Sunday 22 July 2012

Basis of my theories

22/07/12 22:24 [Sunday]

About a month ago in the course of sorting stuff out for our eventual removal (when this bungalow shall finally sell) I found a handwritten diary note I made in June 2005. I do come across handwritten diary notes from time to time (they are almost always from years more recent than 2005) and usually scan them to add to my computerised diary to make it complete, but on this occasion I transcribed the note which was dated 17-Jun-05. I think I had it in mind, in making the transcription, that I could put the note into my Blogger blog, and my intention now is to do so. I am able to add remarks in the clearer state of mind I have now achieved, and hope to benefit medical science.

It is plain from the note I made that I felt hurried yet responded to the hurry by slowing down. (This may relate to what I was saying recently about my underactive thyroid, in that perhaps I was unable to rush as my state of mind would have had me do, because of the slowness of my metabolism.) The fact is that I was unable to make plans in my head to cope with the speed which was necessary, on the occasions it was necessary. In other words even if I did need to rest I should have scheduled my resting better instead of simply downing tools as soon as I was the least weary.

The other main comment I would make is that I interpreted what went on in terms of ‘the Authorities’ and my being hypnotised (and Dawn being hypnotised too, I often conjectured) without much reflection. This was because there was too much going on in my mind to permit a leisurely survey of possibilities and probabilities. Even though the ideas I had about being hypnotised did not square with what I myself knew about hypnosis (and most troublesome in my theorising was to tally up the fact - what I had read - that a person cannot be hypnotised unless he consents, and I had no recollection of ever having been asked to consent): even though the notions I had did not fit I came to make an assumption they were correct and that given enough time to work things out they could be made to fit. I suppose I have to add that even if I didn’t have leisure to work things out thoroughly, on the face of it I need not have presumed such a thing as that I was surreptitiously hypnotised, unless there were things I noticed which caused a need for some such hypothesis. The ‘things I noticed’ were exaggerated coincidences (this following from the way dopamine is implicated in pattern recognition and from my having overactive dopamine) so that, for example, when I over-responded to things I heard said being very similar to what was in my mind at the time I had to make the presumption that I had been hypnotised to respond with those thoughts to some preceding cue (set up by people following me about, or present where I was because I had been led there by hypnotic suggestion). I can understand that some people who over-respond to these coincidences interpret the concurrence as resulting from telepathy, but with the scientific training I had at school and with the utterly materialistic world view I have, I know telepathy is a mirage. Hypnotism is not a mirage and I did my best to bring it in as the only possible explanation for the coincidences (despite the fact that it did not tally in all particulars).

Finally I note that I was het up and had headaches and various bodily reactions from over-sensitivity (to heat in the case in question).

17/6/05. 4.50 pm. Transcribed from handwritten note.

We have stopped near Walsall (near Tame Bridge Parkway I believe) having found ourselves too late to hope to get to the Telewest office at Merry Hill Dudley tonight.

Problems started near Castle Donington where we parked for a while in a lay-by known to us and doubtless to the Authorities. As it is now over four hours since we left Worksop (in our motor caravan) it seems clear to me we were delayed by a hypnotic trance at that lay-by.

We left the lay-by hurriedly after Dawn became annoyed at the time I had had there on the computer and I reacted with anger. I felt sleepy and had a bad headache (which persists now).

The main error (apart from being hypnotised at all) was my wrong estimate of the time available when we came off the M42. This was caused by the break in time due to the hypnotic trance.

[X582DAO in margin.]

I intended to leave the M42 at Tamworth but was distracted at that junction (losing awareness I would say through a post-hypnotic effect). I did not intend to leave at the next junction but turned off at the last minute (again doubtless cued through hypnosis).

After leaving the M42 we found ourselves at the point where in May I chucked our former mobile phone away and where we were spectators at the aftermath of a faked accident (near Drayton Manor Park). This is suspicious in itself.

Driving along since leaving the M42 we have seen a number of reversing vehicles and other referential sights. A few minutes ago I would have re-joined the motorway but was deliberately blocked by a car (RK54TZW I believe) in the outside lane.

