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Common infections can spark psychiatric illnesses in children

economist.com

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Re: Common infections can spark psychiatric illnesses in children

#161

Post by krisoft »

anon84873628 wrote: post #144
xpe wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well said. > You are in far less control of your actions then you believe. No. But I say this in a way that might surprise you? I view 'free will', as most people understand it, as an illusion. I recognize that I, at best, have a tiny fraction of control. If I consider "me" to be a locus of control w.r.t. volitional action, then I will grant that "me" has causal impact. But what causally impacted "me" at time t? A co…

It's simpler than that. Your thoughts -- the internal monologue deciding what actions to take -- are the result of physical processes in the brain. There is no way those non-physical thoughts are changing the physical processes; they happen after the fact. We have the illusion of being in the driver seat but really we are just along for the ride. This is assuming you adhere only to what science can prove, and not rel…

> There is no way those non-physical thoughts are changing the physical processes

I don’t believe this to be correct. There is nothing non-physical about thoughts. Thoughts are mater interacting with mater.

Thoughts are to the brain what waves are to the ocean. They are not less physical than the brain itself.

Re: Common infections can spark psychiatric illnesses in children

#162

Post by colordrops »

atonalfreerider wrote: post #14
colordrops wrote: post #3

I remember feeling pretty normal until I had a strep throat infection when I was 7, after which I got really introverted and twitchy/compulsive ever since. Maybe a coincidence but I sometimes wonder if that did something to me. edit: I swear I made this comment this before reading the article. It starts off with a boy at 7 with strep that got twitchy, which is 100% in line with my experience. Crazy.

I had strep as a child and I developed tics and compulsive speech. Also some OCD. I'm almost 40 and I still have the compulsive speech. When I have awkward thoughts, I start cursing under my breath. Another kid in my class has strep, and he has OCD so bad, that some days he can't leave the house.

Same, I've got the very awkward thoughts and constant cursing under my breath as well. The twitchiness is still there but under much more control than when I was a child.

I wonder if Tourette syndrome has anything to do with strep.

Re: Common infections can spark psychiatric illnesses in children

#163

Post by kelseyfrog »

xpe wrote: post #118
kelseyfrog wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We don't choose our preferences As a doxastic voluntarist, I reject this notion entirely.

> Doxastic voluntarism is a philosophical view that people elect their own beliefs; that is, that subjects have a certain amount of control over what they believe Do you hold such a view as a first principle? Or did you arrive at it via consideration of other factors?

Do you mean to ask if someone can choose not to be a doxastic voluntarist?

You can't choose to be a doxastic voluntarist as much as you can't choose not to be one. One can only become one involuntarily.

Re: Common infections can spark psychiatric illnesses in children

#164

Post by anon84873628 »

ad987 wrote: post #157
anon84873628 wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's simpler than that. Your thoughts -- the internal monologue deciding what actions to take -- are the result of physical processes in the brain. There is no way those non-physical thoughts are changing the physical processes; they happen after the fact. We have the illusion of being in the driver seat but really we are just along for the ride. This is assuming you adhere only to what science can prove, and not rel…

> There is no way those non-physical thoughts are changing the physical processes; they happen after the fact. How can the truth of this statement be proven? Non-physical thoughts cannot be observed, so they are out of reach of being tested for being correct.

Eventually we may have sufficiently fine-grained ability to observe brain states, plus a strong enough understanding of neuropsychology, such that an outside observer can accurately predict, for a brain under observation:

1. The subjective internal mental state of the participant (e.g. "you were imagining a red balloon")

2. Actions that will be taken before they physically manifest (e.g. "you will throw rock instead of scissors")

If an outside observer can do these things without access to subjects' thoughts, especially with subjects' deliberate efforts to fool the observers, then IMO it is pretty clear evidence the thoughts are meaningless.

As for the current day, I say the preponderance of evidence is on anyone who claims otherwise. There's lots of evidence suggesting free will is an illusion, and no evidence of telekinesis or the like.

Re: Common infections can spark psychiatric illnesses in children

#165

Post by stevezsa8 »

hotpotamus wrote: post #152
stevezsa8 wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My wife is also T1, diagnosed a couple years back with a week in ICU. She pulled through and now has a CGM and pump. What really surprised me was her blood sugar rockets up when she has video meetings with a certain difficult colleague. While other chilled colleagues have no such effect. That made me wonder if interacting with difficult people causes more physiological changes than I realised.

There are observable changes in the structure of the brain when people take up meditation. Not to get too crass, but we are the meat in our heads and bodies.

I'm not into mediation, but I watched something that said the brain scans of meditating experts resembled someone having a seizure or something. But the person with sat quietly.

I'm not drawing any conclusions. But I found it fascinating.

