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A brain surgeon begins an anterior cingulotomy by drilling a small hole into a patient's skull. The surgeon then inserts a tiny blade, cutting a path through brain tissue, then inserts a probe past sensitive nerves and bundles of blood vessels until it reaches a specific cluster of neural connections, a kind of switchboard linking emotional triggers to cognitive tasks. With the probe in place, the surgeon fires up a laser, burning away tissue until the beam has hollowed out about half a teaspoon of grey matter.
This is the shape of modern psychosurgery: Ablating parts of the brain to treat mental illnesses. Which might remind you of that maligned procedure, the lobotomy. But psychosurgeries are different. And not just because the ethics are better today; because the procedures actually work. Removing parts of a person's brain is always a dicey proposition. But for people who are mentally ill, when pills and psychiatry offer no solace, the laser-tipped probe can be a welcome relief.
Original Submission
(Score: 3, Interesting) by RedBear on Friday June 26 2015, @08:38PM
I've been anticipating and thinking about this sort of thing for quite some time. Specifically after reading Dr. Daniel Amen's work about how behaviors relate to the physical state of the brain, and seeing an episode of Star Trek Voyager that was very thought-provoking. In the episode a psychopath on death row being transported on a prisoner ship was found to have a physical defect in his brain. The decision was made to try injecting him with Seven of Nine's Borg nanites (I think because he was injured in an explosion or something) and the nanites ended up "repairing" his ability to feel empathy and remorse. Essentially be became normal. He was no longer a psychopath, and although the family of his victim refused to forgive him and thus spare his life, he ended up sacrificing his life to save others.
Dr. Amen's work, among others, has given me a very sort of Buddhist philosophy about human crime. I feel certain that over the next century or so we will advance medical technology to the point where we will be able to quite literally repair all sorts of "defective" humans. Rapists, murderers, pedophiles, psychopaths and sociopaths of all kinds. The question will then become, if you have the ability to repair defective humans who are a danger to others, to the point where they are essentially normal and highly unlikely to ever reoffend, what exactly is the point in keeping them caged for decades to "punish" them? If we can show medically that a person who has committed a horrible crime did so almost entirely because they have drastically lower conscious control of their actions due to some physical brain discrepancies, and we can demonstrate that we can reliably repair that medical issue, will we ever learn to find it acceptable to just repair the individual, forgive the crime and move on, rather than incarcerate them for decades at huge expense to society?
Unfortunately I think the primitive instinctive desire for retribution will prevail for many decades past the time when we've perfected the medical technology to make every human being capable of living in peace with others. Of course there will always be the spectre of, "Once you start modifying people, where do you stop?" But I think if it is done ethically and as an uncoerced choice a lot of good can and will come from these more sophisticated forms of brain repair. We'll start with severe depression, mania, schizophrenia and other forms of mental issues that make life very difficult to live normally, and we'll eventually start offering it as an alternative to lengthy prison terms. Whether we imprison and/or execute criminals or repair them and let them live out normal productive lives afterwards, we have to learn forgiveness either way. This is a concept that we will eventually need to confront as a global society.
¯\_ʕ◔.◔ʔ_/¯ LOL. I dunno. I'm just a bear.
... Peace out. Got bear stuff to do. 彡ʕ⌐■.■ʔ
(Score: 3, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 26 2015, @08:44PM
Good news, citizen. You will be first to be repaired. Why, you ask? If you have to ask why, then you obviously can't understand how very sick you are.
(Score: 2) by RedBear on Friday June 26 2015, @09:23PM
Indeed as I said we will have to be extremely careful about who is doing the "repairing" and why, and make sure that it is always an uncoerced choice based on solid medical reasoning even for such people as children* and criminals who are typically not given many choices. But we are already doing it, and we are going to continue to be doing it for various reasons. Much good can come of it, if done right, and much evil if done wrong.
