PsiPog.net
View topic - Your ethical standpoint
PsiPog.net Forum Index » Telepathy and Empathy » Your ethical standpoint
Goto page Previous 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 Next
| Your ethical standpoint | |||||||||
| Author | Message | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Who'd've Thunk It... on Thu Jul 20, 2006 4:35 pm | |||||||||
ErikJDurwoodII
Joined: 14 Jan 2006 |
Not to divert the topic at hand, but for those who read these posts and have a limited understanding of the mechanics of Telepathic Suggestion (or TPS), I feel a little summary is in order before any ethical judgments are made. My ethical views aside, there are a few key factors that make TPS a sensitive subject. The main concept is simply HOW the suggestion enters the mind of the target. To understand that, we need to get a basic understanding on how thought physically manifests in the brain.
Western Medicine is slowly gaining respect for the possibility that the mind is actually a separate entity and the brain simply acts as a ?transceiver? to tune in the mind and communicate with it. That?s still being looked over, but for the most part, we will settle with the theory that the brain ?processes? our input and output on the physical plane and that the mind is essentially a neutral party to the processes of the brain. We need to keep a strong separation of the terms ?mind? and ?brain?. It can often get confusing when the two get mixed together. For all sakes and purposes, the ?brain? is the component that indifferently processes information from the body to the mind and vice-versa. The ?mind? is the airy abstraction of thought that connects you to everything. It is the meaningful ?thinking? component where you dream, invent, remember and create. The input to your senses is first extrapolated by the mind and its various cortexes. It?s converted into waveforms of energies and meanders around your brain in the form of the bioelectrical reactions called synapses. These transmissions of energy are said to be the external representation of a deeply internal energetic reaction. The ability for your mind to effectively and efficiently create, filter and process this data is the major factor in ?perception? as this information is relayed to your mind where you consciously perceive it. If you can?t physically see color or your mind can not process it, your mind won?t perceive it and your perception is altered. Essentially you won?t see color without some extra information to abstract it from. Now neurology has discovered an interesting thing about the brain. When a thought moves from one part of the brain to the other, the received information has ?location neutrality? or in other words, the receiving end has no way of knowing it came from elsewhere rather than from itself, so it figures it created the information. This allows for a very tight integration of the cortexes and makes things very efficient. It allows for that very creative poem you?re conjuring to be distilled down to a strict wording system then communicated via precise finger movements to your computer. The more you get familiar with a process, the more efficient the ?wiring? in your brain facilitates the action. Now, where does TPS fit into this? Well, to get an ethical perspective you first need to understand how the target perceives the ?suggestion?. Mind control through energetic influence has been a strong field of study for many decades. Just ask anybody wearing an aluminum-foil hat. When a specially tuned field of energy cascades across your brain, your brain picks up the encoded information as best as it can based on the tuning of the field. Everything from sensory input to complex thoughts can theoretically be influenced on your perception. TPS, employs a ?brute-force? method for committing a ?suggestion? to a target?s brain. This method has strong resemblance with current ?artificial? methods of mind control. Essentially, a practitioner of TPS is bombarding the brain of the target with a strongly tuned, native, energy. This method is very effective as unlike with electronic methods, the tuning is very hard to achieve, with enough ?horse-power? any thought can be forced and it has the benefit of being ?thought-native?. Now here?s the point. Just like normal activities of the brain, thought has ?location neutrality,? the same goes for implanted thought. The target would perceive the thought as though they thought of it themselves. It bypasses all of the procedural filters one uses when naturally perceiving information and puts it first in the queue. A target of TPS would generally have no way of knowing the thought was implanted. If the thought was highly off-kilter and very hard to believe, the powers of the mind may be able to get suspicious and flag the thought. However for the minor things that subtly affect the course of one?s day, the thought gets used without a second thought. (no pun intended) The ethics would then come in where one sees that the victim is essentially innocent of the influence and has no perception of being manipulated. It?s easy to say that a target, being unaware of influence, forfeits responsibility for those actions. But there?s really no proof? In the same breath you can say those with weak enough constitutions to be manipulated so easily should be by those with a stronger will. You could also say that influencing the mind by these means is on all accounts wrong as is removes the opprotunity for it to be "processed" and rationalized before being acted on. There are many ethical deviations that we all take to heart and there is no true way to compare them. Understanding the potentials of such a skill give us respect for the power but also give us many opportunities for miss-use. We need to maintain the one thing that is very easy to loose sight of on the path of discovery. Humanity. -Erik |
