We are an organism and not a body commanded by our brains. How then is our behavior affected by organic aspects other than brain function? I believe far beyond current knowledge.
This takes me back to Mark’s original question how do we deal with criminal behavior in light of this onset of knowledge. My answer, certainly not profound, is that we have to first eliminate capital punishment, for obvious reasons. What will have to come next, if we indeed have the will to do it, is to rethink our whole system of incarceration and its methodology. Without this scientific insight it is cruel and inhumane. We are treating miscreants as a whole in a way that only reinforces their bad behavior even if it isn’t an organic deficiency, but merely moral/ethical misjudgement. In the process our behavior then loses any moral high-ground it can claim.This is most probably a utopian solution, since too many humans feel as did OS’ judge, that there is no mental illness. The effect of religious belief is also a powerful force against such reforms.
Again though re: Free Will I go with gbk’s quotation from Carroll ““If it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn’t, it isn’t so.”
OS
” Just making and transporting the stuff is dangerous.”
It was the transportation part on my end,for all the medicines sat in the rear of our vehicles.
And on the other side in the pharmacy there was always a potential for a slight spill or a empty needle being mishandled at the point of disposal.
And then the checking of our radioactive sensors to make sure we weren’t being exposed
to any levels of radiation in our daily routine with the medicine.
In other words making sure that when you went home and went to bed that you weren’t “glowing in the dark”:=)
Mike S.
I am going to show your post to my wife for we have just gone through some things with her Father which your post seems to address .
“To be considered competent, Loughner must have a factual and rational grasp of the charges against him and the potential consequences, and be able to assist his lawyers in his legal defense.”
Frankmascagniiii
As has been mentioned this is a fairly low standard to achieve. Your quote from Dr. Duckworth:
“We’re well short of a perfect treatment, but we have enough medication choice that a skilled doctor will find something that the patient will tolerate,”
Does little to comfort me having worked professionally with this type of patient. We can medicate them and we can make them lucid, but the attempt to actually try this person and those of his type, is I think, little more than show. Personally, while I have seen many good results from patient medication, the art is far from the realm of proven science. The ending should be that Loughner should never get out of the State’s custody as you alluded, but I think a trial now or later dependent upon his lucidity, especially in Arizona, would be a mockery.
We need to rethink our concept of what is the nature of punishment, what is the effectiveness of our “tried and true” methods and what are we really trying to accomplish? It’s a hard question since the effects of many crimes are devastating to the victims and those who care for them. They must be comforted and protected, but does the punishment we mete out ever make them whole?
It may be after much thought that socially we finally again conclude that Draconian punishment is necessary, despite any inhumanity in its application. I just wonder if its application doesn’t lessen us all. I say this even though I feel it would have been best to just shoot the guy down, but then no one is immune from wanting vengeance. Are we better though for these visceral feelings and their concurring thoughts? I’m not sure we are, and I suspect that we are not.
“What will have to come next, if we indeed have the will to do it, is to rethink our whole system of incarceration and its methodology.”
For some time now, without being able to put my finger on it, I’ve had such an immense feeling of sadness stemming from a belief that somehow, someway, our entire system of incarceration is a total failure.
I don’t know what the solution is, but it isn’t what we have.
mespo727272 : “Crime as malice versus crime as neural dysfunction? is it a matter of public safety or public health or both?”
Wow. This was a very thought provoking discussion. In no particular order here are the thoughts of a demented criminal defense attorney who has wandered around the “criminal ” minds of thousands of clients in 34 years:
1. When I began practicing law in 1977 the mindset of judges in criminal cases at sentencing was at least a consideration of the “rehabilation” prong. Not that is trumped by “punishment” and “protection of society” by most state and federal judge I appear before on serious crimes. It also is fueled by raw politics and the desire to be reelected. Handing down a long sentence to punish and to protect vs. granting a defense motion on a technicality freeing an obviously gulity man, you be the judge and think about how your decision will be reported in the local news media the next day.
2. This country has become much more conservative over these 34 years and the opinions by the U.S. Supreme Court mirror local judges views on criminal cases. Or is the reverse true? In almost all criminal cases on review by the US Supreme Ct., involving constitutional rights of the defendant vs. the power of the state/law enforcement, defendants lose 5-4! When I speak at bar functions, I frequently state that I may not see another meaningful Supreme Court decision in my lifetime (I’m around 61) that supports the individual constitutional rights asserted by a criminal defendant vs. the power or the actions of law enforcement.
3. Most all motions I have filed (or are aware of) in my jurisdiction claiming insanity or a mental disease or defect fall upon deaf judicial officers. The state uses state mental health evaluators and almost always find the client competent to stand trial. The threshold level is so low under KY law that they can honestly justify their positions and conclusion. That does not make it right!
4. Several years ago I represented an older indigent black man who was charged with serious sexual offenses. He had a low IQ, lacked a high school education and lived alone in a basement of a church building when he cleaned up in return for his room. I challenged his competency under our statute KRS, Chapter 504, and the state appointed evaluator found him competent. I was convinced in my discussions with him, he was not. My pretrial motions failed, my client arrived in court in a red t-shirt that read ” I am your worst nightmare” ( he was charged with several counts of sexual offenses on a boy). I went to my office and gave him one of my shirts and we bgan jury selection and my client was sleeping (at noted by me and the judge). I begged the state prosecutor to stop the trial and he refused. I objected so many times to these proceedings, the judge finally gave in and allowed me to voir dire my client in open court outside the presence of the jury. At counsel table he answered my questions: he had a MD from NYU and invented the artifical heart, was a Louisville police officer, played football with Joe Namath at Alabama, played in the NBA with the New Jersey Nets, etc. He clearly was living in his own world becoming part of all the television he watched alone in the basement for decades. Only after this live in court experiment, did she encourage the prosecutor to make an offer where my client could get a probated sentence. He did and she did. The point is, I have seen mentally ill clients, found competent, get convicted and go to the pen. This is a very sad commentary on the criminal justice system.
5. I have seen what I believe are really “bad seeds”, truely intentional free will actors. I have seen many more clients acts not truely “intentional”.I’ve seen RX alter behaviors. Many of my clients charged with “crimes” used or abused drugs, had limited education, had challenging lives in challenging environments, little home upbringing, bad role models, no true family unit, exposed to violence, etc., all the factors that affect a person to commit a crime. Some are stronger than others, some have more skills, some have more resources, some have a greater intellect, etc. Are their acts ones of “free will”? I don’t know. But I would suggest their actions are rarely ever clear-headed, thought-out intention acts to accomplish a criminal result. Unfortunately in the criminal justice system, hese are mitigators of puinishment they, are not exonerateors.
@Mike S: I see no reason that incarceration cannot be safe and humane; there is no need to be cruel, and I believe people can interact with each other just fine without ever being in touching distance. In the natural course of my work year, I can interact with hundreds of people and never touch a one of them. (I often shake hands at introductions, but I certainly do not think that is a necessity for my mental health).
I do agree that for capital punishment we have too few safeguards to exclude the innocent, and our legal system has allowed innocents to be executed. That should stop, but I have no problem with the philosophy of capital punishment. I think those opposed are being overly sentimental, there is danger and expense in keeping a person alive that we do not owe them if they have ended somebody else’s life. I believe their right to life ceased the moment they violated somebody else’s right to life, and if we are certain they did that, we should turn them off as humanely as possible.
IMO they are broken, they will never be fixed to the point where we can feel safe with them in society, so they should spend the rest of their lives in prison, meaning they will die there. Either way the sentence is a death sentence, the only difference is they either suffer in prison for the rest of their natural life (which I think is inhumane) or they enjoy the rest of their natural life at our expense, and I think the latter case is unfair, considering they stole that from somebody else. I think the fair thing to do is end their life, painlessly.
After reading the rest of this thread, I still come to the same conclusion:
Free will is manifest on a sliding scale that is limited by biology.
By analogy, like all people have vocal chords, all people have free will, but their ability to express through it runs the gamut from mute to opera singer.
Judges and juries are hard pressed to buy into a mental health defense. In my state, if a lawyer is very good, he’ll get an Instruction on the mental health defense ” Guilty But Mentally Ill”. The jury doesn’t know the punishment is the same to serve in the pen. Rarely do they not serve the sentence in a state facility of corrections. We do not have a true mental health long term facility in which to serve a sentence. We need an institution for the long term care and treatment of the mentally ill.
Unfortunately, neither taxpayers nor politicans support these projects. Until then, they’ll be prosecuted, convicted, sent to the pen with little or no mental health treatment. So whether their acts were intentional or not, product of a free-will or not, the system is designed almost the same. It’s sad to practice law and see the really mentally ill get prosecuted.
Is DUI and intentional crime? You intended to drink, you intended to get in a vehicle and drive, and so you are accountable for your intentional actions? What if you are an alcoholic and you do not possess the “blocker genes” that non-alocholics have? Is this a disease, a medical condition? Is this condition inherited from your gene-pool providers? Is it really an intentional act, a product of your own free will? There are many books written on this subject. I would humbly submit most convicted “criminals” have in their life history to that point, some factors that influenced their otherwise unfettered free will.
That’s it for Frank.
Buddha Is Laughing : It takes a southern boy to cut to the chase!
Good to hear from you. I’m missing some good Nawlins’ bar-b-que shrimp and a po’ boy at Pasquale’s Manelli!
Frank,
It’s good to hear from you as well. Next time I’m in N.O., I’ll eat an extra order of barbeque shrimp for you. It’s no problem. Really.
This is what is going on here in the Metropolitan area that has people really
trying figure out whats going on peoples minds:
New York Shooting: Four Dead In Pharmacy Massacre
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/19/pharmacy-shooting-4-killed_n_880118.html
Great stuff from all. I’m glad Mike S pulled up a chair and, as usual, he doesn’t disappoint. Mike S’ cautionary approach to scientific/medical conclusions is admirable, but this data seem to be the best we have to go on.
I particularly enjoyed Frank’s anecdotes and OS’ research. I’ll be reading tonight it seems. As for Tony C, Buddha, and enoibob, well, were that Triumvirate in place a couple centuries ago we’d still be speaking Latin and looking forward to that Bacchus festival. Bob, Esq, Nate, gbk, Ottawa, the Toms et als and anyone else I forgot, I ‘d like to thank you for one of the most enjoyable and thought-provoking reads I’ve had in a while. Bravo, brava, bravissimo!
Mark,
Thank you!
“Nothing can possibly be conceived in the world, or even out of it, which can be called good, without qualification, except a good will. Intelligence, wit, judgement, and the other talents of the mind, however they may be named, or courage, resolution, perseverance, as qualities of temperament, are undoubtedly good and desirable in many respects; but these gifts of nature may also become extremely bad and mischievous if the will which is to make use of them, and which, therefore, constitutes what is called character, is not good. It is the same with the gifts of fortune. Power, riches, honour, even health, and the general well-being and contentment with one’s condition which is called happiness, inspire pride, and often presumption, if there is not a good will to correct the influence of these on the mind, and with this also to rectify the whole principle of acting and adapt it to its end. The sight of a being who is not adorned with a single feature of a pure and good will, enjoying unbroken prosperity, can never give pleasure to an impartial rational spectator. Thus a good will appears to constitute the indispensable condition even of being worthy of happiness.
There are even some qualities which are of service to this good will itself and may facilitate its action, yet which have no intrinsic unconditional value, but always presuppose a good will, and this qualifies the esteem that we justly have for them and does not permit us to regard them as absolutely good. Moderation in the affections and passions, self-control, and calm deliberation are not only good in many respects, but even seem to constitute part of the intrinsic worth of the person; but they are far from deserving to be called good without qualification, although they have been so unconditionally praised by the ancients. For without the principles of a good will, they may become extremely bad, and the coolness of a villain not only makes him far more dangerous, but also directly makes him more abominable in our eyes than he would have been without it.
A good will is good not because of what it performs or effects, not by its aptness for the attainment of some proposed end, but simply by virtue of the volition; that is, it is good in itself, and considered by itself is to be esteemed much higher than all that can be brought about by it in favour of any inclination, nay even of the sum total of all inclinations. Even if it should happen that, owing to special disfavour of fortune, or the niggardly provision of a step-motherly nature, this will should wholly lack power to accomplish its purpose, if with its greatest efforts it should yet achieve nothing, and there should remain only the good will (not, to be sure, a mere wish, but the summoning of all means in our power), then, like a jewel, it would still shine by its own light, as a thing which has its whole value in itself. Its usefulness or fruitfulness can neither add nor take away anything from this value. It would be, as it were, only the setting to enable us to handle it the more conveniently in common commerce, or to attract to it the attention of those who are not yet connoisseurs, but not to recommend it to true connoisseurs, or to determine its value.
