[ExI] Circumcision

[Anders]

On 2016-06-14 22:54, BillK wrote:
> Remembered suffering = PTSD and that ruins lives.
> PTSD victims would welcome amnesia.

PTSD is a unusual fault mode of the memory system. Seems to be possible 
to induce by strong aversive experience setting up a link between a 
context/memory and amygdala activation, but not everybody is vulnerable. 
It might be that PTSD sufferers actually can remember suffering, but 
also that they might be "good" at generating new suffering (memory is 
reconstructive) or just that it is a bad feedback loop of somewhat bad 
experience triggering stress and hence a learning signal that reinforces 
the memory (and this loop then becomes aversive even if the memory 
isn't). Not sure where the current neuroconsensus is on which 
alternative is most likely.


-- 
Dr Anders Sandberg
Future of Humanity Institute
Oxford Martin School
Oxford University