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Old 12-18-2007, 11:56 AM   #21
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Default Re: Depression.

Interesting to read what you guys say. I suffer from depression. I take tablets every night that help me feel the need to get up in the morning. Although, it looks as though the effects may be wearing off and it worries me. Don't worry, I see my Doctor regularly and I'm not about to go do anything stupid. For me, it's more I worry about my future, although the amount I worry about it never seems to motivate me to do anything productive in my life. Things I once thought I could do that would be fun and would benefit me never worked out. I was never happy in it overall.

It first started when I was 15/16. I used to smoke weed for what seemed recreation but until after it was too late I realized that it was to try and suppress the extreme panic I had of really growing up. It grew inside me until one day, the worst day of my life, I lost the only thing that made me happy. I had my first panic attack. Ever since then I suffered from Anxiety and Depression. This is why I could never grasp why people called it a decease. Yes for the most part I felt that people called people like me "Depressed" because they felt anyone who didn't agree with the way society works had something wrong with them and needed to be cured. Maybe they didn't want to cure the opinion but more knew that no matter how the depressed felt about the world they needed to accept it, as it would never change. This was a huge factor to my Depression, although it was one I could live with. The one that pushed me over the edge was the huge heartbreak I felt when loosing the only person I thought I could rely on at the time. The only person that made me happy. It was more or less the only person in my life at the time, 100% of my time was spent with. I won't get further into it as you guys probably think I'm blabbering on enough about myself as it is. And for that I apologize. Anyway, perhaps my troubles were to heavy for the both of us.

So anyway, if Depression is a disease then how did I "catch" it? I find it strange. I became depressed. It wasn't anything to do with my bodies immune system. Somethings happened in my life and as a result I suffered from anxiety and became Depressed.

Now anyway, to focus more on depression. I don't think Depression has anything to do with evolution and evolution will never get rid of it as It wouldn't need to. I understand that it can be a huge hindrance to the progression on some us all but overall it's not that big of a threat to humanity is it. For the most part we have Depression under control. If we evolved to have these feelings then maybe Depression does have it's uses. When someone dies we are depressed. We morn as way of getting the sadness out are system, it would just seem it's harder for some maybe.
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Old 12-18-2007, 07:43 PM   #22
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Default Re: Depression.

The diagnosis of depression and the ways of "catching" it don't interest me as much as the question of why we're even able to become depressed in the first place. As far as I can see, the only reason we'd have it is that it was a side-effect of evolving an advanced brain and since it isn't horribly deleterious towards breeding effectiveness, it was never weeded out.

As long as we're sharing, I guess I have an interest in the subject because I was diagnosed with depression when I was 8 years old, and then again when I was 21. They gave me pills both times but I flushed them down the toilet. Probably not a great decision, but I didn't like the idea of allowing my mind to be altered by pills for any reason. I should be able to work out my own problems. I was pretty depressed yesterday when I started thinking about it again so I thought I'd see what CT had to say.
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Old 12-18-2007, 07:56 PM   #23
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Default Re: Depression.

i get it around early to mid december every year since i had that concussion when my dad punched me in the back of the head. when i was 12. it's like i think about that moment and only that moment and i feel like i wanna kill myself. why am i still alive? idk.
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Old 12-19-2007, 12:39 PM   #24
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Default Re: Depression.

My girlfriend just got diagnosed with seasonal depression and I have bipolar. It's not a huge thing to worry about once you have it under control. and FYI: mediaction does absolute **** for it, your problems are up to you to fix. That's how i roll.
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i guess their alcohol tolerance isnt as high as mine
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Old 12-19-2007, 01:42 PM   #25
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Default Re: Depression.

Personally, I believe the current diagnosis and treatment of depression, along with most psychological diseases, to be inadequate. This stems from my general distrust of the pharmaceutical market, which profits off of the sick (for what incentive do they have to "cure" your ailment if it means losing a customer?). It's much easier to treat the symptom rather than cause. And in todays society it seems just about every other person is "depressed" in some form or another. For some it may be a serious neurological defect, but for the most part I believe depression to be a by-product of certain unhealthy cultural practices.

