As for doubting me being a physician, I'll let that slide. You seem to be upset for my tearing into your initial reply, and apparently haven't been able to get past it. I'm not upset. I'm willing to listen to what you have to say, but so far, your postings have no better foundation than mine.
You could be a doctor, a medical doctor. I have no way of knowing or verifying your claims of being a doctor. I could claim that I am a doctor, and that you are wrong. And you would be wise to doubt me. Arguments from Authority don't fly by me, and they shouldn't fly by you.
That's the whole reason we use references. Of course, on slashdot, the standards of evidence are a bit lower than medical journals. All I'm asking for is some references to what you are claiming.
If I'm wrong, I want to know. You don't believe me, which is reasonable. Likewise, I don't believe you, which is also reasonable. We can just trust random people on the internet. If you provide just a *single* link that supports your pet theory, I'll cede the argument. As it stands, you have no better reference than I do, so I have no reasonable basis to believe your claims.
From your own references. You asked me, 'Why the FUCK should we believe you'? I answer, you should not, and so I have provided references. They are not my own sources, but rather sources from other people.
Now I ask you the same question. Why the FUCK should I believe you. You claim to be a doctor. Are you a medical doctor? Perhaps you are a doctor not familiar with modern medical defintions. You would do a better job of convincing me and others if you would provide references. Otherwise, this is just a pet theory of yours.
So far, I have provided three references to support my claims; you have provided none to support your claims. Surely a medical doctor could provide some evidence.
Also note that your own references use the term "irreversible" death. Yes, *along with* brain death and lack of breathing, which you choose to keep ignoring.
Why did you cut the definition in half? The full quote was:
It states that: "An individual who has sustained either (1) irreversible cessation of circulatory and respiratory functions, or (2) irreversible cessation of all functions of the entire brain, including the brain stem is dead. A determination of death must be made in accordance with accepted medical standards." You accuse me of reading only what I want to read, when you have done the same thing. There are two parts to the modern medical definition; you have chosen to look at only one. Why?
what does this mean, if not a lack of heartbeat? The relevant points to this discussion are irreversible cessation of circulatory and respiratory function.
So if a guy's heart stopped, and then it started again, for any reason, he wasn't dead. It wasn't an *irreversible* stoppage. He wasn't dead, because his even though his heart had stopped, it started again sometime later. A dead person's heart has stopped *forever*.
And even if we go by this definition, we have the case of the artificial heart. A person with an artificial heart has no heart, and no heart-beat. In fact, the artificial heart has no heart-beat at all -- it's constantly running. So are you going to claim that a living, breathing, walking, talking person with an artificial heart is actually dead, because they simply don't have a heart nor a heart-beat? This is why your definition is non-sensical.
However - extreme examples (the rare case of hypothermia) aside you will NOT have brain activity without a heart-beat, if this has been absent more than 10 mins or so) The same is true for lung activity, if it's been absent for 10 minutes or so, or kidney activity, for a matter of days.
Therefore it's not as simple as wikipedia would have you believe. As simple as wikipedia? Wikipedia's explanation is *more complex* than your simple 'heartbeat' definition. So I would say it's not as simple as *you* would have me believe.
We physicians are going to hold on to the absence of cardiovascular activity as one of the indicators of death for a long time. Can you give me a link or a reference for this no-heartbeat? All of the links I have found reference brain activity ( In other words, as you so aptly put it, 'Why the FUCK should I believe you?'):
Medterms.com"The uniform determination of death. The National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws in 1980 formulated the Uniform Determination of Death Act. It states that: "An individual who has sustained either (1) irreversible cessation of circulatory and respiratory functions, or (2) irreversible cessation of all functions of the entire brain, including the brain stem is dead. A determination of death must be made in accordance with accepted medical standards." This definition was approved by the American Medical Association in 1980 and by the American Bar Association in 1981."
Another Link "In 1968 the Harvard Medical School Committee developed a definition of death. According to this definition, a person is brain dead when he or she has suffered irreversible cessation of the functions of the entire brain, including the brain stem. "
Biology, Consciousness, and the Definition of Death
"Two landmark reports helped to generate a movement away from exclusive reliance on the traditional standard: the 1968 report of the Harvard Medical School Ad Hoc Committee and a 1981 presidential commission report, Defining Death. This second document included what became the Uniform Determination of Death Act (UDDA). Today all fifty states and the District of Columbia follow the UDDA in recognizing whole-brain death -- irreversible cessation of all functions of the entire brain -- as a legal standard of death. The UDDA doesn't jettison the cardiopulmonary standard, however. Instead, it holds that death occurs whenever either standard (whichever applies first) is met. One important consequence of this change is that an individual can be legally dead even if her cardiopulmonary system continues to function. If a patient's entire brain is nonfunctioning, so that breathing and heartbeat are maintained only by artificial life-supports, that patient meets the whole-brain standard of death."
