cyborg
02-09-2007, 03:21 PM
Cambridge, Mass. - February 1, 2007 - Through an online survey of more than 2,000 people, psychologists at Harvard University have found that we perceive the minds of others along two distinct dimensions: agency, an individual's ability for self-control, morality and planning; and experience, the capacity to feel sensations such as hunger, fear and pain.
The findings, presented this week in the journal Science, not only overturn the traditional notion that people see mind along a single continuum, but also provide a framework for understanding many moral and legal decisions and highlight the subjective nature of perceiving mental attributes in others.
http://www.fas.harvard.edu/home/news_and_events/releases/mind_02012007.html
Agency is the higher order output of experience and experience is much more than an organism's functional nerve endings. The two domains are not separate "distinct dimensions", but closer to unique process and output for each individual mind. What we really have is a tragic example of 2000 surveyed people whos society has given them a world view rooted in dualism and that is the only valid finding here.
The findings, presented this week in the journal Science, not only overturn the traditional notion that people see mind along a single continuum, but also provide a framework for understanding many moral and legal decisions and highlight the subjective nature of perceiving mental attributes in others.
http://www.fas.harvard.edu/home/news_and_events/releases/mind_02012007.html
Agency is the higher order output of experience and experience is much more than an organism's functional nerve endings. The two domains are not separate "distinct dimensions", but closer to unique process and output for each individual mind. What we really have is a tragic example of 2000 surveyed people whos society has given them a world view rooted in dualism and that is the only valid finding here.