||||||||
| Back to top | |||||||||
| Posted on Thu Jul 20, 2006 6:55 pm | |||||||||
Elliptic
Joined: 19 Jan 2006 |
(I'm going to use this relatively bad form of argument, but I feel it's apt.) Hitler built the Autobahn. Hitler commissioned the Volkswagen. The fact that someone uses a power for good does not excuse the use of power for evil. Adam has changed a good bit. Mormons are, as a whole, upstanding and moral people. Like I said, I don't want this to become an Anti-Adam slingfest. We're discussing the ethics and morality of telepathic suggestion - the evidence that Adam misused it does not really factor into its ethical justification. Firearms can be used to kill or hunt and provide food - firearms are morally neutral. This is because the use of a firearm does not de facto harm another. Telepathic suggestion is not like a firearm. Telepathic suggestion is ilke a chemical weapon. The weapon itself serves no real beneficial act. It can be used justifiably in research, or in very rare cases to treat diseases, or so further - but a chemical weapon cannot be used "freely" with a positive outcome. Chemical weapons de facto hurt people. So does Suggestion - the mere act of Suggestion takes away the victim's right to make decisions on their own.
My apologies for the use of such a direct example, but I hope through the hurt and anger that you understood my point. The point stands - perhaps I'm not being moved to apologize because I am genuinely sorry - perhaps you Suggested to me that I should be sorry. Shields aside, you know as well as anyone how vulnerable receptive telepaths are to Suggestion. Who knows? I know you better than that. I trust you wouldn't do such a thing. Then again, I have had my life tampered with enough (and not by Adam alone...drop in the bucket, and he was a friend of mine, albeit a manipulative one) that I need to be suspicious of these things. I don't think you would actually stoop so low, but then, I didn't think Adam would either, and when he did, I felt it was ok because he made me feel it was ok. My apologies for such a low comment. Again, I don't think that you would do that - but I hope my point was made. |
||||||||
| Back to top | |||||||||
| Posted on Thu Jul 20, 2006 9:39 pm | |||||||||
Aphanas
Joined: 14 Jan 2006 |
First, a couple of comments on the side conversation:
Bullshit. I?ve personally been involved in two separate interventions (neither of which involved Evan) to deal with how Adam fucked with someone?s head. In one, the individual had suicidal ideation that was both specific and lethal, because of Adam?s little programming playground in their head. Our group actually had to make phone calls to a foreign country to have that person?s college advisor run a physical intervention against suicidal behavior. Evan?s descriptions are consistent with both other partys? interactions and struggle to deal with Adam?s manipulation of their behavior and thinking patterns. If you?re saying that he was not doing those things, you were either incredibly sheltered in his organization, or you are lying.
I do. Let me know if you want to see them. I have logs that detail Adam?s attempts to use standard and NLP coercive methods to enforce behavior in his ?friends?. I have logs that demonstrate his rather clumsy attempts to edit online conversations and lead people to false conclusions (I also have the original logs of the edited conversations), and I have logs that indicate how he normally dealt psionically with people who pissed him off. Shadowmind, you should remember me. I interviewed for Adam?s little practice group, because I wanted to see how far you folks were going with your foolish fraternity games. Do you remember why Adam decided to turn me down? I quote:
The folks that know me a bit better... and are familiar with some of the things I am involved in got quite a chuckle out of that. Your group's activities, as led and orchestrated by Adam, didn't stop if a "mark" was aware they were being targeted. Adam encouraged his followers to stay close enough to their targets that they could make sure the desired reprogramming was taking place. There are specific methods he had given his group to send individuals into suicidal depression and also to attempt severe personality and behavior modification as a way of developing psionic skills. Which ethical standard does lethal target practice on other humans just to sharpen up your skills fall into? --Aphanas Final note: I would hardly call Psisoldier's training "advanced." It had rudimentary training in effective combat psionics. The only thing that made it seem advanced to folks was the complete nonsense being labeled as "combat" training in other online psionic communities. And, Shadowmind, now that I'm no longer concerned about extracting information from Adam - when you show this to him (as I'm sure you will), tell him to feel free to follow his standard practice of attacking people that piss him off. I'm not too worried about it. |
||||||||
| Back to top | |||||||||
| Posted on Thu Jul 20, 2006 9:46 pm | |||||||||
Aphanas
Joined: 14 Jan 2006 |
Now, on to the subject that's actually supposed to be under discussion: When is TPS justified, or ethical behavior?
