|
On July 03 2012 22:32 Klockan3 wrote:
Do anyone like being depressed? I don't think so, otherwise you wouldn't call it a depression. Yet depressed people continue to make decisions which reinforce said depression. If they hadn't the sadness would never have developed into a real depression. Are you depressed? Then you are making the wrong decisions in some areas of your life yet you yourself are adamant in your opinion that they are the correct decisions.
This is extremely ill-informed not only is there no such scientific suggestion in modern psychology, modern psychologists would laugh at it, as they would years and years back.
It is a general misconception that a depression is in and of itself a negative thing. it may well be that a kind of depression is neccesary to make a specific kind of adaptation to your person and your mental framework (i'm being intentionally vague here, because it really is ridiculous to even speculate of, you are jumping so many fences and hurdles to even talk about this)
Saying he somehow neccsarily caused his own depression is also downright hilarious when you manage to, in a very short amount of text, make several terminological contradictions in your notions of choice and causal relation.
I wouldn't respond to you normally because theres not really an ounce of coherency in any argument you make, but its important to put straight into the ground such notions as "i know the nature of a depression is" and "i know what causes depression"
Please at least do a quick google before lecturing someone on the issue
"Do anyone like being depressed? I don't think so" -  it almost gets hilarious on second look, EVEN if you could track down the latin root of the word to something that would arguably deal in positive or negative emotional value, it should be painfully obvious that what he refers to here is the modern diagnostic sense.
|
If someone is depressed and wants to commit suicide, I think the best thing is to tell them to wait until the depressive episode is over before they really decide to jump that bridge.
Depression can be really weird, sometimes you don't know what causes it, you just feel like killing yourself for about an hour, and then it subsides and goes away, and then you are like "thank god i didn't kill myself".
You are far more unable to reason during an episode of depression than when you are in a calm state of mind. You may not be able to quantify it, but qualitatively from my own experience I believe this is true.
I don't think you need to be a psychologist to know this, I think its common sense.
If you are stating that psychologists believe that a person with depression is always less able to reason than a "sane" person, then I agree with you OP, I believe that a depressive person has the potential to have more cognitive ability than someone without.
|
On July 02 2012 04:08 Liquid`NonY wrote:
I would like to know psychology's best attempts at measuring a person's ability to reason. When someone tells me my ability is compromised, I'd like to know who is going to make the decision instead of me. And then we can take some tests and see who is really better qualified, a compromised me or a regular them. I'd like to know how much effort they'll put into their decision. There's no way it'll match mine. I'd like to know their arguments why my subjective experience is not valuable enough evidence to weigh in on the decision. I can't imagine a definitive one.
I recommend reading the “Believing Brain” – Our brains naturally rationalize events around us. “Our minds are like lawyers”, it wasn’t until we developed the scientific method that we learned to be objective.
Also “Thinking fast and Slow” is a pretty good read as well. It discuss how bias affects peoples thinking / rationalization.
With regard to someone making decisions for you, well that is a legal issue, unless you sign power of attorney to an agent. You can always refuse medical treatment.
I highly recommend that if you have been labeled with “depression” that you look for a genetic root cause. For me, I was labeled as being depressed, then I discovered actually I had Asperger’s syndrome. Now I understand how I process information and it helps me cope in many situations.
http://www.aane.org/asperger_resources/articles/miscellaneous/aspergers_depression.html
Good luck, also I recommend that you read as much as you can, we are entering a new scientific age and the platonic ideals we once held are being challenged each day with new knowelege we have gained through science. There is no cure for life, it is managed.
|
A common suggestion made to a depressed person is to postpone major decisions until the worst of it has passed because the ability to reason is compromised. The suggestion is very clear in its intent but very vague in its reasoning. The vagueness is based in the lack of an objective reference. What is an acceptable level of ability to reason? And how much worse are things than normal, how much better can they get, and how much effort and how long will it take to get better? Depending on the answers to these questions, the suggestion to postpone can be absolute nonsense.
The suggestion is subjective to the person. If I could define a high-capacity depressed person that doesn't see a point in working hard at life but will continue to function thinking things might change or maybe the thinking is wrong, and a low-capacity depressed person whose feelings of gloom affects every part of how hard he/she pursues goals and makes decision. The former will be able to identify when a big draining episode has passed, and reserve big decisions for when that moment is reached (if the advice is taken). To the latter, this advice cannot be taken effectively and for an improvement in decision-making.