There is, however, something so strange in this idea of the absolute value of the mere will, in which no account is taken of its utility, that notwithstanding the thorough assent of even common reason to the idea, yet a suspicion must arise that it may perhaps really be the product of mere high-flown fancy, and that we may have misunderstood the purpose of nature in assigning reason as the governor of our will. Therefore we will examine this idea from this point of view.”
Again, the day you can explain all that in terms of carbon chains, etc., well that’s the day we cease being human.
Mespo,
Others, no doubt, and I have been waiting for a topic like this from you since you became a guest blogger. The bizarre-type legal cases/topics are very well covered herein—those that we all like and help keep us returning. However, this style of topic from a guest attorney is what this blawg should also encompass on a regular basis.
As guest bloggers, we have three attorneys and two who are not legal professionals. Professor Turley could not have selected better topic posters from among the regulars to afford the readers a wide range of excellent material. Thanks to all.
I ask that you, Mike A., and Rafflaw continue to post legal topics that assist those nonlawyers here with understanding the process of law, especially since each attorney appears to practice in a different area of the legal profession. You can see from the reasoned comments that people were chomping at the bit for such a profound topic.
Bob,
Synergy.
Knowing constituent components and their interaction does not always explain the functionality of the whole.
That too is part of the consequent outcome of Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorems.
There will always be mystery in the systems of mankind.
That being said . . .
Let the Bacchanalia begin!
FFleo:
Thanks for the kind words. In addressing these types of fundamental topics, I am always a little cautious lest we turn off some readers who come to the site on the weekends for some levity and mild insight into the profession from the guest bloggers. Your curiosity is as profound as your commentary and I am happy to occasionally oblige you and some of my other friends here. I tend to leave the heavy “jurisprudential” lifting to our host who has the demonstrated mental horsepower to both interest and educate us. Otherwise, I feel like the dinner guest who insists on donning the host’s apron to participate in preparing and serving the meal. I sit at the same table as you, and Professor Turley is the deep thinker here —my small musings but eddies on his incredible intellectual torrent.
“Let the Bacchanalia begin!”
Indeed!
gbk:
Who says it ever ended!
Dionysus.
Mespo,
Yes Sir; however, Professor Turley chose the guest bloggers he did because he knew he would be away from his jurisprudential kitchen on the weekends and no doubt he wanted those who knew of the hot topics—legal and otherwise—who could stand the heat of this kitchen.
Please sling those pots n’ pans of legalese and don the chef’s fine print apron/judicial robe and you will continue to receive those insightful posts you desire from the abundantly educated guests who frequent this legal smorgasbord for weekday *and* weekend menus containing cornucopias of variety.
I listened to the following program on WBUR this week. I thought it might be of interest to some of the people following this thread.
Bionic Brains And What Science Can Foresee
Brain implants. Today in rats, maybe tomorrow in humans. Enhancing our memory. Enhancing our minds.
On Point with Tom Ashbrook
June 21, 2011
http://onpoint.wbur.org/2011/06/21/bionic-brains
Excerpt:
In case you don’t read The Journal of Neural Engineering, here’s the news: scientists have created a brain implant that restores lost memory function and strengthens recall.
A brain implant. Now, it was in a rat. But it’s proven what can be done.
And offered a glimpse of what’s coming for humans. There is lots of talk about the “bionic brain.” To repair injuries, like Gabby Giffords’.
**********
Memory Implant Gives Rats Sharper Recollection
By BENEDICT CAREY
New York Times
Published: June 17, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/17/science/17memory.html
Excerpt:
Scientists have designed a brain implant that restored lost memory function and strengthened recall of new information in laboratory rats — a crucial first step in the development of so-called neuroprosthetic devices to repair deficits from dementia, stroke and other brain injuries in humans.
Though still a long way from being tested in humans, the implant demonstrates for the first time that a cognitive function can be improved with a device that mimics the firing patterns of neurons. In recent years neuroscientists have developed implants that allow paralyzed people to move prosthetic limbs or a computer cursor, using their thoughts to activate the machines. In the new work, being published Friday, researchers at Wake Forest University and the University of Southern California used some of the same techniques to read neural activity. But they translated those signals internally, to improve brain function rather than to activate outside appendages.
“…we are still in a position of using sledge hammers to sculpt our models of justice – but also that refinement is at least both desirable and plausible.”
- culheath
It may be that we are at a turning point, one of those critical periods in time where people coalesce to usher in a new period of enlightenment and prosperity, or where people fail and darkness fills the void with all the repercussions thereof.
If we succeed, those that come after us can put aside our sledge hammers in favor of finer instruments. If we fail, those sledge hammers may be a symbol of the “good old days”.
Buddha,
“Free will is manifest on a sliding scale that is limited by biology.”
I think one’s rearing–as well as one’s genetic makeup–has a great effect on one’s behavior.
Elaine, you may be interested in reading the stuff David Lykken came up with in his studied of twins. See my post above on the subject, with links.
“Free will is manifest on a sliding scale that is limited by biology.”
Does biology limit the sliding scale, or the ability of free will to access the full scale?
Elaine,
Most assuredly nurture factors into nature, but I also think that no amount of nurture can overcome nature in the long term – it may modify one’s reactions to one’s nature but not alter the nature itself. For example: the character of Dexter Morgan from Jeff Lindsay’s books and the Showtime series. When his father, Harry, realized what Dexter was (a serial killer), he raised him to live by a code and that code modifies Dexter’s reaction to his compulsion. Instead of focusing on victims via a self-chosen or random criteria, he chooses victims who are criminals according to the Harry’s Code. Harry’s nurture as a father modified Dexter’s nature, but it did not supplant it. I think the same thing goes for real people as well. Nurture can make a sociopath or a psychopath behave differently, but it will never change their fundamental nature – the compulsions that drive them or the essential lack of compassion, empathy, etc. Effect is not the same as negation, but with that stipulation, I do agree with you.
gbk,
I think biology defines an upper limit on your ability to perceive choices and solutions as a function of neural complexity and that upper limit as it impacts what your mind perceives as viable consequently limits your free will by presenting you with fewer choices. Free will requires choice. It will always be limited by not just the choices available, but the choices one perceives as available.
Buddha,
“Most assuredly nurture factors into nature, but I also think that no amount of nurture can overcome nature in the long term – it may modify one’s reactions to one’s nature but not alter the nature itself.”
I believe a traumatic childhood can have a devastating effect on one’s nature. I do think some people’s nature may be severely altered by such a childhood. Abused children can become adults who abuse their own children.
Elaine,
I have no problem with that posit either. Trauma and post traumatic responses are a totally different psychological mechanic though as compared to “normal” rearing or biological limitations. Trauma is by definition an abnormal stressor. Trauma cannot just have devastating and lasting effects on children, but adult trauma can do the same. PTSD in war veterans is a perfect example of this.
Otteray,
You may find the following article interesting. It is a bit dated though.
NATURE VS. NURTURE: A NATURAL EXPERIMENT
By HOWARD E. GRUBER; Howard E. Gruber, director of the Institute for Cognitive Studies at Rutgers University in Newark, is the author of ”Darwin on Man: A Psychological Study of Scientific Creativity.”
Published: March 1, 1981
New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/1981/03/01/books/nature-vs-nurture-a-natural-experiment.html
Buddha,
Exactly! I was thinking of PTSD too. My daughter is a social worker who deals with troubled adolescents. They rarely have tranquil home lives and parents like June and Ward Cleaver
“By analogy, like all people have vocal chords, all people have free will, but their ability to express through it runs the gamut from mute to opera singer.” (Buddha)
There you go … summing it all up quite nicely … but do we punish the mute for not being able to thrill us with an aria?
Elaine, I believe Farber relied heavily on the seminal research of David Lykken and his colleagues, who conducted the biggest longitudinal series of studies on the subject of any research team.
Otteray,
When did Lykken publish his findings–before 1981?
Blouise,
“[D]o we punish the mute for not being able to thrill us with an aria?”
Not per se, but by the same token, do we make them a vocal coach?
Given the challenges of leadership in an ever more complicated and complex world, I don’t think it is punishment to keep inflexible thinkers out of leadership positions. To me, it’s just common sense. I don’t know about you, but when presented with an international crisis, I don’t want someone who is going to fall back on to rote and ideological dogma to find the best solution because they are lacking in fundamental ability to absorb new data and formulate novel solutions. I want the person capable of making the best informed decision possible no matter how personally disquieting the information may be personally. In that respect, that automatically rules out neoconservatives as acceptable leaders as it does religious fundamentalists. Both are rigid thinkers. Rigid thinking in the face of rapid change is the antithesis of adaptation. And while the first rule of successful evolution is “Pay attention”, the second rule is “Adapt”.
He started his twin studies in 1970. The Twin Registry was created until 1983. That was after it was clear there needed to be a central repository of data, and a place twins could be registered.
He died in 2006 at the age of 78.
“no matter how
personallydisquieting the information may be personally.”Pardon my sloppy editing.
Off to the transport job,see you folks during the week,the reason I posted the story of the pharmacy massacre,here’s one of the over 4,000 comments on the story.
“beckistani
0 Fans
08:28 PM on 6/23/2011
Your deflective odds-making does not disguise the facts. This particular crime was committed by a perpetrator whose profile fits exactly those of many of the gun rights posters on this site. He was a white veteran of the armed forces, a legal, law-abiding citizen with no criminal background whatsoever, and, not incidentally, an obsessive gun hobbyist. Your inability to rationally marginalize him must be causing you all a great deal of frustration “
Essentially, what you’re saying is that “smart” people have more “choices” than the hoi polloi. While this appears true one should question why this is and contemplate the possibility that the “choices” presented to the strata of classes are highly determinant from an economic perspective; a position of birth.
Choice also requires free will. Is there free will when choice is limited?
Perception is a very complex idea, and assumes more than its worth. We all assume that there are cultural foundations of perception, of right/wrong, good/bad, yet history and science teaches that this is not true – indeed history and science teach that perception changes as needed.
Buddha,
I suppose I was thinking more along the lines of responsibility for actions within a court of law.
However, when you mention religious fundamentalist then the subject of “free will” within the theological setting becomes murky. So much of our immediate history in this country has been influenced by the perverted notion of free will -v- predestination through the Second Great Awakening and the Revivalist movements (Camp Meetings etc) that began to take shape after the Revolutionary War.
The Calvinist tradition had emphasized the deep depravity of human beings who could only be saved through the grace of God. The evangelical movement stressed the individual’s assertion of Free Will which opened the door to salvation for all.
This fervor pushed the westward movement as many believed that God himself blessed the growth of the American nation. The Native Americans were considered heathens to be saved. Manifest Destiny had many elements of which the new evangelical definition of Free Will was one.
I strongly suspect we are still on that perverted Free Will path in the Middle East.
But I digress …
gbk,
“Essentially, what you’re saying is that “smart” people have more “choices” than the hoi polloi”
No, I’m not. The “hoi polloi” may have the same options, but simply not be able to perceive them. We’re talking about perception, processing and the ability to handle new (possibly unsettling) information. This ability knows no economic boundary just as the inability to do so knows no economic boundary. Haven’t you ever given somebody advice that seems perfectly obvious to you only to have that person reply “I never thought of it that way”? It’s the same thing – they haven’t thought of it that way because that can’t for one reason or another. Also, consider that intelligence as a processing ability is a talent like any other talent. Your parents may be rich or poor, but your innate intelligence has less to do with their station than it does with your genetic predisposition (and as Elaine pointed out, informed by how you are raised). Lincoln was an intelligent man, but he came from a dirt poor family that encouraged him to read and learn on his own. George Bush II came from a wealthy family and went to expensive schools and he’s a moron. Created equal is still not the same as equally created.
There are also other mitigating factors that can limit perception of options beside the inability to process complex data and accept new information. One that gets discussed here quite often is found in the idea that it is not a good idea to represent yourself even though it is your right and even if you are a lawyer. Why? Because in that instance, you are too close to the subject matter and emotionalism may cloud your thinking.