Everyone will know what it means to be depressed at some point in their life, it's inevitable. After graduating from high school with no plan or goal for the rest of my life, I felt hopeless. There was no point to life, it seemed. I was going to grow up to be a nobody in a world that doesn't care if I exist. I was going to get a job at some nowhere place, working under some big-shot nobody, and it is there that I would rot until I am too old to work. Then I'd die, and hopefully by then I'll have collected enough green bits of paper so to leave to my offspring so that the cycle of slavery could continue.

And you know what? The problem is that I wasn't living in the present, something that is extremely difficult to do in today's society. We are not our past, for the past is that what was, but is not now. And we are not our future, for the future does not yet exist, it is a blank canvas. Reality is the here and now.

Of course, I am not arguing in favor of reckless disregard for "future" consequences. It is important to learn from the past, but it is also important to acknowledge that the past (and history) is by no means "infallible."

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Old 12-19-2007, 02:51 PM   #26
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Default Re: Depression.

@Jewp: That's exactly how I see it.

"Medical science" is constantly making new claims, then silently overwriting some of its earlier claims. For example, pretty much everyone in America has heard that you should be drinking 8 bottles of water a day. Of course, this is impossible. Anyone who drinks this much water spends half of their waking life in a bathroom.

Now there are studies being conducted to determine if humans are drinking too much water. Wow. It's as if the medical community is just outright telling us "we have no idea what makes humans healthy or sick." And by the way, if you can't tell by now, I'm paraphrasing Lewis Black. I like to cite my sources.

The kicker was simple. "Is milk good or bad for you?" Not a single audible noise came from anywhere in the theater for 5 seconds. "I rest my case."

Doctors are quick to prescribe anything they can to treat whatever it is they think you have. Feeling a little blue? Take this pill! Looking a bit overweight? Take this pill! Can't sleep? Take this pill! Nevermind the fact that the pills have crazy side-effects and that finding a proper mix of pills that work with each other to make you "less sick" than would all three potent mixes of the medicines combined. Nevermind the fact that using medicine to treat ever minor illness you have is a great way to tell your immune system "you're not necessary any longer! go take a vacation!"

Like I said, Jewpin already said it. People will be sad. People will be happy. That's just going to be the way it is. What we do in a single day today would take weeks, even months to do in the past. We cram so much into our lives that we're bound to cause problems for our bodies. Why are people overweight? Do you think maybe the reason we have more overweight children today than we did 50 years ago is that children don't have to walk to school anymore? Do you think it's because we pamper them and shelter them from outdoor activities so they don't get hurt? Do you think it's because nobody knows how to set limitations on their children's actions, thus allowing them to eat much more than they should?

We live in a society where everyone believes what they are told. The media portrays video games as bad. No matter what video game activists try to claim, nobody cares. The media already told everyone that video games are bad. The media reports that drinking water is necessary. Bottled water, which 10 years ago didn't even exist, is now in the hands of EVERY AMERICAN. Reports on obesity and ads for weight loss tell Americans that they're fat. Ads for anti-depressants list symptoms of depression. Surprisingly enough, they're the same symptoms of "I'm sad."

Did you ever wonder why I quit watching television?
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Old 12-19-2007, 04:34 PM   #27
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Default Re: Depression.

Hey Squeek, you forgot the bit he did on how they can't make up their minds on if eggs are healthy or not. "First they said eggs were good! Then they said eggs were bad! Then they said eggs were good! Then they said the yellow was bad, but the whites wer- MAKE UP YOUR MIND!!!!"

For another example of overdiagnosis, check out autism. It seems like autism is the new ADD for kids today, since I guess parents have caught on that most ADD diagnoses are bs. I was a summer camp counselor in the summer of 2006. 6 kids out of my group of 15 were "autistic." There was one kid that was actually autistic. Like, couldn't process information well and ran around screaming constantly. The other 5 were just spoiled, whiny, ill-behaved kids that needed a good smack.

It makes me sick. I might have actually had depression in 3rd grade, or I might have just been sad because I had no friends (I got beat up on the first day of first grade at the bustop by kids I didn't know because I went to a private kindergarten, didn't make many friends at the new school). Then when I was 21, well I was just playing along with the therapist they made me see after wigging out in my dorm room while I was upset after getting off the phone with my ex. Oh yea and I was high as a kite. As long as you make the therapists think they're geniuses, they don't actually care about getting beyond whatever facade you put up.