I have a sore throat, a headache, and irritability of the skin in this heat.

Tuesday 17 July 2012

Sheldon Cooper

17/07/12 14:54 [Tuesday]

So one of the features distinguishing human kind from the brute animal is the ability to suspend judgment which is to say steel oneself to bear negative experience - even holding one’s hand in a flame (an example I often come up with) - for the sake of gathering information useful in the longer term. My understanding is that this feature depends on dopamine through the mechanism of bringing into action the frontal brain which can overall direct the brain and specifically can ‘disconnect’ the pathways which ordinarily lead from negative experience on to withdrawal or on to some vigorous action along the lines of fighting back. My view too is that higher levels of dopamine bring into action more the frontal brain and that higher levels of dopamine arise in schizophrenia not as a constant factor but if the necessary stimulation impinges, because of over-responsivity in schizophrenia of dopaminergic neural systems. Thus the schizophrenic - and it is certainly so in the catatonic type - holds himself aloof and puts up with all sorts of experience (including, often, negative experience) without exposing any immediate response, or indeed any response in any sensible timescale.

Mankind is bivalent on this subject. Suspending judgment and also holding oneself aloof in the midst of negative experience are regarded as praiseworthy, but to tell the truth, only up to a certain degree. And in the context of evolution, what good is it to do nothing but gather information for the longer term, when what those which persist should be doing is enjoying life through eating good food and procreating children?

I think the answer to why those who are religious maniacs or similar - including Sheldon Coopers who never eat good food and never procreate children - why they persist is that when they come into being they are cossetted by the powers that be who can see that it is useful for the longrun of the race for these people to gather information - that is to research - on behalf of the body politic. I must say the TV programme Big Bang Theory does a good job through Sheldon Cooper of showing up the relationship between lunacy and genius and reminds us of Isaac Newton, Paul Dirac and many another.

Monday 9 July 2012

27 January 1977

I give below some extracts from my diary of 27-Jan-77 when I was in my 21st year. More similar can be found at http://www.colinbrough.co.uk.
...
It has rained tolerably heavily today, on and off, and when I went out ... I got wet. I am reminded of what was probably my first Sunday morning walk at Cambridge. On reflection, during my first few weeks here in October 1974 it rained a lot. Anyway, getting wet on this first walk caused me to feel very dismal. Recollections are returning to me. I was worried about unforeseen consequences with which I might not be able to deal. It is the newness of situations which is frightening, or depressing. I did not know, for example, at that stage whether I would be able to manage without overspending my grant. I did not know where any of the shops were in the town.
...
I think though (really I do) - that I, being schizoid, am more sensitive to strange situations than the average person. I have never been alone into a restaurant, or a theatre, or an opera, etc., etc., etc. (to quote The King and I, or at least, the king. I do not like going into strange cinemas. I nearly went to see The Devils sometime last year, but decided against it on seeing the waiting queue. I have noticed of late that I do not like standing about in shops, investigating the wares. People look at me and expect things of me.
...
One true thing one could say about me is that I am sensitive to people’s expectations of me. I am now analysing my schizoidism, you understand. I am coming to believe that my being schizoid (I am not really sure this is the right term; some authors prefer schizothymic) is explicable from the sole hypothesis of sensitivity to criticism.
I am reserved because I do not wish to provoke criticism of my actions. Of course, sometimes I feel people are criticising me (not necessarily explicitly, naturally) (forgive me for editing this [by deletions], but I do not wish to write absolute rubbish) for my lack of activity, especially speech activity, but I would expect you, the reader (whoever you may be), to understand that I prefer to be criticised for doing nothing rather than for doing something wrong. That does not read quite right. Perhaps criticism sounds too much like explicit criticism, where I mean tacit criticism.
The point is, that doing something is more likely, if it provokes criticism at all, to provoke responses unarguably critical, from which I would suffer more; whereas doing nothing provokes at worst hesitant criticism, which I may not even be sure is criticism, from which I suffer (relatively) little.
To write down my self-consciousness in performing certain acts makes me feel a right idiot. But there you are, it feels different when it is not exteriorised.
The answer is to make lots of friends, and do things with them. However, I do not want friends.
...
I imagine the average person, so far from suffering physically from the presence of others, obtains physical pleasure from it. I suppose people like companionship. But I, for example, have a physical aversion to looking into people’s eyes. This sometimes manifests itself even when I am looking at pictures (I have noticed this only recently), at newsreaders (for example) on the television, or into the mirror.
This is a very odd phenomenon. I only realise all these things together on occasions like this, when I am writing them down. I live from day to day for long periods without exactly noting the oddness of my behaviour.
...
I think nonetheless I would not be happy on a desert island, lacking the stimulus even of books and television.
...
I have noticed in the company of [my best friend] that I find it easier to talk when walking [as did Emily Brontë]. I am relieved of having to worry about whether I am looking into my opponent’s face, and what to do with my hands, ampersand cetera.