The discussion so far is revolving around a key issue that I'd like to highlight. This issue under debate is not unique to psionics or TPS, as it comes up in most ethical discussions involving any form of suggestion - from hypnosis, to religious beliefs, to criminal law, to politics. The issue is: "When does suggestion become coercion? And once that line has been crossed, is coercion ever appropriate ethically?" There are two generally accepted arguments for when suggestion becomes coercion:
2) When there is an intent to deceive or rush the individual (confusing their thinking), so that they decide in a way that they would not otherwise if they had been offered non-deceptive information, or been allowed to think through the decision. This is why there are "buyer's remorse" laws in most US states. This is also the mechanism most commonly employed by NLP (neural-linguistic programming) methods studied by salesmen and politicians. As to the effectiveness (or strength) of suggestion as a method of coercion (whether psionic or otherwise), I would recommend looking into the case of Hardrup in the Netherlands about half a century ago. This was a case in which a hypnotist was convicted of murder because he had "suggested" to his subject that he would rob a certain bank. The subject did so, and killed a guard voluntarily in the process. It was determined by the courts that the subject was not responsible for his actions, due to the strength of the suggestion that had been placed on him by the hypnotist. The USSR was also involved in testing the effectiveness of TPS as a coercive method. Take a look at the discussions involving physically knocking out subjects from long distances and bypassing military security protections using TPS in Ostrander and Schroeder's book "Psychic Discoveries." Another classic example from the hypnosis community involves the influence that deception has on the strength of suggestion needed. One can, despite what the official statements say, force someone to do something against their will using hypnosis. I know this because I have done it... more than once. Setting that aside, it is much easier to mislead someone's perceptions to get them to comply. For instance, if someone is a fairly good hypnotic subject, you can take them down into a trance in a public setting, and instruct them to take off all of their clothes. They will generally refuse, due to their personal ethic about being nude in public. Now, take the same person in public, and put them into a trance to the point that you control their perceptions. You then tell them that they are home alone, and about to take a shower. They will disrobe with no real resistance, because you have deceived them by altering their perceptions. Does anyone see the relationship to TPS - based on the comments made earlier by Peebrain, Elliptic, and others about how TPS alters perception in a deceitful way? I strongly agree with Peebrain and Elliptic's positions that coercing someone using TPS (either through force or deception), is unethical. This is because TPS is a method of coercion, and not a true "suggestion" (as I might make to a friend when offering advice). Coercion of adults is generally considered inappropriate in most ethical systems. Don't confuse the method (TPS) with the ethical issue (When is coercion appropriate?). With that said, there are times that coercion is appropriate. Elliptic summed it up nicely for us earlier:
Coersion, regardless of the method, is appropriate under those circumstances. Most of our legal rulings on self-defense are based on the premise that it is acceptable to coerce someone physically if they have immediate and significant intent to harm you. Those legal rulings are careful to point out that the threat must be immediate and significant. I don't legally get to shoot someone if I suspect they might be a threat to me in the future. There has to be an immediate and significant threat before I am legally allowed to apply coercive amounts of lead to their body. If someone is in immediate physical danger or an immediate threat to themselves, it is generally also considered appropriate to use coercion. This is the rationale behind suicide interventions, and the reason that you force someone to hold still if they are thrashing about while drowning (and you're trying to rescue them). The key element here is that you are making a conscious decision to override their will in situations where they are not behaving in a manner normal for that individual, and the consequences are immediate and fatal to that individual or to another person. The third area in which coercion is considered acceptable is when the subject is considered "mentally unfit." This is the argument that JoeT attempted to make earlier with regard to his friend. The problem with that argument is that determining mental insanity or unfitness is a legal ruling, and coercion (by any method) of an individual that does not have such a medical diagnosis is a prosecutable offense