> Your so-called "soul" may in fact be "completely material", but I don't think what you describe above proves it.
Re Hume, not to mention Leibnitz, I didn't mean proof to a logical certainty. I meant proof beyond all reasonable doubt. But if you want to believe that God hides super-soul-cleanser inside simple chemicals, then more power to ya!
To tell you the truth, I actually believe in epiphenomenalism, which is a kind of materialist dualism, but that's beyond the scope of this discussion.
When I did 2 hits of acid, I had the exact opposite experience of seeing God. The fact that such a tiny amount of a mere chemical could effect my "soul" so profoundly was proof positive that the soul is completely material.
I already believed this intellectually, but this experience solidified this knowledge into my very being. So personally, I would recommended experimenting with a psychedelic or two for those who wish to study Philosophy.
In my experience, LSD dosing is exponential, so I can't fathom what taking a dose thousands of times a typically heavy dose would do to you. People I know who occasionally did like 10 hit doses, never fully returned to reality, if you ask me. I might have an inkling of what it would be like from a few experiences with nitrous, but this lasts for a couple of minutes, not for hours and hours, which would end up making a huge qualitative difference.
> And, as I have pointed out, the studies that have been conducted do not support the claim that antidepressants work for the majority of people -- indeed, studies demonstrate the opposite conclusion, that they do not work.
Furthermore, you are misrepresenting the strength of the scientific data that supports your claims: (1) The meta-analysis did show clinical significance in severely depressed patients. (2) The meta-analysis only looked at SSRI's. Remeron is not an SSRI. And most of the people that I know who are satisfied with their antidepressants are not taking SSRI's. (3) This is a single study. Individual studies are often contradicted by further studies.
From my experience with side-effects, I would not recommend anti-depressants for anyone who was not suffering from a major depression anyway. The risk is not worth the reward for just being down in the dumps. For mild cases of depression, it's not even clear to me that accurate diagnosis is possible. How can doctors accurately differentiate between mild depression and just being sad due to unfortunate life circumstances? Until we can do brain scans or blood tests to identify depression, I don't see how they could. And without the ability to make accurate diagnoses for mild cases, it's not clear to me that the data on drug effectiveness for mild cases can mean much anyway.
With all respect, I most certainly can. I know myself well enough to know how I respond to drugs. I'm sorry if that is not the case for you. I also know that I don't suddenly pop from the depths of the worst despair imaginable to being completely normal in a day or two on a hope and a dream. If that were the case, many other things would have cured me. Such as the dozen or two medications I tried before Remeron, for instance.
> The only way this claim could become scientific would be with a double-blind scientific study. Such a study would compare the drug with ... a placebo
I specifically stated that my claim was not scientific. All knowledge does not come via science. As I already mentioned, I cannot prove scientifically that my wife loves me, and yet I know this to be true. You may have no good reason to believe me about that, but that has no bearing on what I know to be true.
> Yes, which means it's a good thing that I never said that anywhere. And why would I? The claim makes no sense -- no one is ever "cured" by the placebo effect.
The placebo affect is real, so it can certainly act as a cure for minor ailments of certain sorts. I have no desire to argue semantics with you. On the other hand, it was Remeron that cured me, and I'm as sure of that as I am that I am not conversing right now with an AI program, though I can't prove that scientifically, either.
As I also mentioned, you do have not have any particularly good reason to believe me, but for reasons I have stated, you also have no good reason not to believe me. If you were not an ideologue, you would remain agnostic.
> Wow. The drug companies must love clients like you.
Your assertion is that a drug company would love me because I am willing to testify to the fact that Paxil made me hypomanic and I would assert to anyone that it is a dangerous drug and I would advise them to stay away from it if my experience is at all representative? You have a strange notion of what drug companies might love.
I've been told by doctors that I had a phobia of antidepressants because I was so utterly resistant to trying anymore after my terrible experiences with them. You sound like them: The hypomania was all in my head. The sexual dysfunction from Prozac was all in my head! Welcome to the club of quack shrinks!
> You are ignoring the readily available scientific findings, so no, your conclusion is neither accurate nor rational.
I am ignoring nothing. If you actually read what I wrote, you would know that.
