[ExI] Reinforcing our Prejudices

[Stathis Papaioannou]

On 19/04/2008, Bryan Bishop <kanzure at gmail.com> wrote:

> One of the interesting aspects of mental illness is that we start
>  getting into computational physics, brains, mind, personality, and all
>  sorts of interesting mixes of problems. From my understanding of
>  Szasz's book, this was not a cybernetic approach to the mind. The
>  cybernetic approach simply means that *anything going on in the brain*
>  is in fact occuring and can ultimately be altered whether by
>  mechanical, electrical, or some other intervening methodologies. So
>  what would it matter whether or not an 'illness' (read: problem) is
>  social in nature? Or biochemical? Something has to change, no?

Yes, everything psychological must have a basis in the physical. But
there is still a sense in which the brain could be said to be
suffering from disease. Otherwise, you could argue that there is no
such thing as disease at all, since putatively diseased organs are
just exhibiting a slightly different set of biochemical reactions.




-- 
Stathis Papaioannou