There is also, as you rightly point out, limitations of choices present by position of birth and economics. That is why I (and several other regular posters) feel that a quality free public education is not just a good idea, but a necessary idea as it presents opportunities to those people who may not be able to afford private schools. These social limitations of choice like those found in education should be mitigated wherever possible simply as a matter of equity and creating a just society. It is also a wise investment as station by birth is no guarantee of performance later in life. For every Issac Newton, born into a wealthy farming family, there is an Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla – both born into families of modest means. Depriving children of education due to their familial wealth is not just a tool of oppression by the upper class. It is a great disservice to society in that it deprives those with talent for innovation from realizing not just their personal potential but it negates any benefit to society as a whole that person might have had with the choice to pursue their education. While having economic resources may allow you take some options a poor person might not be able to, it does not mean that the poor smart person is incapable of seeing all of their options or a wealthy idiot is able to see all of their options or even choose the best one. But I digress . . .
“Choice also requires free will.”
Actually choice merely require input, criteria and options based on criteria. Machines are capable of making choice from defined options based upon express criteria. That is at its core the idea behind expert systems – they take input, compare it to criteria, and make a choice or present a series of choices that the correlation indicates to be true. Free will is a bit more complicated than that. It not only allows for choosing between options, but for novation of options not readily apparent by the conventionally defined options. A computer will not fully pass the Turing test until someone builds one that can come up with new ideas via synthesis and extrapolation, but an expert system like Watson can make accurate choices.
“Is there free will when choice is limited?”
Yes. But then the question becomes which choice of the limited or even undesirable choices is the right one. For that, I suggest a triage process described in the book “An Elementary Approach to Thinking Under Uncertainty” by Ruth Beyth-Marom and Shlomith Dekel. It was originally written as a training manual for the Mossad to help field agents make decisions when dealing with either incomplete information or an array of undesirable options.
“Perception is a very complex idea, and assumes more than its worth.”
But sometimes – as “An Elementary Approach” recognizes – decisions need to made with incomplete information. In those cases assumptions have to made, but the key is to limit them to assumptions that are necessary and rational and to try to eliminate as many assumptions as possible. And to your next point, I think you are mistaking perception and information processing for cultural mores. “We all assume that there are cultural foundations of perception, of right/wrong, good/bad, yet history and science teaches that this is not true – indeed history and science teach that perception changes as needed.” Cultural mores may influence how one weighs data, but it is not the same thing as the process of identifying options from a given set of data. Perception as a skill – although it varies from individual to individual – does not change in its essential nature. Cultural mores, on the other hand, do change as society changes. For example, let’s look at the idea of Soylent Green. When faced with starvation of a population, eating our reprocessed dead is currently a cultural taboo, however, that does not prevent us from recognizing it as an option. Our mores weight that option with a heavy negative and we pursue other options instead. As population pressures increase though, that social more may change and what society considers now as an “evil/bad/undesirable” choice may become a viable choice even though we would still recognize there are other options (reduction of population, increasing agricultural output, etc.). It has not changed due to our perception of the choice as an option. It has changed because society has revalued human life.
All of this being said, I still prefer leaders who can identify as many options as possible and integrate new information (even if it disturbs them personally on some moral level) over one who is locked into rigid thinking by their innate limitations on processing data and, ergo, unable to consider as many options as possible based on reason rather than emotion or instinct.
Buddha,
“All of this being said, I still prefer leaders who can identify as many options as possible and integrate new information (even if it disturbs them personally on some moral level) over one who is locked into rigid thinking by their innate limitations on processing data and, ergo, unable to consider as many options as possible based on reason rather than emotion or instinct.”
Unfortunately, there are lots of well-educated people who have never learned to think outside the box–as well as people who can only look at issues/address problems through the lens of their own narrow ideology.
Blouise,
But a lovely digression it was. My main objection to fundamentalists in leadership roles has everything to do with their abandonment of free will (no matter how much lip service they may pay to the idea) in favor of dogma and literal interpretations of religious texts that are not rational given the historical background and evolution of the texts and the fact that they were written as parables (which have an inherent flexibility in interpretation by their form alone). Fundamentalists abandon the burden of free will – rationality and the thought required to responsibly exercise one’s freedom of choice – for the lesser burden of dogmatically doing what their told a “higher power” wants them to do – freedom from both thought and choice.
Intelligence is a great gift and a powerful tool and like all great powers, it comes with great responsibility.
Fundamentalism, no matter if it’s Christians, Jews or Muslims, is an unreasoning, lazy and irresponsible use of intelligence and an abdication of free will for the comfort of feeling “special”.
So now you have company in your digression.
Elaine,
I agree. While education can bolster intelligence, an education alone is not a guarantee of either intelligence or flexibility in thought. Lateral thinking is a skill that can be taught, but in my experience, it can only be successfully taught to those with a predisposition for the talent to begin with.
On that note, I would like to thank you all for a lovely conversation which I hope to rejoin tomorrow and I bid you all good night.
I hear pillows and they whisper sweetly the call of Morpheus.
To sleep, perchance to dream . . .
Mespo,
“I’d like to thank You and all of the Commentators here for one of the most enjoyable and thought-provoking reads…Bravo, brava, bravissimo!”
Right back at you; as this is a most excellent essay and awesome thread, on what is without a doubt the best blog in the world! Due to all the day in and day out work of our host, yourself, Nal, Elaine, Rafflaw, Mike A, and all the outstanding regulars and quality drop-ins.
Reading this thread and admiring all the wisdom here I am feeling tremendous hope for our future society. Thank-you all again.
This topic reminded me of the work by Dr. Robert Sapolsky “a professor of Neurobiology and Primatology at Stanford University. He travels to Kenya every year to study the behaviors of wild baboons. This is a story on his amazing study of a unique incident that happened with one of his baboon troops from the National Geographic film called ‘Stress: The portrait of a killer.” I hope more people were aware of this and all of his work.
So what are you saying? That the hoi polloi can’t perceive options that “may” pass before them? Like France in 1789, East Germany in 1989, or are you referring to Francis Fukuyama’s 1992 book The End Of History And The Last Man which ushered neoliberal thought into mainstream politics eventually giving credence to the philosophical carnage of the neocons?
Yeah, I didn’t perceive any of this while it was going down. I just woke up yesterday from a long Rip Van Winkle sleep. The ability to perceive contrasted to the ability to act are very different.
I thought we were talking about free will, oh well. Recognizing new (and possibly unsettling) information is free and requires little beyond the ability to think. However, the ability to act upon new information is typically an economic process that requires capital. Or to quote Warren Zevon requires lawyers, guns, and money; much like TARP and the $9 trillion the Federal Reserve doled out from 2008-2010.
Hubris knows no bounds I guess! You speak of talent of intelligence yet expend many words discussing Lincoln, Bush, and why one shouldn’t represent themselves in court as if I was born yesterday. Spare your words and have some cake.
I agree with this full paragraph. Thanks for acknowledging, “those people who may not be able to afford private schools . . .” I’m so grateful.
It’s very disingenuous of you to refer to my flip of your statement “free will requires choice” to “choice also requires free will” and then reduce “choice” to boolean functions. You know very well my statement was given in the context that this thread proffered – namely encompassing the human concept of free will. Cheap shot, I’m disappointed.
We disagree here, that’s fine.
You are confusing this particular discussion with others as I never said a thing about “leaders,” though I could, but I don’t kick dead horses nor do I stand in the intersection of empires.
Peace
Morning All,Mespo what FFL said “in spades”
My comments here usually put me into a different time-frame than most others. They usually begin about 9:00am and cease around 1:00pm. The rest of the time given over to other pleasures. Therefore, I awake each morning to find a full mailbox of previous comments. What a pleasant surprise to awake today, earlier than usual and find that this most excellent thread has continued at the level I last left it. Buddha’s comments, with which I find much to agree, nevertheless sent me back to the days when I first discovered Fritz Perls, creator of Gestalt Psychotherapy. OS, who is at least my equal in Gestalt, though probably surpasses me in such knowledge, given his advanced scientific training, should feel free to correct me.
Fritz believed that his job as a therapist was to assist the patient (organism) in perceiving and reacting to its environment based on the input actually available to perception, in the moment. As such he felt it necessary to destroy what he called a person’s “character.” Lest one be horrified at the thought of destroying character, which in our language has such positive connotations, I’ll provide a brief paraphrase of what I think he meant by it, or at least how I take it.
Character, as I was taught is the individuals perception of who/she/he is and the guiding principles that the person uses in dealing with life, defined as environment. i.e. A political philosophy let’s say. Character is problematic when dealing with changes in ones’ environment because it leads to pre-programmed responses to the environment that limits the ability to initiate response/action based upon the actual situation.
Let’s take a confirmed civil libertarian dealing with a police stop that is illegal and a LEO who acts abusively. The “character” of many of us committed civil libertarians (moi aussi) could lead us to react to this environment by responding very assertively and angrily. This would be a rigid and foolish manner of response, conditioned by our past and most probably would get us “tased” and/or arrested.
Thus the aim of Gestalt Therapy would be to help us learn to respond to each new environmental occurrence with the ability to choose from a much wider (more appropriate) set of response options, rather than pre-determined and/or pre-programmed responses. When we talk of “intelligence,” to me the ability to perceive one’s environment and to respond to it flexibly, is as important a component of intelligence, as is reading comprehension.
I agree with Buddha, though indeed this may be my own “character” responding, that politically we are plagued by people who due to their rigid belief systems, should never hold powerful positions, simply because of their inability to respond to emergent situations with flexibility.
The Teabaggers, Neocons and Corporatists fill this bill in my opinion.
However, our problem, beyond an inability to legislate this, is how does one make the determination of rigidity? In my activist days I met many close to my own political persuasion who would have been terrible people to have in positions of power, due to their rigid adherence to their particular “party line.”
Relating further to this entire thread, imagine someone engaged in armed robbery of a grocery store, when suddenly a new customer enters the shop, they might well turn and shoot the new customer and then the store owner out of a response born of an abusive childhood, where quick reactions away from the abusers attack could mitigate harm. Thus a potentially non-violent and successful robbery turns into a double felony homicide. Does anyone really think that this is an improbable situation?
Our problem then becomes does the abused childhood, only one of many, many explanatory choices, become mitigating circumstances in trying this case. Notice, I’m avoiding using terms of definite pathology, purposely. This is the conundrum presented in this thread. I don’t personally think that we as yet have the scientific evidence to allow this to serve as mitigation, except as the “Hobson’s Choice” between life w/o parole, or the death penalty.
“Is DUI and intentional crime? You intended to drink, you intended to get in a vehicle and drive, and so you are accountable for your intentional actions? What if you are an alcoholic and you do not possess the “blocker genes” that non-alocholics have?”
Frank M,
You know the damned trouble with all of this is that our professions dealing
with alcoholic behavior are quite prone, even in the scientific part of the “addictive” community, to what I would call the “politics of addiction.” As a former psychological professional, who has dealt extensively with addicts, I’m quite torn in whether a predetermination towards addiction should be exculpatory. My being torn comes from my experience that many addicts, use the tendency and background as an excuse for their continuing maladaptive behavior and lack of ability to put it aside. While the rate of substantial addiction recovery hovers between a pitifully low 15 to 20%, the pundits in the field from which they earn their income argue the issue of pre-determination whichever way benefits their own needs. Your poignant comment sums up the DUI/DWI dichotomy perfectly:
“Unfortunately, neither taxpayers nor politicans support these projects. Until then, they’ll be prosecuted, convicted, sent to the pen with little or no mental health treatment. So whether their acts were intentional or not, product of a free-will or not, the system is designed almost the same. It’s sad to practice law and see the really mentally ill get prosecuted.”
“However, when you mention religious fundamentalist then the subject of “free will” within the theological setting becomes murky.”
Blouise,
Great comment with which I totally agree.
@Frank M: “Is DUI and intentional crime? You intended to drink, you intended to get in a vehicle and drive, and so you are accountable for your intentional actions? What if you are an alcoholic and you do not possess the “blocker genes” that non-alocholics have?”
I think DUI is an intentional crime, alcoholic or not. The driver knows it is against the law, knows they are about to drink, and (in my mind) is responsible for ensuring that their actions do not lead to them breaking the law.
The alcoholic was definitely sober at some point, nobody is born drunk. Then while sober, he chose to take actions he could reasonably have anticipated would put strangers into lethal danger. He endangered others by impairing his cognition without adequate safeguards.
