From: Anders Sandberg (asa@nada.kth.se)
Date: Tue Jul 06 1999 - 06:41:04 MDT
CloningEwe@aol.com writes:
> I really don't know how necessary a warning would be at this point in my
> life, I would rather be clear on how to handle the situation rather than have
> to sort through fear in a split second decision. For example I really don't
> think I would need a warning to tell me not to jump off a building. I feel
> somewhat self assured that somewhere in my mind I would be able to say to
> myself "Jumping off this building could be counter productive." So I have
> very little reservations in loosing fear. I would be more worried about
> loosing the adrenaline that comes with fear.
Actually, people with Kluver-Bucy syndrome demonstrate that reasoning
is not enough to keep you from doing something stupid. They are
fearless, and while they do not jump off buildings (likely because of
all the training they got before their amygdalae atrophied) they quite
often act in "stupid" ways while retaining full cognitive function
just because they have a hard time judging bad actions from good -
they may realize that something is counterproductive, but why select
productive actions over counterproductive? To them they are roughly
the same (when it comes to fear at least; similar stuff for people
with some frontal lobe damage)
-- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Anders Sandberg Towards Ascension! asa@nada.kth.se http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/ GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y
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