Comments by Anlao

Comment #87325 by Anlao on November 11, 2007 at 8:11 pm

The article tries too hard to present normal behavioral change processes in a dramatic manner. Brainwashing, as described, is something we do and is done to us in every day of our lives.

When a person reaches a low in their life (be it drug abuse, alcohol, gambling, sickness, relationship trouble, or just dissatisfaction with ones life), it seeks understanding of how it happened. And since we all know in the back of our minds that we are responsible for our own actions, when a person looks back on their actions its normal to have some levels of guilt, sadness, frustration, wrong doing, and a desire to do some things differently. It's inevitable, regardless if they look back trough the lenses of some religious belief, psychology and science, or trough their own lenses containing a mishmash of both. Next step is walking the path of change, whether alone or with somebody: for some is the psychologist, a close friend, or a religious support-group.

Same techniques are even used by psychologists and personal coaches in their work. Experiencing some sort of personal disappointment, anger, frustration with regards to oneself is normal and can be beneficial, and is the direct result of realizing your own shortcomings. One cannot avoid going trough that or refuse to become aware of their weaknesses simply for the purpose of not having " a low self-esteem". Self-esteem is not a one-time event, is a building or breaking –down process.

For those interested in video documentaries on mind control and cult development, "The Pagan Invasion" series, even though developed by Christians, deals with exactly that (well, for every cult except their own )
http://www.christianreality.com/videos/vs-vid115-09.htm

"They take your independent sense of self-worth and turn it into a cult-dependent sense of self-worth."
I agree, but with the comment that it's a normal and natural thing. And in the end, not bad! Whatever works for them, right? Even atheists are not immune to that, our independent sense of self-worth is actually dependent on a set of rules of thinking and behaving, very much cult-like.

2. Be Good Now, Or Else

Comment #79960 by Anlao on October 19, 2007 at 9:06 am

The article does present validation question-marks, as well as limited-linear reasoning. Glad to see people that don't get carried away and look at a larger spectrum of factors that determine the human mind and behavior. (brain development, culture, upbringing, existence of more or less traumatic experiences in life).

As for the "pulling individuals out" reference, I do not find it sinister at all, just highly unpractical. Being able to map out a person's brain can be theoretically useful, in determining which centers are overly or under developed, and understanding how (or even if) these centers correlate with a persons displayed behavior. This can be useful in therapeutic interventions, theoretically it's almost like you would have an "user manual" for each person ("aha, if I try your affective center you will not respond, but if I stimulate your reasoning you will be engaged and you'll activate the affective one") I'm talking as a theoretic model only, practically there are more questions raised than answers provided and a lot of ethical issues. Some of them that I can think of:
- what happens when some of these neural centers are correlated with the memory or affective centers? If you use the same pattern you re-validate a negative reasoning, if you brake the pattern, how do you know you're creating a better one?
- If a person has an un-developed center (eg. moral,or affective) the plausible way to stimulate it is trough access it trough the strong developed centers, thus re-enforcing the existing thinking patterns, either positively or negatively, even though you obtain signs of successful usage of the under-developed center. So it would not be a true re-habilitation, just a more elevated pavlovian model.
- What would be the ultimate purpose? As much as science evolves, in terms of behavior change some principles still remain valid as they were hundreds of years ago: in order for a true behavior change to happen, the person must desire that change. Pushing hot buttons on an individual that does not want to improve / change will only make them more innovative in perpetuating their desired behavior (either in hiding it, flaunting it in rebellion, or searching reasons to make it "justifiable").
- The flawed assumption that a person does not change. People evolve, some aspects improve, others degenerate, so it is not advisable to assume the same "button" will trigger the same response every single time. We're re-writing ourselves every time we try something new.
- All the issues of human identity and uniqueness that arise from altering a human being for the purpose of "perfection" or "averaging to normal".
- What about unbelievable minds? Should be "improve" the next Mozart? Einstein had the corpus callosum (the bridge between brain hemispheres) of a woman, which was an anomaly for the physiognomy of a man. Should we abort the future Einsteins because of gay-paranoia?
See Einstein brain article below:
http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-sci-brainsex16jun16,0,5806592,full.story

As much as I am fascinated by psychology and I understand the benefits of neuro-psychology, in terms of positive behavior change I still believe that it cannot overcome the power of basic human interaction. "Hi, how are you? What do you think of…?"