As to your claims that neuroscience research will likely be hugely beneficial to our understanding. Well, of course. That verges on tautology.
The fact that Remeron worked for me has absolutely nothing to do with belief or placebo affect. In fact, I was absolutely certain at the time that Remeron would not work, due to my previous bad experiences with antidepressants and my terribly negative state of mind. Also, there is absolutely no scientific evidence that the placebo affect can have such a drastic and lasting effect. I was not just a little blue; I was out of my mind @#%$ing batshit crazy. For months and months, and then a few days later, completely cured. A cure that has lasted for years.
As to your claim that "they do not work", the scientific evidence that they work may be questionable, but lack of scientific proof is not the same thing as scientific disproof. You have no proof that they do not work for many people, despite your claim, as the way the drugs are used in double-blind studies do not perfectly mirror their use in the actual world. E.g., combination with other drugs, such a benzos, and/or other antidpressants, and trials of a number of different drugs to find which one is best of that particular person's brain chemistry.
Furthermore, one doesn't need scientific evidence to know certain things. I don't need published double-blind scientific evidence to know that if I hit my toe with a hammer that it will hurt. I don't need scientific evidence to know that my wife loves me.
Another point of evidence: Paxil also cured my depression within a day or two, on a different occasion, but it also had many other effects on me that were highly undesirable. It removed all pleasurable sexual sensations. It made me hypomanic and not care about how I treated other people. I felt as if everyone else in the world was an asshole who didn't give a shit about me, and so I was free not to give a shit about them. I felt absolutely no affinity any more for the people that I loved. I only found them annoying. I.e., my normal personality was turned completely upside down.
I don't need scientific evidence to know that this is how Paxil effected me, any more than I need scientific evidence to tell me how alcohol or marijuana make me feel. These are not subtle things, and the effect of Paxil on me, and the affect of Remeron on me were anything but subtle. They were as psychoactive as any substance can be.
Now since my evidence is not scientific, I am not stating that you should be convinced. On the other hand, you have no grounds to assert that I was cured by the placebo effect. You don't know me and you don't have access to the personal experiential information I have. I, personally, have plenty of information to make an accurate and rational conclusion here. And I have.
>the result is that antidepression drugs do not work for the majority of patients.
I suspect that this is because most patients don't have the patience or wherewithal to try enough different kinds, or a doctor who is willing to combine them with benzos. The patient's patience is especially relevant since when you are depressed, the last thing in the world that you need is to add extra suffering from side-effects to your list of woes. Or at least that has been my personal experience. After a few bad experiences, I was very reluctant to try additional antidepressants, and after having become dependent on Ativan once, I vowed to never allow that to happen again either.
Ultimately though, I tried just about every modern antidepressant before finding one that worked, and I know people who had to go to tricyclics, which has caused them to become fat, but happy. Each of the antidepressants I tried affected me differently. But at this point, I am very relieved to know that if I become depressed again, there is a drug that I know for sure works for me. Knowing that is a huge weight off of my shoulders. Though having to look forward to weaning off of benzos again puts some of that weight back.
More recently I tried ketamine when I was worried that I was going to become depressed due to an unfortunate life circumstance. I'm here to say that it apparently worked as well as hyped since I never became at all depressed during a situation that would typically have sent me into a downward spiral. And with no ill side effects too boot. Too bad it's not legal....
Of course, trying many different antidepressants is not without its risks, as I alluded to previously.
I have many bad things to say about many antidepressant. E.g., they all have very annoying side effects, at least for me, and some of the side-effects (e.g., vivid dreams) require benzos to counter. And then benzo addiction is really no fun at all.
Other side effects I experienced were clearly under-reported by the pharmaceutical companies. E.g., negative sexual side effects for Prozac that my doctor wouldn't even believe were real and not psychosomatic, until it later turned out that 25%-50% of all patients suffered these side effects, and the pharmaceutical company had neglected to inform anyone.
On other other hand, Remeron surely saved my life. I have no doubt about this. I had been in the most miserable state you could ever possibly imagine and then some, and had been this way for months, and then within a day or two of starting Remeron, I was utterly fine. (Though ironically, it may have been another antidepressant that put me in this terrible state to begin with, as I had to go off it cold turkey due to it causing a different dangerous side effect.)
