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Tool Use Is Just a Trick of the Mind
TwistedOne151 writes to recommend a ScienceNOW article describing the work of a team of Italian neurobiologists who have found the roots of the capacity for tool use in the primate brain: the brain treats the tool as part of the body. The experiment as described is passing clever.
RON PAUL.
Obviously there are differences, but if you truly want the difference you would see that there are (large) parts of your brain that see no difference between really blasting people and playing video games. In some people there truly isn't any part of the brain that sees a difference.
*if* there is a part of the brain that sees a difference, it will be the frontal cortex (yes you can physically cut that part out and make immoral people that way). So this is the situation : 99.9% of the brain does not see a difference between blasting people in GTA and in reality. Or, more exact, they can identify whether you are shooting in GTA or in real life, but they don't care about the information. In short, they will not attempt to stop you if it's real life, they will just pass the information on.
Please set aside all notions of "builtin" morality. There's no such thing. The frontal cortex is the one that is trained right after a certain phase that generally occurs in children just before their second birthday. If at that time you teach a kid to kill, it will not be possible to prevent them from murdering later in life using *any* means other than outright force (to physically prevent them), there is not a single deterrent that will stop them. A kid *will* try to kill around that time. They will try to target either siblings, pets or their parents. Generally they get hurt in the attempt, and learn that it is *not* okay to kill.