Re: Common infections can spark psychiatric illnesses in children

#166

Post by LeifCarrotson »

geye1234 wrote: post #156
xpe wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well said. > You are in far less control of your actions then you believe. No. But I say this in a way that might surprise you? I view 'free will', as most people understand it, as an illusion. I recognize that I, at best, have a tiny fraction of control. If I consider "me" to be a locus of control w.r.t. volitional action, then I will grant that "me" has causal impact. But what causally impacted "me" at time t? A co…

The trouble with this argument is it applies to your thoughts about reality, not just to your will. Your argument implies your thoughts at time t are solely the result of your state at time t-1 and your environment. But if that's the case, your thoughts aren't about reality; they're just a result of reality, a result of whatever state you happen to be in. But if your thoughts aren't about reality, why should your arg…

If you consider the processes of the mind to be acausal, that also removes the possibility of rational argument.

It's possible that I'm a Boltzmann brain with nonsensical memories about environmental stimuli that mislead me about what reality is, but it's tedious to prepend every statement about reality with "the conception of reality that my state at time t-1 and my environment have lead me to believe is the most likely candidate for reality."

That doesn't seem to be a particularly useful objection to the philosophy that GP espoused, instead, you have to assume his same priors - materialist, agnostic w.r.t. determinism, and some basic assumptions about senses and a shared reality.

Re: Common infections can spark psychiatric illnesses in children

#167

Post by TedDoesntTalk »

krisoft wrote: post #161
anon84873628 wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's simpler than that. Your thoughts -- the internal monologue deciding what actions to take -- are the result of physical processes in the brain. There is no way those non-physical thoughts are changing the physical processes; they happen after the fact. We have the illusion of being in the driver seat but really we are just along for the ride. This is assuming you adhere only to what science can prove, and not rel…

> There is no way those non-physical thoughts are changing the physical processes I don’t believe this to be correct. There is nothing non-physical about thoughts. Thoughts are mater interacting with mater. Thoughts are to the brain what waves are to the ocean. They are not less physical than the brain itself.

You cannot point to a neurotransmitter or neuron or synapse and say "that's a thought." Thoughts are not material. You might say they are not real. Even if you can point to a group of neurons and processes in the brain and associate it with a particular thought, the thought itself is not real. The neurons and their behaviors are.

Re: Common infections can spark psychiatric illnesses in children

#168

Post by anon84873628 »

krisoft wrote: post #161
anon84873628 wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's simpler than that. Your thoughts -- the internal monologue deciding what actions to take -- are the result of physical processes in the brain. There is no way those non-physical thoughts are changing the physical processes; they happen after the fact. We have the illusion of being in the driver seat but really we are just along for the ride. This is assuming you adhere only to what science can prove, and not rel…

> There is no way those non-physical thoughts are changing the physical processes I don’t believe this to be correct. There is nothing non-physical about thoughts. Thoughts are mater interacting with mater. Thoughts are to the brain what waves are to the ocean. They are not less physical than the brain itself.

Inasmuch as thoughts have a one-to-one coupling with the physical processes in the brain, then we are saying the same thing.

But qualia (the more accurate/descriptive term for what we are discussing) are inherently subjective and non-physical by definition. Both of us can observe an ocean wave using many different methods (direct observation with light, their effect on a buoy, their impact with the shore, etc). However we can never both observe your qualia. I have no way to determine that your perception of "red" and mine are equivalent. There is no way you can explain vision to a blind person; yet a blind person can have their own understanding of an ocean wave.

Re: Common infections can spark psychiatric illnesses in children

#169

Post by mschuster91 »

And yet, despite mounting evidence, people are still opposing even basic measures of hygiene in way too many schools. Air filters, if they are even present, are often just plugged out. Windows can't be opened at all. Way too few loos for way too many students, most of them vandalized to hell, no soap dispensers to be seen.

On top of that come all the parents who send their kid to school despite clearly being sick.

Re: Common infections can spark psychiatric illnesses in children

#170

Post by derbOac »

NeuroCoder wrote: post #136

Met a kid with this my first pediatric clerkship in med school. I was told it was super rare and then had to memorize a bunch more stuff and forgot all the details about the visit. Always wish I could remember that patient better

I've seen multiple cases like this professionally, and they don't always have the typical PANDAS profile, either in terms of sequelae or putative causes. Kid gets illness, very clear signs (very high temperature for example), sometimes admitted, dramatic personality change afterward. The cases I remember most were around 7-12 but I recall one that was more around the age of 17.

It was unnerving for multiple reasons the first time I worked on these types of cases; one of those types of experiences that made me realize there's a fair amount of very serious illness out there that "goes under the radar" in the sense that there's serious consequences and little to no way to prevent it and poor understanding afterward of exactly what happened.

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