2008.10.29 19:00 - Pain, Brain, Consciousness and Being
Table of contents
No headers stevenaia Michinaga is the Guardian and the coments are stevenaia's I arrived at the Pavilion, Rowan Masala was already seated, Geo Netizen arrived soon after I arrived.
Adelene Dawner arrives as a person running across the pavilion, followed shortly after by ThreeDee Shepherd as a lion
stevenaia Michinaga: hello Rowan, are you the only one here?
Rowan Masala: I think so
Rowan Masala: hello Geo
Geo Netizen: Hi Rowan, Stevenia
stevenaia Michinaga: hello Geo, good of you to join us
Geo Netizen: My pleasure
stevenaia Michinaga: congratulations on your acceptence of your guardenship
Geo Netizen: Thank you ... but I think the benefit is to me
Rowan Masala: to all of us
Geo Netizen: This is a very stimulating and challenging group. I'm fortunate to have found it.
stevenaia Michinaga: yes, one person added makes the praticipation of each of us a bit lighter
Geo Netizen: Or at least to have run into Adelene who invited me.
stevenaia Michinaga: she is quite the dynamic one
The conversation turns to pain..
stevenaia Michinaga: hello Ade, I;ve never seen you run before
stevenaia Michinaga: welcome
Adelene Dawner: hehe
stevenaia Michinaga: and hello Threedee
Geo Netizen: O Adelene ‚ I've never seen you as homo sapient :))
Adelene Dawner is only very rarely voluntarily human. ^.^
Geo Netizen: Hi 3D
Rowan Masala: Hi 3, Adelene
Threedee Shepherd: Hi folks
stevenaia Michinaga: it's been quite a long time since I;ve seen you as such
Adelene Dawner is moderately surprised that you have, Steve.
Geo Netizen: Ah ... nice picture
Adelene Dawner: hehe
stevenaia Michinaga: I am here at your pleasure, feel free to discuss any recent thought on your meditions?
Adelene Dawner: not sure if it counts as 'meditations' but I have an interesting brain-function observation today, if nobody has anything else more on-topic.
Geo Netizen: Please ...
Threedee Shepherd: here, ANY topic is on topic ;De
Adelene Dawner: hehe
Geo Netizen: :)
stevenaia Michinaga: I am often at odd with the definition of meditation
stevenaia Michinaga: in my case one person meditation is jsut the enjoyment of work
Adelene Dawner: mmhmm, I've never gotten a good definition of the term, actually.
Geo Netizen: I think simply continued or extended thought
Geo Netizen: ie lots of thinking at one time
Threedee Shepherd: depends on "which" meditational technique you enquire about :D
Adelene Dawner: What it's described as (different from defining it) sounds a lot like my normal mindstate... yes, extended thought... so I figure I've got it reasonably well covered and don't worry about it. ^.^
Geo Netizen nods
Adelene Dawner: Anyway, the observation...
And them we move to the brain with Being...
Adelene Dawner: Some of you already know I've been dealing with some personal drama, RL-wise. It has settled down, but I was in a noticably depressed mindstate for most of yesterday. The depressed mood has lifted, as the situation has improved, btu the underlying brain-function changes are still in effect. (This is not uncommon for me; they'll likely clear up within the next day or two.)
Geo Netizen: Adelene, you look more like you're conjuring than typing :))
Adelene Dawner: The interesting part is that, in situations where I usually would have become overloaded and started to lose various processing capabilities, I didn't, but instead experienced pain.
stevenaia Michinaga: better than flying feathers
Geo Netizen: :)
Adelene Dawner chuckles at the comments.
stevenaia Michinaga: pain of what sort?
Threedee Shepherd: I need *your* description of *pain*
Adelene Dawner: Have you ever looked at a light that was too bright, and it hurt your eyes? Like that.
Geo Netizen: Pain, a very important signal
Adelene Dawner: (That's not an unusual experience, actually - but to have that as prominently, and without any accompanying overload, was unusual.)
