the ethics of how memory works

All I could think of was Joan of Arc, and I kept chuckling to my self as I drove home listening to the tale end of an npr program about scientists controlling the intensity of memories that are recalled...or some shit like that.

I think they said they could first provoke the recall of the memory, then control the intensity of the emotioinal effect of the individual. That is all besides the point--the real thing to talk about is the fact that scientists are advancing in the area of "should this shit really be tampered with?" Of course, so I remember them mentioning, this has something to do with getting people's weight under control--at least that was what they were researching when they stummbled upon this new "big toy" of the ethical playground of today.

On one end of this, as a friend of mine says, "life is pain". The reporter mentioned something about someday using this advancement in helping those who have had experiences with memories too unbearable to survive them. It is good to help. There are the extreme cases where it is easy to say: "they need this". But, like the 2/3rds of this Earth, darkness obscures.
The people of the capitalist system will do well to exploit the medicine-meant-well, and we will throw this into the bin of "crap the presidential candidates can argue over". Like plastic surgery, hormonal drugs, and all the other well intended medical advances, the susceptibility of this to abuse by those in the shadows of imprudence, as well as those who are filthy with money, is already apparent--I can imagine it in their dreams, and then not in their dreams: another injection to escape reality.

"Life is pain." Life is experience and is nothing without pain, among other things.

What is it that draws me to find necessity in relating to the rest of humanity, past and present? (The question of what is necessary to relate to past humanity is more difficult.) Experience is what bonds us to the rest of humanity. The links we have to all humanity--before and possibly after (if it is feasable)--are becoming fewer more rapidly. The link to the humanity of Christ is drifting somewhere, though some say that God and religion are the only tools you need to remedy your mind. Others say: deal with it.

Perhaps we are widening our experience of freedom by adding more possibilities of choice. However, the reality of not having to deal with what is dealt puts us in an estranged category that I am too unfamiliar with to have any emotion about...much like worrying about alien life.