As for diagnosing depression, it may certainly be the case that many cases are difficult to diagnose correctly. And there may be cases where there is no fact of the matter as to whether the particular symptoms count as depression. On the other hand, there are certainly cases where there is no question at all as to whether it's depression. I have been there quite a few times, and it's been as cut and dried as anything can be in this world.
>You definitely had it much worse than me, and so I want to ask sincerely, what if anything, got you out of your depression/suicidal state of mind?
Only one thing helped: Remeron. I was better in a day and only needed to be on it for a month.
I had previously tried many different anti-depressants, but I am very sensitive to such things and I could not tolerate any of them. The only one that I could tolerate was Trazedone, which didn't work all that well, and was giving me priapisms, so I had to stop.
As it was, I could not tolerate Remeron on its own; it would give me vivid dreams all night long, as do many antidepressants. This is the last thing you want when you are depressed as the dreams are usually vivid hells.
In order to sleep well while on Remeron, I had to take Klonopin, which is like Valium. As it turns out, I only had to take Remeron for a month, but by then I had a residual dependency on Klonpin. I didn't really need the Klonopin anymore as I was no longer anxious, but if I tried to taper off of it, I'd have terrible withdrawal symptoms.
I did eventually get off of the Klonopin, but it took my five years of slowly tapering. And trust me, even going that slowly, tapering off of a benzo is no fun at all!
P.S. What I didn't like about the original article is it made it sound as if the feelings that lead to suicide are some sort of effete existential angst, and therefore rather mysterious, while in reality -- at least for me -- the feelings were just HELL ON EARTH.
Anyone who has any inkling of how much real tangible pain your own brain can put you in, would never question why someone might commit suicide. There are times when not doing so requires incredible strength and perseverance. Either that, or not even having the wherewithal anymore to take your own life.
Speaking as someone who has been suicidal, I think that that article is a lot of hot air.
This is what it felt like to be suicidal: Imagine the worst heartbreak you have ever felt, and multiply this by ten. Imagine the worst anxiety you have ever suffered and multiply this by ten. Imagine that every second feels like a minute, in each of those minute-long-seconds, you feel like a lion is just about to jump out from around the corner and rip you apart slowly. Imagine that everything you used to enjoy is meaningless and nothing at all is fun or enjoyable. Imagine that both your parents just died in a horrible car crash right after disinheriting you because they felt you were a terrible disgrace. Imagine that you constantly obsess on what it was you did so wrong, and what you might have done differently. Imagine repeatedly reliving every word you can remember saying to them with a terrible and critical eye, and repeating to yourself every harsh word they ever said to you. Imagine that you can't think of anything else at all no matter how hard you try, and these obsessive thoughts just spin in your head over and over and over and over and over and over again with no relief. Imagine that all these feelings just go on and on and on and on and on and on, for hours, days, weeks, months, with no relief. Unrelenting torment and misery with no escape, no out, no one who can understand you, no one who can calm you, no one who can make anything the slightest bit better.
Imagine that the only reason that you didn't kill yourself in order to end this interminable torment is because you figured you'd fuck even that up and just end up a quadriplegic, and then be truly screwed, since you'd never be able to end your eternal misery then.
> Not to be rude, but it's unclear whether the author has had an actual professional diagnosis.
I had a professional diagnosis, and the diagnosis was just done via the same sort of questionnaire that you'd find on the Internet. (Though perhaps the tester was also observing my behavior, and the like.)
How did the tests work? I've been professionally tested for ADD, and the "tests" were just the very same questionnaires for ADD that you can find on the Internet. And surprise! The diagnosis was the same one that I would have come up, or that anyone who knows me would have come up with. I.e., yes.
Re Hume, not to mention Leibnitz, I didn't mean proof to a logical certainty. I meant proof beyond all reasonable doubt. But if you want to believe that God hides super-soul-cleanser inside simple chemicals, then more power to ya!
To tell you the truth, I actually believe in epiphenomenalism, which is a kind of materialist dualism, but that's beyond the scope of this discussion.