Geo Netizen: and good I would think ?
Adelene Dawner: mmm... yes and no.
Adelene Dawner: Pain makes me crabby.
Geo Netizen: Crabby is honest :)
Adelene Dawner laughs. "I'm already honest enough."
Geo Netizen laughs
Threedee Shepherd: was there a precipitating event?
Adelene Dawner: Asside to Three: This explains a *lot* about me at ages 13-17ish.
stevenaia Michinaga: crabby is east to recognize and to trace back to what caused it
Adelene Dawner: Precipitating event to what, Three?
Threedee Shepherd: the pain
Adelene Dawner: Also, this is nto a *problem*, and I'm not looking for a solution, just interesting.
Geo Netizen: A person unable to resister pain is in serious trouble...
Adelene Dawner: Yes, Three - anything that would usually cause overload was painful instead.
Adelene Dawner: You're telling me, Geo. My pain system's wired so oddly, often the only useful thing to do is ignore it, and that's *definitely* not good.
Geo Netizen: Should have said feel instead of regisister
Adelene Dawner: Either word works.
Threedee Shepherd: photosensitive pain is sort of like a headache. Was this pain headache-like?
Adelene Dawner: Kind of.
Adelene Dawner: It wasn't especially 'attached' to anything except the causitive stimulus, so hard to say.
Threedee Shepherd: This sounds silly, but: Why do you callit pain?
Adelene Dawner: Because that's what it registers as.
Threedee Shepherd: It *hurts*?
Adelene Dawner: Better explanation, that's how my body responds to it.
Adelene Dawner: Mmhmm.
Geo Netizen: Are you feeling pain now?
Adelene Dawner: Not more than the usual background level, Geo.
Geo Netizen: :(
Adelene Dawner shrugs. "Life."
Rowan Masala: ah, background level
Threedee Shepherd: So, let me try to expand the topic a bit and ask "Is mental anguish Pain?"
stevenaia Michinaga: pain is experienced in degrees so it certainly can be for us lightweights
Geo Netizen: Pain can be thought of as physical suffering or distress …
Adelene Dawner: Define 'mental anguish'.
Threedee Shepherd: I am trying to get at "what is pain when there is no physical insult and not a headache?
Geo Netizen: Mental anguish can definitely cause physical symptoms ...
Geo Netizen: So I'd say yes.
Adelene Dawner: I have a data-bit that may be useful to that, Three.
stevenaia Michinaga: both long and short term
Rowan Masala: maybe pain is just a metaphor we use for something we have no other word for
Threedee Shepherd: Of course asking for a description of pain is just like asking what red looks like?
Geo Netizen nods
Rowan Masala: physical pain is the thing we can translate it to most closely
Threedee Shepherd: For physical pain there is a well defined physiology, brain regions, and neurotransmitters
Rowan Masala nods
stevenaia Michinaga: another question is ...does pain = suffering
Corvuscorva Nightfire joins us
Adelene Dawner: Remember when we were talking about brains and data-processing, nad you asked 'if it's all happening in my brain, why does it hurt in my toe, and not in my brain, if I stub my toe?' The answer that that was 'the idea of 'my toe' is already arising in the brain (or, mind, more accurately). 'being touched' also arises in the mind and can hold tha pain-attribure just as easily as the idea of 'my toe'.
Threedee Shepherd: not in law, where you can collect for BOTH pain and suffering ;D
Geo Netizen: But the other things we refer to as pain also have very physical implications ..
Rowan Masala nods at Geo
stevenaia Michinaga: good point Three, so they must be different enough legally
Rowan Masala: but you wouldn't argue that something we can't find a neural action for doesn't exist, would you, 3?
Adelene Dawner: Just 'cause they haven't found it yet doesn't mean it's not there.
