My question is is if you know that something has a high potential to mess with someone's mental health, can you still do it or is it illegal? I was thinking of making an experiment that would screw with the mental state of a person and see if they will go agianst all logic and start to believe one thing even though their past experiences has told them otherwise. I don't think they would go insane (I hope the mental state isn't that fragile) and I'm not actualy inflicting pain or anything on the person, the tests will all be administered through a video game if that clears things up but it will be specialy engineered for that one person so that it will match up with his/her reality.
Unless there is some form of consent, anything that can possibly linked to causing in an extreme conditions such as depression, is liable to be illegal, but its probably an unlikely scenario.
Doesn't this tie in a bit with all this stuff about peer pressure? I'm pretty sure that's what it can do, make you want or believe something just because others do or want you to. All of your experiences might go against it, yet you still do it just to do the same thing as the others around you for some strange reason.
As for the scientific aspect, it depends on what you make them believe. Changing their favorite flavor of ice cream obviously won't harm them very much. However, if it is over a minor degree, I think it would and should be illegal.
Sounds a little 1984-esque, but I suppose if you could learn a trick or something online (ex. say that if your hand is bigger than your face, you have a horrible illness...step 2, when the other person puts the hand on their face to see... I'm sure you can figure it out...hint: SMACK!).
yeah i'd say that it's illegal if your not a professional and if the person you're doing it to agrees and signs a waver and stuff like that and if it's not permanently messing up their mind
Sometimes the paper they sign will have something that says, "I agree that if my head is totaly screwed permanently that the person who inflicted this problem is not responsible."
