>
>
> On Tue, Dec 9, 2008 at 5:14 AM, JC Helary <brandelune at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>
>> On mardi 09 déc. 08, at 14:06, Philip Pilkington wrote:
>>
>> Frontal lobe? Prefrontal cortex? If my child spoke this kind of language
>>> I'd
>>> clean their mouth out with soap!
>>>
>>
>> Talk about cause or effect...
>>
>
>
> Why does anything happen? Especially in the human brain?
>
> I'll put it as such:
>
> We study brain activity - say endorphins in relation to
> anxiety/depression/sexual activity etc. - but how can we tell whether its
> this activity which triggers the neurochemical responses or vice versa?
>
> Personally, I think its ridiculous to think that we can observe ANYTHING
> without taking our own perspective (i.e. expeience) into account. Thus our
> own activity/(past) experience gains precendence over ANY alterations in
> neurochemical activity. It seems to me the only coherent epistemology...
>
> It also allows for the rather pressing fact that psychopathology shifts
> both in degrees and quantities under different social conditions... also
> allowing for a certain amount of responsibility and, hence, freedom...
>
>
>
Actually, I feel I've been rather "idealistic" here. Let me clarify.
Let us take an example of someone who is in a dangerous situation; lets say they're being chased by a bear. Now why do their adrenaline glands begin producing more adrenaline? Is it because the human brain engaged in some sort of premonitory activity which predicted the bear? Hardly. The process is not genetic. It is psychogenic...
Now apply this to human behavior and the whole thing gets a little complex... We have to integrate past experience (i.e. the proverbial bear, or whatever other past experience leads to the psychic state) in order to understand the psychic response. Again, this accounts for any past exerience (i.e. social...[historical materialist?]) which impinges on the sublects funtioning within the social sphere.