The philosopher Stanley Cavell asked in one book if it was OK to torture someone who was given drugs to completely forget the experience.
Aside from potential lasting effects from trauma remembered or not, and so on, I always thought: It would still change the doctors.
If I recall correctly, "general anesthesia" is actually a combination of multiple drugs with different purposes; some that inhibit memory formation, another to put you to sleep, and another to I guess relax the muscles etc?
Not sure about the drugs, but during anesthesia, you will be completely unconscious, and inhibiting memory formation is a side-effect of that. Sedation is when you are still (more or less) conscious, but relaxed. But between these two terms there are several levels: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sedation#Levels_of_sedation
Re:Notes on My Colon Cancer
by thaumasiotes on Thursday October 22, 2020 @09:37AM
(#24857819)
> during anesthesia, you will be completely unconscious, and inhibiting memory formation is a side-effect of that. Sedation is when you are still (more or less) conscious, but relaxed.
The concept of anesthesia is that you don't feel pain, not that you're unconscious. If you're unconscious, it's "general anesthesia"; if you're not, it's "local anesthesia".
Colonoscopies are much more pleasent that having a probe sent to your stomach. Going up from behind, you are sedated, for the stomach you have to stay awake to "swallow" the probe. ut hey, I guess it still beats surgery, chemo therapy and potential fatal cancer down the road.
> This is also how women were drugged for childbirth in the mid-20th century...
Can you provide any additional information on this? I can't find anything online. Maybe I'm using the wrong search terms.
This is the primary purpose of the "sedative".
I had samples taken from the interior of my stomach via a machine that went down my throat. It was an intensely unpleasant experience; you're trying to vomit for most of the time the cable is there.
Anesthesia was not even recommended, but they really wanted me to take something that would inhibit memory formation. I asked if people who took the drug struggled or retched any less. "No." (I declined to take it.)
This is also how women were drugged for childbirth in the mid-20th century. No anesthesia, but memory inhibitors so they couldn't remember what had happened. That was eventually "discovered" by the press and became a huge scandal. I don't get how the approach persists elsewhere.