Conscience, Time, and Life 121the Mercy internal world. “Some patients with orbitofrontal lesions show a
tendency to eat excessively, driven to satiate an apparently insatiable
hunger...The sexual drive also appears to be frequently disinhibited [given
freedom] by prefrontal, especially orbital, lesions.A As a result the patient
may exhibit overt eroticism and hypersexuality. This disinhibition of
instinctual drives seems fostered by a concomitant loosening of
conventional moral restraints. Frontal lobe patients may show by their
behavior a blatant disregard for even the most elementary ethical
principles.” 7 B
By the way, some of you may have noticed a jump in my logic. We
started by discussing interaction between Perceiver belief and Mercy
identification. We then jumped to talk about pleasant baits followed by
nasty hooks. We know that Mercy identification involves strong emotions
and that we are looking for Perceiver connections between experiences
which are separated by time, but who said that the first experience had to
be good and that the second one had to be bad?
Very good. I couldn‟t have stated it better myself. I suggest that the
critical feature is a difference in emotional label between the first and the
second experience. If a good situation is followed by a bad result, then we
have conscience. On the other hand, if the first experience is painful and
the second one is pleasant, then I suggest that the result is—patience.
Think about going to the dentist with a toothache. Getting a cavity filled is
not pleasant. But, we know that this painful experience will eventually be
followed by the relative bliss of teeth which no longer hurt. Therefore, we
patiently endure the agony—all right, maybe the dentist has to freeze our
mouth in order to help us to be patient.
A This quote from neurology illustrates the normal view of conscience. It
assumes that our drives come from physical feelings of pleasure and that
the internal voice of conscience inhibits us from fulfilling these desires.
B This book discusses the effect which conscience has upon Mercy feelings
and identity. In the next volume we will see how Teacher thought adds
potency to conscience. Therefore, it makes sense that neurology relates an
active conscience to both left and right orbitofrontal cortices.