I understand the reason why we need to define death as no heartbeat for practical reasons, but that doesn't mean it's a scientific definition of death.
Besides, several organisms - including mostly bacteria, but AFAIR also some small animals with central nervous system - can completely suspend their metabolic activity and then resume it at a later date. In fact I seem to recall about recently reading about some seeds which had produced a plant after hundreds of years of sitting between the pages of a logbook or something. Frogs and certain reptiles such as turtles can be completely frozen. That's how they survive the winter in northern climes.
But anyway, that's why I go with the putrefaction definition. Any of those animals or plant seeds you mentioned that were dormant and later sprang to life were never rotted. We don't have any examples of rotted animals or plants coming back.
My definition of death agrees with wikipedia: "Today, where a definition of the moment of death is required, doctors and coroners usually turn to "brain death" or "biological death": People are considered dead when the electrical activity in their brain ceases (cf. persistent vegetative state). It is presumed that a stoppage of electrical activity indicates the end of consciousness. However, suspension of consciousness must be permanent, and not transient, as occurs during sleep, and especially a coma." Emphasis mine.
while completely ignoring testimony of two people who have ACTUALLY been clinically dead? If you trust the wikipedia article, the guy whose heart stopped *wasn't* clinically dead.
But if you're going to say that consciousness determines whether or not something is 'dead', then we would have to say that bacteria and plants are not alive, because they have no nervous system, and thus no consciousness. That's why I go with putrefaction -- the cessation of metabolic activity that keeps the organism going.
However, in our society, we couldn't transplant organs if we said that death occurs at putrefaction ( different pars of your body can rot while the rest of you is still alive anyway ), so that's why we go with brain death.
If the heart stops, it means you're dead. In both a medical and scientific sense. I should know. I'm a doctor. I don't see why we would base our definition of death based on the activity of the heart. It would be like saying someone is dead because they aren't breathing, or their kidneys aren't functioning. Yes, they will die in moments if their heart stops or they stop breathing, somewhat longer if their kidneys stop, but they aren't dead yet if you can intervene and get them going again. It seems to go back to the western idea that blood was the vital essence of life ( or breath, in the case of not breathing means dead -- remember human beings first came alive when God breathed the 'Breath of Life' into them -- this was taken as serious scientific stuff up until about 200 years ago. ) , and that the heart was the center of the being.
Anyways, about the medical definition of death, Wikipedia says differently:
Historically, attempts to define the exact moment of death have been problematic. Death was once defined as the cessation of heartbeat (cardiac arrest) and of breathing, but the development of CPR and prompt defibrillation have rendered the previous definition inadequate because breathing and heartbeat can sometimes be restarted. This is now called "clinical death". Events which were causally linked to death in the past no longer kill in all circumstances; without a functioning heart or lungs, life can sometimes be sustained with a combination of life support devices, organ transplants and artificial pacemakers.
Today, where a definition of the moment of death is required, doctors and coroners usually turn to "brain death" or "biological death": People are considered dead when the electrical activity in their brain ceases (cf. persistent vegetative state). It is presumed that a stoppage of electrical activity indicates the end of consciousness. However, suspension of consciousness must be permanent, and not transient, as occurs during sleep, and especially a coma. In the case of sleep, EEGs can easily tell the difference. Identifying the moment of death is important in cases of transplantation, as organs for transplant must be harvested as quickly as possible after the death of the body. Emphasis mine.
Now there's a question of REVERSIBLE death, and IRREVERSIBLE death. My definition of death would have to mean that you're not coming back, no matter what. Otherwise, that's not really death, is it? Reversible death sounds like a paradox to me. If death mean no heart-beat, it seems to me that we need to update that definition, because these days we can bring back dead people rather easily.
It is a *profoundly* mysterious question if it would, in fact, be the same "you" inside if your brain were switched off for a while and then turned back on. In the East, they have been dealing with this question for thousands of years. A Hindu might answer, yes, of course you would be the same person. This 'switching off' happens every night when you are in deep, dreamless sleep. Yet you still wake up and are the same person the next morning. This is one of the basis for their argument for cosmic consciousness, or the 'godhead' or super-soul.
