Going To Bits

I was hovering over depression recently and was taken aback by a comment someone made about people who are subject to depression, becoming depressed by way of direct causation. By that I mean X screams at Y, and Y gets verklempt and goes all Goth and becomes suicidal (to compress things a bit). It has always seemed to me (and I think people like Durkheim who looked at the societal implications of broad depression) that depression is not a matter of discreet response but is rather more systemic. And then I realized that it is the “nonsystemic” nature of depression which lies at depression’s core.

“Good Grief!”, you gasp, “Now what is he trying to say?”

What I am saying is the depression arises on a growing sense of entropy (in the non-technical sense; my apologies to physicists everywhere).  Generally, entropy is defined as

A measure of the amount of disorder in the Universe, or of the availability of the energy in a system to do work. As energy is degraded into heat, it is less able to do work, and the amount of disorder in the Universe increases (see arrow of time). This corresponds to an increase in entropy. In a closed system, entropy never decreases, so the Universe as a whole is slowly dying. In an open system (for example, a growing flower), entropy can decrease and order can increase, but only at the expense of a decrease in order and an increase in entropy somewhere else (in this case, in the Sun, which is supplying the energy that the plant feeds off).1

More popularly the term is used to describe increasing uncertainly and disorder in a system. I don’t want to belabor the thesis they promote, but I think Carhart-Harris et al. touch upon the idea I am suggesting here.

Entropy is a dimensionless quantity that is used for measuring uncertainty about the state of a system but it can also imply physical qualities, where high entropy is synonymous with high disorder. Entropy is applied here in the context of states of consciousness and their associated neurodynamics, with a particular focus on the psychedelic state. The psychedelic state is considered an exemplar of a primitive or primary state of consciousness that preceded the development of modern, adult, human, normal waking consciousness. Based on neuroimaging data with psilocybin, a classic psychedelic drug, it is argued that the defining feature of “primary states” is elevated entropy in certain aspects of brain function, such as the repertoire of functional connectivity motifs that form and fragment across time. Indeed, since there is a greater repertoire of connectivity motifs in the psychedelic state than in normal waking consciousness, this implies that primary states may exhibit “criticality,” i.e., the property of being poised at a “critical” point in a transition zone between order and disorder where certain phenomena such as power-law scaling appear. Moreover, if primary states are critical, then this suggests that entropy is suppressed in normal waking consciousness, meaning that the brain operates just below criticality. It is argued that this entropy suppression furnishes normal waking consciousness with a constrained quality and associated metacognitive functions, including reality-testing and self-awareness. It is also proposed that entry into primary states depends on a collapse of the normally highly organized activity within the default-mode network (DMN) and a decoupling between the DMN and the medial temporal lobes (which are normally significantly coupled). These hypotheses can be tested by examining brain activity and associated cognition in other candidate primary states such as rapid eye movement (REM) sleep and early psychosis and comparing these with non-primary states such as normal waking consciousness and the anaesthetized state.2

In other words, when we hear people talking about “coming apart at the seams”, or “going to bits” what we really may be hearing is their attempt to express the sense of increasing entropy, a feeling that all order is breaking down, including the manner in which they “fit” into the circumstances around them.

As I can attest to personally, as these gaping black holes open before us, it is this sense of purposelessness, senselessness, and chaos that reach and envelop us. The good news is that in many cases one can just refuse to “feed” that sense.  “Pitter, Patter!” as Wayne would say.3

And, perhaps that is why those who have fortified their psyches with excessive structure are so at risk when that structure is threatened. They feel the ground beneath their feet feet shifting, and the fear they feel is not just the fear of imminent physical consequence, but the fear that nothing makes sense any more.

What I find curious is where those who do not seem to experience fear, still experience this since of entropy. Is that a mark of reduced ego, a misinterpretation of chemical signal, the result of some insight?

It would seem that people can manage to suppress entropy, perhaps using the same types of neural circuits used in cognitive inhibition (thought to regulation analytical thinking) and that such management alleviates, remediates, obfuscates or otherwise resolves the onset of depression.  But it also suggests that those living in a world perceived to be completely ordered would be subject to acute depression should their perceptions waiver; in other words, their delusions of actual order keep their brains from having to balance the real existence of disorder.

 

A Bit of Buzzz

I thought the season recommended this…

Invite all to the Way
Of thy Lord with wisdom
And beautiful preaching;
And argue with them
In ways that are best
And most gracious:
For thy Lord knows best,
Who have strayed from His Path,
And who receive guidance.
And if ye do catch them out,
Catch them out no worse
Than they catch you out:
But if ye show patience,
That is indeed the best course
For those who are patient.
And do thou be patient,
For thy patience is but
From God; nor grieve over them:
And distress not thyself
Because of their plots.
For God is with those
Who restrain themselves,
And those who do good.

