Torture to uncover brain secrets - BBC

[DoYouEverWonder]

12 January, 2005

Volunteers are to undergo torture to see if faith eases pain.

Oxford University scientists will carry out experiments on hundreds of people in a bid to understand how the brain works during states of consciousness.

One aspect of the two-year study will involve followers of both religious and secular faiths being burnt to see if they can handle more pain than others.

Some volunteers will be shown religious symbols such as crucifixes and images of the Virgin Mary during the torture.

<snip>

The team from the newly-formed Centre for Science of the Mind also want to include people with survival techniques in the torture experiments, which may help the special forces easily identify people with high pain thresholds.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4167565.stm


At first I thought I had clinked into the National Enquirer, but no, it's on the BBC so it must be true. Does anyone else think there is something really warped about this whole story. BTW, who the heck is the newly-formed Centre for Science of the Mind, graduates from the Nazi concentration camps?

[Bronco69]

1. I suggest they start with Falwell and Robertson.

:-)

[Solly Mack]

4. Nah, Gonzales first. Then he can write a memo telling us how quaint it

was to be tortured.

[rodeodance]

5. te he

[soothsayer]

2. i knew Passion of the Christ was the new rightwing porno

This is an extension of that. Torture and religious fervor---ah! What a combo.

[DoYouEverWonder]

7. That's what happens

when you repress the expression of your natural sexual desires.

That's why so many perverts and wackos are either Republicans and/or fundies.

[Atlas Mugged]

8. Let's start selling hair shirts NOW!!!

We'll be rich! Buy two and get a free set of thunb screws!

[DoYouEverWonder]

9. Wow, what a concept

There's a fortune to be made in them ther xians. Unfortunately we would then be in the same league as Robertson and Falwell, so I guess I'll just stick to printing nature t-shirts.

[selmo7]

15. I thought the same thing

when the Passion came out. Glorifying pain. SICK.
I doubt Jesus glorified any of his pain.
Is this at all related to Opus Dei?

[Just Me]

3. Ummmm,...that is sick.

Really, really sick.

[muriel_volestrangler]

6. Headed by Susan Greenfield

one of the highest profile scientists in Britain, and fairly mainstream.

The centre really does seem brand new - this is the only web reference I can find, form a couple of weeks ago:

A research centre to study the origins of beliefs, from those that make children think that Santa Claus delivers Christmas presents to the faith that drives fundamentalists to terrorism, is to be set up at Oxford University.

The initial funding of more than £1 million over two years to establish the Oxford Centre for the Science of the Mind, with a promise of more funding if it proves successful, marks a remarkable coup for Lady Greenfield, the Oxford University neuroscientist.

In the inter-departmental centre she will direct the effort to shed new light on the riddle of human consciousness.

"To the best of my knowledge, this is the first ever project in the UK which has an equal balance between science and the humanities," said Lady Greenfield. Belief will be a particular focus of the new centre, which will look for activities in the brain linked with faith, the similarities between religious and secular beliefs, such as the "common misconception that men are superior to women", why people sometimes die for their beliefs, and how they link with consciousness.

http://www.travel.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/12/27/nfaith127.xml&sSheet=/news/2004/12/27/ixhome.html

[JohnOneillsMemory]

26. Valid study. But everything learned about 'MIND' becomes weaponized.

"The pain matrix is not fully understood yet."

Dr Alison Gray, a spokeswoman for the Royal College of Psychiatrists, said: "The experience of pain depends on biological factors such as the amount of tissue damage and release of natural pain killers - endorphins - in the brain.

"We know anecdotally that religious believers can tolerate great pain when there is a specific purpose, and I would speculate that this would operate via endorphin release.

"Religious practices such as prayer and meditation release endorphins and would in theory increase the pain threshold.

"It will be interesting to see what these trials show, it may be that the specific purpose of bearing the pain is missing, if so I would expect the tests would be inconclusive."

But the Church of England said it was possible religion could be of help.

A spokesman said: "Pain is a fact of life, whatever your beliefs. Christians feel pain just like everyone else, but many would say that their belief in a God who cares and the promises of the Bible are a huge comfort in difficult times."
-----------------------------------

Two thoughts:
1) This is a damn good time to do rational analysis about what 'faith' does to our minds and bodies just as 'fascism' was studied after WWII. Very important things were discovered, and, unfortunately for us, then exploited to prolong the Cold War and create the War on Terrorism. American scientific fascism is based on beliefs induced by propaganda to intentionally induce a controlled level of fear of enemies tempered by the hope of capitalist riches.