What special rights does a person have over himself? Assuming that a decision involves no subjective evidence unique to the person it concerns, everyone has an equal opportunity to make the correct decision.
You enter into a pretty huge discussion topic here. I would even contest that there are important decisions that don't require unique, subjective evidence. Maybe you're in a depression when you realize that your current education path isn't really in line with what you enjoy doing. How much of that is self discovery, and how much just depression preventing enjoyment of the current task? Change education to job or career and you find the same thing. How much could even a good friend advise you not knowing what really REALLY excites you (Knowing only what interested you in the past, perhaps with depression now affecting how much you really share and connect with them). So, no, I cannot bring myself right now to believe there are an important class of decisions that don't require subjective evidence.
The people with the best ability to reason ought to make the decision. But even people with equal abilities may make opposite decisions. And how do we know who is in the best position to make the decision? The person with the best ability to reason may be outperformed by the person with more knowledge and experience. Decisions concerning people avoid these difficulties when people are allowed to be their own masters. People accept the responsibility of making their own decisions. But there are exceptions made in the name of paternalism (and others that don't concern this blog). So when is a compromised ability to reason sufficient enough to make an exception? To take a person's right to govern himself away?
You contradict yourself here. The person with the best ability to reason still makes wrong decisions. He only owns his own body, not yours. I mean, is there a moral argument to be made with this "ought?" If I'm depressed and others misjudge the extent of my impaired decision-making, you betcha nobody ought to make my own decisions but me. I don't see the morality of the denial of freedom.
I agree with what you said on paternalism. Particularly, I agree with the exception for when someone depressed shows signs of seeking to kill himself. Intervene for sure. To the best of my thinking right now, that is the only case that I'd be in favor of coercion to force somebody into decisions
We can imagine that humans are stupid. We normally think of intelligence relative to humans. But we can imagine an intellect much better than the average or even the best human intellect. When doing so, we must think of the intellect tackling problems beyond human capability. Decisions that we can't consistently get right, but must be made, require us to settle. We can imagine that a greater intellect could put forth more effort and ability and make the decision properly. Lacking that, we do what we can and give up when the time is right, settling on whatever we ended up at. An unimportant decision can be made quickly by a person of poor ability. An important decision can take years or even decades of collective effort of the best minds in society. For every decision, there must exist some objective standards of effort and ability that we are so far unable or unwilling to define.
You can even think of a supernatural intellect, a divine being, that is a supreme intellect. One able to take in objective standards with the subjective ones and even the worst of caprices, some of which give each person their slice of uniqueness. Food for thought--I wouldn't trust the best minds with years of resources just focused on a relationship, career, life move, to make a decision that I would agree with. That 5 out of 6 experts agree that this is the right way to go. I keep on arriving at the supernatural when I think about who I would trust to make decisions for me (of course, of pointless practicality in the literal sense.)
I say all this because others look at the bad decisions and think, "If only someone came and warned him that's he's throwing all this away!" I look at it and wonder, "Think of all the inadequacies in normal decisions and what makes you, you, that others cannot make for you without tyranny."
|
I felt compelled to say something about this. I personally don't think that depression has a major effect on your ability to make decisions.
I personally went through depression last year during my last year in high school. At one point I made a consciences decision to give up in one of my classes. I'm a good student who got a 3.8 gpa over all in high school. In that class I was going to receive a D-/F in that class and I didn't have a care in the world. Fast forward to about 2 months later and after me finding a pretty nice routine in my life I realized that I did care cause a D-/F would get me kicked off the accepted list to my college and stop me from getting my diploma. With hindsight I was able to to see that with a compromised state of mind I had made a HORRIBLE DECISION. But I was able to clean things up with my grade.(that's besides the point).
Now I want to show how I was able to make a great decision while also being depressed. I played baseball since I was 4 years old my dream was to play for my varsity high school team (I want you to realize that this was what I loved). Then I made it to the junior varsity team and the teammates I had were horrible pricks, my coach was a moron, and I had zero play time. Out of 30 games I had 3 plate appearances and about 6 innings on the field .000 avg. with 1 play made. I had enough and I quit, then I gave up to the point where I didn't even eat lunch with any of my friends and I didn't even play video games. I just shut down and gave up. Then I was given an opportunity to join the school's academic decathlon team. Keep in mind I gave no craps about life at that time outside of school work. But even with my "compromised ability to make a decision" I decided to join the team (keep in mind I knew no one on the team). I went on to get a silver medal in the state competition for California for a speech I gave and made friends that I will keep in touch with forever. This was a GOOD DECISION that I made when I wasn't thinking straight.