If you don't buy that this happens at night, you can make a good argument that this certainly does happen during a coma, when there is little to no electrical activity in the brain. Alternatively, you can anesthetize certain parts of the brain, and also cause the personality to disappear.
It's one of those questions that seem unanswerable. Personally I feel it has something to do with the continuity of brain activity. You interrupt that, and whatever that "spark" is ceases to be, and if the brain is turned back on, it would be a different "you". The eastern philosophies argue that all phenomena, from electrical activity in the brain, to the existence of rocks, are chaotic, always in flux. In other words, you are a different 'you' for every moment of your existence. It's like saying, "I was once an 8-year-old boy, but now I'm a thirty-year-old man." Well, wait a minute -- isn't there only one you? How can you be both an boy and a man? The answer is that 'you' are a continuation of a series, a phenomenon, like the flame of a candle, or a river. The flame is never the same flame from one moment to the next, nor does a river ever have the same water or same banks, at any moment. Yet will still perceive it as the continuity of the same 'thing'.
The idea of the 'you' as a fixed, permanent thing, seems to be an idea that traces back to Greek philosophy. They were always looking for unchanging, eternal, fixed, stable 'things'. And it really breaks down when we try to apply that to the self or consciousness. Eastern philosophy seems more advanced in this respect -- it says there are no things, only processes or phenomena that are *always* changing.
It sounds like you weren't dead in any medical or scientific sense, just that your heart had stopped. There's been debate, probably since the dawn of humanity, as to when you can say someone is actually dead. There's always been problems of 'dead' people waking up, unless you actually practice cremation or draining the blood -- that's why we do it. There was a contest of sorts to make a medical definition of death back in the 1700s or 1800s -- the actual point where you could never come back. The guy who won proposed that putrefaction (when the body is actually rotting) was the only scientifically valid definition. I think the current medical definition is no heartbeat and no electrical activity in the brain.
Anyway, I'll hijack this thread to talk about my own information about where the 'personality' is during a clinical death experience. I don't think it 'is' anywhere. It's like asking where windows is when your computer is off. Going through a coma or medical death is like rebooting the part of your brain that generates your personality. If you read about Hindu and Buddhist meditation, and also the experience of serious hallucinogen users, they talk about an experience called 'ego death'. It's where you still perceive everything you normally would, except there is no "I". The subjective perspective completely evaporates. You see yourself as objectively as you would the person sitting next to you, not attached to your desires or fears. Even though you can still perceive your own thoughts and internal body states, you still don't have the sensation of an "I" or a soul who is experiencing it. Your sense of ownership, or things belonging to 'you', including your own body and thoughts, just is gone. It's called the 'unseen seer' in Hinduism, or the invisible eyeball by the transcendentalist Americans of the 1800s.
There is a part of our brain that generates this sense of self, the "I", and it can get shut down just like any other part of the brain, through bodily trauma, meditation, or drugs.
Basically, politicians are powerful people who do what powerful people normally do -- they get favors from other wealthy people, and return the favor at a later date. However, since they are a public servant, instead of a CEO, they aren't supposed to do that.
It's just like when your buddy comes over to help you work on your patio, and you give him a six-pack for his efforts, or help him find a job at the place you work at, only on a much larger scale. I'll scratch your back, you scratch mine, is human nature.
Government can't oversee government? Or in other words, like can't oversee like? No matter what system we have, it will always be humans watching over other humans. As adults, we live in a world without parents or teachers. We watch over each other. We're a group of peers. Who guards the guards? We do.
If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself. A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions. --James Madison, The Federalist, #51 [Emphasis mine]
BOTH sides of the aisle look bad on election matters right now, and no real practical solution has arisen out of Washington yet. Well, jeez, what is their incentive to fix things? Apparently election fraud is how they get into office!
I have no problem with scientific data. But when it comes to my own mind, I'm going to trust my personal experience. I'm not at the point where I'm hallucinating and locked up. If all that the mental health professional is relying on is my own stories about my own experience, I think have as good or as better an idea about what's going on in my own head than he does. In no way can an interview or counseling session be considered scientific in the least. It's a completely subjective experience -- it depends completely on who conducts the interview. Like I said early, I believe in science; I would have taken whatever medication the shrink prescribed me had he done a PET scan instead of an interview.