But a distinct psychological profile, the Authoritarian Personality, was codified as a result of the studies and shown to be part of religious cult power as well as right-wing political views which can very easily be exploited by a strong fuhrer-figure like W who allows no deviation from 'his way' and warns us of invisible threats.
http://www.anesi.com/fscale.htm
(The F-Factor or Fascism Receptivity Test)

So studying 'faith's' effect on humans while a fascist theocracy is in power in the US and threatening the world, torture is institutional, and lots of suffering is in our foreseeable future seems timely and appropriate.

2) I've reached a conclusion through my own studies on why people need to have optimism or 'FAITH' in Santa Claus or Best Dad or Best God or Best Football team or Best Country or suffer a brain chemical-induced loss of performance ability called depression.

My answer-
Evolution has given human biology...THE OPTIMISM IMPERATIVE.
That is, we need to believe that whatever we source from (parents, nation, planet, deities) WANTS US TO SURVIVE SO WE WILL MAKE THE EFFORT TO DO SO.

If we have more fear than hope, we don't function well and evolution makes us targets for elimination in the 'food chain.'

But why?

Almost all biological mechanisms (and 'mind' is a biological result of 'brain') are geared towards an organism's achieving survival and spreading genes. This is the core mechanism of Darwin's Natural Selection model of evolution.

The emotions of fear and hope are 'mind's' evaluation of the liklihood of survival based on sensory input stimuli combined with memory-based anticipation of what those stimuli suggest. The different prospects for survival and procreation suggested by 'tigers all around' or 'women all around' produce different chemicals in our nervous systems that affect our brain's performance.

Depression, or lack of 'faith/optimism,' reduces activity and lessens one's chances of leaving the cave to find food and a mate.

Religions that involve a benevolent omnipotent deity also mimic the psychological imprinting every human recieves as a helpless child dependent on the sustained efforts of parents to protect and nurture them. Social controls are induced into every child's personality through methods that, to the helpless child, resemble torture. This confusing alternation between suffering and security allows many to believe in a loving and protective God even in a world of horrible and arbitrary suffering.
http://www.actabuse.com/chartofcoercion.html
(Biderman's Chart of Coercion)

So faith reflects the belief that something more powerful than tigers or human torturers will look out for you like a parent, even if only in an after-life.

This leads to the longest-term brain comfort of 'faith': not fearing death.

Thousands of years ago, humans started to figure out that they had a limited lifespan and came up with explanations of where they went after life to diminish the fear of the unknown. 'Faith' serves to allay that fear.

So all this explains why 'faith' or optimism is a self-perpetuating state of mind and depression or pessimism is a self-eliminating state of mind in the human nervous system we inherited long before Machiavelli, Hitler, and the neo-cons worked the levers of hope and fear, optimism and pessimism, to manipulate people.

This is also the parallel between biology and capitalist investment markets. Pessimism keeps investors out and optimism brings them in.
This leads to the distorted reasoning that anyone critical of unregulated corporate capitalism is anti-American and a threat to every American's survival. This idea is one of the principle propaganda messages in the 20th century and gave us the deification of Ronald Reagans based on the unsubstantiated optimism of his 'Morning in America' political theme.

What free-market apologists omit from their attempt to equate 'freedom' with an unregulated market is that a system based on self-interest with no check on power is by definition psychopathic and leads to the remorseless causing of suffering in others, something many see coming from the corporate-owned and run White House.
http://207.44.245.159/article7253.htm
(Confessions of an Economic Hit Man - John Perkins)


This week's cover story of Time magazine is 'The Science of Happiness' with a yellow smiley face at the center of a molecule and phrases like "Does God Want Us to be Happy?" - "What is joy?" floating underneath.

The scientific fascists who design and operate our society's mainstream media are pushing the public towards the blind faith of religion to reduce the rationality of the masses to make them less questioning of their 'leaders' and more tolerant of the ever-increasing suffering their greedy and violent policies will produce for us.

Studies like the one at this British Centre for the Science of the Mind will get lots of money to find better ways to manipulate us with impunity, I'm afraid.

But I have FAITH that more and more of us will figure out the scam and thwart their long-term plans using the collective intelligence shared at websites like Democratic Underground.

[punpirate]

10. After reading...

... that they plan to burn subjects, my first thought is that they could save a lot of time and money by getting hold of G. Gordon Liddy. :P

[BBradley]

11. All they'd have to do is let me play one of these babies and burn away

[neweurope]

12. Hm. Somehow sounds as if they're studying brainwashing...

I don't think I like this Centre for Science of the Mind. Where do they get their money?