But I digress. Are we better off as a species because we have the propensity to feel depressed?
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Old 12-19-2007, 04:57 PM   #28
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Default Re: Depression.

Depression provides a suitable counterpoint to happiness.

I'd say that we're better off able to experience both happiness and sadness, than only baseline contentment.
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Old 12-19-2007, 07:36 PM   #29
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Default Re: Depression.

Why are you assuming you can't have one without the other?
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Old 12-19-2007, 07:46 PM   #30
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Default Re: Depression.

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Why are you assuming you can't have one without the other?
Emotional dichotomies. If one extreme exists, then there is a good chance it's opposite exists as well. What does it mean to be happy if one never experiences sadness?
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Old 12-19-2007, 07:49 PM   #31
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Default Re: Depression.

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Why are you assuming you can't have one without the other?
If you'll allow me to interject here...

When something makes you "happy," isn't what it's really doing something more along the lines of making you feel better than normal? And when you feel sad, isn't that feeling worse than normal? If you can only feel one state, and it doesn't change, then that becomes the baseline and "happiness" cannot exist, because you cannot feel better. "Sadness" cannot exist either, because you cannot feel worse.

But I'm no psych major, so I could be completely off. This is just what I got out of thinking about it.
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Old 12-19-2007, 08:03 PM   #32
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Default Re: Depression.

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Emotional dichotomies. If one extreme exists, then there is a good chance it's opposite exists as well. What does it mean to be happy if one never experiences sadness?
Right now, I am neither happy nor sad. If right now my hot nextdoor neighbor knocked on my door and kissed me on the cheek, I'd be happy. This happiness is not defined as a complete lack of sadness, but the good feelings I felt as a result of the positive stimuli. Further, I'm not comparing the experience to any negative stimuli to verify that I am happy. I am perfectly capable of happiness without knowing sadness.

Happiness and sadness are not the only two feelings out there. Moreover, even if you lump all emotions into favorable and unfavorable categories, there are stimuli that elicit an indifferent response. Ergo, even if you assume that one can only know happiness if they can compare it to a different feeling, you can know you are happy by comparing it to a base of indifference.
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Old 12-19-2007, 11:38 PM   #33
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Default Re: Depression.

If you're going to say that all human emotions have an opposite, and you also say that depression is a disease, then happiness is a disease.

Do we diagnose anti-happiness pills to those who constantly experience euphoria when exciting things happen in their lives?
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Old 12-20-2007, 10:07 AM   #34
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Default Re: Depression.

No, if that diagnosis causes the subject to react in a negative mannor. But there must be a way to get around the barrier of depression without the medical field.
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Old 12-20-2007, 10:30 AM   #35
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Default Re: Depression.

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For another example of overdiagnosis, check out autism. It seems like autism is the new ADD for kids today
The new ADD? I think that's pretty far off base. Autism is very serious in most cases and I haven't seen very many cases of it misdiagnosed, especially in comparison to ADD, as it isn't hard to identify. If a kid is autistic, you can tell. Maybe you're mistaking it (or they mistakingly informed you) for a mild autism spectrum disorder, such as Aspergers...which can be entirely different.

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For some it may be a serious neurological defect, but for the most part I believe depression to be a by-product of certain unhealthy cultural practices.
This is an interesting point. From the research done on depression there is no doubt that it is associated with abnormal neural activity and levels of particular neurotransmitters. But the actual diagnosis can become incredibly convoluted when you consider environmental factors acting on a person, for example, incredibly high levels of chronic stress. There's no doubt that these things can change your chemistry, so treatment on a neurological level doesn't stop the problem...it's kind of like trying to smoke to relieve stress.

Treatments are often effective for people that are chronically depressed for reasons that aren't obvious, or have very serious clinical depression, but right now our knowledge of the exact mechanics of depression and how we treat it is lacking, and as such we do have people on meds that shouldn't be, or don't need to be.

However, I think it's important that we don't underestimate the potential benefits of seeking treatment in many individuals. TCAs, MAOIs and SSRIs, etc can be extremely effective with many depressed individuals. Most of the problems arise from getting the wrong medications and or failing to switch drugs. The problem with the medical treatment of depression right now is that we can't narrow it down to any *single* underlying cause...but rather, it can be caused by a variety of things, and most of our treatments currently only handle one of them.

