Theme: Agency

http://www.philly.com/philly/health/topics/HealthDay711263_20160524_Antidepressants_Not_Just_for_Depression_Any_More.htmlANTI-DEPRESSANT IS A MISNOMER

The term anti-depressant is a mis-categorization of an SSRI. So to call a drug an anti-depressant rather than an SSRI is a falsehood.

We do not in fact KNOW why SSRI’s work since the serotonin deficiency theory doesn’t appear to be withstanding empirical scrutiny. It could be because of increasing blood and oxygen flow to midbrain regions, or it could be because of neurogenesis in underdeveloped regions. Or it could be because underdeveloped regions or under-pruned regions, are excessively subject to stresses (cortisol) so that those regions lack adequate neurological transmission for handling stress. It could be that fringe theories that gut bacteria losses have broken the sympathetic relationship between dopaminergenic and serotonin distribution processes. It could be all of the above.

What it appears is that SSRI’s in general, alleviate STRESSES on the brain caused by many, many issues.

Depression is a form of exhaustion. Autism spectrum disorders, Social Anxiety, Post traumatic stress disorders, Panic disorders, and Migraines are all symptoms of stress, exhaustion from stress, and damage from stress.

The working theory is that SSRIs are to stress effects, what antibiotics are to the immune system: they provide a relief from the cause whereby the body can work at repairing itself. Although just like any other form of cellular damage, cellular under-development, or cellular system depletion, once significant damage has been incurred, some of it is not fully repairable – and the mind is a very sensitive thing if for no other reason that we remember the difference between prior and current conditions.

We evolved to work in tribes of hunter gatherers. We did not evolve to work in modernity deprived of family and tribal security, saturated with information creating self doubt, and eating sugars and preservatives as compensation for lack of the mood-raising of oxygenation obtained through physical exertion. Modernity limits the accumulation of damage to our cells, but it increases intellectual and emotional stresses dramatically. Neurons have taken the damage in the information era, that physical stresses have in prior eras.

Curt Doolittle

The Propertarian Institute

Kiev, Ukraine

ON A RELATED NOTE

As an example, Skye and I have been friends for a long time. And I am keenly aware that his ‘senses’ find different experiential perspectives ‘interesting’ in the same way I find first causes interesting. In many ways I find myself very similar to Skye, in this one way very different. I actually CANT empathize with the experiential models, which is why i am sure I learned to look for the unifying principles that are common between them. I’m just aware that these differences in senses assist us in developing a division of knowledge, labor, and advocacy.

How I interpret this difference is between the subjective understanding others, and objective understanding universal first causes. Is one superior to the other? I am more interested in the question whether it is easier to lie, decieve, and manipulate with one or the other. In the sense of suepriority these different ends of the spectrum are differeent tools for different purposes, and so neither is superior in sense of exploraiton and explanation.

But when it comes to falsifying (decidability) the first cause defeats the subjective understanding.

Individuals appreciate different aesthetic experiences, but as a group we must resolve differences by objective means (or rather we seem to prefer to, just as we prefer to have male craftsmen and bosses but female parents and peers.) We do so because understanding of the subjective experience of others helps us cooperate, and envison possibilities; and understanding of the objective content of the universe helps us act together to change that universe, and to resolve disputes between us.

This is the diference between creativity and decidability. Between justification and criticism. Beween imagination and truth.

SMALL THINGS MATTER

We make many hundreds if not thousands of decisions every day, and the cumulative effect of those many small decisions is usually more influential than the effect of our larger decisions.

this is the central problem with running increasingly large organizations: providing a means of decidability for the many little decisions that people make every day.

In Good To Great, the author reduces this problem to having a ‘strategy’ that is very simple. It provides a method of decidability to everyone in the company so that many zillions of little decisions accumulate in the production of the organizations competitive strategy in the market.

Unfortunately, a disproportionate number of our decisions are made in theoretical rather than empirical context. In particular, those that require we influence others (customers and co workers). This influence requires local knowlege that is not really open to generalization.

One of the cool features of software is that if you organize your business process into workflows you can control a lot of those small decisions.

The opposite problem occurs when the local phenomenon (the interpersonal actions) more more significant in influencing a decision by peer, manager or customer than are the facts.

Why? because the marginal difference between suppliers (merchants) forces prices to neurality, leaving non-price matters the reason for decisions. Ergo, talent and customer service and knowledge of particular businesses tends to be more influential in business relations and product signaling value more influential in consumer relations.