Rowan Masala nods
Geo Netizen: Anguish is excruciating or acute distress, suffering, or pain
Geo Netizen: Seem its just pain ... lots of it
Rowan Masala: we call it pain to explain it in a way that we and others understand, like a myth of Apollo driving his chariot across the sky
Threedee Shepherd: Rowan, that is a trick question. Normally I would reply, "the brain is the organ of the mind" and thus of all things mental. However,
Rowan Masala: And myth can be as true as fact
Geo Netizen nods
Threedee Shepherd: for things like the *taste* of chocolate, the *sensation* or red and the *feeling* of pain, we are moving into the question of what consciousness is, and no one knows an answer to that.
stevenaia Michinaga: except is it
stevenaia Michinaga: it is
Geo Netizen: ?
...and consciousness is not far behind
stevenaia Michinaga: defining what is my be like defining being
Rowan Masala: and yet we wish to discuss it, without answers, perhaps in hope of answers, so we make analogies and myths and metaphors to push us closer to an understanding
Threedee Shepherd: As I said, the physiology of physical pain is well characterized in a neural sense. But that does nort cover "mental anguish" due to say a death of a loved one, where there is no physical stimulus
stevenaia Michinaga: Defining what it is may be like defining Being (Typos corrected)
Adelene Dawner: Corvi! ^.^
Geo Netizen: O ‚the outside world impinges on us even more with that than with a needle or cut
Rowan Masala: hi Corvi :)
stevenaia Michinaga: welcome Corvi
Geo Netizen: Hi Corvi :)
Corvuscorva Nightfire grins wide to see them all.
Threedee Shepherd: hi
Geo Netizen: But you're right 3D in that there's probably a different area of the brain involved.
stevenaia Michinaga: is there a "consciousness" part of the brain?
Geo Netizen: :)) Being
Threedee Shepherd: apparently NOT. Although it is an almost impossible question to answer.
Geo Netizen: But I propose that pain, in its various forms, has one thing in common... significant physiological stress.
Adelene Dawner: I've noticed that 'consciousness' doesn't appear to do *any* processing, but that something consciously known is then available to all brainbits, where it may not have been, before that.
Threedee Shepherd: Ade, that is a profound statement :)
Geo Netizen nods
Adelene Dawner chuckles. "I have mentioned it to you before..."
Geo Netizen thinking hard
stevenaia Michinaga: would that presume with out our brain there would be no Being, I assume if we were not here to see Being, it would still be, and so would consciousness
Geo Netizen: Brain is part of 1L
Geo Netizen: ie First Flie ... ie RL
Geo Netizen: -First Life-
Adelene Dawner: consciousness-in-general, yes, Steve. But not the specific self-y viewpoint as we're experiencing now.
Geo Netizen: If we user the terminology 0L, 1L and 2L for then the brain resides in 1L and Being is in 0L.
Threedee Shepherd: "Being, I assume if we were not here to see Being, it would still be, and so would consciousness" I emphatically disagree. There is nothing I call consciousness in RL that is not dependent on the existance of a nervous system. I am not discussing "soul" when I say that.
Geo Netizen: And consciousness reside in 0L also.
Geo Netizen: I think I'm agree with you 3D
Threedee Shepherd: If something resides in 0L, I suggest nbaming it consciousness confuses any useful meaning of the word.
Geo Netizen: But the brain in 1L definitely extends into 2L
Geo Netizen: functionally
Geo Netizen: Couldn't consciousness also extend from 0L to 1L?
stevenaia Michinaga: are writings of a conscious mind re-read placeholders for consciousness, or something else
Corvuscorva Nightfire: I think consciousness is part of the whole form thingy
Geo Netizen nods
stevenaia Michinaga: suggesting it can exist without an observer, until is is re-discovered
stevenaia Michinaga: form thing?
Threedee Shepherd: It could extend from 0L to 1L. However, we have enough difficulty understanding or even discussing consciousness in 1L, that I thing adding in 0L confuses rather than clarifies.
Corvuscorva Nightfire: I've been reading this week...
Corvuscorva Nightfire: and a new part of my vocabulary is the word form.
Corvuscorva Nightfire: I think in my old vocabulary it might have been illusion or maya.
