5 ms·

It just seems strange to me that, like in the case of mental illnesses such as depression or Schizophrenia, scientists insist on looking for genes or even GWAS

It just seems strange to me that, like in the case of mental illnesses such as depression or Schizophrenia, scientists insist on looking for genes or even GWAS correlations and just aren't finding anything. At a certain point, you have to wonder if something other than genetics accounts for the observed heritability.

sillysaurusx 2y ago
Environmental factors are certainly a part of those. I heard a story of someone being stranded at a lighthouse alone for many months, and he had a break from reality which affected him the rest of his life. It's always seemed interesting that the brain can be damaged by stress rather than physical injury – or that perhaps stress causes physical injury.
practicemaths 2y ago
Maybe it isn't entirely a hardware issue. Maybe it is a software issue. Where do persons get their software from? The environment. Observing how their parents/family/etc interact. I think it's fair to say that communication matters and that communication & experiences will have an affect on peoples perceptions.
- passion__desire 2y ago
  Depression is clearly a hardware issue. So also ADHD.
  - practicemaths 2y ago
    So riddle me this. Hypothetical situation. Take two dogs from the same litter. Raise one with love and kindness. Play with it. Socialize with it. Then take the other one and neglect and abuse the hell out of it. Which dog do you think will show signs of depression? Still think it's clearly just a hardware issue?
    - passion__desire 2y ago
      If you give all the love in the world to a schizophrenic, will he stop hallucinating?
      - randomdata 2y ago
        If you put an LLM on better hardware, will it stop hallucinating?
        itishappy 2y ago
        Anthropomorphization of LLMs is bad, but the reverse is worse. This is not psychology. Although... has anyone tried quantizing schizophrenia?
        deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
        roywiggins 2y ago
        https://www.anthropic.com/news/golden-gate-claude https://www.anthropic.com/news/golden-gate-claude
        passion__desire 2y ago
        depends on if you consider message passing (neuro-transmitters) in a graph NN as a hardware or software.
        randomdata 2y ago
        I'm not sure the distinction is meaningful at a high level. That which can be implemented in hardware can be emulated in software. It may be significant with respect to a specific implementation. Do you mean to imply that the current crop of LLMs hallucinate only due to some flaw in the hardware they run on?
        2y ago
  - inthebin 2y ago
    Depression very clearly is both a hardware issue and a software issue. rolled 0.6 on hardware + 0.4 on software = 1.0 rolled 0.4 on hw + 0.6 on sw = 1.0 rolled 0 on both = 0.0 = maximum depression rolled 1 on both = 2.0 = golden retriever with good owner
gruez 2y ago
>like in the case of mental illnesses such as depression or Schizophrenia, scientists insist on looking for genes or even GWAS correlations and just aren't finding anything Source? Wikipedia says: >A central point of debate on GWA studies has been that most of the SNP variations found by GWA studies are associated with only a small increased risk of the disease, and have only a small predictive value. The median odds ratio is 1.33 per risk-SNP, with only a few showing odds ratios above 3.0.[1][46] These magnitudes are considered small because they do not explain much of the heritable variation. This heritable variation is estimated from heritability studies based on monozygotic twins.[47] For example, it is known that 40% of variance in depression can be explained by hereditary differences, but GWA studies only account for a minority of this variance.[47] which admittedly isn't airtight proof for "depression is 100% genetic!!1", but isn't exactly "just aren't finding anything" either.
- pfisherman 2y ago
  It is a bit more nuanced than that. An incorrect unstated assumption here is that schizophrenia or depression is a singular disease rather than a group of observable symptoms where any two cases may or may not have the same underlying cause. There are certain types of schizophrenia that are highly heritable and others that are more sporadic. Highly pathogenic variants tend to be very rare because those regions of the genome are under evolutionary constraint. GWAS are used is to figure out which genes may be involved in the pathology. So we are essentially looking at rare cases of inherited disease to figure out which genes might play a role in more common non inherited versions.

sillysaurusx 2y ago

Environmental factors are certainly a part of those. I heard a story of someone being stranded at a lighthouse alone for many months, and he had a break from reality which affected him the rest of his life. It's always seemed interesting that the brain can be damaged by stress rather than physical injury – or that perhaps stress causes physical injury.

practicemaths 2y ago

Maybe it isn't entirely a hardware issue. Maybe it is a software issue. Where do persons get their software from? The environment. Observing how their parents/family/etc interact. I think it's fair to say that communication matters and that communication & experiences will have an affect on peoples perceptions.

passion__desire 2y ago
Depression is clearly a hardware issue. So also ADHD.
- practicemaths 2y ago
  So riddle me this. Hypothetical situation. Take two dogs from the same litter. Raise one with love and kindness. Play with it. Socialize with it. Then take the other one and neglect and abuse the hell out of it. Which dog do you think will show signs of depression? Still think it's clearly just a hardware issue?
  - passion__desire 2y ago
    If you give all the love in the world to a schizophrenic, will he stop hallucinating?
    - randomdata 2y ago
      If you put an LLM on better hardware, will it stop hallucinating?
      - itishappy 2y ago
        Anthropomorphization of LLMs is bad, but the reverse is worse. This is not psychology. Although... has anyone tried quantizing schizophrenia?
        deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
        roywiggins 2y ago
        https://www.anthropic.com/news/golden-gate-claude https://www.anthropic.com/news/golden-gate-claude
      - passion__desire 2y ago
        depends on if you consider message passing (neuro-transmitters) in a graph NN as a hardware or software.
        randomdata 2y ago
        I'm not sure the distinction is meaningful at a high level. That which can be implemented in hardware can be emulated in software. It may be significant with respect to a specific implementation. Do you mean to imply that the current crop of LLMs hallucinate only due to some flaw in the hardware they run on?
        2y ago
- inthebin 2y ago
  Depression very clearly is both a hardware issue and a software issue. rolled 0.6 on hardware + 0.4 on software = 1.0 rolled 0.4 on hw + 0.6 on sw = 1.0 rolled 0 on both = 0.0 = maximum depression rolled 1 on both = 2.0 = golden retriever with good owner

gruez 2y ago

>like in the case of mental illnesses such as depression or Schizophrenia, scientists insist on looking for genes or even GWAS correlations and just aren't finding anything Source? Wikipedia says: >A central point of debate on GWA studies has been that most of the SNP variations found by GWA studies are associated with only a small increased risk of the disease, and have only a small predictive value. The median odds ratio is 1.33 per risk-SNP, with only a few showing odds ratios above 3.0.[1][46] These magnitudes are considered small because they do not explain much of the heritable variation. This heritable variation is estimated from heritability studies based on monozygotic twins.[47] For example, it is known that 40% of variance in depression can be explained by hereditary differences, but GWA studies only account for a minority of this variance.[47] which admittedly isn't airtight proof for "depression is 100% genetic!!1", but isn't exactly "just aren't finding anything" either.

pfisherman 2y ago
It is a bit more nuanced than that. An incorrect unstated assumption here is that schizophrenia or depression is a singular disease rather than a group of observable symptoms where any two cases may or may not have the same underlying cause. There are certain types of schizophrenia that are highly heritable and others that are more sporadic. Highly pathogenic variants tend to be very rare because those regions of the genome are under evolutionary constraint. GWAS are used is to figure out which genes may be involved in the pathology. So we are essentially looking at rare cases of inherited disease to figure out which genes might play a role in more common non inherited versions.