Magnetic morality

Now here's some meat for the next book, after I finish my 2009 Nano-novel, that is. That deals with the possible ramifications of using high and low frequency sound to influence the moods and actions of others. I have 50,00 words, but it needs a lot of work, and I've been busy with Authonomy.com,where 'Eland Dances' has been posted for 6 weeks now. Got to #380 out of about 5,000 on their site, so far.

Anyway, this news about the Moral Compass being vulnerable to magnetism has me going hmmm.

Turning off someone's moral compass is as easy as holding a magnet up to their head, new research from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology suggests.

Rather than judging people based on their actions, most people tend to judge based on the intent of those actions, too.

If a man trips his girlfriend on the sidewalk, for example, we determine if he is morally wrong based on whether it was by accident or on purpose.

But when a small area of the brain just above the right ear, called the right temporo-parietal junction, is disabled, we lose that ability entirely.

Instead, we judge the morality of an action based solely on its outcome. In this case, whether the girlfriend was hurt. If she came out of the trip unharmed, then the boyfriend was, morally speaking, in the clear regardless of whether he meant to injure her.

In the research project, led by Liane Young at MIT, people were asked to evaluate different scenarios like the one above and grade the morality of each person in question. Then a magnet was applied to the outside of their head just above the temporo-parietal junction, disabling the subject's ability to interpret intent.

The results astounded the researchers.

"Subjects were asked to judge how permissible it is for someone to let his girlfriend walk across a bridge he knows to be unsafe, even if she ends up making it across safely," said Anne Trafton, a spokeswoman at MIT.

"In such cases, a judgment based solely on the outcome would hold the perpetrator morally blameless, even though it appears he intended to do harm."

“You think of morality as being a really high-level behaviour,” she continued. “To be able to apply [a magnetic field] to a specific brain region and change people’s moral judgments is really astonishing.” Next, researchers want to examine perceptions of luck in moral judgment. A drunk driver, for example, may or may not kill someone as a result of their actions and whether they do is largely considered to be up to luck.

But the unlucky driver tends to be judged "more morally blameworthy,"

researchers suggest, even though both drivers did the same thing.

Young now hopes to discover if disabling the same part of the brain that determines intent has any effect on peoples' perceptions of luck.









Environment

Short story to be published

Just got an e-mail from Rose and Thorn Journal that they will be publishing my 2000 word story 'Have you Seen the Elephant?'in their spring 2010 issue. www.roseandthornejournal.com
This will be an unpaid publication, but every little bit helps.

One year later, here we are again

Time to get doing again. I have recently uploaded the latest version of 'Eland Dances' on Authonomy.com. There are quite a few other aspiring writers, together with some published authors, who frequent the site.
The carrot is the long-shot possibility of some browsing agent or editor noticing your work and perhaps signing a contract. There is the even more unlikely possibility of Harper Collins, who run the site, liking something they see. The top five books in any given month get a review by Harper Collins editors.
Oh yes, everyone reads and 'backs' work they like. Each backing earns points, and these accumulate. The top five have each been backed by at least 1,200 others. After 2 weeks, mine has been backed by 97.
I don't expect to reach the top rating, but have had feedback from some, either praise or minor critique. Essentially if someone just plain doesn't like your stuff, you don't hear of it, because they simply pass over to something else.
I have been sending out short stories, with some success, and have sent queries to a couple of agents, and the manuscript to one publisher, with no success.
during November i did the NanoWrimo thing again, and now have something over 50,000 words, the bones of another book. Before I get into completing that, I would like to get 'Eland' going again, perhaps published. If there's nothing doing from conventional routes, I shall self-publish, and let Amazon sell it for Kindle.