in most countries. If someone decides to go off their medicine, or listen to music that you feel is evil, or do drugs, or reject psychological counseling, or make a foolish business decision, or reject your religion and therefore condemn themselves to hell in your beliefs, you have no right to make that decision for them. Specifically, your attempts to do so on another adult through any provable coercive method will result in legal charges being filed against you in most Western nations. TPS is not somehow exempt from those legal and ethical issues simply because it is not easily proven yet. If you say that TPS is generally acceptable as a coercive method, even though other coercive methods would result in criminal charges filed against you, you are simply arguing that "might makes right". I hope that focusing on the issue of coercion in the context of TPS ethics is useful to the discussion. If you'd like to find out just how widespread some methods of coercion are in our society (and why certain legal protections are in place against such methods), I would recommend the books below as additional reading. Hope that helps, --Aphanas ************************** Suggested Reading: Estabrooks, G.H. Hypnotism. E.P. Dutton & Co, New York. 1945. 4th printing (get a copy of this one published before 1947, it was modified after that). Ostrander, Sheila and Lynn Schroeder. Psychic Discoveries. Marlowe & Company, New York. 1997. (ISBN: 1-56924-750-1) |
||||||||
| Back to top | |||||||||
| Posted on Thu Jul 20, 2006 9:53 pm | |||||||||
JOHNNYBEGOOD
Joined: 17 Jul 2006 |
"Once upon a time, in some out of the way corner of that universe which is dispersed into numberless twinkling solar systems, there was a star upon which clever beasts invented knowing. That was the most arrogant and mendacious minute of 'world history,' but nevertheless it was only minute. After nature had drawn a few breaths, the star cooled and congealed, and the clever beasts had to die."
--Friedrich Nietzsche, "All Too Human" (PT 79) |
||||||||
| Back to top | |||||||||
| Posted on Thu Jul 20, 2006 10:43 pm | |||||||||
PazarX
Joined: 12 Mar 2006 |
TPS might be able to be used in healing. If you "suggest" to someone that they are better when they are ill it might make them convinced they are no longer sick. and their body will act accordingly. it might prove benificial to people who are otherwise going to die. maybe from cancer or aids. if the body thinks it's better it might be able to stabalize it'self accordingly... or it could be like putting a bandade on a bullet hole and do nothing.
thoughts? ~PazarX |
||||||||
| Back to top | |||||||||
| Posted on Fri Jul 21, 2006 12:40 am | |||||||||
Elliptic
Joined: 19 Jan 2006 |
There are lots of thoughts here - in fact, you've opened a Pandora's Box. By that same reasoning, it is reasonable that doctors can lie to patients. A terminally ill patient should not be told that they are healthy and well, even though doing so may create a placebo induced cure. The chances of such are astronomically low, and in many cases ineffectual. While some diseases are self-generative (e.g., cancer) many are derived from an outside source (e.g., Streptococcus pyogenes). No amount of believing that the strep throat is there is going to make it go away. In fact, believing that it's not there will likely ultimately be more harmful. After all, a patient who believes they are sick will seek medical treatment. A patient who believes they are well may very well refuse the same treatment. This could result in clinical worsening. This is especially poignant in your second example - AIDS - a disease which many people can contract without demonstrating symptoms until it is much later. A patient with AIDS who refuses to believe they have it will spread the disease, sometimes to large degrees and sometimes with devastating consequences. The fact is, as Aphanas so eloquently wrote, that telepathic suggestion might more aptly be called telepathic coercion. The act is deceitful and implicitly reduces an individual's right to sentience, rationality, and determinism. This becomes especially important in medical situations, where major decisions may be made - imagine a doctor who decided that the health of the patient was more important than the patient's free will, and decided that the patient must go onto a new drug treatment. This is not acceptable. While the patient's health -is- of great importance to the doctor, the doctor does not have the right to make medical decisions on the behalf of the patient. No doctor can force me to take a medicine, unless I was not of sound state of mind - and if I am irrational, Suggestion is the last thing I need muddling into my thoughts. Indeed, Suggestion is a most insidious form of coercion because the act seems self generated. While a man being coerced by physical intimidation knows they are being intimidated, and so maintains the dignity of having free will, but having it forced (I might choose to insure my laundromat, even