* It's fairly easy to identify many psychopathic children long before they grow into psychopathic adults. They reveal themselves more readily through their behavior at an early age, before they learn more conscious control of their actions. What if we could repair them early on (e.g., fix their empathy circuits), so they never become dangerous criminal types as adults? Can we? Should we? Ultimately of course, we will, at least in some extreme cases where the child is already shown to be a danger to others. On the child's behalf we will be forced to choose between incarceration, lobotomy, or "repair". The only question is on what medical basis will the choice be made, and by whom, and at what age will the child be "repaired". Rejecting the idea philosophically outright won't prevent it from eventually being considered by others, and no doubt used quite effectively in many cases to create an adult with no discernible difference from any other healthy, non-psychopathic adult. Only time will tell whether we will be able to successfully use these techniques without abusing them. But they will be used, make no mistake.
¯\_ʕ◔.◔ʔ_/¯ LOL. I dunno. I'm just a bear.
... Peace out. Got bear stuff to do. 彡ʕ⌐■.■ʔ
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 26 2015, @09:32PM
Citation?
(Score: 2) by RedBear on Friday June 26 2015, @10:03PM
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=how+to+identify+psychopathy+in+children [duckduckgo.com]
Of course the very definition of who is a psychopath and who isn't is still pretty fuzzy, like everything else in psychology. But in a situation where a child has been diagnosed as sociopathic/psychopathic/unempathic AND already committed multiple violent acts against others for no discernible reason and is facing an adult life as a prisoner, which choice are the parents and/or child more likely to go for? Inevitable imprisonment, or behavior modification through brain surgery? Some will of course choose the latter. And then we'll see what we'll see. And argue endlessly about whether it was "right" or not.
¯\_ʕ◔.◔ʔ_/¯ LOL. I dunno. I'm just a bear.
... Peace out. Got bear stuff to do. 彡ʕ⌐■.■ʔ
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 26 2015, @10:08PM
Do you have a scientific citation rather than sites like the daily mail and findoutifyourchildsapsychopath.com?
(Score: 2) by Gravis on Friday June 26 2015, @11:27PM
already committed multiple violent acts against others for no discernible reason and is facing an adult life as a prisoner, which choice are the parents and/or child more likely to go for? Inevitable imprisonment, or behavior modification through brain surgery? Some will of course choose the latter. And then we'll see what we'll see. And argue endlessly about whether it was "right" or not.
i think a better route would be to prevent them from existing in the first place. at the risk of supporting eugenics, i think that we should test people for genetic risk factors of psychopathy and ensure their possible future offspring do not have these traits. yes, various genetic markers have been identified that need to be eliminated. [wikipedia.org] unfortunately, if we dont understand our own genetic code we risk making a mistake beyond anything humanity has done so far.
so the real question is should humanity take a bold leap into an uncertain future or continue to allow natural selection in society which results in seemingly endless tragedy?
(Score: 2) by gidds on Sunday June 28 2015, @11:09PM
Just what I was going to say.
Though, to put it in the same way as the previous poster, The Outcast [wikipedia.org] is a rather good illustration.
[sig redacted]
(Score: 2) by zugedneb on Friday June 26 2015, @09:14PM
That story make the assumption that the actions of a criminal in response to a desire.
I leaves out the same thing as modrn psychology: insight.
The one who acts knows exactly what it is being done.
Keyword, motherfuckers, is KNOWS.
In real life, knowledge > desire.
In psychology, desire > knowledge.
I see an conflict of interest.
old saying: "a troll is a window into the soul of humanity" + also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ajax
(Score: 2) by Gravis on Friday June 26 2015, @10:19PM
i think you mean logic and emotions.
In real life, knowledge > desire.
In psychology, desire > knowledge.
wrong, in real life and psychology, logical and emotional systems compete for influence.
i think you mistake their position because generally, a psychologist's job is to help people manage emotions using logical systems.
(Score: 2) by zugedneb on Friday June 26 2015, @10:52PM
That is a very mature and adult way of putting it.
It holds until you end up in court, or end up in workplace conflict, or "child placement conflict" at divorce.
Any trace of reason will make the reasoning one painted devil, and any act of emotion will make the other the poor victim.
