[abellerose]

René Descartes ruined the perception and healthcare of mental illness. Patients and even a few doctors would be more informed if they understood the symptoms of mental illness occur because of physical changes in the brain. Instead a misinformed belief of a chemical imbalance exists and is assumed as a truth by some physicians & nurses.

Society is basically brainwashed into believing everyone has free will. The result is that people with the most capital prosper and I assume the foregoing wouldn't be the case if everyone was a determinist.

[psyc]

Mentally ill person here. I haven’t heard a mental health professional use the phrase ‘chemical imbalance’ or anything similar in 20 years. It’s my understanding it has been deprecated. It’s mostly repeated by laypeople in ignorance. It’s hard to flush something like that out of the popular lexicon, once established.

There’s a lot of maddeningly persistent misinformation about mental health on Internet forums.

[dboreham]

I'm fairly sure I've seen tv drug ads in the past few years use the phrase "chemical imbalance".

[psyc]

They have a clear incentive to exaggerate a) the effectiveness of the drugs, and b) how well they understand how they work. There is an important distinction between knowing how drugs affect brain chemistry, vs knowing how they alleviate symptoms. The latter is still more empirical than theoretical.

[Gibbon1]

The widespread and increasing use of psychotropic drugs says that 'chemical imbalance' still serves as the foundation.

[abellerose]

Person with gender dysphoria here. I've still heard the phrase in Canada by nurses & staff. Also heard it several years ago when living in USA by doctors & staff. Unsure why you think I was referring to internet forums? I thought those were deprecated since 2009.

[psyc]

https://www.google.com/search?q=chemical+imbalance+theory

[abellerose]

Unsure why you're linking that. Do you not realize by my first comment that I'm describing the theory as nonsense compared to what I wrote? edit: ah thanks for the clarification.

[psyc]

My intent was to support your comment, not contradict it. By reassuring anyone who might read this that the chemical imbalance angle has rightly fallen out of favor.

[solipsism]

> if they understood the symptoms of mental illness occur because of physical changes in the brain. Instead a misinformed belief of a chemical imbalance exists

What's the difference? And how does that difference impact how people are treated by physicians and nurses?

[danaliv]

I read “physical changes” as structural changes in neurons and neural connections themselves, as opposed to the (at least popular) thinking that mental illness is down to imbalances in neurotransmitters. There’s at least some research around this related to addiction, namely that overexpression of ΔFosB produces changes to neurons in the reward pathways.

[solipsism]

It sounds like a very naive and simplistic distinction. Neurochemicals and the structure of the neurons themselves are interrelated in very complex ways.

[SummerlyMars]

> Society is basically brainwashed into believing everyone has free will. The result is that people with the most capital prosper and I assume the foregoing wouldn't be the case if everyone was a determinist.

Why do you assume this? If everyone believed in determinism rather than free will, couldn't those with the most capital (deterministically) say "Well, that's just the way it should be. They can't choose to be different."

I'm not inclined to think that will is all that free, but I can't seem to see the connection between that and capitalism.

[abellerose]

The understanding of free will being an "illusion" opens a few doors for approaching life. One of them being how society is structured and regarding healthcare, housing, finances, education..

Anyway, people cast their votes by the beliefs as well and currently we're living in social systems designed from the belief of have free will. The idea of someone earned what they have, contrary to someone worse off and people aren't just destined by their life circumstances to end up homeless. Genetics, environmental factors and all proceeding moments are factored from the preceding forces.

Well, when you realize the foregoing about free will is untrue and you really take the time to adapt your thinking to the understanding of free will being illusion. I assume you become more compassionate because you're actually observing reality for how it truly is awful to some and those people had no control for their misfortune. I know from my own life when I understood it took a few years to truly get "it" but after I deeply feel more empathetic and disgusted by the current systems that refuse people the medical help they need or getting someone shelter & food.

Everyone is just assigned a life at birth without any say and that's the same to what happens after without any real control existing to alter your destiny. So a nihilist can say well so what?..everything is just destined. But that doesn't mean we should keep stalling people from being educated of how reality happens to be and designing better social systems that adapt to the true reality of the universe. Anyway that's my long rant/suggestion on it.

[pdonis]

> when you realize the foregoing about free will is untrue and you really take the time to adapt your thinking to the understanding of free will being illusion. I assume you become more compassionate

You assume wrong. The most brutal totalitarian governments in history have been built on the same understanding of humans that you describe. So that understanding can go either way: it can make you more compassionate, or it can make you much less so.

