Sometimes, 1 Life Is Greater Than 5 Lives

MIT's Rebecca Saxe looks at how we make moral decisions. Part 8 of Unlocking the Secrets and Powers of the Brain http://discovermagazine.com/events/unlocking-the-secrets-and-powers-of-the-br...

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• mind
• brain
• rebecca_saxe
• moral
• decisions
• life

[DontTouchMyVicodin]

I want more of her stories. I could listen to those all day.

[kreisiass]

this girl is fucked up mind. MIT troll. its like investin 5 million dollars to calculate is it right or wrong to use your dick if its bigger than your friends dick.

[luisprieb]

For this, there cant be a right judgement for this situations. In the end, it all comes to interpretation.

[luisprieb]

He did something wrong, but did he do it intentionally? He said he didnt care about it, but many people said he did it intentionally, but his words were: I dont care about the enviroment. On the other situation he was not blamed for the good deed he did. People blaming for other people comes more to the fact of its something good or bad. Human by nature looks more at the wrong rather than the good the people do.

[luisprieb]

Meanwhile if he leaves it like that, the death of the five men would not be his fault cause they went into danger by them getting stuck in the rails. Is hard to think which is the best descions. It just seems there is not a real decision. On the other situation (the CEO deciding on where to build his company), it looks like we make a wrong judgement of him after we here the second scene. The fact that he did something wrong and didnt stop himself made us look like he did it intentionally.

[luisprieb]

First way is that killing the five people is wrong, because if you kill the one person less people die. The other way it can be looked is that if the man turns the lever, it would be him putting the man into danger. For the moment he is safe because the train is going on another direction, but by him pulling the lever, he would actually be responsible for the death of the man.

[luisprieb]

Each situation have different ways to look at it. On the case of the man having to kill the five people or the one person, it all comes to the opinion of the people. If he would turn the lever would he be saving five people and since you killed one would it be like saving four? On the heat of the situation the person on the train must not have enough time to think and maybe kill the five people. This could be wrong or right depending on where you look at it.

[antonkhuu]

youre right , that would be more accurat .

[rudyrocks41]

That's a really good way to put it. Something never seemed right in those trolley problems to me.  The hospital scenario makes this much more obvious, doesn't it?

[Humans2Singularity]

As hyperseauton says, language is the key. Rebeccase should work closely with scientist in linguistics to make sure they understand how they use the language in their questions. A neuron cannot make any abstract decision, but I think the question itself does make sense. Is like asking does an apple think?