Advocacy of the Soul and of the Good
I Keep Coming Back to the Mind-Body Problem* **. (This is going to be long.)* (That’s what she said.)**
Word Count: 1008
Unpublished Word Count: 3230 (Still refining it)
This is a work that’s heavily in progress. There’s an asterisk next to the chapter headings when they’re, at least, readable.
[Introduction*]
I’ve been feeling like shit for a long time. This goes past the ordinary realm of having bad weeks; bad weeks are caused by events that can be pinpointed. The event causes some angst, problem gets resolved, problem goes through a point of catharsis, and things return to a status quo. The type of trauma that I’ve been going through started out as a long and dull malaise. I’m still not sure what caused it, but for more than a year, I’ve been enjoying things less. It’s like seeing a polaroid picture getting developed, but reversed. The color keeps fading away until it’s completely an empty palatte. At first, I thought it was a temporary thing that’s all a part of growing up, but now it’s grown to the point that it’s seriously affecting the way I do things, and the way I look at the world around me. I think it’s larger than hurt found in the typical mid-20’s time of discovery. Or maybe it’s the same. I’ve only experienced my 20s once.
At its worst, I’ll get out of the shower within 5 minutes, but it’ll take me an hour and a half before I make it out of the door. Recently it’s gotten to the point where I have ‘depression attacks’ where I freeze up and have to go lie down somewhere until I feel well enough to get moving again. So what’s the deal? Personal inability to deal, or a malfunctioning neurochemical imbalance? Or should it even be separated? Can it be? I’m going to use my own experience and research to attempt to answer these questions.
[As technology grows, so too does the mind-body problem: Dr. Robot]
The Mind-Body Problem is as old as philosophy. The basic problem laid out is, are we just the sum of our physical parts (brain, guts, bone, flesh) that make us who we are; or are our minds more ethereal in nature (idea of self apart from body, the possibility of the existance of a soul). There are two possible positions to take this problem, and I will attempt to explore them both.
[1] The first position is that people are just their bodies. This is an extremely attractive position to take, because it is so simple and logical. With technology’s ability to track the cause-and-effect relationship of changes in the physical self that affects the person, we can see that changes in the body directly affect changes in a person.
Problem 1: [Patient 1] is experiencing a drop in mood.
Procedure 1: Run tests.
Test Results 1: There is decreased activity in the frontal lobe of [Patient 1], which has been linked to drops in mood.
Prescription 1: Chemicals that stimulate the frontal lobe of [Patient 1].
A person in the medical profession that subscribes to this point of view (I’m going to start refering to him as “Dr. Robot”) has an easier time prescribing solutions. You solve problems in the same way that you fix a car.
Problem 1: [Vehicle 1] won’t start when the key in the ignition is turned.
Procedure 1: Run tests.
Test Result 1: There is no power going to the lights, instrument panels, or auxiliary devices, which indicate that the battery is dead.
Prescription 1: Change the battery.
We can see that there’s a traceable cause-and-effect where we can see the changes in the body affecting the changes in the person. There’s a chemical imbalance in a person which affects their mood. A man was born with two Y-chromisomes so he has a larger chance of doing worse academically than a man with just one Y-chromisome (this genetic disorder is actually called ‘Supermale’). By prescibing to this point of view, everything in a person can be explained by the changes in the body chemistry or neurological architecture. But by prescribing to this position to the extreme, there are a couple of severe consequences that also have to be presribed to as an extention: 1) people are mechanical (this has a huge implications which I will get into), and 2) consciousness and experience(s) can be reduced to little consequence. I think this is a good point to start clarifying what i mean by people being mechanical under this view.
[If people are mechanical, we can create, destroy, prolong, preserve…]
{engineering, programing, assembling, re-creating: epitomized by singularity}
{consciousness and understanding are essential, but also that there’s more…the soul and the person apart from the body.}
Karl Marx said that with the advent of capitalism, every relationship will be reduced to a financial one. Marx’s point was that if capitalism were universally adopted, people would be forced to transcribe everything in monetary terms:
An hour babysitting my sister’s kids (to me): $0/hr
An hour babysitting my sister’s kids (to someone else) : $8/hr
Amount of capital being “given” to my sister: $8/hr
Marx had a valid point here. Before the rise of a capitalistic worldview (let’s say I was a beet farmer in 1800s Germany), babysitting my sister’s kids would have been counted as an honorable thing, a filial duty, a favor, etc. But because everything was to be weighed against a financial system, what was once a social interaction has been reduced to a chargable monetary exchange. Post-Capitalist Beet Farmer: “Time is money. I’m spending 2 hours babysitting. My sister would have paid $8 per hour of babysitting to someone else. I gave my sister $16 of service.”
A reductionist in Dr. Robot’s view can see every interaction being reduced to a neurologically chemical one in the same way Marx reduced interactions as financial exchanges.
[1] Spending time with Betty increases the seratonin levels in my brain.
[2] Seratonin is an evolutionary development used to increase biological success.
Just with the German Beet Farmer, what was once a date with a girl named Betty, is now reduced to the body movements that facilitate the creation of seratonin to be absorbed by the brain.
…driven by money, driven by brain chemicals and evolution.
…Marx: do what gets you paid.
…Dr. Robot: do what gets you good brain chemicals.
I take the same position as Plato, I think we are more than just the sum of our parts.
…
Brain press problem.
Humans have always known that there was a link between the mind and body. 2500 years ago, Hippocrates fathered the notion of 4 essential humors that regulate
…
Now we have an understanding of medicine…
Future Chapters
[What it is to be a cockroach? The enormous, lethargic, mechanized person]
[Personal Motivation or Chemical Imbalances?]
[Or both…explore the cause and effect.]
[Some causes; brain chemicals, emotional development, epiphany?]
[Everything taught in elementary school (except math) is BS;
grasshopper and the ant in the real world.]
[Nasty, Brutish, and Short: the way to succeed in the real world]
[Is it better to be an asshole? Grasshopper and Ant, revisited]
[The percentage of certain peoples with depression; why the link?]
[Humours, Briggs-Meyers, Zodiacs of the East and West: is this who we are?]
[The mathematical improbability of speciazation.]
[Naivety and Idealism…the same? Hell, no.]
[We are people, not machines; and it’s better to be good than bad.]
I want so much for the good to always win…
…is that it? Do idealists die when they hit the real world?
I’ve gotta finish this later.
