Consciousness: Lecture #3 Video (Mind Control)

- Psilocybin
o active ingredient in magic mushrooms (psychedelic drug)
o Psilocybin is believed to improve disorders such as depression
- Ivan Pavlov studied the saliva produced by dogs when they consumed certain foods; he
discovered that the dogs salivated when they saw the men in white coats bringing food
- The Pavlovian response:
o Intitially interested in saliva- noticed than dogs first salivated at the sight of food,
then began to salivate when they saw others, etc. Dealt with change in reflexes.
o Then began to work with children no sense of ethical regulation
o take a metronome associated with an electric shock on dogs given enough time
the dogs would jump merely at the sound of the metronome. Pavlov discovered
that human responses can be conditioned.
- Operon conditioning: teaching of new behaviours
- Skinner box
o used in E.B Skinners experiments. Pigeon follows instructions and are rewarded
if they peck or turn when a sign appears. This idea enhances the ability to
modify behaviour.
o Controlled and constant environment in box you could be sure you were doing
the only manipulating
o Free will was viewed as unscientific nonsense by Skinner; he tried to remove
individualism
o Wrote Walden 2 and Beyond Freedom- lays out his vision of the world, believed
that we were compositions of reinforcement behaviours
o many thought his techniques were evil and controlled, however, much of his work
makes sense
o ex; there would be no prisons, no punishments, only POSITIVE reinforcement,
like getting a quarter for parking, instead of being charged parking fees
- Applied Behaviour Analysis: reinforcing good behaviour by allowing for reward based
motivation
- William Sargant
o sought to interpret how North Korean communist brainwashing worked: sargant
thought he could break down then re-construct the brain to establish brainwashing

- Electron Shock Therapy:
- experiment performed by Sargant where 110 volts were sent into the frontal lobes of the
brain while the patient was sedated in order to wipe the brain clean. In the case of a
patient, Mary, she had huge holes in her memory. ECT disrupts and destroys memories,
but ECT failed to break strong memory bonds.
- there were flaws in Sargants brainwashing theory
- LSD couldnt effectively alter an individual: they were unpredictable in effects and they
didnt last long. MKULTRA was run by CIA, some experiments done at McGill
- On a scanner, large blue blobs indicate parts of the brain that are inhibited during
psilocybin activity
- Hallucinogenic drugs may play a positive role in therapeutic ways; psilocybin may cure
depression
- Milgram showed through shock experiments that in the right conditions, individuals obey
authority and abandon moral (actors pretended to be severely shocked when the test
subject shocked them for receiving the wrong answer to a question. The experimenter
demanded the test subject to continue the voltage until the lethal shock, which again,
was not real, was sent through the actor; most of the test subjects ended up delivering the
lethal shock even though it voided their moral. People who delivered this lethal shock
were supposedly psychopaths, but this was not truly the case) 2/3 went all the way
- According to Milgrim, societys rules must be obeyed by its participants
- Robert Heath
o used experiments to map out brain activity; he used electrical stimulation
(planting electrodes into the supposed stimulating areas of the brain to change
behaviour)
o Heaths most extreme experiment was on a gay men where he showed him
softcore porn and implanted electrodes into his brain to attempt to make him
straight. Heath later hired a prostitute and the man, formerly gay, enjoyed the sex.
o Risks of implanting electrodes is high and difficult
- Misenebock
o a neuroscientist, used light to manipulate the choices flies make
o 12 cells in the central brain of a fly out of 200,000 determine if behaviour should
be changed
- Optogenitics is the monitoring and controlling of neurons through the use of both light
and genetics