All I'm saying is that for me, nicotine probably worked better for me that ritalin, which is what I may have been prescribed if my attention problems kept up. I know smoking is bad for you, but as far as I know, nicotine is a pretty safe drug. I have given up smoking, but I was thinking about using nicotine gum or patches. Would you have a problem with that?
Show me one example of a person who got cancer from any antidepressant (again, let's talk MAOIs and tricyclics because they've been around a lot longer), No, let's talk about the current crop of medications, because that's what's being prescribed to a lot more people than in generations past, in place of MAOIs and tricyclics, and because we know absolutely nothing about their long term effects. There is a not-insignificant history of great new wonder drugs coming on the market and then turning out to have serious long term consequences. All I'm saying is that it's a possibility, not destiny.
There are people who do need anti-depressants to stay 'normal', but I think more people would be served for effectively for anti-anxiety with nicotine ( not from smoking ) than other drugs.
I'm still curious as to why you keep bringing up drinking. I never mentioned that I drink; I probably have 1-2 drinks 2 or 3 times a month -- weddings, friends in town, go to a fancy restaurant, etc. I don't enjoy drinking -- I don't like being buzzed or drunk, and I hate hangovers. I don't use it to feel good. It seems to me that you are conflating some issues here. All I'm saying is that nicotine might be a relatively safe anti-anxiety medication; and you go off on how drinking is bad, and bring up scientology. I don't get it.
A pack of 20 cigarettes cost $5 where I life. If I smoke one a day, that's a quarter for a single dose. If I buy rolling tobacco, I can get even cheaper cigarettes -- about 10 cents a piece.
Meanwhile, a search for effexor on froogle shows anywhere from $1 to $3 a pill. I would bet most other mental health medication are $1 or more a pill. I would be very surprised if you could show me a non-tricyclic, modern anti-depressant or anti-anxiety medication that costs less than $1.
So cigarettes are a much cheaper anti-anxiety medication. I also don't have to pay for a doctor visit for another prescription.
Wow. You knew you had a problem to the extent that you actually went to the trouble of seeing a psychiatrist (not a quick or cheap thing to do in our society, sadly, both in terms of financial and social costs), who recommended drug therapy.
I'm assuming s/he also suggested psychotherapy, which any psychiatrist worth beans will recommend way before they get to the point of doling out medication.
They gave me three options. One one for the three drug cocktail that they wanted. The other was for effexor I think. The final option he gave me was for norpremin, which I remembered helping me in the past. Psychotherapy wasn't on the list; I couldn't afford it anyway.
I've seen various counselors, social workers, therapists, psychologists, and psychiatrists since I was in the third grade. I was hospitalized for depression when I was 12. I was one of the first kids prescribed prozac in the early nineties, when I was about 13. I think I'm pretty savvy when it comes to figuring out who's a good shrink and who's not.
I talked to the guy for 40 minutes and he wants me on a combo of three mind-altering drugs, none of which I can even afford individually? That's a lousy doctor.
But you opted for neither of these. Instead, you started self-medicating with St. John's Wort and smoking. Do you think maybe you went wrong somewhere along the line?
Not at all. If a guy talks to you for 40 minutes and wants you on a three-drug cocktail of mind-altering, that guy is a bad doctor. As I said above, I've been in and out of mental health services since I was 8. I've been working constantly since I was 15, except when I've traveled to various countries for extended periods. I graduated Magna cum laude with a double-degree from Ohio State. I'm not a basket case; I had an episode and needed a little help.
A lot of people self-medicate depression and anxiety with cigarettes and alcohol. It's part of the reason why these two vices are so popular. Unfortunately they're not as well-designed as drugs like fluoxetine and bupropion, and they have massive side effects that double-blind studies have proven the risk of (you know, the same scientifically rigorous protocols that show the minimal adverse effects of prescription antidepressants).
Um, we don't have *any* data on the long term studies of the new anti-depressants on the body or mind. I don't drink but maybe twice a month, and I don't smoke. Alcohol and cigarettes are relatively safe -- you see smokers and drinkers who are in their 80s. I predict we will see *massive* side effects from decades of wellbutin abuse, just like the wonder drugs we were giving housewives in the 60s.
It's also helpful to have a trained doctor following the course of your therapy and making adjustments/changes as needed. Of course, if you're one of those wingnuts who thinks that doctors are only after your wallet (a view not even Michael Moore takes), it probably makes more sense for you to booze and smoke your way through your problems yourself. After all, what could possibly go wrong? It's not as though nicotine and alcohol are addictive or anything...
