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> 'biological' mental illness is tightly coupled to qualitative mental state, and bidirectionally at that. Not only do your chemicals influence your thoughts, y
by epiccoleman 1y ago
> 'biological' mental illness is tightly coupled to qualitative mental state, and bidirectionally at that. Not only do your chemicals influence your thoughts, your thoughts influence your chemicals, and it's possible for a vulnerable person to be pushed over the edge by either kind of input. We like to think that 'as long as nothing is chemically wrong' we're a-ok, but the truth is that it's possible for simple normal trains of thought to latch your brain into a very undesirable state.
It's interesting to see you mention this. After reading this post yesterday I wound up with some curious questions along these lines. I guess my question goes something like this:
This article seems to assert that 'mental illness' must always have some underlying representation in the brain - that is, mental illness is caused by chemical imbalances or malformation in brain structure. But is it possible for a brain to become 'disordered' in a purely mental way? i.e. that to any way we know of "inspecting" the brain, it would look like a the hardware was healthy - but the "mind inside the brain" could somehow be stuck in a "thought trap"? Your post above seems to assert this could be the case.
I think I've pretty much internalized a notion of consciousness that was purely bottom-up and materialistic. Thoughts are the product of brain state, brain state is the product of physics, which at "brain component scale" is deterministic. So it seems very spooky on its face that somehow thoughts themselves could have a bidirectional relationship with chemistry.
I spent a bunch of time reading articles and (what else) chatting with Claude back and forth about this topic, and it's really interesting - it seems there are at least some arguments out there that information (or maybe even consciousness) can have causal effects on "stuff" (matter). There's the "Integrated Information Theory" of consciousness (which seems to be, if not exactly "fringe", at least widely disputed) and there's also this interesting notion of "downward causation" (basically the idea that higher-level systems can have causal effects on lower levels - I'm not clear on whether "thought having causal effects on chemistry" fits into this model).
I've got 5 or 6 books coming my way from the local library system - it's a pretty fascinating topic, though I haven't dug deep enough to decide where I stand.
Sorry for the ramble, but this article has at least inspired some interesting rabbit-hole diving for me.
I'm curious - when you assert "Not only do your chemicals influence your thoughts, your thoughts influence your chemicals" - do you have evidence that backs that notion up? I'm not asking to cast doubt, but rather, I guess, because it sounds like maybe you've got some sources I might find interesting as I keep reading.
- anon84873628 1y ago>So it seems very spooky on its face that somehow thoughts themselves could have a bidirectional relationship with chemistry. There's no scientific reason to believe thoughts affect the chemistry at all. (Currently at least, but I'm not betting money we'll find one in the future). When Scott Alexander talks about feedback loops like bipolar disorder and sleep, he's talking about much higher level concepts. I don't really understand what the parent comment quote is trying to say. Can people have circular thoughts and deteriorating mental state? Sure. That's not a "feedback loop" between layers -- the chemicals are just doing their thing and the thoughts happen to be the resulting subjective experience of it. To answer your question about the "thought trap". If "it's possible for simple normal trains of thought to latch your brain into a very undesirable state" then I'd say that means the mind/brain's self-regulation systems have failed, which would be a disorder or illness by definition. Is it always a structural or chemical problem? Let's say thinking about a past traumatic event gives you a panic attack... We call that PTSD. You could say PTSD is expected primate behavior, or you could say it's a malfunction of the management systems. Or you could say it's not a malfunction but that the 'traumatic event' did in fact physically traumatize the brain that was forced to experience it...
- AstralStorm 1y agoSure the thoughts can influence your chemical state. Scott even provides an example. Suppose you become so engrossed in your weird idea you start to lose sleep over it... Or start to feel anxious about it. At some point, your induced stress will cause relevant biological changes. Not necessarily directly. PTSD indeed is likely an overload of a normal learning and stress mechanism.
- anon84873628 1y agoThe core thing is, am I really in control of my brain, at a fundamental level? If my thoughts are the result of electrochemical reactions, which everywhere else in the universe follow normal deterministic (even if stochastic) physics... How does thinking actually change their result? The unsettling conclusion is that it doesn't. The thoughts are the result of the reactions continuously in progress, and any sensation that we are a actively making decisions and guiding the process is simply an illusion created by that very same process. I.e. there is no free well. Under that view, the bipolar feedback loop example disappears. The engrossing or psychotic thoughts are not driving the chemistry, they are the chemistry. The whole thing is just a more macro view where you see certain oscillations play out. If the system ultimately damps itself and that "feels like" self control, it was actually a property built into the system from the start.