To me, at least, the result should be the same: Restrictions on his freedom to prevent him from endangering the public any further. Whether he is mentally incompetent or just has a criminal disregard for others is really a subsidiary issue, either way he should not be permitted freedom because he is a danger to the public.
gbk,
“So what are you saying? That the hoi polloi can’t perceive options that “may” pass before them? ”
I’m talking about biology and free will – the subject of this thread. You’re the one who brought up class issues. As I pointed out, ability is not class specific.
“Recognizing new (and possibly unsettling) information is free and requires little beyond the ability to think.”
Yes, it requires the ability to integrate that new information without becoming emotionally reactive to it. Something it appears you may be incapable of.
“Hubris knows no bounds I guess! ”
Apparently neither does knee-jerk reactionary attempts to distort.
“I agree with this full paragraph. Thanks for acknowledging, “those people who may not be able to afford private schools . . .” I’m so grateful.”
If that’s your attempt at sarcasm, try again. If you have feelings of inferiority or class envy? I suggest you take them up with somebody who gives a damn, Mr. Assumption. I didn’t come from a wealthy family either but I don’t wear it like a chip on my shoulder. Apparently your status in life causes you some discomfort though.
“Cheap shot, I’m disappointed.”
Quite frankly, after this last childish post of yours, I don’t care if you’re disappointed or not. That you cannot differentiate between “choice” as a mechanistic process and “free will” is not that surprising though considering you seemingly want to reduce the ability to identify choice and free will to a class issue and you couldn’t differentiate between choice and social mores. Free will – as I stated – is more than just the ability to make choices. It is limited by the ability to perceive choices as well. One cannot make a choice one is unaware of. That’s basic logic. If you cannot process that? Take it up with your amygdala.
“You are confusing this particular discussion with others as I never said a thing about “leaders,” though I could, but I don’t kick dead horses nor do I stand in the intersection of empires.”
Nor do you think rationally it would appear as the only confusion exhibited here is by you.
I can’t wait to hear what your amygdala has to say about it.
Mike Spindell : I’ve really enjoyed your comments and observations. Thank you. As I respond to my clients who ask “Do you feel me?”, I say ” I feel ya.”
Tony C. :I was just trying to site a simple example that appears everyday in every courtroom in the country to address the competing interests of “intentional acts” (of a free will) vs, so-called “intentional acts” of a citizen with a mental disease or defect or medical/psychologicial/psychiatric condition (known or not/diagnosed of not). Most citizens, judges, prosecutors, probation officers, juries agree with you. As a criminal defense lawyer, I know they get lost in the case calling of the docket of the day.
Most clients in this country are appointed a public defender in a criminal case. The minority hire private counsel. A smaller minority can afford a mental health expert to assist in their defense. I’m just commenting on the harsh reality of the world I live in.
frankmascagniiii:
Hey Frank !,
And I too feel you :=)
Then, you must not be afan of our current lavishly-funded public education system, since it does such an awful job creating those opportunites, presumably through improved educational outcomes, you seem to like.
Not being able to afford an education is different than someone (the upper class) actively depriving or preventing one from obtaining an education, thereby oppressing them. A false equivalance.
Our current public education system has done more to deprive the poor of a real education than these supposed upper class deprivers ever did. The current system provides an awful education to the poor, has increased the price of obtaining an education, has crowded-out other providers, and traps poor students’ in failed schools.
If that’s your idea of “equity,” I’ll think I ‘ll pass.
kderosa,
You seem to have mistaken me for someone who didn’t go to public schools. Some of the best schools I attended were public schools and some of the worst schools I attended were private schools. Conversely, some of the best schools I attended were private schools and some of the worst schools I attended were public schools. Quality in education is the key and public schools can offer just as quality an education as a private school . . . provided some pol hasn’t de-funded them because the wealthy owners of the local private schools has bribed – excuse me – campaign contributed to them to do so.
As to your claim of false equivalence? I’ll just point to the perpetual GOP (you remember them – the party of money and “intelligent” design) war on school funding and then laugh at you.
As to your ideas concerning equity? I don’t take anything a proven propagandist says seriously. Neither should anyone else not aligned with your agenda.
eniobob : Good to hear from you as well. I am not a “regular” as you and the others know. mespo727272 asked me to review and jump in his contribution to the weekend guest bloggers. I didn’t know it was going to require such a time commitment!
As always, I really enjoy the discussion until it resorts to unkind or unchartiable personal comments. It’s human nature of course. Are the insults the result of a “free will” by one capable of “choice” (assuming we all are exposed to the same choices in life and have the same intellect to identify them) by intentional strokes on a keyboard or are the reactions by one who is the product of his life’s experiences and therefore somewhat influenced and/or
limited to his/her learned experience in reaction thereto?
In law school we were asked to examine ‘WHAT THE LAW IS VS. WHAT THE LAW OUGHT TO BE”. The answer remains ellusive.
I’m just an ole/old beat-up weatherworn warrior in the so-called “court of justice”. I fight ‘em one case at a time. Enjoyed the conversation. Frank
Frank M., we have had a couple of chronic teabag type trolls who seem to delight in hijacking even the most serious discussion with irrelevant topics about their views of government and economics. We find they are often wrong, never uncertain, and always annoying.
Now there is a topic for discussion about conditioning, free will and personality disorders. Heh!
Buddha, data is not the plural of anecdote. So, your anecdotes about your schooling experience while charming, don’t inform the discussion much.
The data on the low educational achievement of inner city children who attend your beloved public schools (run and controlled by your beloved Democrats), in contrast is very informative. Why do you hate blacks so much to force them into such an awful education system?
If there’s a war against school funding, as you claim, they must be doing an awful job of it, since school funding levels have been increasing and outpacing inflation for decades. Also, at today’s funding levels, the correlation between educational outcomes and spending is about zero.
But as long as you feel good about yourself and your policy choices, that’s all that matters. Whether those policy choices actually result in improved outcomes, not so much.
Apologies in advance if this is too off topic, I guess to me it relates, and I wanted to share more of Dr. Robert Sapolsky. If you wish to skip the intro go to the 5″ mark. Enjoy!
OS, good deployment of the lefty-fascist troll technique of trying to censor disagreement with your cherished views, which, as any right-minded lefty-fascist troll knows, should never be challenged.
Buddha Is Laughing: I so enjoy your comments! Now, am I influenced by your intellect, your logic, your ability to debate, my trained/learned & natural instincts as a criminal defense attorney, or is my view really tainted because of geography and culture (Buddha with roots in Louisiana and mine in Mississippi)? Do I have really have a “free will” to relate to his view or side with the opposing vantage point? Isn’t it natural to relate to an expressed point of you that you already hold? Don’t we all like authors and books that naturally affirm/confirm a view we already hold? Life is wonderful isn’t it? Go get ‘em Buddha!
As Matt Damon (as Will) said in Good Will Hunting during the bar scene: ” But if you have a problem with that…’cause we can step outside and figure it out.”
Frank, your comment triggered an almost forgotten memory. Back in the 1960s, Yale researcher Jerome Brunner showed subjects badly out of focus images and asked them to state what the images were pictures of. Another group was asked to only state what the images were after they were brought into focus enough to be absolutely certain they recognized what it was. The slides were then brought into focus gradually, using a calibrated slide projector. What was discovered is the persons who were asked to pre-name the objects held on to the preconceived notion at a much greater rate than the control group who were asked to NOT pre-judge. Some subjects did not even name the object correctly until it was almost in full perfect focus. The objects in the pictures were simple and of everyday things like a horse, a fire hydrant and the like.
Brunner was also the researcher who did the famous “Red Spade” experiment. An abbreviated version of the experiment is shown in the video below. Over-learned information is hard to shake, even when you know what is coming–that is a function of conditioning.
http://youtu.be/KSTqXme9RCk
Sometimes humans resort to their primal instincts to resolve a conflict between their fellow members of the human race. I thought this video clip relates well to this thread. Superior strength vs. superior intellect. What an interesting creature man is.
Frank,
Thanks!
_________
kderosa,
See, it’s statements like this – “good deployment of the lefty-fascist troll technique of trying to censor disagreement with your cherished views” – that show why no one should ever take you seriously.
First of all, fascism is a far right form of governance with syncretic roots. You cannot by definition be for left spectrum forms of governance and be a fascist – it is impossible. Any freshman political science student knows that. You don’t get to make up the meanings of words to suit your need without running the risk of being laughed at and ridiculed. Especially when you want to make up poli sci terms at a legal blog, nitwit.
Second, no one is trying to censor you here. We’re just not buying your bullshit and smacking it down accordingly. If you have a problem with that? That would be your problem. You are free to spout any kind of nonsense you want. We are equally free to club you over the head with it. It was your poor choice to try to ply your propagandist trade here, the consequence of that choice leaves you with these two options: deal with it or run away, however, whining about it only makes you look that much more like a wuss sockpuppet.
On a lighter( more serious?) note, I am reminded by the words my Mama taught me growing up in the Mississippi Delta. My guess is she “borrowed” them from an intellectual pink nosed rabbit known as Thumper, in the1942 animated Walt Disney movie Bambi:
“IF YOU DON’T HAVE SOMETHIN’ NICE TO SAY…DON’T SAY NOTHIN’ AT ALL.”
Click this cite and for 30 seconds go back in time with me to a simpler time:
http://youtu.be/nGt9jAkWie4
kderosa:
you might like to read what fascism is, in the words of Il Duce himself. I think you will find it enlightening.
Especially when you understand his use of the word liberal. Which at the time he wrote this meant human freedom and included capitalism as part of the definition.
http://www.worldfuturefund.org/wffmaster/Reading/Germany/mussolini.htm
I think you will see how right you actually are.
“The difference between [socialism and fascism] is superficial and purely formal, but it is significant psychologically: it brings the authoritarian nature of a planned economy crudely into the open.
The main characteristic of socialism (and of communism) is public ownership of the means of production, and, therefore, the abolition of private property. The right to property is the right of use and disposal. Under fascism, men retain the semblance or pretense of private property, but the government holds total power over its use and disposal.
The dictionary definition of fascism is: “a governmental system with strong centralized power, permitting no opposition or criticism, controlling all affairs of the nation (industrial, commercial, etc.), emphasizing an aggressive nationalism . . .”
The American College Dictionary,
New York: Random House, 1957.”
Roco & kederosa:
What does any of this have to do with the academic topic? We were discussing legal issues relating to biology, learning, conditioning, heredity and competence/responsibility. I fail to see how injecting right wing economic theory advances the discussion at all. Do you have something relevant to contribute? If not, then RedState is that way >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
To all my fellow bloggers: a short story for your consideration in this “pretend” world or in the “real” world:
—————————————————————————————–
THE LAW OF THE GARBAGE TRUCK:
One day I hopped in a taxi and we took off for the airport. We were
driving in the right lane when suddenly a black car jumped out of a
parking space right in front of us. My taxi driver slammed on his
brakes, skidded, and missed the other car by just inches. The driver of
the other car whipped his head around, started yelling at us, and
flipped us the bird. My taxi driver just smiled and waved at the guy.
And I mean, he was really friendly. So I asked, “Why did you just do
that? This guy almost ruined your car and sent us to the hospital.”
This is when my taxi driver taught me what I now call, ‘The Law of the
Garbage Truck.’
He explained that many people are like garbage trucks.
They run around full of garbage, full of frustration, full of anger, and
full of disappointment. As their garbage piles up, they need a place to
dump it and sometimes they’ll dump it on you. Don’t take it personally.
Just smile, wave, wish them well, and move on. Don’t take their garbage
and spread it to other people at work, at home, or on the streets. The
bottom line is that successful people do not let garbage trucks take
over their day. Life’s too short to wake up in the morning with regrets.
Love the people who treat you right. Pray for the ones who don’t.
Life is ten percent what you make it and ninety percent how you take it.
Have a garbage-free day!!!
——————————————————————————————–
Words of wisdom we can all benefit from, Frank
Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger:
AWOL! You started a good fight, where are you?
I am reminded of a line uttered during the civil rights era by Ralph Abernathy who is reported as saying:
his father taught him, “If you see a good fight, get in it and fight to win it!”
OS:
someone opened the door. I will not post anymore of that.
@OS — I was responding to your childish “chronic teabag type trolls” comment. If you want the discussion to remain on the high road, you should not have taken the low road.