Let's take Prozac for example, a commonly prescribed SSRI. Some studies have shown it to work extremely effectively, yet I've read some recently research that shows it works at placebo level. The problem is that it's only a Serotonin re-uptake inhibitor...it does not treat any of the other potential problems. A lot of people get on a med that is not effective for them, and fail try to different medications. To make it worse many psychiatrists have not read enough of the recent research on treatments and fail to prescribe the most effective ones. So yea, you get highly depressed people on a med, that takes a few weeks to start working anyway...they initially get a placebo effect but that starts to go away, and then the drug doesn't end up working for them and they kill themselves. It's pretty sad, but without failure I suppose we can't have progress. Hopefully depression is something we can treat with greater ease in the future.
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Old 12-20-2007, 11:36 AM   #36
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Default Re: Depression.

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The new ADD? I think that's pretty far off base. Autism is very serious in most cases and I haven't seen very many cases of it misdiagnosed, especially in comparison to ADD, as it isn't hard to identify. If a kid is autistic, you can tell. Maybe you're mistaking it (or they mistakingly informed you) for a mild autism spectrum disorder, such as Aspergers...which can be entirely different.
Yes two of the five kids (they were all six or seven years old, by the way) that just seemed to be bad kids were noted as having Aspergers. And given the place, I imagine the documentation on the kids was just incomplete and perhaps all five of them just had some mild form of autism. I'll be the first person to admit that I don't know a lot about autism, but that's what I was told they had, and they just seemed spoiled to me. Nothing was really wrong with them except they threw tantrums more often.
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Old 12-20-2007, 12:14 PM   #37
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Default Re: Depression.

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For another example of overdiagnosis, check out autism. It seems like autism is the new ADD for kids today
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Yes two of the five kids (they were all six or seven years old, by the way) that just seemed to be bad kids were noted as having Aspergers
Aspergers != Autism

You're saying something roughly comperable to "a bunch of people have twisted ankles, therefore, look at all these broken legs"

I meet pretty much every listed "symptom" of asperger's, and I am so far from being autistic that I utterly can't see a comparison between the two.

I also don't think that asperger's is mis-diagnosed (insofar as you have to be qualified in order to make a diagnosis) I think, though, that it -is- incredibly commonly self-diagnosed incorrectly, because a lot of kids like to use it as an excuse to hide behind instead of solving their own problems.

As an aside with respect to ADD being mentioned: I absolutely believe that ADD is a valid disorder, that many people have. However, I think that ADHD is simply the excuses version of "I'm a bad parent who can't control my children, make it be not my fault" but that's just me, and I'm a notorious cynic.

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Why are you assuming you can't have one without the other?
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This happiness is not defined as a complete lack of sadness, but the good feelings I felt as a result of the positive stimuli. Further, I'm not comparing the experience to any negative stimuli to verify that I am happy. I am perfectly capable of happiness without knowing sadness.
You aren't consciously comparing the good feelings to previous negative feelings in order to determine that you are happy but you are subconsiously doing it. Emotional states are all felt in relation to other states. You aren't "happy" you're "Happier than normal"

You need sadness in order to have happiness simply because if there were only two states 'normal' and 'happy' then 'normal' would be the 'negative' one, which amounts basically to there only being happiness and sadness.
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Old 12-21-2007, 10:11 AM   #38
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Default Re: Depression.

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Aspergers != Autism
Ok, I get it. We can drop this. I've already noted that I don't know much about the subject. I only thought they were similar because at the summer camp in which I worked both of the disorders (aspergers, functional autism) were lumped together in a specific group of disorders which had to do with financial support for attending the camp and both got free county-financed "shadows" (like a babysitter to provide one on one support for the child with the disorder).

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You aren't consciously comparing the good feelings to previous negative feelings in order to determine that you are happy but you are subconsiously doing it. Emotional states are all felt in relation to other states. You aren't "happy" you're "Happier than normal"

You need sadness in order to have happiness simply because if there were only two states 'normal' and 'happy' then 'normal' would be the 'negative' one, which amounts basically to there only being happiness and sadness.
Hedonistic adaptation is a *****.

