I struggle with depression and I have this philosophical question that I need an answer for. Actually, it might even be a scientific question. Now I need to know the answer to this very vital question. I am thinking that there is only one way love, joy, happiness, and inspiration can be experienced. That being, through our reward system (our good moods). The more our reward system is functional and healthy, the more of those things we will have in our lives since our good moods would be greater. But like I said before, there is the difference between words and phrases and our mental states. So by depressed people focusing on words and phrases alone of love, joy, happiness, and inspiration, they are only fooling themselves into thinking they are in love, joyful, happy, and inspired while depressed when they never were since depression as well as anhedonia are what turn off our reward system (our good moods). Even if they focused on the mental state of their thinking while depressed and told themselves that this is a form of love, joy, happiness, and inspiration, then they would be fooling themselves here as well since they are not in the actual mental state of having those things. So they would be fooling themselves through this whole world of personally creating our own meanings in life and personally defining them for ourselves which would have to be false since there is only one way to experience those said things I've mentioned. There is only one way to experience the mental state of visualizing objects (sight) and perceiving sound (hearing). If you were to become blind and deaf, then your thoughts alone cannot give you that mental state. If a blind and deaf person thought to his/herself that he/she still has sight and hearing, then that would not give him/her sight and hearing. That would only give him/her nothing more than the labels (words and phrases) of sight and hearing. So there is only one function that gives us our mental states of visualizing objects and perceiving sound just as how there is also only one way to experience touch, smell, taste, etc. So in that same sense, there is also only one way to have good meaning, love, joy, happiness, and inspiration. There is only one function of our brains that can give us that. There is only one mental state that can give us those things. That being, the mental state of our good moods as I've said before. If you are going to say something to me such as that we can have good meaning, love, joy, happiness, and inspiration through our way of thinking alone even while depressed and not in a good mood, then you have to prove to me how this is the actual mental state of having those things and not just the words and phrases of those things.
This is the fourth thread started by this manic depressive individual on this forum which basically all say the same thing-- he is off his meds and wants to rant to people who are not health care professionals about his depression. He may need help with that, but this isn't the place to get it.
MattMVS7: You titled your thread "Vital Question" and your opening post says you need an answer to a vital question. Did you forget to include the question?
MattMVS7: That's very vague and incoherent-sounding. Since I can't see any real question, I can only post my reaction rather than an answer as such. I'm not sure what you're saying here. Love, joy, happiness etc. are generally positive emotions. They are pleasant emotions. I don't know how that connects with rewards, other than that being rewarded can also be pleasant. Or are you saying that joy, happiness etc. are a kind of psychological reward? It's not clear to me. And what kind of system are you talking about? A system as in a brain function, or something else? We experience all emotions via brain functions. You seem to be saying something obvious, like: if the brain is healthy and therefore open to happiness and joy then it will be more likely to generate that emotion. But perhaps you're actually trying for something less obvious than that. Again, to me this sounds obvious, like you're saying that depressed people don't experience much joy or happiness because their brain's system for the joy and happy emotions isn't activated when you're depressed. I read this as saying you can't fake being happy while you're depressed - not without fooling yourself. On the one hand, this seems trite (again). On the other hand, it makes me think about cognitive behavioural therapy, which is a particular type of psychological therapy that aims to change the brain by introducing different ways of thinking about things. There can be an element of "fake it 'til you make it" in there, and it can work. The brain is flexible, but it can get stuck in a rut. CBT can help with that, sometimes. Treatment for depression can involve a number of different therapies, and often appropriate drugs. It is different for different people. A better analogy might be a psychological condition wherein a person's eyes work just fine yet they claim they are blind. The question then becomes: is it possible that thoughts alone might change the situation so that the person could again see?
James R: My question is, is my theory right or wrong? If it is wrong, then you are going to have to prove it wrong. You cannot just say that we can have those things in our lives while depressed. You have to do what the last paragraph above says. You have to prove to me how that is the actual mental state of perceiving those things. Furthermore, people are saying that good meaning, love, joy, happiness, reward, and inspiration are all how we personally define them. But I am thinking this is false. They can only come through our good moods. All those things are always psychological rewarding experiences for us. They can only come through the functioning of the reward system of our brains (our good moods).
Maybe see your doctor? "Chemical imbalance?" (Always hated that term personally.) Prescription drugs?