@Buddha — See Rocco’s comment. Stalin had a name for dupes like you — useful idiots.
Please, kderosa & Roco…please.
Frank M.,
I think your The Law of the Garbage Truck is quite apt, as is Thumper’s Mom. We do need to be kinder to K & R. Imagine coming upon an excellent thread full of intellectual/scientific depth and concerned with the law and criminality. You might want to jump in and share your opinions, but the complexity of the discussion only makes your head hurt and it is frustrating to feel out of your depth. In this case someone feeling insecurity and inferiority may well throw in an off topic rant on a subject where they pretend to have knowledge. Although, the attempt to hijack the thread is annoying, I think compassion for people feeling so badly about themselves is the way to go.
There is a case to be made though, on how this interruption is actually instructive in a broad sense to the topic at hand. In 1976 Ruppert Murdoch bought the NY Post, up to then an afternoon tabloid with a fabulous staff of writers. In short shrift he turned it into something akin to a supermarket tabloid. It sold and its chief competitor the NY Daily News was forced to follow suit. I mark that as the beginning of the precipitous decline of Journalism in the US. NYC, the home base of all TV Media had provided an example of how the gathering and provision of news, could take second place to the glitz and superficiality of pseudo-reportage.
The heretofore independent Network News Divisions, were put under the leadership of the Entertainment Divisions in the network bureaucracy. This created the view that “the news” must turn a profit. This accelerated after Reagan’s election, when highly conservative corporations bought out the three major networks. What’s ensued since then is media news that focusses more on entertainment value and shock, rather than providing Americans with the information needed by them to act in a Democracy. Sorry for the long prelude but it is essential to my point.
Thirty five years later we find ourselves in an information environment where all points of view, no matter how factually challenged are equivalent. In your field of law we watch as trials become circusses and the rules of law dismissed by the punditry as mere technicalities, preventing the punishment of the obviously guilty. In this milieau to be charged with a crime, is to be guilty of it, until proven innocent, which you know better than I is quite hard to do.
While many of us here who are older are well aware that this showcasing of spectacular trials has always existed, never has it reached this level. The detrioration of information is particularly instructive if one listens to those commenting on the Casey Anthony testimony and who probably are taken all too seriously by the public as being knowledgeable. TV drama is now 50% cop shows, the public really believes that CSI in real life is, as it is portrayed on TV. Of course all the suspects are guilty.
This paucity of factual information has spilled over into politics and indeed science. Evolution and creationism are subject to TV debates where each side is depicted as equally credible. All beliefs, no matter how rare the supporting facts, are equal. Therefore, Hitler becoming a left winger and his compatriot Stalin added to the mix, are depicted as role models for our current President, who in reality (whether one approves of him or not)is by all reasonable and factual definition a centrist.
Certain people have grown up believing that many false equivalencies are indeed factual realities. They may be blessed with free will, but it is mediated by a severe limitation of vision, that has them perpetually scanning the environment with limited sight. The greatest danger any human can face is not being able to appropriately react
to their environment, being limited by an inability to examine all available options. To my mind those people deserve pity, rather than contempt, because they are dangers to themselves and don’t know it.
kderosa/”Roco”,
What makes either of you think your words carry any weight when talking about either history or politics? Especially here where the regular posters and many of the readers are well versed in both subjects?
No one takes either of you seriously around here. Neither the regulars nor the vast majority of the readers. You make convenient object lessons to teach off of, but as persuasive speakers the truth is that you both really do suck.
Do either of you have anything salient to add to the conversation about free will, biology and the possible implications for the legal system?
I kinda doubt it.
please what? Please stop responding to Budha’s and OS’s inane rcomments?
CEJ : Wow! I just watched the video you posted featuring Dr. Robert Sapolsky. The best 30+ minutes I’ve spent in a really long time. It brought me back to a time when I was a country boy from Mississippi sitting in a college classroom in Memphis, TN as a freshman student listening to Mr. Jim McGinnis in Philosophy class. Wow, the things he knew and said! Changed my view of life! Thanks. My only regret in watching this amazing man was that I could not go back in time to 1967! Nevertheless it was a great ride!
please, Buddha, please …
how was that, fleo?
The question wasn’t complex.
Do either of you have anything salient to add to the conversation about free will, biology and the possible implications for the legal system?
Clearly you don’t.
please, buddha, we’re trying to stay on topic.
CEJ,
Not only was that on topic, it was quite entertaining. As valuable as his field work is, I do hope Dr. Sapolsky gets his class time in too. I bet when he does, there is nary an empty seat.
Do either of you have anything salient to add to the conversation about free will, biology and the possible implications for the legal system?
That’s a very topical question.
Frank, regarding philosophy classes.
I had not taken a philosophy class until I was in graduate school at the U. of Missouri. Somehow I thought it would be infinitely boring, but the program required it so I had no choice. The professor was not the most scintillating personality in the world, and in fact, I have forgotten his name. However, the course was one of the best I took in all the years I spent in college. It shaped a lot of how I see the world today, and definitely improved my appreciation of critical thinking.
I also owe a lot to another professor who told me to read Eric Hoffer’s “The True Believer” and report on it as a term paper. Wow! That book, as well as some of Hoffer’s other writings, has helped me understand a lot going on today. In fact, I insisted my teenaged granddaughter read it–she is highly gifted and scary smart. She also had an epiphany when she read it. Said it explained a lot of her acquaintances and their parents.
Mike Spindell : There is something very calming about your posts. I sincerely appreciate your remarks and your wisdom. Maybe, it’s in part, because I am entering my 7th decade on the planet earth. I have learned to embrace a truth-teller. In my world we have an expression ” You can’t bullshit a bullshitter.” Juries most of the time see through “bullshit” spread by either side. They are looking for,and want an answer to, why the defendant did what he allegedly did. We instruct them to use their common sense and experiences in applying the facts to the law. Did he do those acts, were they intentional, did he have a legal justification, a defense, what were the factors surrounding the events, etc? Did he exercise his free will and commit an “intentional act” or were there other forces/factors/considerations at play?
Thanks for your observations. Frank
my comments were directed to the possible implications to the legal system. You can’t properly exercise free will without an adequate education. People like you seem hell bent on making sure the poor never receive such an education. Why do you hate the poor so much?
I had my doubts about posting this but perhaps there’s some value in it somewhere.
When “Gage wasn’t Gage” certainly is relevant to the legal domain in order to hammer out a more appropriate justice, but the larger issue of free will, in particular as it applied to me to us, is and was for me the more interesting theme.
Like many people if not most, I had my preconceived ideas. Being able to browse this blog, usually without comment, and growing fond of individual members, I was able to assess their reasoning and their beliefs against mine. In time, I found myself persuaded in new and different directions.
What changed? How was my own free will influenced and why?
I think in time I grew to love these strangers. And as that happened, somewhere inside of me a place was made to accommodate both them and their particular beliefs and ideas. And in that process, my own were changed.
An interesting lie, but a lie nonetheless.
This statement:
“That is why I (and several other regular posters) feel that a quality free public education is not just a good idea, but a necessary idea as it presents opportunities to those people who may not be able to afford private schools. These social limitations of choice like those found in education should be mitigated wherever possible simply as a matter of equity and creating a just society. It is also a wise investment as station by birth is no guarantee of performance later in life. For every Issac Newton, born into a wealthy farming family, there is an Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla – both born into families of modest means. Depriving children of education due to their familial wealth is not just a tool of oppression by the upper class. It is a great disservice to society in that it deprives those with talent for innovation from realizing not just their personal potential but it negates any benefit to society as a whole that person might have had with the choice to pursue their education. While having economic resources may allow you take some options a poor person might not be able to, it does not mean that the poor smart person is incapable of seeing all of their options or a wealthy idiot is able to see all of their options or even choose the best one. But I digress . . . ”
Clearly shows that I am for educating the poor with quality that matches any private education. That a certain percentage of those who can and should shoulder the burden of paying for equitable quality public education don’t want to do something that benefits all of society because it costs them money is their own venal fault. Hate the poor? Hardly. I don’t those who would by their myopic greed deprive the poor of a quality education.
Speaking of which, you clearly don’t have a very good education if you think focusing on something explicitly labeled as a digression is the same thing as adding something to the conversation other than taking a swipe at me with a weak and easily disproved lie. That is what is called a distraction and an attempt at insult. Your technique as a persuasive speaker is pitiful.
Back to the main topic . . .
Do either of you have anything salient to add to the conversation about free will, biology and the possible implications for the legal system?
By the same token endless wars / criminal insanity.
I disagree, buddha, I believe your initial pointvwas highly relevant and not a mere digession. In any event, my point is that you’re lofty rhetotic notwithstanding, your system in practice has been a complete failure in educating the poor. Like most lefties you only care about appearances, not actual results.
as far as free will goes, I think it exists. As far as its application to the law? If you have free will then you can choose to follow the law or not. The choice is yours. If you have a defect which prohibits understanding, then you should be sent to a facility to take care of you.
I understand child molesters cannot help themselves or so they say. If that is the case then they are slaves to a biological compulsion. But if that is the case then the first time they are caught they should be put away for life since rehabilitation is not possible, especially if you dont believe in free will.
But then that could apply to all crimes. And so we could say, if we dont believe in free will, all criminals are incorrigible and should be put away for life. Which seems rather silly to me since some criminals engage in crime for lack of understanding or lack of thinking through what they are going to do and the consequences of their actions.
“Because man has free will, no human choice—and no phenomenon which is a product of human choice—is metaphysically necessary. In regard to any man-made fact, it is valid to claim that man has chosen thus, but it was not inherent in the nature of existence for him to have done so: he could have chosen otherwise.
Choice, however, is not chance. Volition is not an exception to the Law of Causality; it is a type of causation.”
Disagree all you like. It was my statement and I expressly labeled it as a digression. As to the rest, it is your incorrect assumption that I don’t care about results. That or your English skills are so bad you cannot understand the sentence “I am for educating the poor with quality that matches any private education.” I am for equitable and quality education for all. Something you could have clearly benefited from.
Do you have anything salient to add to the conversation about free will, biology and the possible implications for the legal system?
Or like most right-wing propaganda trolls are you only interested in being a disruptive douche bag?
OS: Kudos to another bright calming voice in this world where humans communicate without the benefit of eye contact, hand gestures, body language, facial reactions nor voice inflections. I enjoy your well thought out comments. Thanks, Frank
Dredd:
From your blog,either word could be taken out and it would describe today for many.
” “making up a fantasy world then believing it to be reality”.
Fantasy/World
kderossa:
maybe the nature of public schools and how they teach diminishes an individuals ability to think properly. They have been volitionally compromised because they are told that which is not true. If they do not know truth then they have no free will because they cannot act in self preservation.
It is the equivalent of a bird not to teach it’s offspring how to fly. A bird depends on its wings and humans depend on their brain. If you clip the ability of a human to think at an early age you take away, in essence if not in fact, their free will.
“Roco”,
Congratulations. However, your unattributed quote begs the question that all free will is of equal quality. Someone suffering from a compulsion has their free will limited by that compulsion. This is evidenced by the nature of compulsion. Just as someone incapable of rationally integrating new information in formulating their choices has their free will limited by their inability to see choices that those who can integrate new information rationally – as opposed to emotionally – can see. One still cannot make a choice one cannot see.
perhaps a better education would improve your labeling skills.the results of the public education school system are objectively awful for the poor, especially poor blacks. So either you don’t care about those results or you aren’t aware of them.
sounds like I hurt your whittle letfy fascist troll feelings. I’m sorry.
“Roco”,
Your second statement begs the question that public schools cannot teach people how to think properly. As an professional educator, Elaine has said many times that not all public schools are created equally, which matches my anecdotal experience with them across the country. Some were great. Some were junk. But the same thing can be said of the private schools as well. A school is only as good as its teachers and administration. They are as individual in character and effectiveness as individual people are different in character and effectiveness.
kderosa,
You are incapable of hurting my feelings so don’t flatter yourself.
Do you have anything salient to add to the conversation about free will, biology and the possible implications for the legal system?
Because it looks as if like right-wing propaganda trolls are you only interested in being a disruptive douche bag.
Pardon my sloppy edit.
“you are only interested in being a disruptive douche bag.”
Your insinuation that I am Roco is cute.
the public schools do a reasonable job educating the middle class and above. They are, however, almost uniformly awful at educating the poor, ie the ones who can’t afforf their own education. So your comment is misdirected.
that’s it keep a stiff upper lip in front of your buddies. Mommy would be proud.
