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Xantar
01-26-2002, 11:04 PM
I'm looking to hand out some doubloons, but I only give them to people who make good posts. And since that hasn't been happening fast enough for me, I decided to start a topic to see if I could encourage people a little.

Anyway, I'm taking a psychology class. The first lecture was titled "The science of psychology."

"We don't debate the morality of planets circling the sun," said my professor. "We don't declare Jupiter's orbit to be immoral. Why not? It's because of physics. Physics tells us that planets circle around the sun and they can't help it. It's just the way the universe works.

"Psychology aspires to be like physics. It obviously hasn't gotten there. It's several hundred years younger than physics, for one thing. But in the end, psychology may end up taking the morality out of humans. Humans are selfish beings that will do harmful things to other humans, and they can't help it. It's just the way the universe works."

And you know what? From what I've learned, psychology is starting to make strides in that direction. Sure, there's still lots of debate and grey area. But psychology has already gotten to the point where it can experiment and quantify just like any other science.

Are we ever going to find that we act the way we do not out of choice but because it's just the way we are? And if so, what happens to morality?

I have my own opinions, but let's hear yours first.

TheGrimReaper
01-26-2002, 11:08 PM
Hmm, interesting post, and I'm sort of torn between two ways on this. While I think that one will always have free will, I think there might become a time when we will do things, just because we are that way. Although, you say that we would "find" ourselves that way. Well I say, if we can find out that we do things just because we are that way, I beleive we would have free will to find out things for ourselves, do you see my point?

And Morality might still exist, I mean, a person could do something moral because it's "just the way they are" as you state it.

Anywho, I'm willing to see other peoples opinions on this also.

BreakABone
01-26-2002, 11:13 PM
Hmm of all the subjects in pysch..Xanny picks this one.....


Well persoanlly I don't think Pysch will ever become a "hard" science like Biology and Physics. I mean the fact of the matter if you can expect most rocks to look similar to other rocks and share properites but humans are much more complex than rocks. I mean not even going into a pyschological breakdown of a human, our own environment dictates how we should act and what is wrong.

What may be a "taboo" for the USA may not be one for Europe. So I don't think pysch will ever reach a level in which it is able to have a universa constant to breakdown every human or to even come close to having one that will atleast describe the majority.

Now onto the subject at hand....

Hmm realizes I answered most in my rambling... but to elabrote.. Morality is a rather grim thing....
I mean most everyone would agree it's wrong to kill.. for whatever reason...

Let there are areas in the world that believe in man being married to mutliple wives yet it's seems as a bad thing in the USA.. so how can one thing be socially accepted by most all and yet another not.. Wouldn't morality be the same for everyone?

Ravishing Rick Rude
01-26-2002, 11:14 PM
Well You can look at this from several view points.

One of which can be directly linked to the scientific aspect of the human mind, Some people are just chemically unbalanced, Which in turn could create the possibility of " Mental Health Disabilities"

another reason could be the Sub-Conscience mind of certain humans is not as strong as others, Saying Charlie Manson and Mother Teresa were within the same group sub-consciencely would be a joke.


Meh. Or maybe it is un-explainable

TheGrimReaper
01-26-2002, 11:18 PM
Xantar, what are some of your opinions? I'm interested to compare them to mine.

Ginkasa
01-26-2002, 11:29 PM
Morality is different in all cultures. In some third-world countries, they cut off your hand if you steal something but when people in America hear about that they gasp and say "How horrible!" What's morale and what's not is different in different cultures so nobody can really say what is moral and what isn't. It depends on a person's point of view.

It also depends on where the person was raised. If they were raised in gang they probably have different opinions on what's moral and what's not. People in gangs have no problems about killing people while of course people who go to school/work and live what most people consider a normal life find killing a person a horrible disguting immoral thing to do.

Not one person can say what is moral or what is not. They might have their own opinions on morality but of course those all differ.