Corvuscorva Nightfire: but I like form better.
Corvuscorva Nightfire: cause I don't think it's "illusion" exactly.
Corvuscorva Nightfire: it's the "things" we do, think, see, believe, interpret
Corvuscorva Nightfire: I think
Geo Netizen: Is this related to Platonic forms?
Corvuscorva Nightfire: I'm not sure.
Corvuscorva Nightfire: got it from some buddhist writer.
Threedee Shepherd: try something simple, with no philosophical or Being import for a moment. You know that at this moment you experience that you are conscious. Were someone to "knock you out" you would not be conscious. Sleep is an altered state of consciousness--maybe.
Rowan Masala nods
Geo Netizen: awareness of one's own existence
Threedee Shepherd: consciousness also related to *awareness* in the sense that you can tell me you experienced something happening.
Corvuscorva Nightfire nods...but...there are ways of thinking that aren't conscious.
Rowan Masala: although it may be extremely difficult to describe that happening
Corvuscorva Nightfire: and can be "knocked out"
stevenaia Michinaga: do sleep occupy a different palce in the mind.. the place where consciousness does not go?
Threedee Shepherd: there are animals that display conscious behavior that does not necessarily imply they are aware of their own existence
Geo Netizen: as in unconscious mental processes
Geo Netizen: pain - reaction pathway for example
Threedee Shepherd: Sorry to be a neurosciewnce professor, sort of, and, it is easy to show that more than 99.999...% of what "goes on" in the brain never reaches consciousness.
Corvuscorva Nightfire nods emphatically to the last
Geo Netizen: tis what the groups about ;)
Corvuscorva Nightfire: wish more of it did, really.
Adelene Dawner: No you don't Corvi.
Geo Netizen: I definitely appreciate you insights 3D :)
Corvuscorva Nightfire thinks about this.
Threedee Shepherd: Further, consciousness involves a delya so it is always after the fact of the stimulus that elicits it and that was processed by the brain
Threedee Shepherd: delay
Adelene Dawner: One of the explanations of autism, and one that mekes a *lot* of sense, is that we're more aware of things that would usually be 'pre-conscious'.
Threedee Shepherd: Actually, let me offer a bit of personal perspective related to consciousness. This is a bit long, so bear with me.
Geo Netizen nods
Threedee Shepherd: As someone who studies how the brain works, I have been intensely interested in the topic of consciousness for the past 20 years, have read extensively and taught about it for much of that time.
Threedee Shepherd: Neuroscientists *hoped that consciousness could be explained by some particular type(s) of brain process or even a specific region. that has been a false hope and a dead end for research. ...more
Threedee Shepherd: here is just one way to put it: when the photons of the wavelength we call red impinge on the retina, a chain of "electrical" (and biochemical) responses happens throughout the brain. However,
Threedee Shepherd: I do not *see* electric, I do not feel something *electric* I consciously experience the sensation of color I call red. In a nutshell, one way to state the consciousness dilemma is to ask, how does brain cell electrical activity become *red*?
Threedee Shepherd: So, I (and many others) are convinced that we simply have no current knowledge of the physical and material (encluding energy0 world that explains consciousness.
stevenaia Michinaga: that's amazing humbling for scientists to admit
Geo Netizen: I like this from Stanford: “A comprehensive understanding of consciousness will likely require theories of many types. One might usefully and without contradiction accept a diversity of models that each in their own way aim respectively to explain the physical, neural, cognitive, functional, representational and higher-order aspects of consciousness. There is unlikely to be any single theoretical perspective that suffices for explaining all the features of consciousness that we wish to understand. Thus a synthetic and pluralistic approach may provide the best road to future progress.
Threedee Shepherd: I have come to accept that fully. When I did, I became *willing* to entertain that there are possibilities we call Being that could be considered, even if never understood, so here I am at PaB.
Threedee Shepherd: Perhaps, Geo.
Adelene Dawner: m.