Frank, thank you. You are very kind.
BTW, Have you read any of Eric Hoffer’s books? If not, they are well worth your time, especially “The True Believer” and “The Ordeal of Change.”
Hoffer was a sterling example of an innate brilliance overcoming adversity. He went blind after a fall as a child of seven, but inexplicably recovered his sight eight years later, when he was fifteen. As a young man, he went on a gold mining trip, where would be isolated in the wilderness for many months. He went to a used book store and asked for the biggest, thickest book in stock. A massive volume of the collected works of Michel de Montaigne was brought out and he bought it. Reading during the time he was snowbound over the long winter, it opened doors to him that he never knew existed. Later, he was a longshoreman in San Fransisco. He wrote his books during times they were on strike. He would go for walks or sit on a park bench and make notes on slips of paper as he observed the world around him. Later, those scraps of paper became parts of his books.
His 131 notebooks and other papers are now in the library at the Hoover Institution at Stanford. They occupy 75 feet of shelf space, and last time I read about them, not all of them have been cataloged or published.
My hopefully last post to bring the criminal law back into the discussion:
The defendant’s mental health is a factor in a criminal prosecution.
Some Kentucky Statutes (revelant to this topic):
KRS 504.090 No defendant who is incompetent to stand trial shall be tried, convicted or sentenced so long as the incompentecy continues.
In KY we have 4 mental states defined in KRS 501.020: intentionally, knowingly, wantonly and recklessly.
KRS 501.080 : Intoxication is a defense to a criminal charge ONLY if such condition either:negates the existence of an element of the offense or is NOT Voluntarily produced and deprives the defendant of substantial capacity either to appreciate the criminality of his conduct or to conform his conduct to the requirements of the law.
Other statues:
1. § 504.150. Sentence for person found guilty but mentally ill.
Title 50. KENTUCKY PENAL CODE
2. § 504.140. Examination before sentencing.
Title 50. KENTUCKY PENAL CODE
3. § 504.130. Grounds for finding defendant guilty but mentally ill.
Title 50. KENTUCKY PENAL CODE
4. § 504.120. Verdicts of jury.
Title 50. KENTUCKY PENAL CODE
5. § 504.110. Alternative handling of defendant depending on whether he is competent or incompetent to stand trial.
Title 50. KENTUCKY PENAL CODE
6. § 504.100. Appointment by court of psychologist or psychiatrist during proceedings.
Title 50. KENTUCKY PENAL CODE
7. § 504.090. Incompetent defendant not to be tried.
Title 50. KENTUCKY PENAL CODE
8. § 504.085. Facility’s standing to petition for clarification or modification and to appeal.
Title 50. KENTUCKY PENAL CODE
9. § 504.080. Commitment to facility for examination – Persons to be present at hearing – Termination of criminal proceedings not bar to civil proceedings.
Title 50. KENTUCKY PENAL CODE
10. § 504.070. Evidence by defendant of mental illness or insanity – Examination by psychologist or psychiatrist by court appointment – Rebuttal by prosecution.
Title 50. KENTUCKY PENAL CODE
“he could have chosen otherwise”. I think that takes into account your concern.
If you cannot see the choice, then there is no choice to be made. And if you have some biological compulsion then there is no free will for you in whatever area your compulsion covers. Unless of course you believe in free will, then you can overcome the biological compulsion.
If you choose to give into the biological compulsion then, assuming you commit a crime, you should be punished.
Personally, I would say that until such time as we truly understand the brain, some crimes should be punishable by life in prison to remove the person from society for its protection. Child molesters, rapists, first degree murder, that type of thing.
RE: KRS 504.090
How does KY handle issues where Jackson v. Indiana may come into play?
I had a case once in Jones County, MS (no jokes please) in the mid-1970s. A woman with an IQ of 44 had been hired by a nursing home to help with patients. The woman had no clue as to how to adjust the bathtub faucets, because her little shack had no running water and she had never been around indoor plumbing. She ran all hot water and helped an aged patient into the tub, where the patient was scalded to death. The mentally challenged woman was arrested and charged with manslaughter.
When we had a competency hearing, the judge was outraged at our findings the woman was incompetent with an IQ of 44. He ordered us to restore her to competency, and gave us a month do do it. When we went back to court, he threatened both the Chief Psychiatrist and me with contempt for not following his instruction to restore her to competency. Fortunately, the psychiatrist was also an attorney and had written a brief in anticipation of what the judge would do. That too pissed off the judge who did not know the doctor was also a licensed attorney. Hizzoner accused us of getting help from, “Those damn civil rights lawyers,” that were ruining the legal system in Mississippi.
OS: Thanks for the referral. One of your favorites has something to say about this discussion:
Eric Hoffer Quotes (sorry I was moved by so many quotes I posted some not directly on point, but meaningful nonetheless. Forgive me.)
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The basic test of freedom is perhaps less in what we are free to do than in what we are free not to do.
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When people are free to do as they please, they usually imitate each other.
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An empty head is not really empty; it is stuffed with rubbish. Hence the difficulty of forcing anything in to an empty head.
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The capacity for getting along with our neighbor depends to a large extent on the capacity for getting along with ourselves. The self-respecting individual will try to be as tolerant of his neighbor’s shortcomings as he is of his own.
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The remarkable thing is that we really love our neighbors as ourselves: we do unto others as we do unto ourselves. We hate others when we hate ourselves. We are tolerant of others when we tolerate ourselves. We forgive others when we forgive ourselves. We are prone to sacrifice others when we are ready to sacrifice ourselves.
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Passionate hatred can give meaning and purpose to an empty life. Thus people haunted by the purposelessness of their lives try to find a new content not only by dedicating themselves to a holy cause but also by nursing a fanatical grievance. A mass movement offers them unlimited opportunities for both.
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It is not love of self but hatred of self which is at the root of the troubles that afflict our world.
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We do not usually look for allies when we love. Indeed, we often look on those who love with us as rivals and trespassers. But we always look for allies when we hate.
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It is easier to love humanity than to love your neighbor.
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How much easier is self-sacrifice than self-realization.
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All mass movements avail themselves of action as a means of unification. The conflicts a mass movement seeks and incites serve not only to down its enemies but also to strip its followers of their distinct individuality and render them more soluble in the collective medium.
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There is apparently some connection between dissatisfaction with oneself and proneness to credulity. The urge to escape our real self is also an urge to escape the rational and the obvious. The refusal to see ourselves as we are develops a distaste for facts and cold logic. There is no hope for the frustrated in the actual and the possible. Salvation can come to them only from the miraculous, which seeps through a crack in the iron wall of inexorable reality. They asked to be deceived.
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The uncompromising attitude is more indicative of an inner uncertainty than a deep conviction. The implacable stand is directed more against the doubt within than the assailant without.
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Our quarrel with the world is an echo of the endless quarrel proceeding within us.
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Animals can learn, but it is not by learning that they become dogs, cats, or horses. Only man has to learn to become what he is supposed to be.
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The savior who wants to turn men into angels is as much a hater of human nature as the totalitarian despot who wants to turn them into puppets.
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No one is truly literate who cannot read his own heart.
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No one has a right to happiness.
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There is a guilty conscience behind every brazen word and act and behind every manifestation of self-righteousness.
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Unity and self-sacrifice, of themselves, even when fostered by the most noble means, produce a facility for hating. Even when men league themselves mightily together to promote tolerance and peace on earth, they are likely to be violently intolerant toward those not of a like mind.
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The truth seems to be that propaganda on its own cannot force its way into unwilling minds; neither can it inculcate something wholly new; nor can it keep people persuaded once they have ceased to believe. It penetrates into minds already open, and rather than instill opinion it articulates and justifies opinions already present in the minds of its recipients.
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To most of us nothing is so invisible as an unpleasant truth. Though it is held before our eyes, pushed under our noses, rammed down our throats- we know it not.
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In a time of drastic change it is the learners who inherit the future. The learned usually find themselves equipped to live in a world that no longer exists.
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Wise living consists perhaps less in acquiring good habits than in acquiring as few habits as possible.
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The craving to change the world is perhaps a reflection of the craving to change ourselves.
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Where things have not changed at all, there is the least likelihood of revolution.
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People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them.
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The revulsion from an unwanted self, and the impulse to forget it, mask it, slough it off and lose it, produce both a readiness to sacrifice the self and a willingness to dissolve it by losing one’s individual distinctness in a compact collective whole.
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Quite often in history action has been the echo of words. An era of talk was followed by an era of events. The new barbarism of the twentieth century is the echo of words bandied about by brilliant speakers and writers in the second half of the nineteenth.
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What the intellectual craves above all else is to be taken seriously, to be treated as a decisive force in shaping history. He is far more at home in a society that weighs his every word and keeps close watch on his attitudes than in a society that cares not what he says or does. He would rather be persecuted than ignored.
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Every extreme attitude is a flight from the self.
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The untalented are more at ease in a society that gives them valid alibis for not achieving than in one where opportunities are abundant. In an affluent society, the alienated who clamor for power are largely untalented people who cannot make use of the unprecedented opportunities for self-realization, and cannot escape the confrontation with an ineffectual self.
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There are many who find a good alibi far more attractive than an achievement. For an achievement does not settle anything permanently. We still have to prove our worth anew each day: we have to prove that we are as good today as we were yesterday. But when we have a valid alibi for not achieving anything we are fixed, so to speak, for life. Moreover, when we have an alibi for not writing a book, painting a picture, and so on, we have an alibi for not writing the greatest book and not painting the greatest picture. Small wonder that the effort expended and the punishment endured in obtaining a good alibi often exceed the effort and grief requisite for the attainment of a most marked achievement.
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It is the fate of every great achievement to be pounced upon by pedants and imitators who drain it of life and turn it into an orthodoxy which stifles all stirrings of originality.
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Our achievements speak for themselves. What we have to keep track of are our failures, discouragements, and doubts. We tend to forget the past difficulties, the many false starts, and the painful groping. We see our past achievements as the end result of a clean forward thrust, and our present difficulties as signs of decline and decay.
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Propaganda does not deceive people; it merely helps them to deceive themselves.
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When we leave people on their own, we are delivering them into the hands of a ruthless taskmaster from whose bondage there is no escape. The individual who has to justify his existence by his own efforts is in eternal bondage to himself.
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There are many who find the burdens, the anxiety, and the isolation of an individual existence unbearable. His is particularly true when the opportunities for self-advancement are relatively meager, and one’s individual interests and prospects do not seem worth living for. Such persons sooner or later turn their backs on an individual existence and strive to acquire a sense of worth and a purpose by an identification with a holy cause, a leader, or a movement. The faith and pride they derive from such an identification serve them as substitutes for the unattainable self-confidence and self-respect.
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However different the holy causes people die for, they perhaps die basically for the same thing.
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It is loneliness that makes the loudest noise. This is true of men as of dogs.
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It is part of the formidableness of a genuine mass movement that the self-sacrifice it promotes includes also a sacrifice of some of the moral sense which cramps and restrains our nature.
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Far more crucial than what we know or do not know is what we do not want to know. One often obtains a clue to a person’s nature by discovering the reasons for his or her imperviousness to certain impressions.
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The wise learn from the experience of others, and the creative know how to make a crumb of experience go a long way.
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All leaders strive to turn their followers into children.
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The frustrated follow a leader less because of their faith that he is leading them to a promised land than because of their immediate feeling that he is leading them away from their unwanted selves. Surrender to a leader is not a means to an end but a fulfillment. Whither they are led is of secondary importance.
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The ability to get along without an exceptional leader is the mark of social vigor.
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We are unified both by hating in common and by being hated in common.
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It is not sheer malice that pricks our ears to evil reports about our fellow men. For there are frequent moments when we feel lower than the lowest of mankind, and this opinion of ourselves isolates us. Hence the rumor that all flesh is base comes almost as a message of hope. It breaks down the wall that has kept us apart, and we feel one with humanity.
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The most gifted members of the human species are at their creative best when they cannot have their way, and must compensate for what they miss by realizing and cultivating their capacities and talents.
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Man is a luxury loving animal. Take away play, fancies, and luxuries, and you will turn man into a dull, sluggish creature, barely energetic enough to obtain a bare subsistence. A society becomes stagnant when its people are too rational or too serious to be tempted by baubles.