I'll admit that these parts in my life aren't far behind me, but I truly believe that you can make a good decision even if you aren't thinking right i.e. depressed, enraged, ecstatic. To me I don't see any difference between decision making from a "compromised" mind set and from a "pristine" one. You can always make a good decision and a horrible one no matter what state your in. That's my take of it.
(and just wanted to say that depression sucks and I pray that anyone who falls into it will find their way out, it really does suck)
|
You answered your own post in the first sentence:
"A common suggestion"
At the end of your post you state:
"There's no way it'll match mine. I'd like to know their arguments why my subjective experience is not valuable enough evidence to weigh in on the decision"
They gave you a suggestion, meaning that in the end, the decision is clearly yours alone.
You walk a dangerous road into further depression as you try to begin to over analyze these types of topics.
I could sit here and explain my own situation and blah blah blah about how I fixed it (like so many have done here), but that's the dumbest thing I could do if I actually care about your success against depression.
Shit happens in life dude.....
but..
Awesome happens too
Focus on the awesome, and downplay the shit. Wanna know who does this? People who aren't depressed.
|
On July 04 2012 06:18 JDub wrote:Show nested quote +On July 03 2012 22:40 NeMeSiS3 wrote:
To be frank, the entire notion of actions based on "instincts" before rational thought implies that humans as a species has yet to even evolve past the basic animal on a logic based equivalent. I know, that before every decision I make, I rationally choose which is right. Now you could argue, that a mother would choose her child over the lives of a thousand other children, and perhaps you are right, but n that sense instincts > logic and rationalization, furthermore that circumstance is subjective and not an everyday life choice. If the argument by this "theory" is that the human, under immense pressure and strain, reacts in an instinctive way then I would personally agree that on average, most people would. But to continue, if it implies that the person always chooses the instinct before the rational/logical decision then I would simply say that is not the case. I would recommend the book Blink, by Malcolm Gladwell, for an exploration of split-second "instinct" decisions. While we often think that we are making some thought-out, rational decisions as you describe, it is quite often not the case. "Instincts" are a bit more complex than they seem, though, and can in fact be more accurate in some cases than longer, rational, thought-out decisions/judgments. I can't really explain the whole book in a TL post, so I just recommend that you check it out if you are interested. It's some pretty cool stuff, and will change the way you think about decision making.
I can differentiate between "split second" decisions which entirely are related to your instinctive nature, but this isn't a "split second" discussion. I could counter the "split second" argument though by stating that, for example, you are walking and a man pulls a gun out of his coat and is robbing you, your first instinct--this would depend if you are alpha or omega--would generally be to find any chance to remove the gun and defend yourself, but logic comes into play and you give all of your valuables instead of going with your instincts.
Like I said though, if your argument is related to split second decision making, then it really has no place here, you could argue that he was given option A or B and he instinctively chose B as soon as he heard it, and that is a common thing most people do, but when one truly sits and reflects on the situation (and especially one who is rather intelligent) generally they come to the right conclusion for themselves.
Depression, if anything, turns someone into a cynic... It doesn't remove your logic, or diminish it. One could state that it may alter the perspective of the depressed person, but "altered" is not diminished, and I could alter my perspective on life any day of the week, so it's perfectly normal.
On July 04 2012 19:08 Gruntt wrote:
You answered your own post in the first sentence:
"A common suggestion"
At the end of your post you state:
"There's no way it'll match mine. I'd like to know their arguments why my subjective experience is not valuable enough evidence to weigh in on the decision"
They gave you a suggestion, meaning that in the end, the decision is clearly yours alone.
You walk a dangerous road into further depression as you try to begin to over analyze these types of topics.
I could sit here and explain my own situation and blah blah blah about how I fixed it (like so many have done here), but that's the dumbest thing I could do if I actually care about your success against depression.
Shit happens in life dude.....
but..
Awesome happens too
Focus on the awesome, and downplay the shit. Wanna know who does this? People who aren't depressed.
What an immature answer, relating to your final 4 lines... "Shit happens in life, but, awesome happens too, focus on the awesome and downplay the shit. Wanna know who does this? People who aren't depressed.
