4 ms·

> Maybe depression is a call from a higher being What's the more likely explanation: (1) various different conditions including depression and psychosis are c

> Maybe depression is a call from a higher being What's the more likely explanation: (1) various different conditions including depression and psychosis are calls from a higher being, not thus far sensible to science; or (2) the brain, a vastly complex organ with significant structure and dynamics, grown out of meat from a tiny unique egg and trained over decades of unique experience, works a bit differently to the norm in some people, in ways that can be distressing. Occam's Razor is tingling.

pmoriarty 10y ago
This reminds me of a story by Wynette Barton: "When my son was four or five years old, he asked one of those interminable questions that children ask: 'Why does the sky get dark at night?' "Eager to increase his understanding, I put a lamp in the middle of the floor to act as the sun, got down the world globe, and used a tennis ball for the moon. Then I walked around the "sun", carrying the globe and turning it, explaining how we are suspended in space, constantly moving. It was the universe in a nutshell - sun, earth, moon, stars, seasons. "My son watched the production with silent, squint-eyed attention. When I finished, he said to me, 'You don't expect me to believe that, do you?'" For a lot of people, the supernatural explanation is the simpler explanation. The so-called "scientific" (or more properly Scientistic[1] or maybe Naturalistic[2]) world view rests on explanation after explanation that takes years and years of education to even understand, much less accept. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientism [2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturalism_%28philosophy%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturalism_%28philosophy%29
- mikelyons 10y ago
  People don't understand the mechanics of belief and don't realize that they're being just as dogmatic in their rationalism and scientism as the most fundamentalist religions.
  - vertex-four 10y ago
    Especially some of the actual practices surrounding it - I've had some really bad experiences with e.g. the Less Wrong crowd tending towards assuming there is no value to human emotion, and so failing to even make a basic attempt of integrating into a community rather than dominating it with debate-is-the-only-form-of-conversation, attacks on people's identities under the guise of "you asked a question, that means you want me to tear you apart", and more.
  - corey_moncure 10y ago
    Most people don't understand the mechanics of electromagnetism but that doesn't diminish its predictive power.
- ikeyany 10y ago
  Does it really take years and years of education to comprehend that the Earth is spinning around the sun?
  - PhasmaFelis 10y ago
    It might take years to really understand it. It only takes a few minutes to hear something and decide to believe it without truly understanding, but is that really what we want people to do?
  - averagewall 10y ago
    It's not obvious that the sun isn't spinning around the earth instead. You could use coordinate acceleration in an earth-centered frame and the sun would be spinning around the earth. That's equally as correct as the conventional view. So I think a test can be that if someone doesn't understand that the sun is spinning around the earth, then they probably don't actually understand at the earth is spinning around the sun - they just believe it. I'm a physics teacher, and most teenagers don't have a clue about this at all. They think astronauts float around in space because there's no gravity there. If there's no gravity, then how does the earth stay in orbit around the sun? That shows they really don't understand it at all. It's difficult and you have to actually think hard over a long time to make all the pieces fit together.
  - metaphorm 10y ago
    examine this statement in more detail. consider that this discovery is only a few centuries old, was controversial at the time, and that astronomy had been practiced all over the world for thousands of years under the incorrect Geocentric Model because that model is deeply intuitive as well as explanatory up to a point. the level of precision and rigor, backed by advanced instruments and mathematics, needed to disprove the Geocentric Model is really quite high. you have taken your own education for granted.
SomeStupidPoint 10y ago
Are you sure the two models aren't equivalent, with features of the one being intractably complicated to express in the other?
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- robotresearcher 10y ago
  Pretty sure, yes. So it seems that people in this thread are taking the position that depression is a calling from a higher being. Not just metaphorically, but some version of actually true. Have you spent some time with depressed people, or been depressed? This posited higher being is pretty weird. I am constantly suprised by my fellows.
  - SomeStupidPoint 10y ago
    I have both been depressed and spent time with depressed people. The problem with this conversation is that the idea you unpack from the phrase "higher being" isn't really like the idea they compiled to that phrase. There's a fundamental translation problem in that things which are simple structures in one framework are hard or impossible to express in the other. You have to understand what the reverse image of that phrase is in their model, not what the reverse image is in your model (ie, the idea they were trying to convey, not what you would have been trying to convey using those words). This is obviously extremely hard, as we only have access to our own model, not theirs. For places where the models are similar, this is less of an issue, because the two reverse images are then similar. However, when the models substantially diverge, it leads to one of the most common breakdowns in communication we see (and we see it a lot, across topics). I mean, modern mathematics happened because people had different internal models for what "function" meant, but you seem to think a concept like "higher power" is easy to translate. For what it's worth, I don't think the two ideas are incompatible -- could you elaborate on why you do?
    - robotresearcher 10y ago
metaphorm 10y ago
you're presenting these as if they are diametrically opposed or mutually exclusive. I would describe them as complimentary parts of a complete explanation.
- lutusp 10y ago
  > I would describe them as complimentary parts of a complete explanation. s/complimentary/complementary/ https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/complementary https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/complementary
foldr 10y ago
(1) and (2) aren't mutually exclusive.