Who said anything about me drinking? I think you're getting mixed up here.
Alcohol is not physically addictive. A person who depends on drinking is different than someone addicted to heroin or nicotine. Nicotine is addictive, but it's harmless. It's the tobacco smoke that causes problems. A person who depends on drinking has a psychological addiction to alcohol, not a physical one. So if you're worried about alcohol addiction, which is a psychological addiction, you should be worried about me taking anti-depressants, because you could become psychologically addicted to any of them -- not to mention physically addicted to some of them.
We know pretty well what the long term effects of smoking and drinking are. They're not terrible, like, say, ritalin abuse -- which is the latest incarnation of amphetamines, the wonder drug of the 60
I had a bout of depression last year and I saw a psychiatrist. I went over my life history. At the end of the session, he recommended a cocktail of 3 different drugs! Apparently because I had had a manic episode once in my life when I was in high-school, I was a manic-depressive. I needed one drug for the depression, one for the mania, and some other one. Jesus Christ.
I stopped seeing him. I was looking into 'legal' highs for depression, such as St. John's Wort and
Since I also had problems concentrating, I tried smoking for the nicotine. I found that it really helped with my anxiety. I took a smoke after work, I relaxed, and then moved my bowels. I felt calm and focused rather than frenzied and harried. Things were right on course instead of all over the place. I've since given it up, however, since I started coughing.
I know smoking destroys your lungs gives you cancer after decades. My maternal grandparents died of cancers in their 60s, probably from smoking. All the people I try to turn on to smoking tell me that. But what are the long-term effects of taking anti-depression or anti-anxiety medication for decades.
It seems to me that cigarettes are a relatively cheap and simple anti-depressant. Although there are long term health consequences, we don't really know what the damage is from decades of wellbutrin. Of course, Big Pharma would rather have us rely on them for anti-depressants than use a simple plant that we could grow ourselves... Hey, that sounds familiar.
I'd rather just believe you used the wrong word. I'm aware of what the word 'reality' means in common parlance, referring to the objective, independent non-self 'stuff'. I chose to use it 'wrongly' as a literary device to bring the reader into the subjective experience. With PTSD, he was in his last moments of consciousness. What better way to express that to a reader so that would have an experience of something like that themself, rather than say "Wow, that guy's messed up."
I'm inviting you to take part in a narrative of someone else's experience, like watching the movie "The Matrix" rather than explaining to you that the guy was actually jumping dimensions or something.
I was going to say check the logs, but this sounds like an answer more suitable to the guy who is doing the interview. IT guys tend to jack into the matrix and stay there too much. Yours is a good answer.
Slashdot Mirror
You could be a doctor, a medical doctor. I have no way of knowing or verifying your claims of being a doctor. I could claim that I am a doctor, and that you are wrong. And you would be wise to doubt me. Arguments from Authority don't fly by me, and they shouldn't fly by you.
That's the whole reason we use references. Of course, on slashdot, the standards of evidence are a bit lower than medical journals. All I'm asking for is some references to what you are claiming.
If I'm wrong, I want to know. You don't believe me, which is reasonable. Likewise, I don't believe you, which is also reasonable. We can just trust random people on the internet. If you provide just a *single* link that supports your pet theory, I'll cede the argument. As it stands, you have no better reference than I do, so I have no reasonable basis to believe your claims.
Now I ask you the same question. Why the FUCK should I believe you. You claim to be a doctor. Are you a medical doctor? Perhaps you are a doctor not familiar with modern medical defintions. You would do a better job of convincing me and others if you would provide references. Otherwise, this is just a pet theory of yours.
So far, I have provided three references to support my claims; you have provided none to support your claims. Surely a medical doctor could provide some evidence. Also note that your own references use the term "irreversible" death. Yes, *along with* brain death and lack of breathing, which you choose to keep ignoring.
what does this mean, if not a lack of heartbeat? The relevant points to this discussion are irreversible cessation of circulatory and respiratory function.
So if a guy's heart stopped, and then it started again, for any reason, he wasn't dead. It wasn't an *irreversible* stoppage. He wasn't dead, because his even though his heart had stopped, it started again sometime later. A dead person's heart has stopped *forever*.