Firstly in your response you talk about caring for his success in depression, and then go on to insult him with your ridiculous final statement. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand that non-depressed people focus more on the good things, thank you for telling us all that, but I especially like how you asked a rhetorical question and a facetious way, very helpful. Insult his intelligence..
You're neither helping, nor aiding. If you put more thought into your posts, maybe continue, but after that ... suggestion, perhaps you should find another thread to peddle around in.
Furthermore, you also implied all of us messaging with advice from personal experience is "the dummbest thing" you could do, which then further translates that we have done extremely stupid things. In case you're curious, the entire idea of knowledge is it's transfer between persons, so the fact that we all share are own (even tho barely anyone actually shared their story, just advice in how they overcame it) stories is always going to be a plus, it's more data for him to make a conclusive decision. If we all were like you, we'd sit in a big circle and tell him "dude just be happy", "girl you're not fat, just eat", "Dude stop being gay, really", "calm down, its not a big deal"..
Your post is infuriating.
|
On July 02 2012 04:08 Liquid`NonY wrote:
A common suggestion made to a depressed person is to postpone major decisions until the worst of it has passed because the ability to reason is compromised. The suggestion is very clear in its intent but very vague in its reasoning. The vagueness is based in the lack of an objective reference. What is an acceptable level of ability to reason? And how much worse are things than normal, how much better can they get, and how much effort and how long will it take to get better? Depending on the answers to these questions, the suggestion to postpone can be absolute nonsense.
Relativity isn't very helpful here. If one of the greatest thinkers is depressed and her ability to reason has been lowered to the level of an above average thinker, should her authority over herself be forcefully removed by her society?
Hey Tyler,
I work in biomedical research, not psych, so I can't state anything definitively or with any real weight, but I would like to give my take based on my experience working with doctors, and science in general.
When you state that someone's ability to reason is compromised, you are not referring to a quantitative decrease in their abilities. Rather, you are stating that they are unable to reason due to outside influences, which can range from compromised perception, where the patient can reason normally but is acting on imagined sensory input, to severe trauma, in which case reasoning is no longer performed at a high level, instead at the level of basic survival instincts (e.g. pain aversion).
What I am saying is that if your ability to reason is compromised, you are wholly unable to make decisions, not merely impaired. Trying to quantify it is like trying to pull useful data out of a contaminated sample--you have to question the results even if you sift out anything reasonable. The equipment and reagents have to be trustworthy before you can claim your results have any validity.
This is my hunch, that you are somewhat misunderstanding the terminology. I would encourage you to bring your concerns to the attention of a psychologist or someone otherwise able to comment on this, to clarify what is meant by the comment "ability to reason is compromised".
|
On July 05 2012 02:39 NeMeSiS3 wrote:Show nested quote +On July 04 2012 06:18 JDub wrote:On July 03 2012 22:40 NeMeSiS3 wrote:
To be frank, the entire notion of actions based on "instincts" before rational thought implies that humans as a species has yet to even evolve past the basic animal on a logic based equivalent. I know, that before every decision I make, I rationally choose which is right. Now you could argue, that a mother would choose her child over the lives of a thousand other children, and perhaps you are right, but n that sense instincts > logic and rationalization, furthermore that circumstance is subjective and not an everyday life choice. If the argument by this "theory" is that the human, under immense pressure and strain, reacts in an instinctive way then I would personally agree that on average, most people would. But to continue, if it implies that the person always chooses the instinct before the rational/logical decision then I would simply say that is not the case. I would recommend the book Blink, by Malcolm Gladwell, for an exploration of split-second "instinct" decisions. While we often think that we are making some thought-out, rational decisions as you describe, it is quite often not the case. "Instincts" are a bit more complex than they seem, though, and can in fact be more accurate in some cases than longer, rational, thought-out decisions/judgments. I can't really explain the whole book in a TL post, so I just recommend that you check it out if you are interested. It's some pretty cool stuff, and will change the way you think about decision making. I can differentiate between "split second" decisions which entirely are related to your instinctive nature, but this isn't a "split second" discussion. I could counter the "split second" argument though by stating that, for example, you are walking and a man pulls a gun out of his coat and is robbing you, your first instinct--this would depend if you are alpha or omega--would generally be to find any chance to remove the gun and defend yourself, but logic comes into play and you give all of your valuables instead of going with your instincts. Like I said though, if your argument is related to split second decision making, then it really has no place here, you could argue that he was given option A or B and he instinctively chose B as soon as he heard it, and that is a common thing most people do, but when one truly sits and reflects on the situation (and especially one who is rather intelligent) generally they come to the right conclusion for themselves. Depression, if anything, turns someone into a cynic... It doesn't remove your logic, or diminish it. One could state that it may alter the perspective of the depressed person, but "altered" is not diminished, and I could alter my perspective on life any day of the week, so it's perfectly normal. Show nested quote +On July 04 2012 19:08 Gruntt wrote:
You answered your own post in the first sentence:
"A common suggestion"
At the end of your post you state:
"There's no way it'll match mine. I'd like to know their arguments why my subjective experience is not valuable enough evidence to weigh in on the decision"
They gave you a suggestion, meaning that in the end, the decision is clearly yours alone.
