If you lived in ancient Rome, would you have gone to the Colosseum knowing you would see violent deaths?

Question

Answer 1

No.

                  Fax Fantasia

While wand'ring through the Colosseum,

Mortal combat's mute museum,

Suddenly, I chanced to see

A fax machine, a detainee

Of ancient times, an enlistee.

I plugged it in, to my surprise,

On pressing "PRINT," before mine eyes,

A message did at once appear

In Roman letters, bold and clear:

"AVE CAESAR!  NON DISPUTANT ,

MORITURI TE SALUTANT ."

Wond'ring at this strange divide,

That transcended time and tide,

My feelings then were not denied;

I shed a tear for those who died.

Answer 2

I wouldn't want to go there.

Answer 3

Why do that when you can just stay home and put your feet up and put a movie on. Is that not what people are still watching today?? Lol. We think we are so different than these people from thousands of years ago.

Comments

A movie is just acting, make-believe, not the real thing, and not in the flesh.  That's a big difference.

As for more recent history, I wouldn't have gone to a public hanging either.

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Simulation is substitution. And movies are meant for stimulus. You can't see something and not call it stimuli. There is no difference between a hanging and a video of a hanging when it comes to the human brain.

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Of course there is a difference.  Your brain knows it's not happening right then and there in person.

The level of stimulus is much different.

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Actually, I learned this a high school psychology class, it's basic. When your brain sees another person in person, in a movie or on television your brain tries reading their features and tries to copy it to understand what they're feeling - to read it. This is a driving force of what we call "empathy". When your brain copies it to read it, 'IT" doesn't know the difference between itself and what it's viewing.

This is also a side effect of botox. People find them harder to read because their faces are stiff and our own face can't copy their expression to know what they're thinking - that's why they may come off as creepy. AND, they also have a more difficult time reading others because they're own face can't copy ours. Mind and body work together. 

http://healthland.time.com/2011/04/25/study-botox-users-have-trouble-reading-emotions-in-others/

Your brain does NOT know where it is (At least, the parts that we're talking about don't). It's amazing you really want to talk over me when this is Psych's basic. One class would have you know.

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"At least, the parts that we're talking about don't."

WE, Kemo Sabe?  I have been talking about EVERYTHING my brain knows about the situation, and whatever parts that may be involved in knowing the situation, including especially if what I am observing is a movie or if it is happening for real right in front of me. The WHOLE gestalt, if you like. 

And if "Psych's basic" says there is no difference in my reaction to the two situations, then "Psych's basic" is sadly mistaken.

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There are of course differences between what you consciously know, and what other parts of your brain perceives. You don't even know what you know! You get that right?

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That may be, but for the purposes of this discussion, all that is necessary is that I know the difference between a movie and real life.

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"but for the purposes of this discussion, all that is necessary is" Agree to disagree.

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Ok.