Free will is best understood not as a "fact" but as a right. Every person has the right to make their own choices instead of someone else making those choices for them. And the most dehumanizing thing you can tell a person is that they are "destined by circumstances" (your phrase) to be in the situation they are in, instead of having the power to change it by the choices they make.

Sure, the power to make one's own choices is not unlimited. We can't choose to not be affected by gravity. We can't choose to be omnipotent or omniscient. And, most important, we can't choose how other people will make their own choices (more on that below). But that doesn't change the fact that people do make choices, and can change their situation by doing so. The proper role of compassion and charity is to help empower people to make better choices for themselves.

And the proper understanding of situations where some people are deprived of basic necessities through no fault of their own is not that it was just "destined by circumstances", but that other people made choices that created those situations. Trying to hand-wave that away and pretend that things like famines and homelessness are just accidents of nature, instead of products of deliberate choices made by particular people in power--the whole "how society is structured" that you slide by without really looking at where it comes from--only makes those problems worse.

[abellerose]

Feel free to email me for further discussion. I have the impression you don't understand my definition of free will compared to your own definition. I will express here that the idea of making a conclusion by the past in history isn't fair or even comparable to what I could argue against people doing under the belief that people have free will. Anyway I'm not convinced by what you've expressed against my views and would appreciate a longer discussion by email if you're up to it. I fundamentally think it's morally wrong to keep someone in the dark from reality by deceiving them about their will or life outcome and especially if that person is homeless or suicidal for example.

[pdonis]

> what I could argue against people doing under the belief that people have free will

What sorts of terrible things do you think people do under the belief that people have free will?

[Layke1123]

Ignore human child trafficking and starvation.

[pdonis]

> Feel free to email me for further discussion.

Why not just have the discussion here?

> I have the impression you don't understand my definition of free will compared to your own definition.

I think you are trading on the ambiguity in the term "free will" to avoid having to confront the actual issues involved. That's why I used the less ambiguous term "making choices".

If you don't think people can ever make choices that make a difference in their situation, then you and I have a fundamental disagreement that I don't think will get resolved by any discussion. Also, if that's your belief, I think you are being inconsistent; you talk about "designing better social systems", but that very process involves people making choices that will make a difference in their situation (as well as the situation of many, many other people).

If you just think the amount of difference a person can make in their situation by making choices varies with the situation, of course I agree with that. But that's not a problem that can be fixed by "designing better social systems". It can only be fixed by being willing to call a spade a spade when people in power make choices that disempower others, so that people in power can be stopped from doing that. The biggest barrier to people being able to change their situation by making choices is restrictions put on them by other people, not some abstract claim about free will being an illusion. "Designing social systems" makes that problem worse, not better.

> I fundamentally think it's morally wrong to keep someone in the dark from reality by deceiving them about their will or life outcome

I think you are confusing your opinions with "reality". Telling people they don't have free will, or that free will is an illusion, is just as much of an opinion as telling them they do have free will. Neither is a statement of "reality". That's why I say free will is best viewed as a right: because in my opinion, believing that people have free will is respecting their right to make their own choices, and believing that people don't have free will is not respecting that right--which just means arrogating to yourself the power to make choices that disempower them. Respecting people's right to make choices is not a factual claim about people; it's a policy, which I think should be adopted because it will end up helping people.

> especially if that person is homeless or suicidal for example

I don't see how it's any help to a person who is homeless or suicidal to tell them free will is an illusion. Nor would it be any help to tell them it isn't. A person who is homeless or suicidal has much more pressing things to think about than whether or not free will is an illusion. And helping such a person has nothing at all to do with your own opinions or beliefs, much less foisting them on others in the guise of "telling them about reality".

[Layke1123]

Claiming a different definition of free will does not make you right about free will existing.

At the fundamental levels of reality, free will does not exist. It isn't even meaningful to talk about. Particles react to their environment. That's it.

You are just a giant collection of particles reacting to it's environment. You will never be able to be anything other than a giant collection of particles reacting to it's environment.

Moving this collection of particles from one area that is unpleasant, say a really cold environment, to one that is warm is not an exercise in free will. It is largely a predictable process based on a sequence of events occurring within the collection of particles.

