Research Program / Claims / artificial-guilt-1
Artificial guilt, using the two attributes of memory and projection, replicates the operating mechanism of natural guilt.
人工罪恶感利用记忆和投射两种属性，复刻了自然罪恶感的运作机制。
Concept artificial guilt · Domain Belief Dynamics and Mind–Body Regulation · mechanism · interface 3/3 · testability 3/3 · status untested · ★ fundable
This program treats the Seth Material as a source of hypotheses, not as doctrine to be validated. Lead dossiers are AI-compiled from the corpus with a book-and-session citation after every statement; literature reviews are AI web-search summaries whose references were all DOI-verified against Crossref; the agenda draft is an AI synthesis. None of it is Seth's original text, and none of it represents scientific consensus. English fields are machine-translated; the Chinese text is authoritative.
Seth sources (book §session)
Adjudicating experiment
First, establish and cross-validate a measurement model with approximately 800 people: temporarily operationalize artificial guilt as persistent self-blame exceeding actual responsibility and driven by internalized norms, and natural guilt as guilt commensurate with actual responsibility for harm; this is only a mapping to be verified. Then, conduct two fMRI sessions with approximately 240 people, cross-manipulating actual responsibility, normative pressure, recall, and future simulation, matching intensity, arousal, and shame. Pre-register cross-condition decoding, representational similarity, and connectivity analyses, focusing on the hippocampus, medial prefrontal cortex, anterior cingulate, and anterior insula, with whole-brain correction; cycle 18-24 months. Shared activation is insufficient to prove identical mechanisms; randomized cognitive interference and equivalence testing are needed.
Suggested paper title
Shared and Distinct Neural Representations of Responsibility-Calibrated and Excessive Guilt During Memory and Prospective Simulation
What it would overturn
If a reproducible selective intervention effect emerges, it will revise the model that 'the difference between adaptive and excessive guilt can be fully explained by responsibility appraisal and emotional intensity,' but it will not establish a new emotion solely through brain-region overlap.
Candidate labs / funders
Felipe De Brigard，杜克大学 Imagination and Modal Cognition Lab：[实验室](https://www.imclab.org/); Roland Zahn，伦敦国王学院 Centre for Affective Disorders：[研究介绍](https://www.kcl.ac.uk/people/roland-zahn)
Specificity of Seth's formulation
The pairing of memory and projection offers a research clue, but it does not specify whether projection is future simulation or attribution to others, nor does it provide necessity, effect direction, or unique neural predictions; it is less specific than existing experimental models.
Note
The entire table is rated according to the full claim; untested means no direct test was found in this search, not proof that no one worldwide studies it; the listed similar papers do not automatically support the original proposition, and all proposed topics are proposed studies without presupposing positive results; sample sizes are planned magnitudes and must be determined via power simulation.
Evidence (2, DOI-verified via Crossref)
Cite: Future Mind Institute, Seth Material Research Agenda, claim artificial-guilt-1, https://www.seth.org.cn/en/research/claims/artificial-guilt-1