You walk a dangerous road into further depression as you try to begin to over analyze these types of topics.
I could sit here and explain my own situation and blah blah blah about how I fixed it (like so many have done here), but that's the dumbest thing I could do if I actually care about your success against depression.
Shit happens in life dude.....
but..
Awesome happens too
Focus on the awesome, and downplay the shit. Wanna know who does this? People who aren't depressed. What an immature answer, relating to your final 4 lines... "Shit happens in life, but, awesome happens too, focus on the awesome and downplay the shit. Wanna know who does this? People who aren't depressed. Firstly in your response you talk about caring for his success in depression, and then go on to insult him with your ridiculous final statement. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand that non-depressed people focus more on the good things, thank you for telling us all that, but I especially like how you asked a rhetorical question and a facetious way, very helpful. Insult his intelligence.. You're neither helping, nor aiding. If you put more thought into your posts, maybe continue, but after that ... suggestion, perhaps you should find another thread to peddle around in. Furthermore, you also implied all of us messaging with advice from personal experience is "the dummbest thing" you could do, which then further translates that we have done extremely stupid things. In case you're curious, the entire idea of knowledge is it's transfer between persons, so the fact that we all share are own (even tho barely anyone actually shared their story, just advice in how they overcame it) stories is always going to be a plus, it's more data for him to make a conclusive decision. If we all were like you, we'd sit in a big circle and tell him "dude just be happy", "girl you're not fat, just eat", "Dude stop being gay, really", "calm down, its not a big deal".. Your post is infuriating.
I'm sorry this infuriates you, but the end result of all of these discussions always ends up coming down to that last part. Trying to over analyze this simple concept is, in the end, a waste of his time. I'm not trying to mess with you.
He has his own life. People want to throw their situations into play and try to compare to others', but everyone's challenges are different. By trying to give him some amazing answer that worked for myself would be incredibly misleading to what his personal goal is.
Look, it was unfair of me to say what I did without backing it up with a reason. My reason is that when someone sits on their own and constantly over analyzes concepts like this.... it usually leads to further depression. This is actually increases with intelligence, so the more intelligent liquid`nony is, it's possible to go deeper into this hole.
There have been multiple studies comparing sleeplessness to intelligence, depression to intelligence, and various other things. The rate of insomnia and depression appear to correlate directly to the person's IQ. In the end, one of the worst things a person with depression can do is sit alone and try to analyze the heck out of a small thought about whether their opinion or their psychologist's opinion is worth more.
Also, people's decision making is compromised all the time. If someone is drunk, high, very ill, or any number of other things... this can show someone's "measuring ability" is compromised. If the description of himself in his liquid rising video is any indication, you watch him talk about his wife helping him get on a new medication that has ended up helping him a ton. Was her decision making superior to his? Is it now still? Is his psychologist's? What if she was drunk when she told him that? What if she herself was severely depressed when she told him that?
This overly analytical approach just causes problems and headaches. There's no solution dude, don't you see? It can't be answered. This is why when people give advice and everything about how they've fixed things or made things better, they don't realize that nony basically asked an unanswerable question that is based PURELY on one's perspective. Funny enough, if someone were to answer his question with certainty, they'd be assuming the SAME power the psychologist assumed by acting like they know what the right thing to do is.
Lastly, nony asked this question:
Where are the measurements? Where are the arguments, supported by facts and evidence, about the level of ability and amount of effort that a decision requires? How can a line of thinking so thinly logical and so fucking irrational be used to take away someone else's logic and rationality?