though I know I don't need it, but I am still choosing) or a thrashing drowning victim being rescued may be physically restrained, a person being telepathically influenced may not have any knowledge of the fact. Indeed, they are not choosing an undesirable option in light of force - they are automatically performing an act because they don't realize that it's not necessarily what they desire. There are further implications of telepathic suggestion which have not yet been addressed, either, that can occur in the victim during the process or after, if they realize what has been going on (indeed, some can fall victim without even realizing it). For the victim of mind control, there becomes a degree of ego loss, as well as a large amount of cognitive dissonance. An individual who realizes that one of their decisions was not truly their own will naturally question which decisions they have made that are also not self-generative. This can lead to a great degree of distress. We are our choices. If we do not know that those choices are our own, we no longer know if we are our own. In an individual who has fallen victim to telepathic suggestion it is largely impossible to determine what traits, characteristics, and personal habits are actually one's own. In extreme cases, patterns of thinking and patterns of thought are also questionable - are they one's own, or are they someone else's, transplanted into another host? Is a person who has been victimized by telepathic suggestion even a person, seeing as their rationality and sentience (these characteristics being the defining factors of personhood)? These are serious issues which must be considered when we look at the ethical considerations of such an act. Ultimately, as with all ethical discussions, we must make some broad statement on what is "ethical." As I have mentioned before, I view things from the perspective of a utilitarian rationalist. That is to say that I believe we can universalize the maxim "given a choice, the most ethical decision is that which benefits the greatest number of sentient beings." We can also universalize the standard that "all sentient beings are worthy of moral consideration." Finally, we can universalize that "no act which impairs the rationality of another is ever ethical." We should expound on these, so that we can better understand why these ethical principles are workable (and in some cases, unworkable, though they are phrased in a way that makes them universalizable and therefore viable as moral Law). The first is clear - sometimes, the good of the many must supercede the good of the few. For example, while it seems unethical to lock somebody in their home, it may be ethical to do so if they have a deadly infectious disease, and are being quarantined. In this case, not locking them in the home could potentially risk the death of thousands, whereas doing so may threaten their lives, it protects the majority. The second maxim defines who it is that we are considering members of the majority - that is, who are worthy of being considered in this ethical question? We answer with "any sentient being." This includes all humans, because all humans have the capacity for cognition. It does not include the unborn, the dead, or the clinically permanently brain-dead. Some may argue that the unborn are worthy of ethical consideration - their inevitability of becoming a sentient being seems to allow for this, and that is another ethical debate unto itself. This also extends to non-human rational creatures, meaning some animals (Bonobo monkeys, dolphins, crows, or whatever else) and hypothetical extraterrestrials, providing they are sentient (Grey aliens would be "in," spaceborn bacteria are "out"). The third maxim applies in order to limit the utilitarianism. While purist utilitarians would say that the quarantine is morally right, they would also argue that killing someone with AIDS who is inevitably going to serve as an epicenter would also be morally right. This maxim serves to ensure that no one individual within the collective is any more or less considerable than another. A sentient being has intrinsic value that is equivalent to the value of a majority. Indeed, most decisions do not have ramifications for a large number of people, and so the first maxim seems largely worthless - whether or not I rob a bank does not impact anything near what we might call a "majority." So why is quarantining someone against their will morally acceptable, and telepathic suggestion not? Simple - while the quarantine limits one's actions, the Suggestion forces their decision making faculties. Our hypothetical Ebola victim suffering in their house retains sentience unimpaired - they still have the cognitive capacity to break the quarantine. They can attempt to leave the house if they so choose. They can make a decision and accept the consequences having properly considered them. While their options have been limited, their free will itself has not been impaired. An