Do you have an article to support your claim that, "Emotional states are all felt in relation to other states?" I can't really argue against what you're saying my subconscious is doing.
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Old 12-21-2007, 01:39 PM   #39
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Default Re: Depression.

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Do you have an article to support your claim that, "Emotional states are all felt in relation to other states?" I can't really argue against what you're saying my subconscious is doing.
I need an article to support logic?

Every qualitative judgement about everything is done in relation to other things. If I showed you a picture of a man standing in front of a plain white background, and asked you "Is this man tall?" You couldn't answer, because you have no context for comparison to gauge whether he is or not.

"Does this taste good?" only makes sense because you've tasted things which are bland and things which are distasteful as well. You couldn't say of the very first thing you ever ate "This is delicious" and actually mean it. You'd have no basis for comparison to make the judgement.

"Does this make you happy?" requires you to compare your mental state with previously experienced ones, and gauge roughly where this situation falls on the spectrum of your experiences.

To me, seeing my parents when I've been away at school for 8 months makes me happy, because I'm comparing it to the months where they weren't around, and the memories of previous encounters with my family which were positive.

If I'd grown up in a heavily abusive family, seeing my parents when I've been away at school for 8 months would be incredibly different. Comparing the situation to the time apart from them would cast the encounter in a much more negative light, because compared to previous experiences, the thought of seeing them again is negative.

The saying 'Ignorance is bliss' is generally used to imply that not knowing about all the bad things in the word is a positive thing, because they are depressing and bring you down. But virtually everyone who is not that kind of ignorant is perfectly willing to accept all that bad, and the nigh universal reason why is "Because it makes me appreciate the good that much more"

To phrase it another way, and to quote one of the great philosophers of our era: Beavis.

"Some stuff has to suck so other stuff can be cool"

Edit: Heck lets throw some dubious diagrams in here as well.

Say that we have a line like this:
Code:
|-------------|-------------|
H             N             S
Where H= The best things you experience (happiness), N= Average non-emotionally impacting experiences (Normalcy), and S= The worst things you experience (sadness)

And another line like this:
Code:
|-------------|
H             N
Which of these, on the whole, is the happier experience?

Code:
|------X------|-------------|
H             N             S


|------X------|
H             N
If the single most negatively feeling thing you've ever experienced was here:

Code:
|-------------|------------X|
H             N             S


|------------X|
H             N
Then the above experience is substantially better than the worst thing you've experienced in the first system, and only a little better than the worst thing you've experienced in the second system.

I suppose it is personal preference whether you'd be willing to accept the very bad in order to also experience the very good, or whether you'd prefer to simply stay close to the baseline as much as possible.

Last edited by devonin; 12-21-2007 at 01:48 PM..
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Old 12-21-2007, 02:18 PM   #40
All_That_Chaz
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Default Re: Depression.

First of all, your example of seeing your parents doesn't seem all that relevant because you're comparing two completely different stimuli. What I think you're trying to say is that given a healthy relationship with your parents, you'd feel happier visiting them if you were capable of feeling sadness.

Second, finding something palatable is absolutely not controlled by comparison to other foods. You can say, "This is delicious," without comparing it to something else. What you can't say is, "This is much tastier than that," without comparison. For example, if a baby was abused by its parents and was fed nothing but varieties of nutritionally enhanced dirt, all tasting horrible but all tasting differently, I doubt that baby would ever find any variety of it palatable. It wouldn't learn to enjoy the least atrocious dirt. It still makes it gag. It will enjoy the least horrible dirt more than the worst, but it wouldn't be delicious.

I get what you're saying with your diagrams. In the first scenario, that good feeling is 75% as good as you'll ever feel, when in the second scenario the same feeling is 50%. But for your explanation to make sense you have to assume that hedonistic adaptation. That people will naturally shift into the first scenario. Neutral feelings in the first scenerio will make those of the second depressed. However, what I've been arguing from the start is a man that doesn't have the propensity to feel depressed. He can't feel bad. So a normal person may appreciate good feelings more than my hypothetical happy man, but the positive stimuli evokes the same response.
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Last edited by All_That_Chaz; 12-21-2007 at 02:23 PM..
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