[wuliwong]

I think get what you are trying to say, and as someone who has dealt with panic disorder, severe depression and addiction in my life, I certainly am glad that there is support, that people take it seriously and that there were some people that didn't judge me along the way. That being said, the way you are express your arguments yields some unintended consequences in logic.

I believe that your implication that a broken arm and a "broken" brain are synonymous is over simplistic if not outright wrong. There is very little debate as to the proper functioning of a healthy arm and how to return a broken one to that state. Obviously this is not true for "mental" issues. The idea that all "mental" issues are a result of something "broken" in the brain is something very much up for debate.

There are serious, fundamental open questions in neuroscience related to consciousness, memory and disease. Also the assumption that our "mental makeup" is entirely physical without any "meta-physical" component certainly isn't known. That last part maybe a bit outside the scope of neuroSCIENCE but it doesn't mean it is incorrect. I actually got my Ph.D. studying problems in neuroscience and I often found myself pondering some pretty strange ideas as possible explanations for observed phenomenon.

[Domenic_S]

> Obviously this is not true for "mental" issues.

It's simplistic, sure. But just because we know less about fixing neurons than we do knitting bones doesn't mean we shouldn't visit a doctor.

> The idea that all "mental" issues are a result of something "broken" in the brain is something very much up for debate.

Sort of, but only really because we don't fully understand what's going on in there. Antidepressants work, we know that, but good luck finding out exactly why they work.

Is depression caused by faulty mood regulation? Genetics? Environment? We're not sure. But we do know that we can treat it -- and usually pretty successfully -- with some chemicals and some talk therapy.

On the science side, yes, it's an interesting problem that we have a lot to learn about. On the patient side, we can do a LOT to make a depressed person's life livable.

[gonehome]

Was with you up until that last paragraph. Strokes and poking around in the brain seem to provide pretty strong evidence that it's all physical. Maybe I'm misinterpreting what you were suggesting, since meta-physical doesn't really imply much.

[onnoonno]

What is a mental illness then? It's just a brain with a somehow different state configuration - and why should one care? It is just a bunch of atoms and their relations anyways..

Can you really explain in your worldview why you would care at all?

[gonehome]

I don't really think that worldview conflicts with caring.

I care because people with brain issues have a hard time in our society, why would it being physical make me not care?

With strokes and 'poking around in the brain' I just meant that there's a lot of evidence that when part of the brain is damaged it causes certain expected behaviors which would suggest that it's a physical system.

'Metaphysical' can be used by different people to mean different things since it's loosely defined as relating to things that are thought to exist which 'can't be seen'. This is why I asked for clarification, but I was mainly disagreeing with the idea that it's something supernatural or magical.

[seunosewa]

The patient's unhappy state as a result of the misconfiguration of his/her brain.

[wuliwong]

I'm not sure what you mean by "strokes and poking around in the brain"?