Oh, and Charles Ramsey is a baller’s baller.

Indeed.

I’m going to raise my hand and admit that I’m one of those big-bad dualists. As such, I’m convinced that the chemical composition of your brain influences behavior, but I believe that to say the universe is purely materialistic ignores the reality of quantum mechanics. I’d forgive you for describing people as automatons, and it is after all not a new idea. After the advent of neuroscience in the mid-1600′s and the development of nascent theories about the relationship between mind and brain, the French physician Julien Offray de la Mettrie in his notorious 1747 book, L’homme machine (Man the Machine), took materialism to its logical conclusion by treating the brain as a machine that responds reflexively to external stimuli. This argument was grounded in Cartesian space and Newtonian physics. We know today that the universe is much more complicated than this; quantum mechanics allows for randomness, for we must talk in terms of probabilities, and not certainties, to describe phenomena at the quantum level. How can we be so sure that materialism can provide all the answers to the mind and brain quandry? What questions can materialism not answer? If quantum mechanics tells us that matter behaves probabilistically, and can actually manifest from nothing, and disappear as well, then surely there is still room for much speculation as to how the brain works at a fundamental level (and the rest of the universe for that matter), and whether or not an extra-material concept like a soul or freewill may exist. Yes, taking drugs does change the way one behaves or thinks. But is the brain a one way street? OCD patients have a sense of self independent of their illness, an intuitive sense that the brain is sending the wrong messages. The use of conscious will and effort to change and cure OCD and re-wire brain circuity is very compelling, and perhaps is evidence of self controlling the brain, and not the other way around. But this is food for thought. Perhaps one would discredit this and logically argue that the self is an illusion. But again, this too is speculative because the idea is based on assumptions about the nature of matter, and I have trouble accepting the idea that a large enough mass of neurons results in the phenomena of consciousness. In conclusion, there are many unanswered questions, and we’re just going to have to be satisfied with our own speculations. I identify as a dualist because I see a happy medium between materialism and the self/conscience dilemma for the reasons I mentioned previously.

Or an alternate conclusion. If Overboard’s sex is mostly harmless and it counts as rape, maybe rape is mostly harmless. Maybe we take rape too seriously. I’m not saying we do. I’m saying if you’re going to ask these questions you should be prepared to consider answers you might not like.

Scroll down at the comments. Lui and 400 other people think that the operator should be fired for “ruining the story”.

If that something is good or at least makes him do good things, you gotta double the score. If he’s willing to suffer for it, triple it.