From Soup to Nuts

I was a bit taken aback by a Facebook comment shared recently by John Fulton 1, a person I know to be intelligent, compassionate, giving, sensitive, and a devout Catholic.

It breaks my heart and shatters my soul to see the depravity that our society has perpetuated today.

New York not only legalized abortion to the day of the child’s birth, but they also removed protections in the event the child survives, they can still murder the child with impunity. They removed the requirement of abortions to be performed by doctors. The slap in the face was the signing of the bill by New York governor Andrew Cuomo, a purported Catholic.

As a faithful Catholic Christian and Knight of Columbus, it sickens me. The fight for the sanctity of life has always been one of the most important moral issues that exists. I pray the rosary daily, contribute what I can to organizations that forward that cause, and participate in what events I can to hopefully end this culture of death and disregard for God’s greatest gift whether it is at conception or towards the natural end of life.

Curiously enough, John ends his tribulation with a  borrowed piece entitled, Intercessions for Those Involved in Abortion 2 the last stanza of which is borrowed from Jeremiah. 3

How did the Roman Catholic Church come to see abortion as depraved?

As an Irishman recently was want to say, “It is interesting to wonder though, by which revelation was it made known to the Roman Catholic Church that heaven does not approve of abortion?” 4 Somehow, Western society has gone from entertaining the notion of creation from a cosmic soup to unfettered procreation, and it’s of import to more than just the Irish how we got here (and what can be done about it)!

Certainly, Jewish law at the time and since has been that a fetus is not a person until most of it has emerged from the mother. Nor is there any credible argument that the New Testament holds otherwise. That did not serve to stop Christian theologians from trying to rule women’s bodies, as even the shortest review on the topic suggests. 5 It is difficult to take the depth of Catholic feeling all that serious though, when so many historians have demonstrated the rather dubious adoption of such policy by the Church (I am reminded of Catholics who taunt Muslims about Ramadan, but are actually wholly ignorant that their obligations during Lent are strikingly similar, lol).

My bottom line is that when one looks at the overall policy of the Church, it would appear to be in many respects focused on unbridled breeding, and the inevitable death and misery that entails. Yes, I have to argue that anyone who subscribes to such nonsense, not as an historical artifact that should be remembered but set aside now that we know better, but as present guidance for survival on Earth, is INSANE.

and I have to ask you, what do YOU want to do with all these insane persons?

 

Mysteries Are Meant to Be Worshipped

A friend recently argued that mysteries are meant to be solved, not worshiped,

Fritz Kropfreiter Protozoans move along gradients, the most pervasive of which is food. The rational, self-aware mind also moves along a gradient (call it truth, understanding, knowledge or meaning) not with some metaphysical goal in mind but simply to chase the (currently) unattainable why. Mysteries are not meant to be worshiped but solved.

I have to disagree (on a basis other than the fact that this is way too “meta” for me).

No, it’s specifically not that I think that worship of anything is a good idea, nor do I think the mumbo-jumbo that passes for 21st Century spiritualism is any better. I am talking about why we create “mythos”, as opposed to simply seeing what we don’t understand as something we don’t understand. Yes, I think this was what was on Fritz’s mind, but the fly in the ointment is our initial perspective, our frame of reference. We create a “limbic universe”, and then fashion tools (mythos) to address it.

Karen Armstrong, in The Case for God, spends a good deal of time arguing mythos (here is a precis), and dozens of bloggers wrestle with the concept on a regular basis (here is just one example). But no matter which way one looks at the “battle” over mythos, it is, at its core, a duel over the fictive, an argument over whether we can effectively populate the universe with ghosts of our own emotional and juvenile angst.

Understanding the delusional nature of mythos does not mean that one seeks to undermine every ecstatic experience, every transcendental moment; it only means that one understands that the source of that moment is not part and parcel of some arcane knowledge-infused alien. Indeed, the “wow factor” increases dramatically when we cease and desist from writing ourselves into some magical yarn from which the universe is woven. We don’t need 20th Century revivals of medieval; mystery plays to grasp our place in the world (at least some few of us don’t, the rest, well I suppose the rest go to church).

So, mystery, the invented fluid in which Homo sapiens comes to understand the numinous, is specifically fashioned to be the focus of ritual.  It is the life-blood of every religious action, from the killing of the bull, to the taking of communion.


Armstrong, Karen. The Case for God. New York: Anchor Books, 2010.

