[quote]RebornTN wrote:
I wonder if there is anything people are not going to do in science. If there is going to be a point where scientists stop and say, this has a huge potential for corrupt use. We probably shouldn’t fuck with it.
Does anybody else think along these lines?[/quote]
Oldest Birth
“Science - All about coulda, not shoulda” - Patton Oswalt
[quote]Otep wrote:
It’s not so much the technology we fear such as the inappropriate use of technology.
This is what happens when we conquer the sky before we conquer our hearts.[/quote]
“I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.”
Yeah but you could watch your favorite movies over and over…
It’s a cool idea and something that should be considered. Science is about asking questions…would there ever be a case in which erasing someone’s memory would be a good thing? How serious would it be to do it against someone’s will? In a sense it’s “killing” a part of them - but what about Saddam Hussein for instance - what if we were able to erase ALL his memories and give him a clean slate as opposed to killing him? Wouldn’t that be better?
If this were actually done on humans it would be INCREDIBLY revealing for sociologists and psychologists - it would provide compelling evidence for a side of the whole nature/nurture argument. If you erased someone’s memory completely could a really bad guy turn good if placed in the right kind of environment? Could someone who had been one way all his life be changed that quickly?
What if someone really wanted to forget that his wife cheated? It’s a false comfort, but wouldn’t it be his decision? How do you decide whether or not an incident is worthy of being deleted? A guy’s wife cheating on him might not be worth it, but clearly a traumatized soldier might have more of a case for wanting some of his memories deleted. In either case, the life of the person in question probably improves, but what effect might this have on society? False comforts might be good for an individual, but for society as a whole they could make for a nation of fools who act on incomplete information - a distorted view of reality.
I don’t doubt that the ethics of this kind of research are being discussed heavily, there are a LOT of things that need to be considered with this kind of technology.
[quote]Kruiser wrote:
Yeah but you could watch your favorite movies over and over…[/quote]
Of course, the more fun application would be creating memories and injecting them into someone.
This sounds like an Arnold movie…
Total Recall anyone?
[quote]Christine wrote:
This sounds like an Arnold movie…
Total Recall anyone?[/quote]
Beer erases my memory every weekend.
[quote]Yo Momma wrote:
Christine wrote:
This sounds like an Arnold movie…
Total Recall anyone?
Beer erases my memory every weekend.
[/quote]
True. I do enjoy reliving those nights as I gradually remember stuff for the next few days. Some of it i would rather forget permanently though.
[quote]nowakc wrote:
Yo Momma wrote:
Christine wrote:
This sounds like an Arnold movie…
Total Recall anyone?
Beer erases my memory every weekend.
True. I do enjoy reliving those nights as I gradually remember stuff for the next few days. Some of it i would rather forget permanently though.[/quote]
Every ugly one night stand you regret could be effectively turned into a night out with the Jessica’s (Alba and Biel).
I think its fantastic, I think that about every scientific breakthrough. science and civilization are so connected that if we ever stopped pushing the boundries of what we currently know the world would become a very dull place.
the first thing that came to my mind in this case is giving victims of abuse and rape their lives back. some victims may be able to handle the experience and feel it made them a stronger person. for the significant amount that are unable to deal with what happened to them getting rid of the memories could restore normality and happiness without antidepressants and years of therapy.
You can’t stop scientific discovery. And it will only continue to advance at an exponential rate. The hope is the “good guys” discover it before the “bad guys” and put measures in place to control it (a double-edged sword in its own right).
You want your head to spin, check out the potential of nanotechnology and molecular manufacturing.
Since I have such a problem with ex boyfriends with girls that I start dating/talking to, I’d take her to the nearest memory erasing station and have his ass erased from her memory. Problem solved.
Oh, and I’d erase my memory of the moment I lost my virginity. Now that is a hellish nightmare.
The legal ramifications could be interesting. This technology could be used to erase witnesses memories. Sure, killing them is pretty easy, but this might be more subtle. Kidnap them, erase a few memories, and drop them off again. They’d never even know.