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Man is the only creature that strives to surpass himself, and yearns for the impossible.
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There is probably an element of malice in the readiness to overestimate people: we are laying up for ourselves the pleasure of later cutting them down to size.
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When the weak want to give an impression of strength they hint menacingly at their capacity for evil. It is by its promise of a sense of power that evil often attracts the weak.
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The monstrous evils of the twentieth century have shown us that the greediest money grubbers are gentle doves compared with money-hating wolves like Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler, who in less than three decades killed or maimed nearly a hundred million men, women, and children and brought untold suffering to a large portion of mankind.
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Whoever originated the cliche that money is the root of all evil knew hardly anything about the nature of evil and very little about human beings.
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…there is no alienation that a little power will not cure.
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When watching men of power in action it must be always kept in mind that, whether they know it or not, their main purpose is the elimination or neutralization of the independent individual- the independent voter, consumer, worker, owner, thinker- and that every device they employ aims at turning men into a manipulable “animated instrument” which is Aristotle’s definition of a slave.
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The individual’s most vital need is to prove his worth, and this usually means an insatiable hunger for action. For it is only the few who can acquire a sense of worth by developing and employing their capacities and talents. The majority prove their worth by keeping busy.
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We have rudiments of reverence for the human body, but we consider as nothing the rape of the human mind.
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The hatred and cruelty which have their source in selfishness are ineffectual things compared with the venom and ruthlessness born of selflessness.
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The desire to belong is partly a desire to lose oneself.
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The Greeks invented logic but were not fooled by it.
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Those who see their lives as spoiled and wasted crave equality and fraternity more than they do freedom. If they clamor for freedom, it is but freedom to establish equality and uniformity. The passion for equality is partly a passion for anonymity: to be one thread of the many which make up a tunic; one thread not distinguishable from the others. No one can then point us out, measure us against others and expose our inferiority.
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Where freedom is real, equality is the passion of the masses. Where equality is real, freedom is the passion of a small minority.
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One of the surprising privileges of intellectuals is that they are free to be scandalously asinine without harming their reputations.
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Fair play is primarily not blaming others for anything that is wrong with us.
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The rule seems to be that those who find no difficulty in deceiving themselves are easily deceived by others. They are easily persuaded and led.
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We all have private ails. The troublemakers are they who need public cures for their private ails.
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A doctrine insulates the devout not only against the realities around them but also against their own selves. The fanatical believer is not conscious of his envy, malice, pettiness and dishonesty. There is a wall of words between his consciousness and his real self.
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Language was invented to ask questions. Answers may be given by grunts and gestures, but questions must be spoken. Humanness came of age when man asked the first question. Social stagnation results not from a lack of answers but from the absence of the impulse to ask questions.
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We often use strong language not to express a powerful emotion but to evoke it in us.
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Our sense of power is more vivid when we break a man’s spirit than when we win his heart.
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Absolute power corrupts even when exercised for humane purposes. The benevolent despot who sees himself as a shepherd of the people still demands from others the submissiveness of sheep.
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It is often the failure who is the pioneer in new lands, new undertakings, and new forms of expression.
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A war is not won if the defeated enemy has not been turned into a friend.
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We lie loudest when we lie to ourselves.
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The end comes when we no longer talk with ourselves. It is the end of genuine thinking and the beginning of the final loneliness.
The remarkable thing is that the cessation of the inner dialogue marks also the end of our concern with the world around us. It is as if we noted the world and think about it only when we have to report it to ourselves.
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It is the pull of opposite poles that stretches souls. And only stretched souls make music.
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Every era has a currency that buys souls. In some the currency is pride, in others it is hope, in still others it is a holy cause. There are of course times when hard cash will buy souls, and the remarkable thing is that such times are marked by civility, tolerance, and the smooth working of everyday life.
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There is sublime thieving in all giving. Someone gives us all he has and we are his.
OS: For the non-lawyers: the case cited by OS;
Jackson v. Indiana 406 U.S. 715 (1972) was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court that determined a state violated due process by involuntarily committing a criminal defendant for an indefinite period of time solely on the basis of his permanent incompetency to stand trial on the charges filed against him.
In Kentucky (in the rare case where a judge declares a client incompetent to stand trial),in a seroius felony case, he is Court ordered detained per KRS 202A for a 360 day involuntary hospitalization for treatment and another competency hearing prior to the expiration of the 360 days, to see if he has “regained” or is then competent. Under KRS 504.080 this procedure can be continued for several years on an annual basis. The defendant is not free, he remains in a mental health secured environment, and not admitted to a bail bond. I have a case that is 8 years old where my client annually is declared incompetent.
There is no easy answer, but I’d rather he be there, than in jail without his medication and daily mental health monitering.
OS : In Kentucky we do not have a state statute equilavent to the federal Speedy Trial Act. Each case is fact specific. If the case goes on too long ( say for several years), the prosecutor will dismiss say the murder indictment and simply reindict the defendant before the expiration of the 360 day time period. So my guess would be, that the states have figured out a way to avoid the holding by the U.S. Supreme Court by statute or caselaw not holding the defendant “indefinitely”.
I do not really believe most Americans are aware of this, and my guess would be, that most would respond like the article I posted earlier from the USA Today: just keep him locked up to protect society because we watched the news and clearly he committed the crime. Whether it was intentional or the act of a mentally ill person.
kderosa,
You’re not very bright or good with inference and implication.
That was a statement.
_________
“Roco”,
I have no issue with that conclusion as a practical matter. Free will or not, certain kinds of criminals need to be segregated from society for the safety of all. However, it is well settled science that brain abnormalities both structural and chemical, even injury, can lead to compulsive behavior and other mental disorders. Have you ever known anybody with a compulsive disorder? I not sure you have or you’d realize that some people literally cannot stop what they are compelled to do. They may even know as a matter of logic that they have other choices, but they simply cannot take another path. Their free will is limited by their pathology. While they may have no issue exercising free will in other circumstances, whatever triggers the compulsion is truly irresistible.
I have a friend from high school whose sister is obsessive compulsive. She would love to be able to stop what she does – it makes her miserable – but she can’t. Her belief in free will and exercise otherwise notwithstanding. Even with CBT and medication she only gets partial control and at this point she’s out of drugs to try unless they come up with something new. What’s even worse, is her condition has been exacerbated by head injuries from not just one, but two, nearly fatal automobile accidents (one her fault, the other not). If you can resist an impulse by willpower alone, it is by definition not a compulsion, but merely a desire or predilection. To be conscious of one’s compulsion as she is though must be a particular form of living Hell, but I think she’d be the first one to tell you that not all exercises of free will are equally free.
Also, knowing your range of choices and the ability to take a desired chosen action are not the same thing. Sometimes one may know they have other choices – such as my friend’s sister – but she has a biological process that keeps her from acting upon the choice she wants. She chooses to act differently but her compulsion does not let her. Sometimes – as you allude to – one may have external factors that limit ones choices as well, but that is where free will can come into play when a person chooses to explore alternative actions or to change goals. Thinking of a workaround or an alternative goal requires novel thinking and more times than not a novel approach requires either reassessing existing data with new methods of analysis and/or incorporating new data. Not all people are going to be equally skilled at this either by biological limitation, incomplete information or lack of training in lateral thinking (even if they possess the innate ability). In any case, these are limitations on free will. Free will is about the ability to see and choose options. Whether those options are viable and/or desirable is another issue. But to maximize the potential for choosing a successful option to attain a desired outcome requires being able to identify as many options as possible as rationally as possible.
______
OS,
An IQ of 44 and the judge ordered you to make her competent?
That makes me question his IQ. Seriously. That’s a WTF moment.
@buddha, Nice way to dodge that issue.
Don’t go away mad.
Buddha Is Laughing : Your last post really hits the nail on the head as to the inital topic of discussion! Good job!
Now it’s time for all you boys to come inside, wash your hands and get ready for supper. Daddy is on the way home. After supper, do your homework and get ready for bed. “Nite-nite” as my Mama use to say.
WOW, great thread! I got here late but the posting by CEJ of the Baboon troop that suffered an epidemic of Tuberculosis was interesting. It reminded me of another study where there were no outside pressures and it too reinforced the notion that nice guys do well.
Below is another article by Robert Sapolsky discussing baboon behaviour among some alpha males in a troop as they age and leave the troop rather than suffer the harassment and violence that comes with the dissipation of their status due to age. He refers to a study done by Barbara Smuts that reinforces the notion that ‘nice guys’ do better, at least in old age and possibly in dispersing his genetic material, than males that adhere to the behavioural strictures of a hierarchical society.
This isn’t actually the article I was looking for but I can’t find that one. It dealt specifically with troop leaders that had been deposed. Troop leaders that had been relatively kind to females and their babies including grooming and some food sharing as well as chasing off lower status males that used physical violence against them, would, in their forced retirement receive most of the benefits from females that are listed below. It was often a matter of a greatly shortened and brutal life or a relatively happy ‘retirement’ for the deposed leaders.
I was talking to the better half two nights ago about something we had watched on TV and ended up relating some of the war stories (WWII) my dad told, to illustrate a point in the TV show. Dad said that people dealt with the vagaries of war in many different ways and being distrustful/closed off, being a suck-up to the officers, and being ‘a son-of-a-b**** (a user) was well in the mix. He deliberately chose being a good friend and nice guy to as many people as possible because you never knew when you would need a friend, it was relatively easy as well as being more fun. This played itself out in some funny and strange ways and the stories were always interesting and illustrative of deeper group dynamics which were not at all lost on my dad, even though he had only a primary school education. It was a successful strategy for him too.
The notion of free will for making choices seems to point to a facility that is pro-survival both for baboons and people. Enlightened self-interest, deferred gratification, assisting others (even when generalized through groups too large to establish personal and personally reciprocal ties) would all seem to be a choice we and other creatures organized into cooperative groups need to be able to make to survive collectively and progress. Without this biological tool could there be a basis for a social structure? Is the impulse to war and violence natures way of selecting out defective social organism’s? In the absence of sophisticated weapons one would think that the creatures leading the charge would be most likely to be killed, or at least kept in check as a class?
“The Graying of the Troops
Baboons who live to a ripe old age are the ones who know what friends are for.
by Robert Sapolsky
From the March 1996″
“Primatologist Barbara Smuts, of the University of Michigan, published a superb monograph a decade ago analyzing the rewards and heartbreaks of baboon friendships, trying to make sense of which males are capable of such stability. She documented something that I know many baboonologists have observed in their animals: males who develop friendships are ones who have placed a high priority on them throughout their prime adult years. These are males who would put more effort into forming friendly affiliations with females than into making strategic fighting coalitions with other males. These are the baboons who maximize reproductive success through covert matings with females who prefer them, rather than through the overt matings that are the rewards of successful male-male conflict. These males, in the prime of life, might even have walked away from high rank, voluntarily relinquishing dominant positions, to avoid being decisively defeated (and possibly crippled) when they came to their Waterloo.
Work by Smuts and others has shown that male baboons become more likely to form such affiliations with females as they mellow into old age. But, to infest the world of baboons with some psychobabble, the males with the highest rates of these affiliative behaviors are the ones who made their distinctive life-style choices early on, and this establishing of priorities is what differentiates them in their old age. When I compared males who remained in the same troop in their later years with those who left, the former were the ones with the long-standing female friendships– still mating, grooming, being groomed, sitting in contact with females, interacting with infants. These are the males who have worked to become part of a community. ”
http://discovermagazine.com/1996/mar/thegrayingofthet716/?searchterm=baboons
Sorry about mt absence there Frank, but when the trolls arrive i usually just move along. I find them tedious.
L K
even baboons know, live by the sword die by the sword.
Buddha is Laughing:
interesting story. Hopefully she will eventually be helped by science. If I had to wash my hands or do some other ritual 30 times a day, it would drive me mad.
Have you ever asked her what it feels like to try to not do the compulsive behavior? Could she train herself to focus on something else during her compulsive episode?
“Mike Spindell : There is something very calming about your posts. I sincerely appreciate your remarks and your wisdom. Maybe, it’s in part, because I am entering my 7th decade on the planet earth.”