pmoriarty 10y ago

This reminds me of a story by Wynette Barton: "When my son was four or five years old, he asked one of those interminable questions that children ask: 'Why does the sky get dark at night?' "Eager to increase his understanding, I put a lamp in the middle of the floor to act as the sun, got down the world globe, and used a tennis ball for the moon. Then I walked around the "sun", carrying the globe and turning it, explaining how we are suspended in space, constantly moving. It was the universe in a nutshell - sun, earth, moon, stars, seasons. "My son watched the production with silent, squint-eyed attention. When I finished, he said to me, 'You don't expect me to believe that, do you?'" For a lot of people, the supernatural explanation is the simpler explanation. The so-called "scientific" (or more properly Scientistic[1] or maybe Naturalistic[2]) world view rests on explanation after explanation that takes years and years of education to even understand, much less accept. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientism [2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturalism_%28philosophy%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturalism_%28philosophy%29

mikelyons 10y ago
People don't understand the mechanics of belief and don't realize that they're being just as dogmatic in their rationalism and scientism as the most fundamentalist religions.
- vertex-four 10y ago
  Especially some of the actual practices surrounding it - I've had some really bad experiences with e.g. the Less Wrong crowd tending towards assuming there is no value to human emotion, and so failing to even make a basic attempt of integrating into a community rather than dominating it with debate-is-the-only-form-of-conversation, attacks on people's identities under the guise of "you asked a question, that means you want me to tear you apart", and more.
- corey_moncure 10y ago
  Most people don't understand the mechanics of electromagnetism but that doesn't diminish its predictive power.
ikeyany 10y ago
Does it really take years and years of education to comprehend that the Earth is spinning around the sun?
- PhasmaFelis 10y ago
  It might take years to really understand it. It only takes a few minutes to hear something and decide to believe it without truly understanding, but is that really what we want people to do?
- averagewall 10y ago
  It's not obvious that the sun isn't spinning around the earth instead. You could use coordinate acceleration in an earth-centered frame and the sun would be spinning around the earth. That's equally as correct as the conventional view. So I think a test can be that if someone doesn't understand that the sun is spinning around the earth, then they probably don't actually understand at the earth is spinning around the sun - they just believe it. I'm a physics teacher, and most teenagers don't have a clue about this at all. They think astronauts float around in space because there's no gravity there. If there's no gravity, then how does the earth stay in orbit around the sun? That shows they really don't understand it at all. It's difficult and you have to actually think hard over a long time to make all the pieces fit together.
- metaphorm 10y ago
  examine this statement in more detail. consider that this discovery is only a few centuries old, was controversial at the time, and that astronomy had been practiced all over the world for thousands of years under the incorrect Geocentric Model because that model is deeply intuitive as well as explanatory up to a point. the level of precision and rigor, backed by advanced instruments and mathematics, needed to disprove the Geocentric Model is really quite high. you have taken your own education for granted.

SomeStupidPoint 10y ago

Are you sure the two models aren't equivalent, with features of the one being intractably complicated to express in the other?

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
robotresearcher 10y ago
Pretty sure, yes. So it seems that people in this thread are taking the position that depression is a calling from a higher being. Not just metaphorically, but some version of actually true. Have you spent some time with depressed people, or been depressed? This posited higher being is pretty weird. I am constantly suprised by my fellows.
- SomeStupidPoint 10y ago
  I have both been depressed and spent time with depressed people. The problem with this conversation is that the idea you unpack from the phrase "higher being" isn't really like the idea they compiled to that phrase. There's a fundamental translation problem in that things which are simple structures in one framework are hard or impossible to express in the other. You have to understand what the reverse image of that phrase is in their model, not what the reverse image is in your model (ie, the idea they were trying to convey, not what you would have been trying to convey using those words). This is obviously extremely hard, as we only have access to our own model, not theirs. For places where the models are similar, this is less of an issue, because the two reverse images are then similar. However, when the models substantially diverge, it leads to one of the most common breakdowns in communication we see (and we see it a lot, across topics). I mean, modern mathematics happened because people had different internal models for what "function" meant, but you seem to think a concept like "higher power" is easy to translate. For what it's worth, I don't think the two ideas are incompatible -- could you elaborate on why you do?
  - robotresearcher 10y ago

metaphorm 10y ago

you're presenting these as if they are diametrically opposed or mutually exclusive. I would describe them as complimentary parts of a complete explanation.

lutusp 10y ago
> I would describe them as complimentary parts of a complete explanation. s/complimentary/complementary/ https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/complementary https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/complementary

foldr 10y ago

(1) and (2) aren't mutually exclusive.