Threedee Shepherd: Or in simplistic terms, just because something cannot be *explained* does not mean it does not exist.
Adelene Dawner: Het Three. You've said that the human brain is a pattern-finding device. What if it's more accurately a translation device?
Geo Netizen nods
Geo Netizen: or both
stevenaia Michinaga: or what if there is no pattern to consciousness
Threedee Shepherd: Ade, it is both, it translates inputs (somehow) and then works to find or impose patterns within them
stevenaia Michinaga: unable to be "found"
stevenaia Michinaga: and so the journey continues
stevenaia Michinaga: and on that note, the hour is upon is and I msut go
Corvuscorva Nightfire: awwww
Adelene Dawner thinks Three has the order a bit backwards for the point she was trying to make.
Adelene Dawner: cya, Steve :)
Corvuscorva Nightfire: bye!
stevenaia Michinaga: everyone confortable in conculding the log
Threedee Shepherd: All I know how to do is make observations (perhaps biased or inaccurate) related to consciousness. One thing I note is that the world does not seem uselessly chaotic. that is a data point (at least on good days;)
stevenaia Michinaga: bye
Threedee Shepherd: bye
Geo Netizen: Bye Steve
Threedee Shepherd: say more Ade
Hester: We need to go too
Hester: bye all
The discussion turned to the topic of depression, after Steve left. Log and comments from this point forward are provided by Adelene. Threedee Shepherd: bye
Adelene Dawner: Bye Hester, Rowan ^.^
Geo Netizen: Bye Rowan
Corvuscorva Nightfire: bye "hester"
Corvuscorva Nightfire: Rowan.
Geo Netizen: Again, thanks 3D … I appreciate your insights greatly …. Will give me much to think about :)
Threedee Shepherd: thx, Geo
Adelene Dawner: Ok, I'll give you that there's a process of translating the pure sensory data (light waves, chemical signals for smell, whatever) into a processable form. It's then processed, with the end result of translating it into a form useful to ... consciousness? Being?
Threedee Shepherd: No, consciousness matters little in responding to the form of a translation, it mostly is use pre-consciously
Geo Netizen: I admit that I disagree with Thomas Hobbes though :)
Geo Netizen: and therefore what Ade says makes some sense to me
Threedee Shepherd: then for unknown reasons, consciousness become aware of tiny pieces of it, makes up a story and often stores the story to be used as context for future input
Geo Netizen nods
Threedee Shepherd: the *story* might relate to what you were calling *form*, Corvi.
Adelene Dawner: wait ' consciousness makes up a story' doesn't work - consciousness doesn't 'do' anything.
Threedee Shepherd: loose language
Geo Netizen: Would it be correct then, Ade to say that consciousness is not a process?
Adelene Dawner: mmhmm
Geo Netizen: Can it have existence outside the constraints of time?
Threedee Shepherd: Actually, consciousness does nothing about the past, but it can cause changes in the future (free will and all that). that is that I accept as a working hypothesis that consciousness related to free will in some fundamental way
Adelene Dawner: That, I can agree with, at least in theory - they're equally mysterious, at least. ^.^
Threedee Shepherd: mmhmm
Geo Netizen: I disagree with B. F. Skinner too btw :)
Threedee Shepherd: So, to come full circle, talking about the experience of pain is just as hard as talking about the experience of consciousness, and is actually likely the same conversation
Threedee Shepherd: Yes Geo, so do I.
Geo Netizen: But pain exists in lower forms
Adelene Dawner was actually aiming for 'hm, that's odd, why did that happen' rather than 'what is pain', but that's okay. This was interesting.
Threedee Shepherd: avoidance responses to aversive stimuli exist in lower forms. I have no idea what they *experience*
Geo Netizen: ok
Threedee Shepherd: Ade, sorry to hijack your thread and am interested in "why did that happen" too
Geo Netizen: Besides cognitive science did you work in philosophy too 3D? :))
Adelene Dawner: It felt like the deptession was kind of... I almost want to say a protective mode? Things felt 'locked in' in a way. The normal minor state-changes weren't happening.