Frank M.,
Your kind comments mean much to me. Anyone who is a friend of Jonathan and Mark automatically has my respect because I so value both their intelligence and humanity. Your various comments have been filled with insight, wit and are obviously the work of a good human beings. I am the “Old Fart” here, fast approaching my eighth decade and in my dotage I began to realize I was approaching wisdom when I also realized how much there was that I didn’t know. There is much in what you’ve said that I’d like to comment on, since I left here early to catch up on and to watch the season premiere of HBO’s “True Blood,” whose “leitmotif” is whether or not Vampires should be accorded civil rights and so is a proper topic for discussion here.
“It is easier to love humanity than to love your neighbor.”
The Hoffer quotes you provided are heavy lifting since each one is a jewel, crafted in a way that causes one to spend infinitely more time in thought about them, compared with their brevity. The one above resonates with me
and reminds me of one of my Idols, (as an iconoclast I have few) Clarence
Darrow. His partner for a time was Edgar Lee Masters (Spoon River Anthology). Irving Stone in his Darrow biography stated (close but possibly a paraphrase) “Clarence Darrow loved people and hated humanity, while
E.L. Masters loved humanity and hated people.” I read that in my formative years and I must admit I share Darrow’s predilection. Human history is one of cruelty and horror inflicted upon those merely trying to live their all too human lives. I personally relate to the struggles of individuals just trying to do their best and helping those they love and/or have affection for.
“most would respond like the article I posted earlier from the USA Today: just keep him locked up to protect society because we watched the news and clearly he committed the crime.”
Humanity has always responded in a coarsened manner towards juridical punishment, that assumes injustices could never happen to them.
The person who had one too many drinks at an Office Christmas Party, only to drive into another car on the way home, will find themselves charged criminally. That same person prior to their own fall, observing a case reported on TV, may well have been of the opinion that the defendant should suffer maximum penalties. Imperfect as it is, which you again know far better than I, our legal system with all of its rules, is an attempt to protect us all from not only crime, but from intemperate use of criminal penalties Somehow, those in greatest favor of a Draconian legal system are those least able to realize they may be next in line.
“There is no easy answer, but I’d rather he be there, than in jail without his medication and daily mental health monitoring.”
Having spent much time professionally in locked mental wards and on occasion having visited prisons, this is so true. While some mental facilities were broadly, though correctly depicted in “One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest,” (The Kesey book more than the Nicholson movie), compared to prison it is a far better and humane quality of life. However, like so, so much else in our society, the Psychiatric Facility system needs fixing to make it more humane.
“When we had a competency hearing, the judge was outraged at our findings the woman was incompetent with an IQ of 44.”
OS,
OMG! Not only was this judge an idiot deserving (though probably never getting) removal from the bench. I think it is a good indicator of what Frank has been discussing about the applications of the various “incompetency”
rules. While they’re on the books and there are many precedents, in practical usage and in many localities the compliance is perfunctory by Judges and Prosecutors.
“Even with CBT and medication she only gets partial control and at this point she’s out of drugs to try unless they come up with something new. What’s even worse, is her condition has been exacerbated by head injuries from not just one, but two, nearly fatal automobile accidents (one her fault, the other not). If you can resist an impulse by willpower alone, it is by definition not a compulsion, but merely a desire or predilection. To be conscious of one’s compulsion as she is though must be a particular form of living Hell, but I think she’d be the first one to tell you that not all exercises of free will are equally free.”
Buddha,
So poignant and so on point. When it comes to Obsessive Compulsive behavior I think that there is a spectrum that runs from the non-organic
clinical disorder, to environmentally learned behavior, to brain injury and to genetic factors. At base in all is the creation of excessively irrational apprehension fixated on certain things or situations. For the first two conditions CBT is indeed the best method available and I’ve personally have seen marvelous results in its’ application. Failing that and failing mitigation pharmacologically, it is a living hell, which perhaps no one afflicted can exercise free will and must always be taunted by behavior they understand but can’t control.
In re: our pet trolls, Buddha forgive them for they know not what they do. They may indeed have some free will within them, but their options are so limited by their cultism that they need to relieve their tension by projecting that rigidity of mindset onto others. You, who are among the most iconoclastic here, are accused by them of acting in a manner that typifies their behavior. As straitjacketed cultists of extreme selfishness, they are unable to discern their mental limitations, or the inherent dichotomy of their
false beliefs. They are to be pitied. However, I understand that you like my cat must play with the reptiles (my equivalent of mice) and unlike my cat who can’t understand when they stop moving, your enjoyment of the play is a gift that keeps giving.
OS,
BTW, I forgot to credit you for your again mention of Hoffer. Indeed weeks ago you urged me to read him. All the quotes that Frank provided here and you have provided over many threads have impelled me to use my Father’s Day gift card to obtain a representative collection of his writings.
Thank you for the enlightenment.
Roco,
Yeah, and I’ve seen what happens too. She has ever increasing anxiety until she has a panic attack. I’ve seen her hyperventilate and pass out they get so bad. As to training, that’s what the CBT is for – to help her deal with the anxiety and resist the compulsion proper – but her condition is like the weather, occasionally she can deal with it but sometimes it’s simply overwhelming. Even when she’s able to stop, although she’s glad when she can, it still causes her distress. And it’s real panic too, not “I’m having the vapors” faux panic. She’s just as upset as you would be if you walked out of your house with a bonfire burning unattended in the living room. What’s worse is since the second car wreck, she’s prone to get angry about it. Angry to the point of becoming confrontational, which she was never was before. I truly feel sorry for her.
“Enlightened self-interest, deferred gratification, assisting others (even when generalized through groups too large to establish personal and personally reciprocal ties) would all seem to be a choice we and other creatures organized into cooperative groups need to be able to make to survive collectively and progress.”
LK,
Thank you for your follow up to CEJ’s pertinent baboon posting. Where it led me mentally was to the realization that almost all religions have at their base some form of the “Golden Rule,” or as Rabbi Hillel states it regarding explaining the “Torah”:
“That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow. That is the whole Torah; the rest is the explanation; go and learn.”
Whether it was Confucius, The Buddha, Hillel, Jesus and Mohammed, it
seems that great human prophets all preach this formulation. Most of the great Philosophers also make this a central precept. Since we see in the baboon studies that it also works in the animal world, perhaps it is a genetic characteristic for long term survival. Just as the head rests uneasily on the shoulders of the King/Queen, so too isn’t it so for the Type A types that seem to rise to prominence through their aggressiveness, unmediated by empathy and/or compassion?
Mike,
It certainly is a spectrum. Before the last accident, she used to joke that at least she doesn’t have Alien Hand Syndrome, but since then and the worsening of her condition, she doesn’t joke much any more. Her quality of life has definitely and noticeably deteriorated over time. When I first met her, she was 16 and a bubbly, outgoing, happy, flirt of a girl – we even went out on a couple of dates a lifetime ago – but the OCD was much milder then. Practically a quirk rather than the full blown pathology it has become. As the condition has worsened, she’s become withdrawn, bitter, hostile and prone to engage in self-harming behaviors. Her moments of happiness are much fewer and far between and she often displaces her frustration and anger on to her brother and parents. She’s driven away many of her long time friends. It’s really a heartbreaking situation.
No, I have not obeyed the admonition to cease and desist here, if indeed there ever was such an admonition.
Within what I understand to be fair use, from “Social Psychology, Sixth Edition” Aronson, Wilson, & Akert, Pearson Prentice Hall, 2007-2005, p. 109:
“The pervasive, fundamental theory or schema most of us have about human behavior is that people do what they do because of the kind of people they are, not because of the situation they are in. When thinking this way, we are more like personality psychologists, who see behavior as stemming from internal dispositions and traits, than like social psychologists, who focus on the impact of social situations on behavior. This tendency to infer that people’s behavior corresponds to, or matches, their dispositions and personality has been called the correspondence bias (Fisk & Taylor, 1991; Gilbert, 1998b; Gilbert & Jones, 1986; Gilbert & Malone, 1995; Jones, 1979, 1990). The correspondence bias is so pervasive that many social psychologists call it the fundamental attribution error (Heider, 1958; Jones, 1990; Ross, 1977; Ross & Nisbett, 1991).”
I find the name, “fundamental attribution error” more intelligible from a neurological structure/function view; this error may, methinks, be usefully described as assigning “personal responsibility” for events, or aspects of events, outside the locus of control of the person being assigned responsibility.
What would be an in-principle-refutable, useful personal and social psychological neurologically-grounded model of the biophysics of the process of an individual person making a particular decision?
Absent such a tested and not-refuted biophysical model, is the question of free will and choice plausibly other than an exercise of superstitious whimsey, millennia of avowed social-indoctrination certitude to the contrary notwithstanding?
If that question is not sufficiently intolerable, how about accurately testing whether disposition and personality are themselves anything other than of situational form and function?
Jonathan Edwards, “Freedom of the Will,” Part I, Sect. I, paragraph 2:
“And therefore I observe that the Will (without any metaphysical refining) is, That by which the mind chooses any thing. The faculty of the Will, is that power or principle of mind, by which it is capable of choosing: an act of the Will is the same as an act of choosing or choice.
Perhaps in my ignorance, I find that Edwards description of the Will makes very good neurological-biophysical sense to me, even within a quantum-mechanical interpretation of the biology of choosing or choice.
I wonder whether a description of a biophysical model of choice would have merit:
Consider a model of the making of a choice, a choice which is observable through the overt conduct of the one making the choice. Such overt conduct is the result of muscle activity which results from efferent (motor neuron) activity.
Motor neurons which are activated by consciously sentient choice, being part of the somatic nervous system, are activated by central nervous system neurons, that is, in the spine (including spinal ganglia) and the brain.
For the purpose of this over-simplified model, consciously sentient choice happens within the brain, not the spine or spinal ganglia. Also, the brain may be modeled as a network of neurons, and individual neurons modeled as having the properties of the all-or-none law of synaptic transmission and associated propagating neuron action potentials (i.e., post-synaptic membrane, axon, cell body, and dendritic depolariation, refractory interval, and repolarization) involving time-delay. Post-synaptic membrane depolarization is a function of the electro-bio-chemistry of the synaptic cleft, which is a function, in part, of the neurochemicals (excitatory or inhibitory neurotransmitters) which dendrites of other neurons have released into the synaptic cleft. Whether a neurotransmitter chemical is excitatory or inhibitory is a function of each particular post-synaptic membrane receptor. Depolarization of a synaptic post-synaptic membrane is a threshold process, which is the basis of the all-or-none law.
It is my observation that the process of synapse depolarizations which lead to an overt-conduct-observable choice is strongly influenced by the indeterminacy described by Werner Heisenberg. No, not the position or velocity of neurotransmitter molecules, they move rather slowly, and Heisenberg’s indeterminacy may be of little overall effect in terms of molecular motion. Where indeterminacy becomes significant is in terms of the overall timing of an aggregate sequence of neuron depolarizations sufficient to result in efferent activation of skeletal muscle such that there is overtly observable conduct.
Whether or not a given neuron depolarizes within a given time interval is what constitutes choice at the cellular level. An overt choice is comprised of an aggregation of cellular-level choices, each of which is subject to the indeterminacy of Heisenberg. As the cellular-level choices have indeterminacy, so the aggregate choices, being comprised of choices having indeterminacy, are also indeterminate.
Indeterminacy (I hold that uncertainty is a really poor choice of English-language word) is that which is neither totally determinate nor totally random-chaotic.In a totally determinate (or pre-determined) system, choices do not exist because all choices have been predetermined such that no choices remain to be made. In a totally random-chaotic system, choices made are immediately lost in the noise of the random chaos. Learning is therefore possible only in indeterminate systems
More than 50 years ago, Fritz Heider developed aspects of attribution theory.psychology. The puzzlement of overt conduct attribution has been a focus of some psychologists for most of my life. It is hardly a new notion. Connecting such psychology research to neurology research (including such as happened to Phineas Gage or Zazetsky or people whose corpus callosum was transected to control seizures or people who survived serious brain strokes) is a work in progress, as best I can tell.
Connecting neurophysiology modeling to optimal social structures is a work scarcely begun, particularly when the optimization is a mini-max problem wherein personal and social safety is to be maximized while minimizing personal and social risk of harm.
Because neural function indeterminacy allows learning while pure determinacy and purely random chaos disallow learning, is that not a hint that the process of learning is itself situational, the situation including indeterminacy as necessary for learning to be possible?
The model here is much over-simplified and is at best a mere hint of the biophysics which, if the physical world really exists, is an inescapable aspect of the reality of the relationship(s) between “responsibilities” and “response abilities”?