A Less Modest Proposal

Recently some folk have gotten their shorts in a twist because someone has the temerity to suggest that killing a 200 year old whale is not necessarily a good idea. Efforts to address those upset have been very unsuccessful because any word to suggest that Native harvest of whales should be challenged is labeled racism (which it, by definition, is not).

There is way too much emotive baggage, way too little reflection on issues underlying our cultural prejudices. Tribalism is inherent in Homo sapiens… we are virtually hard wired to be tribal as that provided some selective benefit as we evolved from under the shadows of the thunder lizards , but now it will kill us all. The harvest of marine mammals is still (and will likely become more of) a widely debated ethical decision (much as has happened with respect to pigs) as no human will die of lack of whale meat. The question is one of cultural relativism. If I eat children should I be allowed to continue eating children? Really. Why shouldn’t I eat your child? Or just mash it up as a blood sacrifice to my gods (which, after all, is not atypical for Homo sapiens)? While Dean Swift was being ironic when he penned “A Modest Proposal”, the point he makes is still very poignant, and the taking of marine mammals is as close to the dominionism now infecting our political culture.

If Critter A is hungry and he wants to eat another critter, he will run into some issues eventually, and he develops a credo that allows him to eat some (but not all) other critters. That credo, based largely on belief, is a matter of faith. You eat pig because you believe the pig is dumb, or you have some divine authority, or other excuse that applies to pig, but not dog, horse, or people. Many Neolithic and tribal cultures invent a mythology that results in their belief that their prey gives themselves freely to predator. This is, as suggested above, no far reach from dominionism.

Arguing that a specific cultural approach to life is inappropriate is not necessarily racist (and I think is rarely so, though humans are particularly inventive when it comes to being stupid). I think Female Genital Mutilation is horrific, yet I have no real qualms about Male Genital Mutilation… imagine that! Such cultural prejudices are endemic to Homo sapiens. At core it is now essentially a matter of faith. With the clash of cultures, questions will be asked, and I think that is appropriate – that is what Montesquieu was talking about when he discussed commerce, and the claims of “historical accident”, “cultural artifact”, or “religious tenet” can, and eventually will,  wear thin.


Swift, Jonathan. A Modest Proposal. 1729. https://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Texts/modest.html

The Stain of God’s Anointing

Parking validation is difficult enough; the concept of validating a messiah is positively fraught.

Once upon a time (back in the days of make-believe) one could look for a slick (anointing, at least among humans, largely being effected with olive oil) but then, is that a luncheon dribble there on your tunic, or a holy pronouncement from way on high? Of course, once some clever prelate started marketing “holy water” all bets were off as the only stain water leaves is by way of contaminants (does the Lord take into account turbidity and mineral content?)

Of course, this all relates only to human anointment, and how could any human even hypothesize anointment by a deity… Goodness gracious, anointment by a supernatural alien could be by anything from neutron bombardment to a spurt of chimp semen! Look, don’t get all upset and bothered with me! I am not the one who failed to provide a CSI manual on how to detect sacred “emanations”…

I used to proclaim that I was the anointed one (not to say that, just because I don’t argue that point regularly anymore, it alters the fact that I am – the anointed one, that is – and I can show you the stains) and was somewhat disturbed by the froth that would appear on the lips of the fruiting faithful. Of course I was denounced (in the most hurtful terms) and the claim made that they would know HIM when they see HIM. Roger that; so tell me, “HOW?” Describe for me the stain of God’s anointing.

Well, they’ll stone you when you ask them for their proof…

Well, they’ll stone ya when you’re trying to be so good
They’ll stone ya just a-like they said they would
They’ll stone ya when you’re tryin’ to go home
Then they’ll stone ya when you’re there all alone
But I would not feel so all alone
Everybody must get stoned

Well, they’ll stone ya when you’re walkin’ ’long the street
They’ll stone ya when you’re tryin’ to keep your seat
They’ll stone ya when you’re walkin’ on the floor
They’ll stone ya when you’re walkin’ to the door
But I would not feel so all alone
Everybody must get stoned

They’ll stone ya when you’re at the breakfast table
They’ll stone ya when you are young and able
They’ll stone ya when you’re tryin’ to make a buck
They’ll stone ya and then they’ll say, “good luck”
Tell ya what, I would not feel so all alone
Everybody must get stoned

Well, they’ll stone you and say that it’s the end
Then they’ll stone you and then they’ll come back again
They’ll stone you when you’re riding in your car
They’ll stone you when you’re playing your guitar
Yes, but I would not feel so all alone
Everybody must get stoned

Well, they’ll stone you when you walk all alone
They’ll stone you when you are walking home
They’ll stone you and then say you are brave
They’ll stone you when you are set down in your grave
But I would not feel so all alone
Everybody must get stoned

lyrics © Bob Dylan Music Co.