Threedee Shepherd: Not academically, but I have spent lots of time discussing this with philosophers and reading their thoughts as well.
Geo Netizen: Sorry Ade … please go on
Threedee Shepherd: Perhaps depression is too *course* a word for a finer grqained phenomenon
Corvuscorva Nightfire: or perhaps depression has it's uses?
Adelene Dawner: Perhaps, but I don't have a better one.
Adelene Dawner: Agreed there, Corvi.
Corvuscorva Nightfire: honestly, it sounds like my experience of depression, too.
Geo Netizen: It does I think and ...
Threedee Shepherd: Interesting, I have never encountered a discussion of the adaptive value of depression. Doesn't mean there isn't one, but it is not part of any cultural mindset I know of.
Geo Netizen: only is a problem when excessive
Corvuscorva Nightfire: oh really, 3D?
Adelene Dawner laughs. "This surprised you, Three? If so, that's a topic in itself."
Corvuscorva Nightfire nods to Geo and Adelene.
Corvuscorva Nightfire: at times I think depression can be life saving.
Geo Netizen: I expect depression would not have developed if it was purely detrimental
Threedee Shepherd: Anger is useful, grief is useful, lots of *negative* things are useful, so its not the negativity.
Corvuscorva Nightfire: depression IS useful.
Corvuscorva Nightfire: it has been to me.
Corvuscorva Nightfire: there are in all of these states...alternatives which are more useful
Threedee Shepherd: ALTHOUGH there is evidence that people who experience mild depression see the world more *realistically* than the average person on the street. (And lets not tangent into realistically;)
Corvuscorva Nightfire: if you can manage it...like action...or meditation.
Corvuscorva Nightfire: I guess.
Threedee Shepherd: Corvi, please say more about how it has been useful
Corvuscorva Nightfire: at times in my life events have been more than I could...stand?
Corvuscorva Nightfire: and depression let me keep walking while I learned to bear them.
Adelene Dawner: There was definitely a preservation-of-function effect, for me... it wasn't needed, today, but it was there - and I can just imagine how much worse my teenage years would have been if I was dealing with overloads instead of depression and related crabbiness.
Corvuscorva Nightfire nods with that.
Geo Netizen: Similiar to shock maybe ...
Geo Netizen: helps deal with the immediate
Adelene Dawner: Quite probably, Geo.
Geo Netizen: needs
Threedee Shepherd: Usually for me, depression keeps me from walking. In fact, the best advice about it I ever got was, Get, up, brush your teeth, get dressed, and pput one foot in froont of the other."
Corvuscorva Nightfire smiles.
Corvuscorva Nightfire: I think that's part of it, too..
Adelene Dawner hmms, and wonders how much overlap there is in what we're talking about/experiencing. Though they aren't entirely different, I think.
Corvuscorva Nightfire: you get there...and then start walking out.
Threedee Shepherd: OK, Ade, I get your point. It deserves more exploration that I have given it.
Corvuscorva Nightfire: but..I really DO think it's like shock.
Adelene Dawner: There's a difference between inate-chemical issues and emotionally-based ones, it seems, which is probably very relevant.
Geo Netizen nods
Corvuscorva Nightfire: well yes and no, I think
Geo Netizen: Though emotion will eventually cause chemical issues
Corvuscorva Nightfire nods.
Threedee Shepherd: depression is defined by behaviors, not by well-understood brain function. Actually, if we did understand it there would not be so many partially useful drugs for depression, I think.
Adelene Dawner: Not a big difference, but a difference.
Corvuscorva Nightfire: and..one can be conditioned to depression.
Corvuscorva Nightfire: or kind of start prone to it.
Corvuscorva Nightfire: or both.
Threedee Shepherd: Gee, doesn't anyone have a simple question tonight, like "why did the Rays lose the World Series?"
Corvuscorva Nightfire: /em laughs.