In case I ever have to live my life depressed, then it is vital I find the answer. I am thinking that having good meaning in one's life is not just simply from knowing things. It is being in the mental state of love, joy, happiness, and inspiration in doing those things. For example, if you were not in any mental state of love, joy, happiness, or inspiration at all and were in a completely blank hopeless state and you just knew to yourself deep down that you have to go and save your family's life since they have good meaning to you, then they would not have any good meaning to you at all. You are telling yourself nothing more than just words and phrases of good meaning. The only way you can actually perceive them as having good meaning to you would be if you were in an inspired, happy, loving, and joyful mental state in saving their lives. So, in short, since you were not in a good mood while saving their lives, then your family would actually have no good meaning to you in that given moment when you were depressed and in a blank mental state. For you to live your life just through knowing things while depressed and just thinking that has good meaning to you, that is living your life as an utterly inferior dead lifeless biological machine. It is our good moods that make us and our lives something. It is only our good moods that can give good meaning to our lives from our friends, family, and our goals/dreams. Therefore, even all the famous genius artists and composers who struggled with depression were nothing great. They and their lives were nothing great. Their works of art cannot mean anything to them during their depression and nor can the idea that they helped/inspired others all around the world and made their lives good. Nor can their own works of art mean anything good to them either.
Here is a response from someone and my reply to it that gets the very idea of my topic across in a brief way: Response: I find it funny that some people prioritize abstractions ( words,concepts such as physicalism) above the empirical (qualia). Qualia being our subjective mental experiences. In other words they hide from immediate reality (feelings/qualia) behind words. Symbols replaced reality! The word "food" does not provide nourishment and nor does the word "water" quench one's thirst. So what Matt is saying here is that words and phrases of good meaning, bad meaning, love, joy, happiness, inspiration, suffering, despair, anguish, sadness, rage, grief, etc. do not give us anything either. In that sense qualia is related to Matt's theory. My Reply: Yes, this is correct. I am thinking that even good and bad are qualia as well. They would be our good and bad moods. If we are depressed, then just the words and phrases of good meaning won't give us anything. I think science has yet to discover that good and bad are qualia. Currently, we think they are not. But I am thinking otherwise.
MattMVS7: I'm not sure what your theory is. I ventured some possibilities in my last post, which you opted not to address. Insofar as your theory is a collection of the kind of obvious statements that I talked about in my last post, I'd say it's right. Beyond that, who knows? If you're not specific about what you're trying to get at, you can't really expect a concise analysis. I have no obligation to prove anything to you. The usual way these things work, by the way, is that the person who proposes a theory must convince others that it is valid. You can't expect people to devote their time to proving wrong every crazy notion you might have.
All of this is based on imagination. Love , joy , happiness and inspiration , are abstract thoughts, until you have actually experenced them.
Huh????? Where in the world did you pick up that ridiculous idea? I've been on this planet for 72 years and I can assure you that I have experienced love and happiness in myriad ways. I've had three wives and at least five serious girlfriends and loved all of them from the bottom of my heart, yet each love was unique. I've also had quite a few dogs, cats and parrots, and I can say pretty much the same thing about those loves--and I hope I don't need to point out that love between a human and a non-human animal is considerably different from love between two humans, yet not necessarily of a lesser degree. As for happiness? That's a feeling you get when something pleases you greatly. But the happiness you get from waking up and realizing that your sinuses are clear for the first time in two weeks is much different from the happiness you get from turning on the news and finding out that your favorite sports team won the championship, or receiving a flyer announcing a concert in your city by one of your favorite rock'n'roll bands, much less discovering that the five-year war between Lower Slobbovia and Eastern Quackistan is over and the people from both sides are streaming across the border to hug each other's babies. Inspiration? I'm not sure I would call that an emotion. Sure, at some point in the process of learning you might have an aha! moment and it will generate a few endorphins, but the intellectual component of that discovery will surely be much greater than the emotional component--and, in the long run much more important. I get the impression that you haven't experienced much of life. It's quite possible to be depressed about one thing but happy about something else, at the same time. Right now I'm a little bummed out over the fact that I haven't had a job in quite a few months, but that wonderful wife is sitting a few yards away and that wonderful dog is lying on my feet, and those things make me happy. I'm not fooling myself. It's not difficult to balance conflicting emotions in a sensible way. I know I'll get a job in a few weeks, now that the federal government is transitioning into a brand new fiscal year with a brand new budget. (I live in Maryland so most of the employers here rely on government contracts.) You need to get out and live a little more. Your outlook on life is much too constrained. And by the way, depression is a clinical term. It's more than being bummed out because things aren't going well. That happens to everybody every now and then. No no no. That is, in fact, what depression is all about. It overpowers all of your emotions. People who are clinically depressed cannot appreciate the good things in their lives--or perhaps can only connect with them vaguely so they know they're there, but they can't really gather any happiness from them. Depression is not just being extremely unhappy. In fact, in many cases, it's very difficult to even identify a cause of depression. It comes from inside you, not from the external world.