Then he goes on to say this:
As if a depressed person's self-esteem issues aren't severe enough, the healthy people, the professionals trained to fix, fling accusations of incompetence that are complete fucking guesses.
He literally talks about how these people are trained in the field, which has loads of history of various conditions and tests used to measure people, and then says they're guessing. So basically, we're going to state that people who have trained for years and become professionals in this field, or at least the one he's seeing, are just full of shit.
Look at the TOPIC of the thread!! ---> "Measuring Ability to Reason"
He flips out on the concept while over analyzing the shit out of it, and tells people on a starcraft website about it.... then you proceed to tell me that saying for him to just focus on the good things instead of focusing on the bad things is BAD?
Hell, my advice was the best advice.
Also, please don't describe my post with "dude stop being gay," by throwing it in with other diseases (obesity, depression). I'm don't think the gay people on this forum will really appreciate their sexual preference being compared to likes of someone being "happy" or "fat."
|
He literally talks about how these people are trained in the field, which has loads of history of various conditions and tests used to measure people, and then says they're guessing. So basically, we're going to state that people who have trained for years and become professionals in this field, or at least the one he's seeing, are just full of shit.
The professionals in the field do just guess, though. Seriously. "He must be depresssed because his brain isn't producing enough serotonin... prescribe him Venlafaxine". But they have no idea whether or not that is the problem, because they haven't done any sort of brain scan. This is why all antidepressants come with a little warning on the label that says that it may increase suicidal thoughts or make depression worse.
So, yea, if a professional throws out an accusation of incompetence, it's likely to be just as much a guess as any of their other guesses. There's actually no logical decrease in one's ability to reason resulting from depression. A depressed person has full cognitive function. This cognitive function, however, is making decisions based on how the person feels at that particular time, rather than some arbitrary point in the future where he may or may not be any better off.
|
When you are depressed your ability to introspect negatively affects your reasoning so that it is biased against yourself.
You are better off learning Buddhism than studying psychology.
|
On July 05 2012 02:39 NeMeSiS3 wrote:Show nested quote +On July 04 2012 06:18 JDub wrote:On July 03 2012 22:40 NeMeSiS3 wrote:
To be frank, the entire notion of actions based on "instincts" before rational thought implies that humans as a species has yet to even evolve past the basic animal on a logic based equivalent. I know, that before every decision I make, I rationally choose which is right. Now you could argue, that a mother would choose her child over the lives of a thousand other children, and perhaps you are right, but n that sense instincts > logic and rationalization, furthermore that circumstance is subjective and not an everyday life choice. If the argument by this "theory" is that the human, under immense pressure and strain, reacts in an instinctive way then I would personally agree that on average, most people would. But to continue, if it implies that the person always chooses the instinct before the rational/logical decision then I would simply say that is not the case. I would recommend the book Blink, by Malcolm Gladwell, for an exploration of split-second "instinct" decisions. While we often think that we are making some thought-out, rational decisions as you describe, it is quite often not the case. "Instincts" are a bit more complex than they seem, though, and can in fact be more accurate in some cases than longer, rational, thought-out decisions/judgments. I can't really explain the whole book in a TL post, so I just recommend that you check it out if you are interested. It's some pretty cool stuff, and will change the way you think about decision making. I can differentiate between "split second" decisions which entirely are related to your instinctive nature, but this isn't a "split second" discussion. I could counter the "split second" argument though by stating that, for example, you are walking and a man pulls a gun out of his coat and is robbing you, your first instinct--this would depend if you are alpha or omega--would generally be to find any chance to remove the gun and defend yourself, but logic comes into play and you give all of your valuables instead of going with your instincts. Like I said though, if your argument is related to split second decision making, then it really has no place here, you could argue that he was given option A or B and he instinctively chose B as soon as he heard it, and that is a common thing most people do, but when one truly sits and reflects on the situation (and especially one who is rather intelligent) generally they come to the right conclusion for themselves.