[quote]football061 wrote:
Since I have such a problem with ex boyfriends with girls that I start dating/talking to, I’d take her to the nearest memory erasing station and have his ass erased from her memory. Problem solved.
Oh, and I’d erase my memory of the moment I lost my virginity. Now that is a hellish nightmare.[/quote]
Erase that ex-boyfriend huh? 
[quote]Professor X wrote:
nowakc wrote:
Yo Momma wrote:
Christine wrote:
This sounds like an Arnold movie…
Total Recall anyone?
Beer erases my memory every weekend.
True. I do enjoy reliving those nights as I gradually remember stuff for the next few days. Some of it i would rather forget permanently though.
Every ugly one night stand you regret could be effectively turned into a night out with the Jessica’s (Alba and Biel).[/quote]
Maybe this is just a guy thing, buts thats the first place my mind went when you brought up the memory injection idea…
I think the point of the research is to gain a greater understanding of memory as a whole, instead of simply wiping away that traffic ticket that makes you mad when you think about. The potential applications could lead up to things like helping older people retain their memory longer (or at all in some cases) and potentially curing some diseases.
These highly selective projects are usually useful only under the umbrella of some bigger picture.
[quote]Professor X wrote:
Zap Branigan wrote:
Screw that, our memories are a huge part of what we are.
They are everything we are…but think of the applications of being able to erase fear.[/quote]
I don’t think fear is something that can be erased. Fear is an emotional response to a threat or something. You don’t really learn emotions, they’re kind of instinctual.
I think that this kind of technology is an easy way out. The idea behind this is to use a technology to erase experiences so that you don’t have to deal with the emotional response from them. One more step into erasing emotions all together isn’t it? How about everyone just learns to accept things that have happened, learn from them and move on?
This will, without a doubt, be used for covering up corruption or crime. How easy would it be to pass a polygraph test if you actually remember doing something. How could you ever prove you had your mind erased if they erased the memory of having your mind erased? I feel this is just an overall BAD tech. Just like stomach stapling, it’s an easy way out. Man up and start dealing with your problems.
So this technology is based on deleting a memory at hand. The idea I got is you have to be thinking of it for it to be deleted. You want to get in this machine and think of the wrong thing?
Crayons?
I don’t see that as progress at all. I see this as a potential step back for humanity. The mechanical view of the world through science has not brought us anything good.
What has science brought us that’s fundamentally good and better? Science has become a necessary Evil as a countermeasure to how we fucked up our selves and our world. It’s a process of escalation and will never cease and in the end for what? Progress? What progress? You live and you die. I guess progress is having and doing what every generation has done for ages, just doing it in a different way. but still essentially the same thing.
I would keep all my memories thank you. Especially the bad ones. Rape victims have a hard time moving on because they very therapy they go under further deepens their suffering on a subconscious level.
How is it that concentration camp victims can get over their horrors and live a productive life and today rape victims can’t muster the strength to put their life in order? It’s because there is a larger problem at large.
Why would you want to wipe your memories out?
You’d make all the same mistakes all over again.
[quote]CitizenSnips wrote:
I don’t think fear is something that can be erased. Fear is an emotional response to a threat or something. You don’t really learn emotions, they’re kind of instinctual.
[/quote]
Fear itself could not be erased because it is a fundamental part of us - however, our bad experiences which caused us to have certain fears could be. What we are afraid of is something that develops in our lifetime - we experience a certain thing and it’s not pleasant so we become afraid of it. For instance experiencing rejection - it’s not pleasant so many people become very afraid of it. You could erase all memories of someone being rejected and they might be braver next time they apply for a job or go out to the bar to meet women, because they no longer have the memories of what it was like to be rejected. Clearly this would not be a good use of this technology.
You could use it to eliminate ridiculous fears though - for instance a rape victim being afraid to go outside.
[quote]Christine wrote:
This sounds like an Arnold movie…
Total Recall anyone?[/quote]
Come on Cohagen, you got what you wanted… GIVE DIS PEEPLE AYUH!