Adelene Dawner: hehe
Corvuscorva Nightfire: who are the rays and what is the world series?
Adelene Dawner hi5s Corvi. ^.^
Geo Netizen: No, its been like this all evening :)
Corvuscorva Nightfire giggles and gives Adelene a hi5
Geo Netizen: Maybe sensitized to it, like to a drug
Corvuscorva Nightfire nods.
Threedee Shepherd: Corvi, BASEBALL, the National Pasttime of all little boys and the adults they later clothe themselves in.
Geo Netizen: you then become more prone to depression
Corvuscorva Nightfire: ohhhhhhhhh
Corvuscorva Nightfire: that makes sense to me Geo.
Geo Netizen: Maybe we should discussion something easy like the election lol
Threedee Shepherd: Ade, sounds like you have "parallel pathways" that can result either in depression or overload (or perhaps both?)
Geo Netizen: just kidding
Corvuscorva Nightfire grins at Geo.
Adelene Dawner: Entirely possible, Three. I'm still not sure all the ways things are crosslinked in here, but that kind of linkage is not unusual.
Threedee Shepherd: mmhmm
Threedee Shepherd: RL context could have an input that activates one or the other pathway
Adelene Dawner: Yup.
Adelene Dawner: This seems similar in that way the the speech/emotion loss situation - there's definitely a trigger when that happens, but it's a complex one, dependent on a lot of things.
Geo Netizen: Ade, does it usually help when RL issue are there to go online in SL?
Adelene Dawner: Not intrinsically, but there are specific things that I can cometimes do here that help.
Geo Netizen nods
Corvuscorva Nightfire: like what?
Adelene Dawner: Really, though, this isn't as big a deal as you probably think, Geo.
Geo Netizen: O I hope I didn't seem to make a big deal ....
Adelene Dawner: Corvi, it's very situation-dependent. If there's anything you can do to help in a situation like that, I'll certainly let you know if I'm able, though. :)
Threedee Shepherd: Corvi, you got me thinking. When one becomes physically ill there is a well-described "sickness response" that is a constellation of behaviors that leads to hunkering down in the back of a warm cave, in order to recover. It could be that *normal* depression plays an analogous role during times of *mental turbulance*
Adelene Dawner: No worries, Geo. I'm assuming, a bit. Most people freak out a little at the idea of me losing the ability to speak, temporarily or no.
Corvuscorva Nightfire nods.
Geo Netizen: That's a really good way to put it 3D
Adelene Dawner: Very good way, yes.
Corvuscorva Nightfire: It is how it feels to me.
Threedee Shepherd: Sounds like the beginnings of an article entitles something like "Depression as a curative defense"
Geo Netizen: Perhaps allow the mental process to clear things up
Corvuscorva Nightfire: a way to marshall resources.
Corvuscorva Nightfire: me nods to Geo.
Geo Netizen: Just like the antibodies
Adelene Dawner is already working on an ACEO of the session tonight, with the words 'in defense of depression' ^.^
Corvuscorva Nightfire smiles.
Threedee Shepherd: actually the sickness response included some behaviors that overlap those during depression
Geo Netizen: I look forward to the publication of that article
Corvuscorva Nightfire: with illustrations.
Threedee Shepherd: Geo, I am much quicker at titles, than at writing what goes with them ;)
Corvuscorva Nightfire laughs.
Geo Netizen laughs
Threedee Shepherd: I strill have a story title, with no story: It is, "Nobody ever looks up."
Corvuscorva Nightfire: mmmm..can't wait to read it.
Corvuscorva Nightfire giggls.
Geo Netizen: :)
Geo Netizen: Way past my bedtime ….
Geo Netizen: Again, thanks for fielding my disparate responses tonight 3D…
Threedee Shepherd: I think my earlier-stated *take* on depression is due to the fact that most of the depressive times in my earlier life were relatively prolonged and hindered reasonable functioning.
Geo Netizen: Ade and Corvi, as always … you two are most provocative … :)
Threedee Shepherd: :) Night Geo.
