Re: MAPS: Free lunch with Gen. McCaffrey

[Charles Esteban Paul <epsasnova@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Anecdotally, I know of one experiment that supports McCaffrey's statement.

John Lily performed neurological research with various animals in the 50's
to test the pleasure instinct versus the survival instinct. In these
experiments, a monkey with electrodes connected to the pleasure centers in
the brain would interface with two buttons - one button delivering food
along with slight electrical stimulation to the pleasure centers and the
other button delivered extreme electrical stimulation to the pleasure
centers, but with no food.  The monkey could only press one button.

I forget the exact setting of the experiment, but I believe that these
buttons were only active every ten minutes. - So the monkey had ten
minutes to "think" about what his or her next choice would be.  

The monkey starved to death.

Save some hope for yourself though - The same experiment was repeated with
a dolphin who quickly grepped the situation and chose to eat every once in
a while.

I will have to apologize for not having the exacts of the experiments on
hand.  I believe they were discussed in John Lilly's 'The Scientist.'

-----------------
Charles Esteban Paul
URL: http://www.bluelight.net  PAGE: 561-787-7169
FINGER: cepaul@xxxxxxxxxxxxx

       The Revolution Will Be Multicast


On Fri, 30 Apr 1999 RickMAPS@xxxxxxx wrote:

> The following matter is not about psychedelics but Gen. McCaffrey said that 
> NIDA  has funded studies with rhesus monkeys in which male monkeys were given 
> a choice of cocaine, food, water or female monkeys. They chose cocaine till 
> they died. I thought that monkeys given the option of sex and companionship 
> would not kill themselves with cocaine, that only isolated animals did this.  
> Does anyone know if there is any truth to McCaffrey's story?


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