And even if we go by this definition, we have the case of the artificial heart. A person with an artificial heart has no heart, and no heart-beat. In fact, the artificial heart has no heart-beat at all -- it's constantly running. So are you going to claim that a living, breathing, walking, talking person with an artificial heart is actually dead, because they simply don't have a heart nor a heart-beat? This is why your definition is non-sensical.
We physicians are going to hold on to the absence of cardiovascular activity as one of the indicators of death for a long time. Can you give me a link or a reference for this no-heartbeat? All of the links I have found reference brain activity ( In other words, as you so aptly put it, 'Why the FUCK should I believe you?'):
I understand the reason why we need to define death as no heartbeat for practical reasons, but that doesn't mean it's a scientific definition of death.
But anyway, that's why I go with the putrefaction definition. Any of those animals or plant seeds you mentioned that were dormant and later sprang to life were never rotted. We don't have any examples of rotted animals or plants coming back.
Fine! I'm taking my ball and going to DIGG. Do you hear me, Taco!?
But if you're going to say that consciousness determines whether or not something is 'dead', then we would have to say that bacteria and plants are not alive, because they have no nervous system, and thus no consciousness. That's why I go with putrefaction -- the cessation of metabolic activity that keeps the organism going.
However, in our society, we couldn't transplant organs if we said that death occurs at putrefaction ( different pars of your body can rot while the rest of you is still alive anyway ), so that's why we go with brain death.
Anyways, about the medical definition of death, Wikipedia says differently: Historically, attempts to define the exact moment of death have been problematic. Death was once defined as the cessation of heartbeat (cardiac arrest) and of breathing, but the development of CPR and prompt defibrillation have rendered the previous definition inadequate because breathing and heartbeat can sometimes be restarted. This is now called "clinical death". Events which were causally linked to death in the past no longer kill in all circumstances; without a functioning heart or lungs, life can sometimes be sustained with a combination of life support devices, organ transplants and artificial pacemakers.
Today, where a definition of the moment of death is required, doctors and coroners usually turn to "brain death" or "biological death": People are considered dead when the electrical activity in their brain ceases (cf. persistent vegetative state). It is presumed that a stoppage of electrical activity indicates the end of consciousness. However, suspension of consciousness must be permanent, and not transient, as occurs during sleep, and especially a coma. In the case of sleep, EEGs can easily tell the difference. Identifying the moment of death is important in cases of transplantation, as organs for transplant must be harvested as quickly as possible after the death of the body. Emphasis mine. Now there's a question of REVERSIBLE death, and IRREVERSIBLE death. My definition of death would have to mean that you're not coming back, no matter what. Otherwise, that's not really death, is it? Reversible death sounds like a paradox to me. If death mean no heart-beat, it seems to me that we need to update that definition, because these days we can bring back dead people rather easily.
If you don't buy that this happens at night, you can make a good argument that this certainly does happen during a coma, when there is little to no electrical activity in the brain. Alternatively, you can anesthetize certain parts of the brain, and also cause the personality to disappear. It's one of those questions that seem unanswerable. Personally I feel it has something to do with the continuity of brain activity. You interrupt that, and whatever that "spark" is ceases to be, and if the brain is turned back on, it would be a different "you". The eastern philosophies argue that all phenomena, from electrical activity in the brain, to the existence of rocks, are chaotic, always in flux. In other words, you are a different 'you' for every moment of your existence. It's like saying, "I was once an 8-year-old boy, but now I'm a thirty-year-old man." Well, wait a minute -- isn't there only one you? How can you be both an boy and a man? The answer is that 'you' are a continuation of a series, a phenomenon, like the flame of a candle, or a river. The flame is never the same flame from one moment to the next, nor does a river ever have the same water or same banks, at any moment. Yet will still perceive it as the continuity of the same 'thing'.
The idea of the 'you' as a fixed, permanent thing, seems to be an idea that traces back to Greek philosophy. They were always looking for unchanging, eternal, fixed, stable 'things'. And it really breaks down when we try to apply that to the self or consciousness. Eastern philosophy seems more advanced in this respect -- it says there are no things, only processes or phenomena that are *always* changing.
It sounds like you weren't dead in any medical or scientific sense, just that your heart had stopped. There's been debate, probably since the dawn of humanity, as to when you can say someone is actually dead. There's always been problems of 'dead' people waking up, unless you actually practice cremation or draining the blood -- that's why we do it. There was a contest of sorts to make a medical definition of death back in the 1700s or 1800s -- the actual point where you could never come back. The guy who won proposed that putrefaction (when the body is actually rotting) was the only scientifically valid definition. I think the current medical definition is no heartbeat and no electrical activity in the brain.