Corvuscorva Nightfire: g'nigh, Geo.
Geo Netizen: Night everyone
Adelene Dawner: ^.^ 'night, Geo.
Geo left.Corvuscorva Nightfire nods to 3D.
Corvuscorva Nightfire: it does do that after a while.
Geo Netizen is Offline
Corvuscorva Nightfire: I used to work in rape crisis.
Corvuscorva Nightfire: fielding calls...going to hospitals..that sort of thing.
Corvuscorva Nightfire: and it seemed to me there that it took a while for information to seep in to traumatized brains.
Adelene Dawner: The sickness-response you described will impair functioning too, eventually. Reminds me a bit of the difference between 'sick' and 'disabled', though the paralells are weird.
Threedee Shepherd: Just to make things more complicated, I can personally relate to something I read that stated "depression is anger turned inward."
Adelene Dawner: o.O
Adelene Dawner: That doesn't sound very true, Three.
Corvuscorva Nightfire: it seemed to me that depression, in them and in me was a way to process slowly.
Corvuscorva Nightfire: instead of all at once.
Threedee Shepherd: As in, asking a suicidal person, "Who do you really want to kill?"
Adelene Dawner: o.O Seems to me that the *actual* answer is 'nobody', but the situation is such that there *appears* to be no other viable choice.
Corvuscorva Nightfire: suicidal thoughts are not depression itself.
Adelene Dawner: That too, Corvi.
Threedee Shepherd: true Corvi, but there is often a relationship
Adelene Dawner: I think you may have the order wrong...
Corvuscorva Nightfire: re order it?
Adelene Dawner: I could very much see someone *becoming* angry at themselves *for* being depressed, given how society handles it.
Threedee Shepherd: I could, the *ordering* occurs WELL before anything about it reaches consciousness ^.^
Adelene Dawner: Or has-handled. I think there has been some improvement.
Adelene Dawner chuckles at Three.
Threedee Shepherd: It could
Adelene Dawner: Well, the fact that it's obviously possible to be depressed without being angry at yourself does seem to imply that.
Threedee Shepherd: Consider the possibility that the depression masks the inappropriate self-anger.
Adelene Dawner: They're distinctly different channels, for me, Three. I was depressed and definitely not angry, last night.
Corvuscorva Nightfire: i think the same things that cause depression can cause self anger.
Adelene Dawner: Agreed, Corvi.
Corvuscorva Nightfire: if one feels the world is out of control, one tries to figure out how to control it
Corvuscorva Nightfire: if you blame yourself for events...then you have a chanc to control them
Threedee Shepherd: OK, I agree that I am too readily taking an NT viewpoint on this ^.^
Corvuscorva Nightfire: or you think you do.
Corvuscorva Nightfire laughs.
Corvuscorva Nightfire: I'm NT
Corvuscorva Nightfire: I think
Adelene Dawner chuckles at Three.
Corvuscorva Nightfire: but
Corvuscorva Nightfire: I have seen/experienced alot of depression
Threedee Shepherd: We need still another category "NTD"
Adelene Dawner: ?
Corvuscorva Nightfire laughs
Threedee Shepherd: NeuroTypicallyDifferent
Corvuscorva Nightfire: maybe
Adelene Dawner: ^.^
Corvuscorva Nightfire smiles at their understanding of each other
Threedee Shepherd: :)
Adelene Dawner grins.
Adelene Dawner: Anyway, yeah, that's one of the reasons I didn't recognize that state as 'depression' for the longest time, above and beyond the defensiveness... I did still experience emotions, in it. They were colored by it, there was much more of a 'meh, so?' reaction to them, but they were definitely *there*.
Corvuscorva Nightfire nods.
Threedee Shepherd: Corvi, there is too much in the world able to cause depression if you are paying attention ;(
Adelene Dawner leans on Three, and does a silly human impression of a purr.
At this point, Neela arrived, and the conversation turned to other things.
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