Defining free will as "making choices", such as building a fire to warm your house because you are cold is not proving free will exists. It intentionally lies about the fundamental nature of reality that you don't have to. Yes we make choices as far as we can tell from our experience of reality. But that doesn't disconnect you from the underlying reality that it is not up to you what your particles do.

[abellerose]

The main reason for me of suggesting email is because I simply don't find writing responses on HackerNews as a great medium to have a conversation that likely will be lengthy. Basically, there's no good way to quote or even make a list with bullets and I prefer my macOS mail interface than a html textbox.

The phrase "making choices" is just semantics for the topic of free will being an illusion. There's no different outcome for how a person will live from start to end. That's the reality we live. Science hasn't proven otherwise and the current evidence from neuroscience suggests we don't have free will. Even logically it's impossible to imagine free will being possible when you're inside a system and every thought or act you perform is because of the system you're in. People are no different from water choosing to flow downstream.

Knowledge is power in society. Does it change your fate? The answer is no but generations do get better than the past because humans are progressing from knowledge. So the argument I think we truly are having is whether the norm of the populace should be deceived that they have free will or told the truth that there is no free will.

You already know what I believe the answer is for the foregoing. I have my own personal reasons as well. My life was fairly damaged by people that believed in free will because of religion and after many years of self reflection. I realized they were in fact acting mentally ill because of their belief that people make choices when regarding one's sexual orientation and gender identity.

I don't blame them or ever want to desire they had free will because I would've sought vengeance for the conversion therapy I suffered. Instead I'm glad fate had me realize they weren't to blame but how the universe unraveled and no individual had any power over how they came to be. I personally don't think that means people should be left scot free when they violate others. I think the social systems just need to change to a rehabilitation system like how the healthcare system treats people that get sick. It just happens in life and the systems are what make people behave the best and have the best life contrary to other systems.

Anyway I'm writing in a text box and if you want to have lengthy discussion about it. I really do enjoy email back & forth about it. I personally could probably chat about the topic in-person and never get bored about it.

[Layke1123]

I fully believe my decisions and actions are largely determined long before I am fully aware of what is taking place.

This doesn't make me despair or not care to do anything, but makes me extremely resilient and adaptable to changing situations. I can acknowledge that no matter what I want to do, I cannot stop my leg from twitching when someone hits the nerve underneath my kneecap.

I also accept that if I make bad decisions because of an addiction or deficient reasoning process, I willingly would accept a mechanism to correct said process or improve my deficiency.

It's not that free will is necessary to understand reality. It's that free will is necessary for YOUR reality. Some of us get along just peachy without it.

[pdonis]

> I also accept that if I make bad decisions because of an addiction or deficient reasoning process, I willingly would accept a mechanism to correct said process or improve my deficiency.

If that's what you want, you are free to choose to accept it, yes. If you're happy with how things are for you, more power to you.

Just don't try to force your way of being happy on me. If I make bad decisions, for whatever reason, I want to have the choice of how to improve. I don't want anything else, whether you want to call it a "mechanism" or not, forcing something on me that someone else thinks is an "improvement".

[Layke1123]

But you don't actually believe that! You would put someone in prison if they attacked you physically for no reason. You would willingly force that person into confinement until they no longer tried to inflict violence on you. You can't have ti both ways.

[mongol]

I agree with almost everything except that to say that famine and homeless can be caused both by human choices and accidents or events outside of human control.

[pdonis]

> famine and homeless can be caused both by human choices and accidents or events outside of human control

Yes, I agree that accidents or events outside human control can cause bad things to happen. I would also point out, though, that how bad those things get has far more to do with human choices. There are many choices that people can make to be better prepared for accidents and events outside their control if and when they happen.

[Layke1123]

They will think its justified, just like the masses will justify taking all the hoarded wealth. Fairly distributing capital and power is the only reasonable solution in a world that is so obviously deterministic.

[wizzwizz4]

Never underestimate the adaptability of rhetoric.

[Layke1123]

While cute, it misses the point. If I say a car is coming, it is then up to the person to decide whether they step into the street or not. This is not a rhetorical argument.

[wizzwizz4]

You say that the world being deterministic somehow makes “we should be nice to each other” an inescapable conclusion… but really, it's just a framing that lets you escape the existing divisive rhetoric. If it became widespread, we'd get new rhetoric.

[Layke1123]

Rhetoric doesn't stop a car from running over you no matter how the warning is phrased if you choose to not understand said rhetoric. This is not a rhetorical argument.