Managing depression depends on how we understand ourselves

Managing depression depends on how we understand ourselves

What is the cause of who we are and how we feel? If we understand something better, we can manager it better. Thus, if we have better understanding of ourselves would it enable us to better manage ourselves?

This electronic technology enables people to share ideas who would never otherwise interact. The base of this technology is science, namely quantum physics. But there is no science of people? They have all failed. Before looking more closely at why it has failed, let’s first consider ‘science’ what can it tell us and what can it not tell us.

The theory of a simple pendulum is T, the period of the pendulum, the time it takes to make one revolution equals twice pi (2π) times the square root of the length (L) over the gravitational constant (g) at sea level (√L/g). T=2π√L/g. The equation developed by Galileo and the German mathematician Christiaan Huygens in the 16th and 17th centuries, so we have known about pendulums for a long time. If we assume the pendulum is at sea level, we can simplify the equation to T=K√L, that is the period is calculated by multiplying a constant (K=2π/√g) by the square root of the length (√L). We can call this our scientific theory of the pendulum.

Now, imagine a pendulum on earth, as far away from you as you can imagine, but still at sea level. What is the period of that pendulum? It will depend on the length. Of course. It follows, if we want to know the period we need to go to the pendulum, measure the length and put it in the formula. So, what is the point?

The point is all science relates to all situations in the same manner, that if we want to know an answer relevant to any practical (empirical) situation, we need collect relevant information, put it in our theory, and calculate the result. It follows, that a scientific theory does not and can never give us ‘answers’, it can only tell us what to look for and how to then use that information to calculate the answer we seek.

Definition of scientific theory: A set of variables that describe the operation of the system under study, with those variables linked such to enable mathematical formula that when data inserted, the theory can calculate the result (example, T=2π√L/g).

Does this rule apply to understanding ourselves, we have all this private insight into ourselves, surely it must be different?

Wrong, it is no different. Look inside, what are you thinking? How do you know what you are thinking? If there was no information flow linking what you are thinking and your awareness of what you are thinking, you would not know what you are thinking ‘over there’. In the absence of photons, we cannot see. The same rule applies to every other sense. Our awareness of our brain and its activities is no different, in the absence of information flow whereby we ‘perceive events’ we would not know what is happening. Just that within the brain the ‘information flow’ exists in electrical signals via nerves, synapses, and other components of the brain. But the exact same rule applies as when we ‘see’: In the absence of a communication flow system linking ‘us’ to events ‘over there’ beyond ‘us’, we can have no idea of what is happening ‘over there’. The nature of the communication channel is irrelevant, they are all subject to the same cybernetic rules of operation.

Now, we have the perplexing question what exactly is ‘us’, and what exactly is ‘outside us’?

A full answer to the question takes us deeper into questions on causality and epistemology than we can go in this brief comment, so I will step forward to the conclusion of the reasoning.

The reasoning is pursued in full in the book The Origin of Consciousness . The result being a theory of ‘us’ and ‘beyond us’, exactly equivalent to the theory of the pendulum. The conclusion is we are a spirit within a mind, within a brain within a body each component equally important.

The core of our spirit is all our experiences before we have speech, and before we have conceptualization and aware of ideas to apply to manage circumstances, so it is all emotion. This spiritual core then becomes overlaid as we grow with self-esteem, self-belief, self-confidence, self-doubt, our social reflection of self, and all the other aspects of our ‘self’ that we have and can think about. Our mind consists of the variables, emotions, thought and attitude and our attention. The whole structure of our psychic existence occurring via the operation of our brain as the mechanism of mind. This does raise crucial issues of the relationship between mind and brain, all fully covered in ‘Origin’.

Our awareness of what is happening ‘over there’ in our brain (defined as the ‘reacting part’) determined by our attention, we only know of things happening, even things in our brain if we are aware of them via our attention. Finally, there is no single synapse response, all responses from this system are ‘processed’. Which means if we attend, learn to be aware of processing we can intervene via our attention and alter that processing. We have free will and choice. To the extent where nature has not enabled such choice, we can create it for ourselves via paying attention and learning. Such as some Eastern mystics learning how to control their heart beat.

The crucial point is that all our life experience is driven from our mind not from our brain. If we choose, we can alter what we are thinking, alter our emotional responses, alter how much we allow our spirit and its core to influence us. We can choose, and if we are willing to fight our reactions via our brain responses we can become what we choose not what genetics, or our upbringing chose for us.

We can choose to be less influenced by some things and more influenced by others. WE CAN CHOOSE.

The base of us choosing is to believe we can choose. If we do not believe then all our choices will be tentative. I expect we all know what happens when we try but half-hearted. We fail. Then we say to ourselves, … there, in my heart I knew it. I’m a failure.

The alternatives have names, the current main view is called monism, that is all our experiences are driven by the brain and we have limited influence on it, if any at all. Brain and mind are one and the same, monism, with brain dominant. Hence in mental illness, drugs are prescribed, since to ‘fix’ any mental illness requires changes in brain functioning.

The view proved in my work, is called dualism. Rene Descartes first argued dualism around 1650. It has never gained sway, since it could never be proved, and the existence and influence of ideas was always a major ontological problem. Only in my work is dualism proved, with mind and brain separate, spirit the core of our existence, and with our psychic states best understood from our choices in mind rather than neurological malfunction in our brain.

Neurological malfunction does occur but is the same as when we get a significant illness, such as cancer, or malaria. In short, it is not something the person can influence, it requires ‘medicine’. Within my science, neurological malfunction is defined as mental illness. With problematic psychic states arising from mind defined as psychological dysfunction. Currently there is no technological to separate the etiology, the cause of any problematic psychic state, hence much modern confusion over how to manage them. Within my science, with the base of dualism, then the assumption is the person has a ‘normal’ neural functioning, hence the etiology of a problematic psychic state is arising from their mind, not from their brain.

Under dualism, with mind being the primary driver of our experience of life, then to improve our experience of life we need better manage our mind rather than depend on medicines to manage our brain.

The difference is profound. For example, monism, the view of much modern medicine regards depression as an illness, based in the brain. Hence medication used to ‘support, correct’ or otherwise alter brain functioning. In dualism, the prime causal factor in determining the psychological state of a person is the mind. Only a person has access to their mind. Dualism states that in a person with ‘normal’ neural functioning, then their psychological state is the result of the thoughts they have, and the emotions associated with those thoughts. In short, depression is not an illness within the brain but an affliction of the spirit. The person and only the person can finally manage it, but they will likely need guidance, love and spiritual support to do so.

Depression: Malfunction in the brain, or an affliction of the spirit. The choice of the underlying causal understanding of the drivers of psychic states will fundamentally determine how people act to deal with those states when they find them unsatisfactory. The strength of commitment to belief will determine the success at improving the experience of life.

Monism, the medical model of how we work. Or dualism, the spiritual model of how we work. Today, both scientifically validated. There is a choice. And in that choice, we can lift our spiritual experience, or succumb to control of our life experience by our brain. It is a fight at times with our personal reactions and tendencies, but to have better life experience it is a fight we must win.

But we will not win if we are half-hearted at it. We begin by firmly adopting the idea that I can manage me.

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