At 11:47 PM -0600 11/27/02, Matthew Hunter wrote: >On Wed, Nov 27, 2002 at 11:52:02PM -0600, Lydia Nickerson ><Lydy at demesne.com> wrote: >> I'm with DDB on the neurochemistry. Having the last half of my life >> on various psych drugs, I'm fully convinced of the chemistry of my >> existence. There have also been studies, some recent, which suggest >> that religious states, such as deep meditation or prayer or feeling >> like one is speaking directly to god are physical states, ones that >> some people's bodies are designed to accept. A genetic >> predisposition toward God, like I have a genetic predisposition to >> manic depression. > >This doesn't necessary deny the validity of that experience. I never said it did. Nor did I mean to imply it. Love is neurochemistry, too. It's damn powerful neurochemistry, and the experience is about as real as a kick in the teeth when it's intense, but it's chemical. So is grief, so is joy. All of your emotions, every one of them, is a biochemical cocktail. Hormones and neurotransmitters, strange brew. Heck, even memory may be chemical. But there's a big difference between valid and externally verifiable. At current time, I don't believe we have any way to measure whether or not you really love your wife (girlfriend, boyfriend, etc.). It's something that's happening entirely inside your head. The same is true of a religious experience. The outward show, buying flowers and remembering anniversaries, going to church and tithing, are not proofs of anything. Onlookers can make assumptiions about your brain-state by watching your behavior, but it's an inference, not certainty. > >So maybe we can scientifically explain the feelings, but that >doesn't mean they aren't triggered by God. What is God? What I believe is that it is not possible to know the answer to that question. The experiences which prove his existence to people are, by their nature, experiential and irrational, and therefore intransitive. You cannot share faith or belief. I can share a baseball with you, but I can only tell you about a vision. I cannot share God with you (assuming I had him, which I don't) I can only tell you about my experiences with him. If you also have experiences that are sufficiently similar, we can talk about him a lot. But there's still that gap. > >> In many ways, I think it's really really cool that >> we're finding out so much about how the world works, and being able >> to medicate people's brains in more and more precise ways. I don't >> worry about losing my humanity very often. Not yet. The danger will >> come when people stop having the right to choose their own medical >> care. In the mean time, Better Living Through Chemistry! > >In case you haven't noticed, that's already becoming the case. >Read up on ritalin and kids for a good example. What I've read mostly makes me want to murder the people who write those articles. Peter Breggin is on my shit list, very very high up. All drugs are misprescribed. All diseases are misdiagnosed. Those people I know of who actually have children who are hyperactive have not rushed into drug therapy, nor were they pushed into it by authority figures. Moreover, there's a good body of knowledge, getting larger, on what Ritalin is and isn't good for. The thing that I think is the greatest problem is that GPs are allowed to prescribe psych drugs without putting their patients under any sort of proper psychiatric care. A large number of the anecdotal incidents reported as proving that Ritalin or Prozac or another one of the psych drugs are terribly dangerous all involve doctors who are not psychiatrists and who did not consult one. >>Personally, I have severe concerns about any sort of compulsory (or >>even merely encouraged) regression to some defined "normality". >>Diversity of thought and opinion are worthwhile >>things; creativity and art are social goods; the existing >>structures need to be challenged rather than assumed. Did you know that Allen Ginsberg became a poet on the advice of his shrink? (If you don't know who Allen Ginsberg is, you should take a quick look around Google. He was not, however, "normal" and he definitely challenged existing structures.) There's good psychiatry and bad psychiatry, same as all other medicine. However, I think that there are a lot more good shrinks out there than there are bad. How many surgeons have actually had the bad luck to amputate the wrong leg? Not many, but we've all heard of at least one who has. My experience with the psych world has always been helpful. I've worried a lot about the conformity thing, too. I'm polyamorous, I've done illegal drugs, I'm kind of a syndacalist-anarchist when I'm not busy being a Democrat, I take a certain pride in not fitting in. When I was first prescribed Prozac, I was very very upset about taking a drug, and didn't know if I should, etc. etc. You know the rant. Someone who was then my friend (and this may be the only good turn he ever did me) said, "Lydia, you've taken LSD, and you're still you. How can you be afraid of Prozac?" I decided he had a point. People who've known me all along assure me that I continued to be myself after I went on anti-depressants. What conservative tendencies I have largely seem to come from being 40, and not from submitting to a drug regimen. What I've experienced is that psychiatrists and psychologist work to get their patient to "functional" rather than "normal." Functional means things like being able to get out of bed in the morning, if you want, being able to eat, being able to get up off the couch, being able to talk to friends, being able to feel happy sometimes, being able to make decisions and cope. I haven't ever had one of the multitudinous psych professionals rag on me about my love life, or my quite moderate drug use, or any of the other non-standard parts of my life. Involuntary commitment does happen. Bad abuses happen, and they are most likely in a situation where the patient has been committed involuntarily. As yet, though, 99.9% of the psych patients in this country can choose what type of treatment they will accept. Frankly, I think that far too many people refuse to take the meds prescribed to them for entirely dumb reasons. I do know one woman who said that she couldn't take Prozac because she could not tell if her photographs were any good when she was taking Prozac. It interfered with her creative processes that much. I completely understand why she stopped taking it. Most people, though, seem to be confused by the experience of not being miserable anymore. -- Lydy Nickerson lydy at demesne.com lydy at lydy.com Dulciculi Aliquorum