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Brain technology on the horizon... what are the implication?
Posted: Thu Apr 03, 2008 9:17 pm
by _truth dancer
If any of you are, like me fans of TED.com, you may like this three minute video clip...
http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/236
In the near future we will be able to control our brains... what does it mean in terms of our beliefs, free will, truth?
For me it supports my assertion that the "plan" is not quite the ultimate reality. :-)
~dancer~
Posted: Thu Apr 03, 2008 11:32 pm
by _ajax18
That may be partly why Mormonism seems to have started out being very against people going to psychotherapist. I know that was the case in my own family. There seemed to be a lot of fear a psychologist might religiously deprogram you.
I also first questioned it when I saw my grandmother go through Alzheimer's. She did a lot of things that were out of character for her, sinful things. She became violent (beat up her roommate in the nursing home) etc. If her good behavior before the disease was due to a spiritual quality, why didn't it continue after the disease? There certainly didn't seem to be much individual ethical choice involved on her part.
Another time I would question it is during dreams. Can people sin in dreams? I haven't heard the Church make any statement about it, other than, "Forget about it, and don't ask."
It seems that we have been recognizing additional contributors to human behavior than free will and agency for some time now. It wasn't long ago that people said, "Bless you," because they thought the cold you suffered was the result of a demon. So I predict the trend will continue. But we still find a lot of psychologist today that believe free will exists. I'm not convinced free will doesn't exist either.
Just as a side note. I wonder if the Mormon public seeing Ezra Taft Benson in a mentally fragile state would have also made people ask the same kind of questions as I did watching my grandmother? What is spiritual and what is mental?