individual who has been telepathically suggested does not retain this luxury. If one is Suggested not to leave their house, they do not get the right to choose, and make a decision to remain indoors. Instead, they have lost the capacity and the ability to make the decision for themselves. They are largely at the mercy of the Suggester, and they are not at all capable of weighing for themselves the options and consequences. While an individual under armed quarantine may not be allowed to leave the house (in a military quarantine, they would be shot if they attempted to do so), they are still capable of doing it. Their decision to remain within the house (and subsequently not be shot) is still their decision. With the Suggestion victim, they are not making a decision - the decision has been made for them. They will simply remain inside the house. Alternatively, one might be Suggested to leave the house, resulting in being shot. The choice itself has been lost - the ability to reason has been removed. It is for this reason and under this third maxim that murder is wrong. I have used the murder comparison a few times, and I'm not sure it was properly understood - Suggestion is not "like" murder, but they are morally equivalent - that is, they are both "equally wrong" because they both derive their "wrongness" from the same thing - they both involve the direct removal or impairment of another individual's ability to reason. With murder, this is done permanently by removing the ability to be alive - necessary qualifier for sentience. With suggestion, this is done temporarily (perhaps a grounds for arguing that it is less severe than rape) by removing the sentient decision-making process itself, replacing it instead with the prefabricated decision of the Suggester. I also used the term "mindrape," a term I coined early on (long before studying Kant and the Utilitarian perspective on ethics). This term is also viable - rape is wrong because the decision to engage in intercourse was not made voluntarily, and so the decision making faculty, sentience, and rationality of the victim have been removed. Indeed, the rationality of the rape victim is being utterly disregarded - their decision (signified in resistance, for example) not to engage in intercourse (thus making the act a rape) means little to the rapist. Not only has he taken the use of the other person's body, he has also taken the significance of their decision, making it of little value. (The word "rape" comes from Latin rapere, "to snatch, seize, or take") From a Kantian perspective, also, telepathic suggestion faces problems. It seems to use the victim as a means only, and not as an end. Telepathic suggestion appears to cross the Formula of Humanity: "Act that you use humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, always at the same time as an end, never merely as a means." Telepathic suggestion seems to use a person merely as a means, forcing their decision and disregarding their own will in order to fulfill one's own will. Suggestion also goes against the Formula of Universality, which dictates that we must always "act as if the maxim of thy action were to become by thy will a universal law of nature." A "reader's digest" version of this would be "imagine that everyone in any similar situation would always respond the same way." If doing so causes a contradiction or leads to pandemonium, the law cannot be universalized, and the action is morally wrong. Kant would say that lying, for example, is wrong because one cannot universalize the maxim "always lie." Likewise, one cannot universalize the maxim "always use telepathic suggestion." One cannot universalize the opposites, either. While we can say "always tell the truth," we cannot say "never lie." Neither can we universalize "never use telepathic suggestion." One will always be able to find a reason that lying or using Suggestion is morally right - that's what philosophers do: make up outlandish abstract situations in order to demonstrate fallacies by extension. I would be interested to hear an ethical standpoint that would support the use of TPS outside of Egoism or Randian Individualism. I would also love to debate its ethical value within the scope of my own philosophical framework which I've laid out in this post. Enjoy. [Edit: This has brought about another question...perhaps I ought to write a book on Ethics in Psychicism. Hmm.] |
||||||||
| Back to top | |||||||||
| Posted on Fri Jul 21, 2006 4:13 am | |||||||||
PsiGuy60
Joined: 05 Jun 2006 |
My line in TPS? i would only make them do things that are normal to do, such as just move aside so i can go through. | ||||||||
| Back to top | |||||||||
| Posted on Fri Jul 21, 2006 5:13 am | |||||||||
Jael
Joined: 14 Jan 2006 |
PazarX and PsiGuy60, I think both of you have completely missed the point Aphanas made.
Peebrain, Elliptic, and Aphanas have all been trying to show this simple equation.
The situation, other than the IMMEDIATE loss of life, does not matter.