Sunday 8 July 2012

More Sunday thinking

08/07/12 15:11 [Sunday]

I concluded towards the end of my adolescence that the universe is a sequence of events which take place. If the universe is just a passive sequence with nothing of the teleological in it, then the sort of thing that comes to mind is: there’s nothing we can do about it so why worry? And this as a person who had been subject to a lot of anxiety and worry in my younger years I found a desirable way of looking at things.

But it is not quite the case that ‘there’s nothing we can do about it’ because plainly human action - even individual action - can and does have a pronounced effect of ‘altering’ what happens in the world. I put ‘altering’ in inverted commas because my view is that human action does not cause a real alteration because the human action itself is predetermined according to the molecules knocking about in the synapses in people’s brains. If a person does something - votes in the House of Commons, say - it seems to create a change but it isn’t genuinely change because the ‘decision’ of the MP to vote is itself part of the sequence of events taking place to constitute the universe.

So where does this leave modal verbs? Modal verbs express things which are desired as a possibility and the urgency people feel to get the desired achieved. If a thing ‘should be’ then it isn’t the same as saying it ‘is’. The existence of modal verbs shows up the fact that human users of language naturally think in terms of teleology, of things being intentioned and brought about through wilful effort.

The facts modal verbs express can almost be explained in terms of mathematical probability. The punter feels urgency for his horse to win the race - he is half-way to striving with the horse - and that horse does win, in a certain percentage of trials. Probability is another way the individual who worries can cease to worry: there is some threat (he can tell himself) and in x% of cases the threat will eventuate but in (100-x)% of cases the event threatening will not occur.

To tell the full story I need to explain what intention is, and bring in ‘striving’. A goal which is intentioned through the Will is just that - a goal - and anyone who has read up on Artificial Intelligence (which I’m not sure exists any more) knows that goals are achieved (in x% of cases) through mechanisms of feedback. That is if the agent is going wide of the mark he takes action to bring himself back into line. If the horse is not winning the race the horse tries harder and (taking a step backwards, that is in the chain of causality) the jockey kicks him harder. Although it may be predetermined whether or not I am going to post this on my Blogger blog the sequence I go through in deciding - sometimes it is more of an effort - is part of what is predetermined, and the degree to which I will strive, and the specific steps I take in striving, are part of it too. And then - what we may not have thought in the first place when conjecturing that the universe is nothing but a sequence of events which take place - we have all the interest of explaining what goes on when people (or horses) strive plus the interest of teaching them in specific fields what best to do in striving. We have the interest of judging whether the striving will succeed, which for some means backing horses and showing a profit.