I don't have an argument here, I just wanted to make sure you didn't discount split-second "instinct" (I put instinct in quotes because split-second decisions are not necessarily based on instinct as one would think of it, but on pretty complex subconscious reasoning). I don't think it's possible to always know that a decision you make is rationally/logically correct, because almost any real-life decision doesn't have a rationally correct answer, it probably has multiple possible answers each with its own positives and negatives which can not be qualified as in a math problem. And in many cases, how one weighs those positives and negatives can be swayed by things on a subconscious level, so the seemingly logic-based decision one makes is really a combination of rational thinking and subconscious "instinctual" thinking. Again, I'm not really giving the ideas presented in the book justice, but you are fooling yourself if you think you can always distinguish between your conscious and subconscious decision-making (you will always have a rational justification for subconscious decisions, even if they didn't exist before the decision was made). Sorry this is getting a bit off-topic though.
|
1)I wouldn't worry about your ability to make decisions; no one should. You dont have the free will to make a decision, so any deliberation wont ultimately matter, as its already been made for you. There are of course decision that are not predetermined such as random things. Those are not a cause of concern either. Worrying about what decision you make wont impact the probabilities or the outcome.
2)If being normal helped you make better decisions than being depressed, than normal people all agree. Seeing as this is not true, being not depressed doesnt seem to help you make decisions or hinder you.
|
On July 05 2012 14:00 shinosai wrote:Show nested quote +He literally talks about how these people are trained in the field, which has loads of history of various conditions and tests used to measure people, and then says they're guessing. So basically, we're going to state that people who have trained for years and become professionals in this field, or at least the one he's seeing, are just full of shit. The professionals in the field do just guess, though. Seriously. "He must be depresssed because his brain isn't producing enough serotonin... prescribe him Venlafaxine". But they have no idea whether or not that is the problem, because they haven't done any sort of brain scan. This is why all antidepressants come with a little warning on the label that says that it may increase suicidal thoughts or make depression worse. So, yea, if a professional throws out an accusation of incompetence, it's likely to be just as much a guess as any of their other guesses. There's actually no logical decrease in one's ability to reason resulting from depression. A depressed person has full cognitive function. This cognitive function, however, is making decisions based on how the person feels at that particular time, rather than some arbitrary point in the future where he may or may not be any better off.
Well, if it was just the serotonin they probably wouldn't prescribe an SNRI (venlafaxine, Serotonin-Norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor), probably just an SSRI (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor).
I think when you say "A depressed person has full cognitive function," you're making a very bold statement. I can do a pubmed or google search and find study results that say otherwise. Here's the abstract of one: http://www.psy-journal.com/article/S0165-1781(08)00436-8/abstract
The results showed that
a) while individuals with current depression had worse cognitive performance in all domains than healthy controls, those individuals with previous depression had lasting cognitive impairments in the domains of immediate memory and attention as compared with healthy controls.
b) individuals with current depression had lower scores in the visuospatial/constructional and attention domains and the total score than individuals with previous depression.
c) individuals in the depression group as a whole who were currently unemployed had significantly lower scores in all domains (except attention) of cognitive function.
d) cognitive function was not related to either physical or mental quality of life or impairments of activities of daily living (ADL, IADL).
e) that unemployment in previous depression was related to poor cognitive function similar to those with current depression.
The results indicate that MDD may have detrimental and lasting effects on cognitive performance partly related to poorer general functioning.
I'm having difficulty interpreting exactly what "d)" meant, but where it says cognitive function was not related to mental quality of life, that might be along the lines of trying to support your argument. In the end though, the results were clear. This is just one study of many we could find, and the source seems pretty solid --> "Psychiatry Research
Volume 176, Issue 2 , Pages 183-189, 30 April 2010" Publisher: Elsevier, whom seem pretty legit.
They tell us in school to watch out for friends who start giving away important things, like large amounts of money, a tv, or their car. That's a type of reaction some have to depression. For anyone to say that depression does not cause a mental lack of ability to reason, or that there's no cognitive impairment, is also just guessing 
|
See this shit, now you got me over analyzing shit for no reason! lol
I'm out!
|
|
|
I totally agree.
There's really just one way to find out whose ability to reason is the best. Hold a contest of logic, deduction and perception that will put each participant to the test. Don't forget style that should be considered then we'll know who best of the litter the one who's level headed and realistic just like me. Can't settle for less 'cause I'm the best so a contest we will see, who's the number one greatest perfectest decision maker in the world for me?
|
My therapist doesn't act like that around me at all. In fact she goes out of her way to help me deal with feelings of low self-worth, incompetence, etc. The few other therapists I've met have been the same way. I guess it's just really bad luck if you happen to run into a professional mental health person who does make you feel incompetent/worthless. I wouldn't give up on therapy because of a few bad experiences or people you just can't connect with. There are a lot of different therapists out there and the only real way to find out who is right for you is to try different ones.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
