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Re: Designing drugs » unbottled

Posted by Squiggles on October 16, 2007, at 9:15:39

In reply to Re: Designing drugs, posted by unbottled on October 16, 2007, at 0:43:25

> > Words are static
>
> Descriptions, per se, are wrong, for that reason.
> The "live" thing being described is always so much
> more complex. etc.

Yes, i think that words act like signs or
postings; in philosophy they call that
"referential" use of language. So, when
you call "depression" a chemical imbalance,
the meaning of the word "depression" is
a pointer to the corresponding physical state.
But you can also call something "depression"
when what you mean is the symptoms observed,
in comparison to what the person used to be.
Of course, it could be both and more, like
circumstances. So, imagine how far more
ambiguous the reference for the word "personality" must be. It actually refers
to a history.

>
> What exactly is underbeneath of the drugs, begs
> the question. Because (an extreme example) isn't
> the deformation that your childhood consisted of
> a kind of "foreign" addition to whatever you
> started with? Isn't everything?

I suppose, if i understand you correctly. I would like to make a distinction between
temperament and personality. Because you
may be born with a genetically or embryonically
caused temperament with definite qualities.
For example, if your mother was taking meds
while pregnant, instead of being born "easy-
going", you may be born anxious. Add to that
the genetic predisposition for temperament, such
as aggressiveness, or lazy, etc. and then add
to that the effect of upbringing, and you have
quite a complex product to unravel.

So, "personality" is very complex and hard to say
whether you are born with it. I think not. I think at most, you are born with a temperament
upon which other factors i mentioned build the
final result. But once that *is* completed, i
think it doesn't change, barring things like stroke. As for medications, that's a tough one, because personality is a global interaction of the brain, whereas medications touch only certain areas. So, it may *appear* as if a person has changed on say, steroids, but actually it is only a certain part of his personality that has changed; not his values, not his beliefs, his memories, his tastes, his language, his skills, etc.


>
> Your real personality, I'm afraid, is just
> "what you get".

See above babbling on this.
>
> "What you get" is whatever shows up, whatever
> response the observer notices, the summation of a
> load of things: what he/she seems to be - through
> the prism of the drugs and whatever else is
> happening at that and at previous moments, etc.
> etc. etc.
>
> But yes, it's troubling. Am I cheating when
> I'm mingling with people (not something I would
> want to do ordinarily) whilst on my Deprenyl /
> Moclobemide combo?

I am not sure what you mean by the above. I think that changes in relations to other people may be a result of many things-- drugs, mania, anxiety, anger, hormonal changes..... but not necessarily the personality, just a trait of it.


>
> Only his psychiatrist knows for sure.

I'm not sure they know anything for sure. :-)


>
>>
> > Squiggles
> >
>
>


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poster:Squiggles thread:789384
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20071009/msgs/789552.html