[ExI] Meaningless Symbols.

Spencer Campbell lacertilian at gmail.com
Sat Jan 16 03:08:47 UTC 2010


Regarding antidepressants and other mind-altering drugs: I'd like to add
that simply because we have a drug which *produces* happiness, this does not
necessarily mean anyone actually understands why that is yet. Gordon and
Stathis seem to be implying otherwise.

A quick Google search for "history of antidepressants" turns up the
following:

http://web.grinnell.edu/courses/sst/f01/SST395-01/PublicPages/PerfectDrugs/Chris/history/index2.html

Four sentences in, and sure enough the telltale term "accidental discovery"
appears. No one knows what happens beyond the blood-brain barrier. There
aren't even that many convincing *theories, *as far as I can tell, and even
fewer subject to scientific testing.

Incidentally, this is my first message to Extropy-Chat. I probably screwed
up the format somehow. If any hardened Gmail users want to point out my
inevitable mistakes, I'd be much obliged.


On Fri, Jan 15, 2010 at 6:42 PM, Stathis Papaioannou <stathisp at gmail.com>wrote:

> 2010/1/16 Gordon Swobe <gts_2000 at yahoo.com>:
>
> > I think that eventually neuroscience and the philosophy of mind will
> merge into one field -- that neuroscientists will come to see that they hold
> in their hands the answers to these questions of philosophy.
>
> When neuroscientists make a working model of a brain and claim that,
> since it behaves like a real brain it must also have the mind of a
> real brain, there will be the doubters. The neuroscientists will stamp
> their feet and point to their experimental results but the doubters
> will still doubt, as there is no possible empirical fact that will
> convince them. Therefore, it will by definition always remain a
> philosophical question.
>
> > It has already started if you look with open eyes: neuroscientists have
> produced antidepressant drugs that brighten mood, a quality of
> consciousness, and drugs that alleviate pain, another quality of
> consciousness, and so on and so on.
>
> The drugs can do this only by affecting the behaviour of neurons. What
> you claim is that it is possible to make a physical change to a neuron
> which leaves its behaviour unchanged but changes or eliminates the
> person's consciousness.
>
>
> --
> Stathis Papaioannou
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>
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