NOBODY, on Feb 19 1998 you posted in Serendip Forum,
Hello. I'm NOBODY and I need your help … I hope that one of you, experts in this field, could help me.
I replied,
Anybody, we are not experts. We are interested in offering forums for educated propositions concerning areas which are not metaphysical, as I have detailed in several posts on the subject of metaphysics. Our goal is to try and make sense of the ambiguities that surround us, human beings. Therefore, we propound science and philosophy as the exclusive or preferred areas of knowledge to be pursued in these pages. I am not part of the Serendip
management. I am a devoted Serendipian, though, who follows a personal line of thought and discourse. Please do not take me as representative of this forum, only as a contributor.
... have integration problems... lonely, different ... without the desirable help and understanding of my family.... But last week, I have passed this Waiss test and my I.C. was 134. I was so depressed.. If I would have 100 (the average value) more or less I was been able to explain that LIFE is so difficult to live to me, but with this "extra-capacity" (if this is what it meant the I.C.)... there is something wrong ...
Why I feel so sad? Is the I.C. a realistic coefficient? Please, I NEED an answer, or some book to read that could help me... Thank you in advance, and sorry for the intrusion.
I replied,
I believe your high I.Q. demands much from your brain -> mind -> thinking. Thinking consumes a lot of neurotransmitters (as well as glucose and oxygen), among them, serotonin. Apparently, your neurons do not produce enough of it. This causes difficulties in coherent thinking and a belief of not being 'understood.' With good reason! The result is that a neurotic personality develops. Obsessions and compulsions may be explained as a faulty thought flow. Depression is unavoidable. In short, a mental hell. Help may be obtained by increasing the concentration of serotonin in the synapses. If you identify with my words, please feel free to contact me.
Thank you very much for your attention, Jacob. I have heard this explanation before but I don't understand it completely. Why my neurons are unable to produce the serotonin adequate to my needs? This explanation makes me think that the capacity of "thinking" or to reasoning is independent of the brain, because, in my case, for instance, I have too much capacity for my brain (for my neurons). In some sense this make me feel abnormal, an it's a very uncomfortable feeling! But, at the same time, you must to be right because it's true that I have a compulsive behavior (I am an anorexic-bulimic woman). I am in a psychotherapy since the last four years. My conclusion is that my abnormal behavior is related (in some way) to the lack of help in my childhood, when I have had need it. As my family (and in general our society) is unable to recognize such failure they educated me as best as they could but in the middle of a generalized "social lies".
Now I am adding,
Anybody, please edit and repost the lines you wrote above, correcting the syntax and orthography, also adding some information on your educational background. The subject of serotonin is complex; I'll try to write about it sometime. Lots of people are genetically defective in adequate serotonin production. Anorexia-bulimia may be also related to special situations of serotonin underproduction.
ADDENDUM: Recent developments have shown that deficiency of epinephrine, another neurotransmitter, plays also an important part in the pathogenics
of depression. In fact, it is possible that epinephrine and serotonin
work in tamdem. A medication that preserves epinephrine is being tried on
patients. There is also a medication that preserves both neurotransmitters. Thus, it is possible that Prozac and similar become soon obsolete...
After this disclaimer, I must add that it is convenient to read my lines about the NEW PHILOSOPHY (1999: D-SP) in order to understand my approach. Mainly, this philosophy does not offer counsel, limiting itself to endeavor explicating realities which cannot be analyzed scientifically. However, scientific facts are used when available to support these philosophic realities. The most important of which concerns language, it being human intellect's foremost expression. As for science, the main stress of the New Philosophy is placed on the brain, it being the location of the mind, whose main output are thoughts. It is my contention that meta-thinking (thinking about thinking) is the supreme manifestation of the human mind.
You continued,
Then, on Feb 20 you posted,
Surely they are avoiding the responsibility, in an unconscious way. I don't know if you are understanding, cause it's difficult to me talk about all this. Another thing. I want you to explain what do you mean with "COHERENT THINKING". I used to have the "fame" to be rational and coherent in my thoughts IN EXCESS, so it's a little be surprising what I understand that you are saying. Perhaps I have misunderstood you.
Please, tell me if my conversation is not "in the line" with this forum, I don't want to be boring someone, but maybe, I am a practical example about the problems in the relation.
Please read my short essay 'On Survival.' Dopamine appears to be the neurotransmitter required to make the individual feel hunger when his organism needs food. Dopamine and serotonin are needed for neurotransmission, but only serotonin has given rise to therapeutic uses in depression and in anorexia-bulimia. I am starting to suspect that neurotic ('maladjusted') personality, associated with the belief of 'not being understood' is also related to serotonin deficit.
This will do for now. Anybody, the present dialogue might interest several readers and move them to participate. Please keep your initiative alive, it might signal a sea change in cyberworld.