neural nets, heartbreak, and psychiatry

[roger]

So driving to work this morning I was having quite an interesting time observing my complete lack of free will. We are used to, though often not happy with, not being in control of external events. Get a bad diagnosis at the doctors, and well, we find out we aren't as adjusted to that reality as we might think. But we still maintain the illusion of being in control of our minds.

This morning I was largely an observer of what was going on in my mind. For private reasons that aren't relevent to this thread - my heart hurts. Anyhoo, so I'm awash in the usual soup of chemicals, negative thoughts, fear for the future, etc. Familiar to anyone who's had a relationship not go the way they want.

Now, through this I was thinking about many things. Part of it was about people who have it a lot worse - my mother is fighting terminal cancer, people on this forum who are dealing with major health issues, parents who have lost a child. *Big* things, compared to me. But, the chemical soup pretty much just shrugged it's shoulders and kept doing it's thing. And the utter illusion of free will was so apparent at that moment. I'm a neural net, and a bag of chemicals, and conscious only plays a small role sometimes, in a complicated feedback system.

And it struck me how little this seems to be a model for psychiatry, and out-patient treatments. It is an incomplete model if we think of mind merely as a neural net, as there is the endochrine system and many other biological systems, dimly understood, which affect our thoughts and sense of self. But it seems a very useful way to look at it.

Last night in a discussion I was asked what I was feeling. As is typical for me, I tried to explain it within a logical framework. Well, it's not logical. It's a complicated feedback system - logic and conscious thought is only one component in that system. And when I stopped trying to force my feelings into some narrative that makes any kind of sense, it was so much easier to talk about them. I feel A, B, and C. Yes, B and C contradict each other. So?

Thinking of myself as a system seems to have a theuruputic aspect. Instead of wallowing in "woe is me", I can sort of sit somewhat outside that, watch it happen, and form strategies on how to reprogram my net. Sort of a running commentary "oh, look, there's a negative thought. See how that caused a rush of chemicals into your stomach. Keep doing that and it'll get worse. Remember (some happy thought)" Now, there is still not a lot of free will there - the chemicals are still active, the negative thoughts continue, but it's a start. I'm a programmer by profession, and I'd like nothing better than to have access to the machine code to my brain, but it's a nearly black box. All I can do is use my conscious to drive what I have control of, and hope that this will also affect the things, eventually, that I don't have direct control over.

The trouble is, there seems to be little available information on how to do this. Cognitive therapy, the form of therapy that tries to replace negative systems of thought with positive ones, seems to be the closest. Probably I am asking too much - the science is not there yet. But recognizing it's an incomplete model - shouldn't we still use it, knowing that the details will be wrong?

Anyway, I find it in some ways liberating. I ain't in control of whether it'll rain today, or whether a drunk driver clips me (defensive driving nonwithstanding), and I'm barely in control of what I think and feel. Kind of sucks, ya, but understanding reality is the first step in working with it, and being happy within it.



* please, please, please, do not turn this into a discussion of whether our minds are physical. There's a hundred Interesting Ian threads on here to debate that same friggin point over and over and over and over again. I can't control where this thread goes, but it's my request, okay? Let's try to progress, based on well founded assumptions, rather than rehash the same thing. If you disagree with the idea that the mind is a combination of a neural net and some chemicals, I'm very aware of the objections, and just take it to another thread. Thanks!

 

[Dave1001]

Sounds like you'd be interested in exploring neurolinguistic programming. Although it faces strong negative skeptical scrutiny on sites like skepdic, I think there are useful embedded principles, and it's approach that thoughts and thinking patterns are like software that can be edited/reprogrammed seems to have reasonable elements to me.

In particular, I think you might be interested in a subculture related to the nlp community, the pick up artist community, simply because they develop internal state control probably in the most high pressure environment: the environment of trying to get laid. I think they've developed great ways to develop what they call "inner game", which is basically keeping oneself in a positive and productive state. This community, in particular, I think has developed in the field practical positive psychology significantly beyond what I've seen from the academic psychological/pyschiatric community.

For an example of the pick up community's contributions to improving "inner game" I recommend this link as a starting point: http://www.bristollair.com/inner-game/identity-and-beliefs.html

 

[stup_id]

Also it may be that classic Freudian psychoanalysis was an obsesion despite its lack of proven efficacy, just because taking emotions into the realm of conciousness may have a very physical effect in the emotion pathways of our brain.

As you may be aware the connections running from the frontal lobes to the limbic system are 2 way, so just making an analytical statement about the reasons of your feelings can possibly help to supress the rumbling (son of a RULE 8) limbic system.

In future maybe Transcranial Magnetical Stimulation (a very BIG maybeee) would help us dealing with this kind of issues.. i think I uncounscously un maked that I think I know the exact feeling you are going trough

Finally, there's some evidence that points out that keeping yourself busy really distracts the cingulate anterior cortex, which is believed to be the part of the brain fixated on negative feelings when you are getting blue. So start working on something :

Anyway, telling myself also about how unfair it was that I complain as if the world is going to end and I don't really care, while a lot of people are much worse, i theorized that bad feelings where once vital to survival, even the littlest tragedy should became able of eliciting a complete response (cathecolamines, dopamine rush.. and everything) so we might have just ended up being programmed to instantly believe that things are as worst as they can

 

[wunky]

I think sometimes society wants to lump people into convenient pigeon-holes. "You are a programmer so you must think like ....""I think the fact that you were able to pull back from the everything must be logical premise really says alot about you.
Applying logic to everything is something I have tried to do also, and if I try really hard I can force a relationship between logic and what is actually going on- but that only holds for a second or two.
Being human is not always easy- but I would choose it over most other things...

 

[roger]

Dave, I have to agree that NLP has always struck me as woo (opinion made on my own, not based on skepdic). Looking at that site confirmed I want little to do with it. For example, an article suggest this line to use while dating: "For such a pretty girl you sure are mentally disoriented!" there are a dozen more as bad and worse. Another page recommends treating women like little girls, because that's what they really are. I don't really view that as a contribution to human relations.

Sorry, that sounds dismissive, so sincere thanks for the suggestion.

 

[Dave1001]

Dave, I have to agree that NLP has always struck me as woo (opinion made on my own, not based on skepdic). Looking at that site confirmed I want little to do with it. For example, an article suggest this line to use while dating: "For such a pretty girl you sure are mentally disoriented!" there are a dozen more as bad and worse. Another page recommends treating women like little girls, because that's what they really are. I don't really view that as a contribution to human relations.

Sorry, that sounds dismissive, so sincere thanks for the suggestion.

Oh, there's plenty of bathwater in that community, but I think there is some baby, too. For example, I find some of their techniques (not any of the ones as juvenile as the ones you've quoted) to be far more instructive on how to achieve good results in real world social dynamics than what I've learned in negotiation and mediation classes in law school.

 

[Bruno Putzeys]

Observing one's thought process and emotions as they happen is something I recognise. Has nothing to do with NLP and rubbish. It just shows how there isn't a monolithic thing called I. I_logic can observe I_emotional and I_chemical surprisingly well.

As an aside, I wonder if anyone has ever done control system analysis on the whole system. Bipolar disorder resembles an oscillating control system like nothing else. So far I found I can stabilise my emotional state very well by consciously adding a derivative term.