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Comment by functional | Hacker News Reader

The research may show that the mice are responding to stimuli, but how can anyone honestly claim to know what the experience is like, or whether the "memories" are truly recalled as negative and induce actual "fear".

I mean, it's not like mice can verbalize their experience. They don't use words to tell us how they "feel" about these memories on the inside.

And in the article, it states that no new memories were actually created. Only the nature of existing memories were augmented to be negative.

From the article:

  ...whether they could create a new, negative association 
  by flipping the switch on an old, neutral memory while 
  giving the mouse a negative experience.

So they took an existing memory of a location, and made the mice scared of the location. That's a lot different from the claim in the headline.

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If the mice respond in a way that indicates a fear response, why would you not consider that as strong evidence for the experience of fear? I would also add that verbalizing an "experience" is a behavior just the same as a "fear response" action being observed. Both types of evidence have the same problem of extrapolating the inner mind by external behavior.

If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, then its a duck. That's the best we can do for now, whether mice or men.

> If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, then its a duck. That's the best we can do for now, whether mice or men.

That doesn't sound particularly scientific. Sometimes a bit of precision with language is nice.

Yes, that's a fear response, but there's still a missing link. The mice associate blue-cage-related-thoughts with pain, but that doesn't mean they have any memory of being hurt inside a blue cage. They might just remember the time they were considering blue cages and got punished.

In short: just because their test activated a memory doesn't mean it created one

I volunteer to take part in an experiment for false memory implantation on humans. Sounds like fun.

Sounds like you'll be brain-dead afterwards.

You already did, and were a great help.

Hah!

Reminds me of "Tom" from 50 first dates. Thanks for the good laugh this afternoon.

I wish there was a website where people could sign up to volunteer for experimentation. They could make (simplified) health data available, and tick what kinds of things they'd like to do.

Until then, here's a website that'll let you experience a common memory error. (http://psych.hanover.edu/JavaTest/CLE/Cognition/Cognition/fa...)

There are probably more experiments you can do on yourself to induce a false memory.

That might be a good idea for the future, if we can insure the experiments are done ethically, and with the subject's full understanding.

It's amazing that intelligent people often accept material answers to immaterial questions like memory, consciousness and thought. As if those questions could ever be answered by natural sciences.

It's amazing that intelligent people can assume that questions of memory, consciousness and thought cannot be answered by the natural sciences.

Given our species long history of pushing back the boundaries of mysticism, fear and uncertainty, it would seem presumptuous to doubt that our own minds are somehow exempt from the rules of the natural world.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Concept_of_Mind

If you could actually define those words in a rigorous way, maybe then we'd be able to have a conversation about whether or not they are material. Too bad nobody really knows what consciousness is. Do you have some insight that nobody else has?

It's pretty clear there is a physical basis for cognition. Some extremely pedantic philosophers may not come to the same conclusion though. If you have any doubts, here's how you can find out: get a friend to beat your head in with a baseball bat (made with preferably something tough like steel or titanium).

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