Comments on: He favors a motorcentric view of the brain

By: Graham

Graham — Mon, 19 Aug 2019 14:45:51 +0000

I can’t walk as much, as well, or as fast as I used to but I should still do more. I well remember how good it has always felt. It was, to spin off what Jon Davies said, both mind clearing/relaxing and mind-engaging/energizing for me. Perhaps not the only thing that can fill both roles, but it did both for me.

Should probably do more, again. These days it’s mostly point A to point B.

Harry Jones makes a useful distinction, at least I find it so. Depression can certainly be both chemical and life-problem, though I’m not sure they are always so easy to separate. Worth keeping in mind, though, since solving a problem if you can is far better than enduring it. Stoicism is a fall-back position, not a primary solution.

I’m intrigued by though not so sure of your point, Wang Wei Lin. I’ve had it in the back of my head a few days now. I’m keeping an open mind to it because it is a striking way to think about it, but I still doubt. The shortest way I can express my doubt is that depression for me has more often seemed like a function of the recognition of unhappy reality and the inability to see past it.

there’s something existentialist not to say even Nietzschean about the notion that only failure to accept reality could produce depression, insofar as it implied that a healthy person should be happy in recognizing and experiencing any reality. I can almost praise this but it seems unrealistic, to coin a phrase.

By: CVLR

CVLR — Thu, 15 Aug 2019 14:44:01 +0000

The towering Werner Herzog makes two life recommendations to those who would be great:

1. To read constantly — thousands and thousands of books; and
2. To travel by foot.

Sauce: https://youtube.com/watch?v=Eua5iPUKw6Y

By: Aretae

Aretae — Thu, 15 Aug 2019 02:25:11 +0000

No kindle?

:-(

Matches my priors well enough to explore further

By: Wang Wei Lin

Wang Wei Lin — Thu, 15 Aug 2019 00:40:20 +0000

Harry Jones: I’ve recently come to the same conclusion about depression, it’s a symptom. Barring injuries or congenital factors, in my opinion, depression in an otherwise healthy person is a symptom of chronic cognitive dissonance. For whatever reason the depressed person has by habit or ideology decided to ignore some aspect of reality. The ‘natural brain’ is still processing reality while the depressed person willfully ignores the normal promptings. The resulting stress of supressing reality eventually takes its toll.

By: Felix

Felix — Thu, 15 Aug 2019 00:28:04 +0000

To contrast with the kinda new-age crystal energy tone of this posting, how ’bout “walking” on steroids: Jump on your motorcycle and crank it up.

Ride to live. Live to ride. Hey, it’s good for your brain!

By: Harry Jones

Harry Jones — Wed, 14 Aug 2019 18:28:15 +0000

I distrust the very idea of getting rid of stressful thoughts by any means other than addressing the cause. A stressful thought is the awareness of a problem to be solved. It is a mental pain signal. Solve the problem and move on.

Depression is a symptom, not an illness. Any sensible and effective treatment must focus on identifying and fixing the cause. If the cause is proven – not merely assumed – to be some chemical imbalance, then figure out why there’s a chemical imbalance. If the cause is an actual life problem, then address the actual life problem.

The only antidepressant I believe in is getting rid of depressants. Whatever brings you down has got to go.

By: Albion

Albion — Wed, 14 Aug 2019 17:31:56 +0000

Years ago I worked with a man who used to go to the local medical practice for anti-depressant tablets. Trouble was for him there were two doctors at the practice and it was a case of ‘who’s next.?’ No one had a say which of the doctors was available. The older doctor would simply say to this man ‘I’m not giving you any tablets. just go for a walk.’ The younger one would write whatever prescription was demanded.

The man hated seeing the older doctor and would ‘pass’ to allow someone else to see the older doctor. He wanted the tablets so bad, yet they never did him any good.

By: Jon Davies

Jon Davies — Wed, 14 Aug 2019 16:08:01 +0000

I had always thought of walking as a way of clearing the mind, i.e. helping to shut down stressful thoughts that then allow us to think more clearly about individual topics. So less brain activation rather than more. Maybe I’ve been thinking about it in the wrong way, and its more activation in the areas of the brain that are responsible for walking that swamps areas that usually think stressful things.

By: Harry Jones

Harry Jones — Wed, 14 Aug 2019 13:15:30 +0000

The function of the brain is to help us do things that aid our survival. The more you do, the more you need to process information.

Moving about is simply a very large subset of doing, of interacting with the outside world. Before the evolution of speech, art and tool-making, it was nearly all of it. Swallowing food, ejaculating gametes, eliminating wastes and biting attackers made up the rest.

Correlation, causation: the disabled have plenty of reasons to be cranky. Sessile creatures are mindless because they can afford to be, but they’re not chronically out of sorts.

Boredom is a sign that we are insufficiently engaged actively with the world. It is the painful death by starvation of consciousness.