TheGrimReaper
01-26-2002, 11:34 PM
I think it mostly about the upbringing, I think all people question their activities, for example, if a person joins a violent street gang, and he is about to kill somebody for the first time, I beleive that somewhere inside is concounce (Sorry, I can't remember how to spell it) he would question what he was doing.

But then again, some people are just born evil.

BreakABone
01-26-2002, 11:40 PM
Hmm now everyone is going into nature vs nurture

I would just like to pose a question for Xanny... How exactly do you think Pyshcs will be able to develop these system?.. I mean they can hardly decide on one theory for anything.. Heck I mean even Frued has atleast 2 theories on just the mind only.. without all the other stuff he added.. and like you saw with Frued and Jung who were partners.. I mean they studied together.. yet in the end they both ended up coming away with two totally different views on the info they both gather and in the process formed the two early classes of pyshc....

gekko
01-27-2002, 10:24 AM
Well I spent all of last semester sitting through a class discussing just that. If you want the brief explanation, there have been books written on how everyone we have on death row has phychological problems. It all gets traced back to their childhood. The children who were sexually or physically abused grow up and do the same things to others. If your father beat your mother, or your father left the family, they grow up with a hatred towards men, and in many cases, proceed to murder them. Basically, they grow up truly believing in something, and it may be wrong, be they can't help it at that point.

Furthermore, many things that are happening today can be explained by science, but we just don't have the answer yet. We were watching a documentary on the true story of the exorcist. About the little boy who became possessed, and well, it eventually became a hollywood film. The priests involved told their stories about how whenever he entered the room, it would become extremely cold. He made the bed move up and down. He threw things across the room. They were even able to talk to the spirit that possessed him, and ask him questions. "Where did you come from?" And little red warts appeared on his chest and spelled out "HELL." Freaky, huh? My morality teacher actually witnessed an exorcism in Africa, and he said the room actually does get very cold the minute they enter. And I don't know how you can fake that, being in Africa of all places. They actually bring a thermometer inside the room, and the second the possessed person enters it drops instantly, and dramtically. But you know what they said when we were all done with this? This might be something science is able to explain, and we just haven't discovered it yet.

When electricity was discovered, they didn't really know what electricity was. I think human behavior is one of those things. Everything happens for a reason, but it'll be a long time before we know the reason.

And the other thing we learned in class, politicians are idiots:

Abortion is legal in this country, but if you kill a pregnant lady in a car crash it's double murder.

BreakABone
01-27-2002, 10:39 AM
Originally posted by gekko
Well I spent all of last semester sitting through a class discussing just that. If you want the brief explanation, there have been books written on how everyone we have on death row has phychological problems. It all gets traced back to their childhood. The children who were sexually or physically abused grow up and do the same things to others. If your father beat your mother, or your father left the family, they grow up with a hatred towards men, and in many cases, proceed to murder them. Basically, they grow up truly believing in something, and it may be wrong, be they can't help it at that point.

Furthermore, many things that are happening today can be explained by science, but we just don't have the answer yet. We were watching a documentary on the true story of the exorcist. About the little boy who became possessed, and well, it eventually became a hollywood film. The priests involved told their stories about how whenever he entered the room, it would become extremely cold. He made the bed move up and down. He threw things across the room. They were even able to talk to the spirit that possessed him, and ask him questions. "Where did you come from?" And little red warts appeared on his chest and spelled out "HELL." Freaky, huh? My morality teacher actually witnessed an exorcism in Africa, and he said the room actually does get very cold the minute they enter. And I don't know how you can fake that, being in Africa of all places. They actually bring a thermometer inside the room, and the second the possessed person enters it drops instantly, and dramtically. But you know what they said when we were all done with this? This might be something science is able to explain, and we just haven't discovered it yet.

When electricity was discovered, they didn't really know what electricity was. I think human behavior is one of those things. Everything happens for a reason, but it'll be a long time before we know the reason.

And the other thing we learned in class, politicians are idiots:

Abortion is legal in this country, but if you kill a pregnant lady in a car crash it's double murder.