------------------

Remember Fallujah

Bush to The Hague!

[FormerDittoHead]

13. You maybe right ...or maybe prepare our troops for torture...

...seeing that there will be nothing to inhibit future enemies from using it on us, as they know we use it against THEIR troops...

[selmo7]

14. Shades of MKUltra

"will carry out experiments on hundreds of people in a bid to understand how the brain works during states of consciousness."

High pain thresholds = dissociative states of consciousness. Personality splitting. That's what torture does - it fractures the personality. One part takes the pain while another part doesn't feel it. The part that takes the pain often becomes a sick muthaf*er.

Colin Ross documented how it is done in Bluebird
http://www.wanttoknow.info/bluebird10pg

but the testimony of survivors of ritual abuse-torture is ubiquitous as to the impacts of torture on their personalities, their "pain thresholds," and their "faith."

This study is entirely unnecessarily, is cruel and inhuman, and should be against international law to even propose, (let alone ethically incomprehensible to even contemplate). (Who volunteers to be tortured? Give me a break.)

The ends (identifying/creating the perfect soldier) do NOT justify the means.

[nashville_brook]

23. never thought of it this way, but it's also the premise of most comics --

a villian or a superhero is "made" thru a dissociative experience (murder of family, chemical disfigurment) and behavior change is manifested as cartoonish personality split.

it's not science -- it's the adult version of burning ants under a magnifying glass.

[NashVegas]

16. Straight Out of the Princess Bride

"I'm taking my brain away."

Even faith in Buttercup couldn't stop the Machine.

[noonwitch]

17. This study can't be valid, only masochists will volunteer

They get off on torture, so how can their reactions be applied to the population at large?

[undergroundpanther]

18. When I was a kid

A pedo neighbor did perverted shit to me,while projecting images of armegeddon on the wall with a home filmstrip projector. It messed me up for years.It has taken me years of therapy to come to grips with it.And I'm still not ok.I rarely feel happy or safe ever.
But I can conrtol how much pain I can feel.I was in a car accident a few years back,got hit crossing the street because the asshole didn't have his lights on I didn't see him and he didn't see me, and after I was hit I could control the pain of my dislocated legs.The EMTs were suprised and when they realized I wasen't in shock and I was deliberately numbing.I numbed my legs so that I could heal better and not injure myself more.

On the bad side of this I have scars,fractures from burns and cuts and whatnot I self inflicted(didn't feel that either) trying to overcome the trauma's effects.
These fuckers in power are sociopaaths.In cases like mine they have all the evidence they need to show trauma hurts your heart and spirit forever,but it can enable you to withstand phusical pain at a horroble price.Once you face torture the world and people are never safe, trustworthy,beautiful,again.

[Monkie]

20. power and abuse are intimately connected..

you are not alone
most "normal" people have no idea and sociopaths is the perfect description for them.
for some reason, maybe cause i'm "different", people talk to me, and the ONE thing they talk about is the abuse.
its changed me, and i can only imagine/feel how it changes the those affected but what strikes me most is that although changed those that have suffered always are the people whose smile i trust the most,the most special people in my life.
i believe that if we really want to do something about the abuse of power the power of abuse has to be tackled

[prayin4rain]

22. Well, that is just terrible.

You sound like things are getting better and I am sure they will continue to get better. :pals: Most people are good. Most of life is good. Those few bad people and few bad times really can have a lasting effect though, can't they? I am so happy you for you that you have worked so hard on getting over this and have made so much progress.

[undergroundpanther]

25. Thanks

Sometimes"treatment" can be abusive too.You have to be careful.And back away out of any treatment or therapist you don't trust.It took awhile for me to learn that lesson and I got harmed before I got out.Most people are good I think until bullies and the power abuzse system makes them bad.And I think some people are basically born without empathy or a sense of connection to others,they are emotionally dangerous,some people are born without that essential thing within that makes us capable of feeling and sharing love.

[JohnOneillsMemory]

19. Ah, the 'Torquemada in Gitmo Project'...no one expects the Spanish Inqui..

Are researchers working for the CIA? They have already done the 'research'...

[prayin4rain]

21. This doesn't seem like a good idea to me.

I guess they don't have human review board in England? I am really surprised by this. Not good.

[central scrutinizer]

24. Paging Dr. Mengele

Lab STAT