Which all goes back to my point here. The only way to have good meaning in your life is to not be depressed and to be in a good mood.
Why??? Our cognition is extremely powerful... to the extent that most people can detach themselves from physical reality (except life support, which is largely an unconscious process anyway) for quite a long period of time, and devote their cognitive powers to abstractions. Furthermore, with today's technology, people can construct imaginary realities (videogames, or for that matter plain old 20th century television) and "live" in them for quite a long period of time. I daresay that most of us know at least one person (usually a young one whose parents provide his food and other biological necessities) who has withdrawn into an imaginary universe with which he interfaces with a joystick, and only ventures back into reality to take a crap. As the Moderator of the Linguistics subforum, you have probably already guessed what my response would be to this childish bullshit. Language is powerful, and to a surprisingly great extent it can affect how we feel and even how we interface with the physical universe. The power of prayer--both for the person praying and the one being prayed for--has been verified many times over. Even a third-generation atheist like me is touched by someone taking the time and effort to beg his imaginary deity to heal my wounds or solve my problems, and that "touch" releases endorphins in both of us. I suspect that your dismissive attitude toward the science of psychology has allowed you to ignore its findings. As one who, after living for several decades, finally decided to put aside my dismissive attitude toward religion and try to understand why so many people find it helpful, I suggest that you might have the same epiphany if you could try a little harder to understand psychology. We all spend a significant portion of our lives inside our heads. It's foolish not to apply our abilities to making that time both pleasant and productive. Saying, "I'm depressed," and letting it go at that, is to turn your back on an enormous catalogue of discoveries that have helped millions of people overcome depression. There's nothing wrong with someone taking pride in his accomplishments, but if his chief accomplishment is to sink into misery, I don't think pride is what's called for.
It's not just an issue of happy thoughts, talk, and outward body expressions needing to be legitimized by corresponding to a "real" subjective feeling or experience of being happy. Because even the latter can be considered a bogus illusion if one's actual or public life circumstances are miserable. For instance: A drug addict mentally wallowing in a chemical-induced ecstasy while she and her children are abiding in destitute, pig-sty conditions. Emotional states and pains (if you want to regard them as a reward / penalty system) should themselves be rewarding or penalizing a person in applicable response to their constructive / detrimental actions and environmental situations. It often seems ridiculous to suggest band-aids like therapy, meditation / yoga, prescribe a pill, and so-forth as a remedy for sadness / hopelessness when what needs to be remedied is the physical trials, behavioral shortcomings, social / domestic difficulties and financial problems afflicting that individual with stress and tribulations. OTOH, if one has ascended to or at least grazed the fabled "capitalist dream" lifestyle where that brand of suffering is not the case (and the personal / community relationships are good), then the "Don't worry, be happy" ritual approaches and pharmaceutical / medical solutions are warranted. I.E.: "There seems to be no justification for you feeling so horrible except medical causes; or lack of psychological adjustments to a new life; or needing remedial practices and proper recovery from a bygone past filled with abuse and misplaced guilt; or missing a purposeful philosophy that is adhered to."
Helen Adams Keller was born on June 27, 1880 in Tuscumbia, Alabama. In 1882, she fell ill and was struck blind, deaf and mute. Beginning in 1887, Keller's teacher, Anne Sullivan, helped her make tremendous progress with her ability to communicate, and Keller went on to college, graduating in 1904. The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched - they must be felt with the heart.
And your example is a person with those senses communicating those beautiful things to a person without those senses? Would Helen Keller ever have experienced those beautiful things without the senses of Anne Sullivan?
Probably not. But fortunately Homo sapiens is a highly social species. We have a strong instinct to help each other, for the good of the pack, but also because it releases endorphins.
Depression isn't an idea or a theory. People get depressed mostly because they feel trapped somehow, they experience a lack of "mental freedom". One way this happens is attachment to ideas--the belief that "having the right ideas" is the answer, if you can see where I'm going. Many psychiatrists will admit, I think, that they don't have all the right ideas either.