Anyway, I'll hijack this thread to talk about my own information about where the 'personality' is during a clinical death experience. I don't think it 'is' anywhere. It's like asking where windows is when your computer is off. Going through a coma or medical death is like rebooting the part of your brain that generates your personality. If you read about Hindu and Buddhist meditation, and also the experience of serious hallucinogen users, they talk about an experience called 'ego death'. It's where you still perceive everything you normally would, except there is no "I". The subjective perspective completely evaporates. You see yourself as objectively as you would the person sitting next to you, not attached to your desires or fears. Even though you can still perceive your own thoughts and internal body states, you still don't have the sensation of an "I" or a soul who is experiencing it. Your sense of ownership, or things belonging to 'you', including your own body and thoughts, just is gone. It's called the 'unseen seer' in Hinduism, or the invisible eyeball by the transcendentalist Americans of the 1800s.
There is a part of our brain that generates this sense of self, the "I", and it can get shut down just like any other part of the brain, through bodily trauma, meditation, or drugs.
Basically, politicians are powerful people who do what powerful people normally do -- they get favors from other wealthy people, and return the favor at a later date. However, since they are a public servant, instead of a CEO, they aren't supposed to do that.
It's just like when your buddy comes over to help you work on your patio, and you give him a six-pack for his efforts, or help him find a job at the place you work at, only on a much larger scale. I'll scratch your back, you scratch mine, is human nature.
I'm confused. Isn't the US the 'visiting' team in this metaphor?
Why does this sound like the title of a Monty Python Skit?
"Why isn't my process getting more CPU time?"
"Well, Sir, it's a Completely Fair Scheduler."
All I'm saying is that for me, nicotine probably worked better for me that ritalin, which is what I may have been prescribed if my attention problems kept up. I know smoking is bad for you, but as far as I know, nicotine is a pretty safe drug. I have given up smoking, but I was thinking about using nicotine gum or patches. Would you have a problem with that? Show me one example of a person who got cancer from any antidepressant (again, let's talk MAOIs and tricyclics because they've been around a lot longer), No, let's talk about the current crop of medications, because that's what's being prescribed to a lot more people than in generations past, in place of MAOIs and tricyclics, and because we know absolutely nothing about their long term effects. There is a not-insignificant history of great new wonder drugs coming on the market and then turning out to have serious long term consequences. All I'm saying is that it's a possibility, not destiny.
There are people who do need anti-depressants to stay 'normal', but I think more people would be served for effectively for anti-anxiety with nicotine ( not from smoking ) than other drugs.
I'm still curious as to why you keep bringing up drinking. I never mentioned that I drink; I probably have 1-2 drinks 2 or 3 times a month -- weddings, friends in town, go to a fancy restaurant, etc. I don't enjoy drinking -- I don't like being buzzed or drunk, and I hate hangovers. I don't use it to feel good. It seems to me that you are conflating some issues here. All I'm saying is that nicotine might be a relatively safe anti-anxiety medication; and you go off on how drinking is bad, and bring up scientology. I don't get it.
70 friends!? I only have 15. Man, I'm never going on facebook again!
A pack of 20 cigarettes cost $5 where I life. If I smoke one a day, that's a quarter for a single dose. If I buy rolling tobacco, I can get even cheaper cigarettes -- about 10 cents a piece.
Meanwhile, a search for effexor on froogle shows anywhere from $1 to $3 a pill. I would bet most other mental health medication are $1 or more a pill. I would be very surprised if you could show me a non-tricyclic, modern anti-depressant or anti-anxiety medication that costs less than $1.
So cigarettes are a much cheaper anti-anxiety medication. I also don't have to pay for a doctor visit for another prescription.
I couldn't remember the word 'melatonin' and I was going to look it up, and then I forgot...
Wow. You knew you had a problem to the extent that you actually went to the trouble of seeing a psychiatrist (not a quick or cheap thing to do in our society, sadly, both in terms of financial and social costs), who recommended drug therapy. I'm assuming s/he also suggested psychotherapy, which any psychiatrist worth beans will recommend way before they get to the point of doling out medication.
They gave me three options. One one for the three drug cocktail that they wanted. The other was for effexor I think. The final option he gave me was for norpremin, which I remembered helping me in the past. Psychotherapy wasn't on the list; I couldn't afford it anyway.
