Rat Park was an experiment conducted by one of Harlow's students, Alexander. These experiments studied the nature of addiction and challenged the long-held belief that substances such as morphine and heroin are innately addictive and irresistible. Alexander questioned this based on his own observations and conducted Rat Park to find the truth. Amazingly, rats not only avoid mind-altering drugs when in social situations but will even avoid these drugs after being forcibly "addicted". This led to the rise of the view of addiction in which drugs are used as a coping mechanism, a view that I personally agree with based on my observations.
Lost in the Mall echoed many things I've learned in previous classes, but was no less disturbing to read than it always is. Personally, I can't help but wonder who I'd be without my memories and experiences, and to think that the building-blocks of my personality could be fabricated so easily is troubling. I imagine that the constant bleeding of memory and imagination that occurs within our minds is a huge contributing factor to the amazing ideas and inventions that humans are capable of, but at what cost? I think that the average person is better off the way they are, faulty memory and all. The real problems occur when unethical people leverage this weakness in cognition to brainwash people and convince them of lies.
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