Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ketamine's effect on depression may hinge on hope

med.stanford.edu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

261–270 of 276 posts

Re: Ketamine's effect on depression may hinge on hope

#261

Post by omginternets »

scotty79 wrote: post #246
omginternets wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>And in case of some substances like drugs if you reduce dosage or adjust protocol so that trip doesn't happen means that you also got rid of any significant effect it might have on the brain. We agree. My point is that the evidence seems to be going in the direction of: 1. removing transcendence removes part of the benefit; and, 2. to complicate matters, many protocols fail to properly control for transcendent exper…

> We're both materialists. Mine is a materialist position. I'm not quite sure about you because you are using words like transcendence. ;-) In my view the deep experience of the trip, what you call transcendence, is just another hallucination, just hallucination of meaning and understanding instead of simple images, sounds or sensations.

Transcendence is a qualia of experience; it says nothing about whether an immaterial substance is required to experience it.

Re: Ketamine's effect on depression may hinge on hope

#262

Post by omginternets »

colordrops wrote: post #249
omginternets wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe I addressed the question of materialism vs dualism in my original comment?

Did you edit the comment? I don't recall seeing the footnote before. In any case it was a rhetorical question to understand your reasoning, as I personally don't take a stance on whether a soul exists or not.

I did a few days ago, yes. But yeah, fair point!

Re: Ketamine's effect on depression may hinge on hope

#263

Post by hyperdimension »

thejazzman wrote: post #152

After reading research about this a few months ago, I made https://ketamine.games It's totally free, private, with no tracking analytics, and many Reddit users have reported increased success using.

Not to take away from your neat-looking site (I'm still looking through it) but in case you see this comment, under the 'install' link in the footer, you repeat yourself redundantly again, twice:

> On your Android device, open Chrome Chrome

Re: Ketamine's effect on depression may hinge on hope

#264

Post by empyrrhicist »

jiveturkey42 wrote: post #199
empyrrhicist wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Umm... that's much more likely to be opiates and meth, and the criminalization hasn't especially helped with those either. Not to mention, the language you use is really cruel.

Likewise I think non-enforcement of drug laws tacitly permitting people to self-destruct in the streets is really cruel

The question isn't about whether it's good to just let people self destruct, its whether criminalization helps. Not every problem is a police problem.

Re: Ketamine's effect on depression may hinge on hope

#265

Post by agumonkey »

omginternets wrote: post #260
agumonkey wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh to me there's an easy one: - conceptual layer failure => asylum - neurobio layer failure => life support

The people running the asylum reject that distinction, as do the people running the hospitals.

care to educate me further ?

Re: Ketamine's effect on depression may hinge on hope

#266

Post by photonerd »

omginternets wrote: post #14
photonerd wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If qualia are not different that our “neurological machinery” (and all available evidence shows this so far, not least the incoherence of definitions of qualia that try to exclude such) then medicine is already considering such as a major parameter. If they are different (and exist at all) then such needs to be demonstrated before they can be reliably considered. Given even proponents of qualia can’t reliably agree w…

>If qualia are not different that our “neurological machinery” (and all available evidence shows this so far, not least the incoherence of definitions of qualia that try to exclude such) then medicine is already considering such as a major parameter. No, they are definitely not. I don't see anything in these studies to the effect of "hey, it's the feeling that they feel that's making them better". They're looking for…

> "hey, it's the feeling that they feel that's making them better"

That’s called “the placebo effect” and it’s one of the most studied & controlled for factors in ANY medical testing.

Re: Ketamine's effect on depression may hinge on hope

#267

Post by photonerd »

missingrib wrote: post #72
photonerd wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If qualia are not different that our “neurological machinery” (and all available evidence shows this so far, not least the incoherence of definitions of qualia that try to exclude such) then medicine is already considering such as a major parameter. If they are different (and exist at all) then such needs to be demonstrated before they can be reliably considered. Given even proponents of qualia can’t reliably agree w…

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qualia-knowledge/

Congratulations, you’ve discovered a very very old thought experiment & demonstrated that proponents of qualia are no further on than they were decades ago in providing anything even approaching proof of their conjecture.

The “substantial revisions” after 17 years to that paper are—rather weak—responses to objections raised in the 90s and should have been in their 2002 paper. Worse, they’re responses that have their own major objections by 2002 anyhow.

Not sure what your aim was but I guess thank you for underscoring my point rather perfectly?

Re: Ketamine's effect on depression may hinge on hope

#268

Post by photonerd »

lukasb wrote: post #11
photonerd wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If qualia are not different that our “neurological machinery” (and all available evidence shows this so far, not least the incoherence of definitions of qualia that try to exclude such) then medicine is already considering such as a major parameter. If they are different (and exist at all) then such needs to be demonstrated before they can be reliably considered. Given even proponents of qualia can’t reliably agree w…

The way I would rephrase OP is "what is the most useful abstraction for the mechanism of action of these drugs". It might be that limiting yourself to neurological phenomena gives you a much longer, more unwieldy model of what's happening here than an equally predictive model that centers on subjective experience.

> limiting yourself to neurological phenomena

I’m fine with including other phenomena. As I said in my original comment though: those phenomena need to be demonstrated to exist, first.

Until then it’s absolutely unscientific, and medically unsound, to assume they exist & then hope that they magically work. Because that is not science: that’s quackery.

Re: Ketamine's effect on depression may hinge on hope

#269

Post by photonerd »

omginternets wrote: post #16
lukasb wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The way I would rephrase OP is "what is the most useful abstraction for the mechanism of action of these drugs". It might be that limiting yourself to neurological phenomena gives you a much longer, more unwieldy model of what's happening here than an equally predictive model that centers on subjective experience.

Nit: my feelings are closer to "we are ignoring one of possibly many useful abstractions", but otherwise yes. If I'm being pedantic here, it's that I really don't want to downplay the importance of the pharmacological level of analysis. It's a very useful analysis. It's just not a complete theory of life well-lived.

We’re not ignoring them. We’re patiently waiting for them to be proven to exist & have a demonstrable mechanism of action.

Believe me, I’d be the first to suggest they be considered if we had that. We don’t. It would be great if we did.

Until then it’s not medicine, it’s shamanism.

Re: Ketamine's effect on depression may hinge on hope

#270

Post by nottorp »

mistermann wrote: post #206
nottorp wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But why call them spiritual experiences when hallucinations will do even better?

"Do people have ideas or do ideas have people?" might have something to do with the phenomenon of different humans preferring different labels for the same thing.

There are different implications though. One implies there's some meaning while the other does not.
Post reply on HN