I've seen various counselors, social workers, therapists, psychologists, and psychiatrists since I was in the third grade. I was hospitalized for depression when I was 12. I was one of the first kids prescribed prozac in the early nineties, when I was about 13. I think I'm pretty savvy when it comes to figuring out who's a good shrink and who's not.
I talked to the guy for 40 minutes and he wants me on a combo of three mind-altering drugs, none of which I can even afford individually? That's a lousy doctor.
But you opted for neither of these. Instead, you started self-medicating with St. John's Wort and smoking. Do you think maybe you went wrong somewhere along the line?
Not at all. If a guy talks to you for 40 minutes and wants you on a three-drug cocktail of mind-altering, that guy is a bad doctor. As I said above, I've been in and out of mental health services since I was 8. I've been working constantly since I was 15, except when I've traveled to various countries for extended periods. I graduated Magna cum laude with a double-degree from Ohio State. I'm not a basket case; I had an episode and needed a little help.
A lot of people self-medicate depression and anxiety with cigarettes and alcohol. It's part of the reason why these two vices are so popular. Unfortunately they're not as well-designed as drugs like fluoxetine and bupropion, and they have massive side effects that double-blind studies have proven the risk of (you know, the same scientifically rigorous protocols that show the minimal adverse effects of prescription antidepressants).
Um, we don't have *any* data on the long term studies of the new anti-depressants on the body or mind. I don't drink but maybe twice a month, and I don't smoke. Alcohol and cigarettes are relatively safe -- you see smokers and drinkers who are in their 80s. I predict we will see *massive* side effects from decades of wellbutin abuse, just like the wonder drugs we were giving housewives in the 60s.
It's also helpful to have a trained doctor following the course of your therapy and making adjustments/changes as needed. Of course, if you're one of those wingnuts who thinks that doctors are only after your wallet (a view not even Michael Moore takes), it probably makes more sense for you to booze and smoke your way through your problems yourself. After all, what could possibly go wrong? It's not as though nicotine and alcohol are addictive or anything...
Who said anything about me drinking? I think you're getting mixed up here.
Alcohol is not physically addictive. A person who depends on drinking is different than someone addicted to heroin or nicotine. Nicotine is addictive, but it's harmless. It's the tobacco smoke that causes problems. A person who depends on drinking has a psychological addiction to alcohol, not a physical one. So if you're worried about alcohol addiction, which is a psychological addiction, you should be worried about me taking anti-depressants, because you could become psychologically addicted to any of them -- not to mention physically addicted to some of them.
We know pretty well what the long term effects of smoking and drinking are. They're not terrible, like, say, ritalin abuse -- which is the latest incarnation of amphetamines, the wonder drug of the 60
The ethnobotanist Mark Plotkin once remarked, "The difference between medicine and poison is dosage."
I had a bout of depression last year and I saw a psychiatrist. I went over my life history. At the end of the session, he recommended a cocktail of 3 different drugs! Apparently because I had had a manic episode once in my life when I was in high-school, I was a manic-depressive. I needed one drug for the depression, one for the mania, and some other one. Jesus Christ.
I stopped seeing him. I was looking into 'legal' highs for depression, such as St. John's Wort and
Since I also had problems concentrating, I tried smoking for the nicotine. I found that it really helped with my anxiety. I took a smoke after work, I relaxed, and then moved my bowels. I felt calm and focused rather than frenzied and harried. Things were right on course instead of all over the place. I've since given it up, however, since I started coughing.
I know smoking destroys your lungs gives you cancer after decades. My maternal grandparents died of cancers in their 60s, probably from smoking. All the people I try to turn on to smoking tell me that. But what are the long-term effects of taking anti-depression or anti-anxiety medication for decades.
It seems to me that cigarettes are a relatively cheap and simple anti-depressant. Although there are long term health consequences, we don't really know what the damage is from decades of wellbutrin. Of course, Big Pharma would rather have us rely on them for anti-depressants than use a simple plant that we could grow ourselves... Hey, that sounds familiar.
I'm inviting you to take part in a narrative of someone else's experience, like watching the movie "The Matrix" rather than explaining to you that the guy was actually jumping dimensions or something.
I was going to say check the logs, but this sounds like an answer more suitable to the guy who is doing the interview. IT guys tend to jack into the matrix and stay there too much. Yours is a good answer.