And in regards to being a healer... Anything I do that ignores someone's desires about their method of treatment is automatically incorrect. Perhaps you need to understand a bit more of what Hippocrates wrote before considering healing. Jael |
||||||||
| Back to top | |||||||||
| Posted on Fri Jul 21, 2006 6:44 am | |||||||||
Woodpecker
Joined: 24 Apr 2006 |
I have several things to say in this post. First, my own ethical standpoint:
TPS as I understand it (from reading this post and a few other things) is a decision forced on another without their knowing. That is wrong, because the victim is not in a positon to decide for themselves. The laundrette insurance is an example of where the person is forced to make an unpleasant decision, but at least they are aware of the situation. They could (although this is unlikely) decide not to take the insurance, for instance. The victim of TPS does not have this option. Now: JoeT's point about the drugs is a tricky one and I think on balance northstar was right. Undoubtedly the outcome was good, but the fact he was forced into that decision without knowing about the circumstances means that JoeT's use of TPS is not excusable. My second point relates to Adam. I know little about Adam: not much more than what has been said here, so please forgive me if I'm a little naive. Evan said that he knew how Adam was manipulating him because Adam told him so. I mean no disrespect in saying this, but to me that sounds like self-fulfilling prophesy. He told you he was doing something, your subconsious decided it was happening and then made it happen. Adam might not have done anything with TPS but you'ld still end up being manipulated, just it would seem like TPS rather than the reality of it being done in the normal, verbal way. If it was indeed self-fulfilling prophesy, you could have defended yourself simply by disbelieving him. Disbelief can be a powerful thing - consider the initial difficulty that has to be overcome when learning PK for instance. Finally, I am so pleased that this topic has been opened up. Not only is it interesting to see what people think, but it enables me to ask a question which has been bugging me for a few weeks. Are pinging and cloaking shields examples of TPS? With the cloak shield you programme it with something like, "don't look here" (so I have read) and with pinging you send out a message like, "hey" or "turn around." If the definition of TPS is forcing a thought on someone, then surely pinging and cloaking shields fit this description? 
|
||||||||
| Back to top | |||||||||
| Posted on Fri Jul 21, 2006 9:28 am | |||||||||
Psi_Ninja
Joined: 22 Feb 2006 |
Ok, i dont feel like typing nearly as much as the other people did in this topic. I think that TPS is kinda wrong unless it is just for fun. Like, me and HelloMoto do TPS on eachother just for fun. We try to move eachother, make eachother really itchy, ect. Nothing bad...
But if it isnt for anything like that, it is wrong. And it is bad. They should make a stronger word for how wrong it is. Its badwrong. Or... badong... yes, TPS is badong... People have the right to do what they want. Without this right, people wouldnt learn from their mistakes. If all the people in the world were the same, had the same views and opinions, then we would never have evolved this far. Differences is the key to evolution. Without differences, the world would be all the same, with primative people and primitive things. |
||||||||
| Back to top | |||||||||
| Posted on Fri Jul 21, 2006 10:04 am | |||||||||
PazarX
Joined: 12 Mar 2006 |
I'm here trying to throw out some answers that might be a practicle and moral use of TPS. After reading all that has been written i do see that it is wrong and that this skill is pretty much terrible but i know there has to be some way that this skill can be used for what's right. another of my idea's is...
in a maximum security prison. all the prisoners there have proven to do something rediculously terrible and therefor lost the privilage of thinking for themselves. they can be controlled to be less dangerous to the guards there and be generally more well behaved so they don't all kill eachother or the guards. thoughts? ~PazarX |
||||||||
| Back to top | |||||||||
| Posted on Fri Jul 21, 2006 10:04 am | |||||||||
Elliptic
Joined: 19 Jan 2006 |
What you are doing consentually with HelloMoto is acceptable because it is consentual, just like it is unacceptable to beat someone up, unless of course you're sparring in martial arts training. However, "just for fun" is not the reason that it's excusable - that opens a Pandora's Box - is murder ok as long as it's just for fun?