Won't touch the stupid politician..Way to easy....

But as to what you were saying about people on death row having all those issues.. My teacher brought up a similar point.. but more or less to disprove it.....

How do you know that really happened to the people? I mean you go to a pyschologist and they sit there and have you tell you all your problems..... then you remember some incident from like 20 years ago when you father raped you... Whose to say that the doctor wasn't leading you to implant such a memory into your mind... I mean the human race for the most part cares to be accepted... and will pretty much agree with what they are conditioned to believe.. I mean why is it that more men find tall ,skinny, "Pepsi bottle" body women hot.. yet you don't see many that care for that fat chick in the corner?

Even though you may not know it..Society conditions you from when you are a little child to believe certain things... I mean look at all those people who believed the Earth was flat.. heck even us.. We all believe the Earth is round.. but for all we know we just never traveled the right way to reach the end....

so to a degree.. there may be ways to implant memories into this people minds in a way that they actually believe that it happened to them.. Who knows.. just a not viewpoint

gekko
01-27-2002, 10:59 AM
First of all, we have pictures of the earth from outer space. We know it's shape.

But yes, we can be led to believe anything. And in many cases, we are led to believe things. Most rape victims go to a rape counselor and are told that it was rape, until they believe it.

But many times they can go back and say, find a sibling who was able to live through it while still being sane. Or go to friends who know about it.

BreakABone
01-27-2002, 11:45 AM
Originally posted by gekko
First of all, we have pictures of the earth from outer space. We know it's shape.

But yes, we can be led to believe anything. And in many cases, we are led to believe things. Most rape victims go to a rape counselor and are told that it was rape, until they believe it.

But many times they can go back and say, find a sibling who was able to live through it while still being sane. Or go to friends who know about it.

You mean the same people who provided us with pictures of the man on the moon..weren't you the same person who had a thread trying to disprove that?

Hmm oddd...And yes you can do that.. but then imagine how sick it is for a friend or sibling to know about this for the longest and not try to get you help earlier...

gekko
01-27-2002, 12:43 PM
We never landed on the moon, but we have been in space. Not only that, we have satellites in space that take pictures. And considering I've seen my house from one, I'm pretty sure it's real.

Xantar
01-27-2002, 03:41 PM
I think I made my question a little unclear. It's not about what morality should be. It's about whether morality will exist.

As gekko has pointed out, there may be a reason for everything we do. We just haven't discovered it yet.

Think about it another way. There is a disease that makes the victim homicidal. I forget the name of the disease, but the point is that the victim will tend to assault people unless restrained. This disease is traceable to a chemical imbalance. In other words, our hypothetical victim is not homicidal because he chose to be but because that's just the way he is. If brought to court, he would be able to plead insanity because we can't blame him for something he had no control over.

The brain is, after all, a bunch of chemicals organized in a certain fashion. It's made up of a trillion individual neurons, so naturally it will take a really long time to determine how it really works. But if there is a physical basis for the way the brain works, will we be able to predict how people will act under certain circumstances and given certain environments?

If so, can we blame people for anything they did? After all, it can be traced back to the physical makeup of their brains and the way their environment influenced the makeup of that brain.

The point isn't about whether we should consider certain acts to be moral or immoral. The point is about whether we can consider anything to be moral.

I'm still going to hold off on my own opinions for now. But it's time to hand out some doubloons...

BreakABone
01-27-2002, 03:46 PM
Hmm but that isn't technical what pysch is.. It's more or less trying to figure out how the human mind works... What you are referring to seem to be more related to other sciences.. Pyschologists aren't out to prove how a chemical unbalace may yield one result.. they are trying to crack the human mind which is different from the human brain..the human brain has a physical existance the human mind doesn't....

The two fields work may interchange but they are both going for radically different approaches.. they may be able to find out how certain chemicals cause well unbalanced indivuals or they may find out what type of life effects would also create this people...

TheGrimReaper
01-27-2002, 06:29 PM
Morality will always exist, even if it is only in one person, it will always exist.