From: Jkr438@aol.com
Date: Mon Jun 03 2002 - 00:07:44 MDT
[Veridicus] The reasoning goes such, because the symptoms of mental illness
can be alleviated by changing brain chemistry, mental illnesses must really
be disorders of brain chemistry and therefore mind (and soul) must really be
brain. This line of “neurophilosophical” reasoning is taken so much for
granted nowadays that it can be quite startling to realize how little sense
it actually makes. We could with equal logic argue that if a tree disease
can be cured by changing the chemistry of the soil, then tree diseases must
really be soil disorders and therefore trees must really be soil!
You are trying to argue against a very basic application of Occam's razor.
The problem lies in having useful theories of "mind" on which to base mental
illness. We have useful enough theories about trees and their diseases that
it makes sense to interject a tree between the soil and the disease. Whether
we have as useful theories about mind(s) and what relationship if any they
would have in mental illness, remains uncertain at best if not doubtful.
Lacking that, it makes much more sense to draw connections between known
entities, rather than adding more entities. If not, then why not add
"souls", "conscience", "spirit", "awareness", "virtue", "personalities",
etc., or the lack thereof to the equation? Wait a minute, obviously you DO
exactly this . . .
[Veridicus] Mental illness cannot be just a chemical imbalance in the brain.
Rather, it is a disharmony of body, brain, mind, and spirit within the whole
person: an inner conflict of the soul.
You have succeeded in only complicating the situation unnecessarily by adding
even more superfluous entities.
-Jake
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