Not as such. Pinging is the sending of a message, not necessarily of an instruction, and it is typically sent to a target who is knowing and able to respond to the message. I might ping a friend of mine with a message to get online - but it is a message, not an order. They "receive" this mesage telepathically, but it does not force their hand. In cases where it does, accidentally, this may be TPS, but because of the abstract nature of the actions there is a lot to be said for intent. Cloaking shields, also, are not telepathic suggestion per se because they are not target directed. A cloaking shield which subtly projects to people not to see you is not directly influencing their decision making process - it is somewhat deceiving their senses, but it does not impact their sentience or rationality. This is in stark contrast to the telepathic suggestion which forces another to think a certain way. Surely mirrors are not immoral, even though they lead a viewer to believe they are looking at another person? |
||||||||
| Back to top | |||||||||
| Posted on Fri Jul 21, 2006 10:18 am | |||||||||
Aphanas
Joined: 14 Jan 2006 |
Heh... good question. While it seems to be a legitimate issue on the surface - if you're referring to normal pinging and cloaking shields, in my opinion you are not properly distinguishing between "taking an action yourself" vs. "coercing someone else into taking an action." By pinging someone else, you are taking an action. It is the psionic equivalent of looking into someone's front window, calling them on the phone, or knocking on their door to see if they are home. There is no coercive element involved in such an action, presuming that you are polite about it and not attempting to "kick down the door" psionically, or violate their privacy. When using a standard cloaking shield, or hedge shield, you are also not coercing someone else to alter their behavior. You are simply denying them access to information concerning your current whereabouts and status. Because that is your personal information, from a privacy standpoint, you are not infringing on any "right" that they have to access the information. You are doing the equivalent of closing the curtains on your house, sending the phone to voicemail, or not answering the door. Nowhere are you dictating the behavior of (or coercing) the other individual. It is possible to act in a coercive manner with your shield if it is specifically designed to force or interject thoughts onto anyone that looks for you. I would consider such a reactive shield response to be an attack, myself (and would likely response appropriately depending on how aggressively the attack was done). In our real world analogy it would be the equivalent of meeting the inquiring party at the door with a shotgun and marching them off the property, or worse... standing in the doorway and starting to shoot at them. That would be coercive behavior, and would be an inappropriate ethical response (in my opinion) unless they were a known threat to you. If you are concerned about the method you have programmed into your cloaking shield, I would suggest altering it so that you are simply denying information and redirecting inquiries, rather than aggressively projecting into the person looking for you. Perhaps use one of the computer firewalls that operates in "stealth mode" as an example for your subconscious. In the same way, pinging would be considered a form of coercion if it attempts to penetrate someone's shielding despite the "go away" message. You are attempting to force or trick the other person into giving up private information if you proceed past the polite refusal. Again, there is a fundamental difference in the level of coercion between "politely knocking on the door" and "kicking it down" psionically. Are there times when such coercion would be appropriate? Yes. If the situation was critical (say in an emergency or life-threatening situation), it would be an appropriate use of coercion. In the same way, I would break into someone's house through the locked door if:
2) there was sufficient need to communicate with them (their child/spouse is dying right now) 3) they were an immediate threat to others (they're sniping neighbors from their bedroom window, etc). The issue still comes back to whether an action that you take (psionic or otherwise) is coercive, and if so, when is that coercion appropriate? Normal pinging and hedge shielding are not coercive because you aren't attempting to dictate the other person's behavior. Some of the other forms of "pinging" or reactive shielding would be coercive - and you should probably ask yourself if coercing someone is ethical under those circumstances... before you take those actions. A fundamental skill for ethical practice is learning to recognize when you are acting in a coercive manner - by evaluating whether you are attempting to dictate the behavior of the other person. Then it becomes much easier to determine whether you should be acting in such a manner. If it is not coercive, I wouldn't worry about it overly much. You might be acting rudely or abruptly, but probably aren't acting unethically. If your actions are coercive, is the coercion appropriate due to emergency circumstances, or is it just an attempt to force your will upon others? Hope that helps, --Aphanas |
||||||||
| Back to top | |||||||||
| Posted on Fri Jul 21, 2006 12:16 pm | |||||||||
Woodpecker
Joined: 24 Apr 2006 |
Making them behave better via TPS is not good because they are meant to learn to be well-behaved. If you force them by TPS, at the end of their sentence they will behave no better than when they went in, so the risk of them reoffending is high. The idea of having prisoners as puppets is not a friendly prospect by any stretch of the imagination, especially since some prison guards are corrupt and might manipulate the prisoners for their own ends. Also, you say it has been proved that they commited a terrible crime. True, a Jury has been convinced they did it, but there are still cases where the wrong man has been convicted. P.S. Thanks, Elliptic and Aphanas for clearing up my question.
|
||||||||
| Back to top | |||||||||
Goto page Previous 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 Next
PsiPog.net Forum Index » Telepathy and Empathy » Your ethical standpoint
All Content, Images, Video, Text, and Software is © Copyright 2000-2006 PsiPog.net and their respective authors. All Rights Reserved.
You must agree to the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy to view this website. Click here to contact the webmaster.