"Real Life" is not the actual signal processing in the brain, it is the "show" you have to put on.
old saying: "a troll is a window into the soul of humanity" + also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ajax
(Score: 2) by Gravis on Saturday June 27 2015, @02:16AM
It holds until you end up in court, or end up in workplace conflict, or "child placement conflict" at divorce.
the courtroom has little to do with reality. referring to it as "real life" is just insulting.
(Score: 2) by tathra on Saturday June 27 2015, @05:06PM
knowing what you're doing doesn't mean you can stop it. poor impulse control is a real thing, lots of people don't even require drugs to reach that state.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 26 2015, @09:23PM
It's not your place or power to decide where it will stop or end.
That, alone, should give you pause, and realize your spectres are much closer than you can realize.
How long before somebody decides that instead we'll start with Muslims and cure them of the affliction of believing in the wrong God?
(Score: 4, Touché) by frojack on Friday June 26 2015, @09:25PM
Lets base all science on Sci-Fi shows. It makes such a cogent and convincing argument.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by RedBear on Friday June 26 2015, @09:42PM
Science fiction has always been a tool that helps us understand what might happen in the future, and begin to philosophically tackle the big questions we will be faced with. Much of science fiction also eventually just comes to be called "science".
Witness: We are now doing micro-surgery in the brain to help people live normal lives. It's starting to be much more effective than the traditional "stick an ice pick up someone's nose and wiggle it around until he stops squirming". The patient is doing it by choice. The technique has important implications for the future of human behavior modification.
But yes, platitudes and one-liners are much easier. Let's go with that.
¯\_ʕ◔.◔ʔ_/¯ LOL. I dunno. I'm just a bear.
... Peace out. Got bear stuff to do. 彡ʕ⌐■.■ʔ
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 26 2015, @09:45PM
Citation?
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Friday June 26 2015, @09:59PM
Not so much the science, but Star Trek, all of them, are excellent sources for thought experiments on medical ethics. For example, one episode of Enterprise (the Cap't Archer one) dealt with creating a clone to harvest organs to transplant into a mortally injured crew member, which would kill the clone. Some implausible plot devices, but came down to an issue of informed consent. Another from The "Wrath of Khan" movie (ignoring for now the whole "genetically engineered master race" thing", where Bones' "pain" was that he euthanized his father, a very current issue in medical ethics, with the added twist that a cure for his father's condition was found only a few weeks later. And a favorite from "The Next Generation" is when Data the android is ordered to report to Earth to be disassembled so the Federation can replicate him. When he asks whether they will be able to re-assemble him, they honestly answer, "not sure". So Data resigns his commission, but Star Fleet argues he cannot, since he is property (an android, a machine, a thing) and not a person. Interesting courts martial on this one. So science fiction may be more about imagining our ethical futures than it has anything to do with what actual technological futures might be, but that is precisely what makes it valuable.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Friday June 26 2015, @10:05PM
edit
Wrath of Khan(insert) Star Trek V: The Final Frontier(Score: 3, Informative) by RedBear on Friday June 26 2015, @10:19PM
I agree, the episode where Data has to fight to be recognized as a free sentient being by Starfleet is one of the best of the entire series. Beautifully written and acted and powerfully thought-provoking, with deep implications for our future relationship with machine intelligences, and not just the humanoid ones. Star Trek was singularly adept at tackling ethical questions in a meaningful way. I miss that.
¯\_ʕ◔.◔ʔ_/¯ LOL. I dunno. I'm just a bear.
... Peace out. Got bear stuff to do. 彡ʕ⌐■.■ʔ
(Score: 1) by tchuladdiass on Friday June 26 2015, @09:29PM
Reminds me of one of Arthur C Clark's books, 3001 (I think), where people would get fitted for a skull cap which had nanowires that penetrated the brain. The computer would identify various defects that could cause antisocial behavior and repair them. And criminals would get the same treatment instead of prison time.
(Score: 2) by Non Sequor on Friday June 26 2015, @10:06PM
People without defects are average. Exceptional people are defectives who've mastered their own damage.
Write your congressman. Tell him he sucks.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 27 2015, @05:11PM
That implies one has some kind of control over their "damage". A better saying would be "Exceptional people have defects that are beneficial to them".