Underactive thyroid

08/07/12 08:14 [Sunday]
I believe I mentioned that I go to see my GP every two or three months the original idea (I suspect) being that he could keep an independent eye on my mental state. When I started going to see him in early summer of last year he sent me for a blood test. I suppose he thought he should check out my general health through that means (as well as through what he could see himself and what I reported to him) and indeed nowadays much more so than when my parents were alive - that’s only ten years ago I’m talking about - the overall direction in the NHS (and the much-mentioned Department of Health) is to check over the population’s health on a regular basis instead of merely providing doctors for people to go and complain to. That blood test in June 2011 seemed to show that I had an underactive thyroid, so the GP sent me for a second blood test to verify it. That second blood test showed a normal result for the thyroid.
But cutting to the chase the blood test two or three weeks ago - I’m not sure whether he sent me for this one because it’s a year since the last or whether it was a follow-up because a blood test I had a month or six weeks ago arranged automatically by the GP practice and not the GP himself omitted checking the thyroid, or whether it has more to do with the fact that I may be moving home soon - that blood test two or three weeks ago showed clearer signs of an underactive thyroid than the one last year. So the GP has put me on levothyroxine tablets which he says I will need lifelong. The fact that people with underactive thyroid don’t recover from the condition - and it tends to be a more natural factor as people age anyway - is recognised in the rules for paying for prescriptions: that is those on a régime of thyroxine medication don’t have to pay for their prescriptions whatever their circumstances.
If the thyroid gland is underactive it slows down the metabolism - the thyroid gland being a sort of controller overall of bodily mechanisms of growth and energy conversion - and an underactive thyroid can slow down mental and emotional processes this resulting for example in depression or confused thinking. The way I understand myself this must have been a factor in the mental condition which took me into hospital in 2010 and 2011. I believe my thinking - mediated by the neurotransmitter dopamine - was too much racing and my brain was trying to process information in too close detail, whereas my body (through the thyroid and its production of the thyroxine hormone) was unable to keep up with my brain this exacerbating the condition.
It has struck me that if I share links to other websites then when readers come across the links in future years the target document may not be there. Still I do give this link - see http://www.jennifermoyer.com/2012/the-thyroid-and-mental-health - guessing that readers who are interested, if the link doesn’t work, can search the internet themselves.
I am presently on a very low starting dose of levothyroxine but I have to say I notice I do feel more energetic after about two weeks so far of the treatment. I tend to do less sitting still pondering why things can’t be better than they are. In truth these days - since the lowered dosage of my Risperdal kicked in really, but helped along certainly by my new-found greater physical energy through the thyroxine - I am more active: not in terms of walking more miles (although when I visit Dawn we do more walking than I do in Kingswinford) but in terms of taking a greater interest in life. I have been selling on eBay some of the surplus computer equipment I amassed when I had less sense, and that’s given me a definite structure to follow each time I sell an item, and it is a structure I have had to learn because I had never sold anything on eBay before. So you can see that being more active in the physical universe carries with it the necessity to be more active mentally, and it all helps to combat stillness, inertia and low mood such as I suffered when on the higher dosage of Risperdal.
I will mention anxiety again. Anxiety is usually associated with being restless and trying to do too much. In fact an overactive thyroid can lead to restlessness and anxiety. But anxiety is also commonly juxtaposed with depression and depression has to do with being underactive and living too restricted a life (a prime example being depression if we should call it that in bereavement, after a major source of stimulation has been lost). The anxiety I was suffering last year - caused by the too-high dosage of Risperdal - derived from an underactive intellect through the mechanism of not thinking up ways round problems (and most specifically from not being able to talk to tradesmen I needed to help me at the bungalow: not being able to talk to them because my mind was a blank) and therefore being subject to buffeting by circumstances. This was rather how things used to be for me up to when I left university, when (in my teens) I was what I learned to call schizoid, that is socially avoidant and with my mind going blank when I needed to talk to people about real-world problems. I think the way it worked in terms of dopamine was different in my teenage years - I think it was what I may metaphorise as refraction of dopaminergic neural systems rather than underactivity of dopamine per se - that is so many things came to mind to be said, and most of them very unnatural-sounding and stilted or too intellectual and not a bit relaxed and easy-going, that I remained silent. I’m sure there are many people the same some of whom are teenagers and some of whom it remains with into adult life - and let me say here my belief is that the internet is a great help to such people and it’s a pity we didn’t have the internet when I was at uni.

Wednesday 4 July 2012

A link shared

04/07/12 17:32 [Wednesday]
I have had an email from somebody - or an organisation, it may be - who (or which) seems well attuned to my website. They sent me a link to an article 8 Exercises to Improve Your Mental Health and it seems such sensible and useful stuff that I give the link to my readers.