State imposed medication

[Erik Peers]

A Detroit mother fought the police who removed her daughter, so that she would be forced to take a psychotropic drug. The mother decided it was not in her daughter's best interest. The police forcibly invaded her private property.

http://www.mlive.com/news/detroit/index.ssf/2013/05/detroit_mother_who_fought_stat.html

DSM 5, the latest version of the American Psychiatric Association's manual that classifies mental disorders was published this month. As we learned from Freakonomics, just follow the money. If a new mental disorder is added, which creates the likelihood that there will soon be a corresponding medical aid code, this creates the marketing opportunity for the pharmaceutical industry to sell a drug that purports to treat the disorder. Logically then, it is in big pharma's interests to pay those who wrote the guide, to add disorders.

What concerns me as a libertarian, is that there is proposed legislation in the US to test young school children to see if they have what is called a pre-condition for mental illness. Why test if you don't intend treatment? We are not far from the state imposing medication upon children systematically.

To my mind this is the grossest violation of private property, our own bodies and those of our children, in the interests of the state.

[Sasha Hitchner]

Anthem...

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[Hügo Krüger]

The question is though, does a mother have more right over the body of her child as anyone else (in this case the police)?

[Erik Peers]

In this instance the child is 15.  She should have a say too.

[Garth Zietsman]

Just curious what was the mental illness in question?

[Erik Peers]

She was prescribed anti psychotic medication. A cronic condition, not life threatening.

There are two issues here. The first being whether the experts are allowed to enforce their opinions on citizens through deadly force as in take your medication otherwise the police will break your door down, and secondly whether a citizen may resist unlawful arrest with similar deadly force as described in the following paragraph from the appeal hearing. This ties in with the other thread about the DA youth.

Godboldo also contends that we should affirm on the basis that she has a right to resist unlawful arrests with deadly force, under a combination of the Michigan Supreme Court’s decisions in People v Riddle,16 that a person may use deadly force in self-defense, and People v Moreno,17 that a person has a common-law right to resist an unlawful arrest.  Riddle concerns the elements of the criminal defense of self-defense.18  And in Moreno, the Michigan Supreme Court held that the prosecution must establish that the officers’ actions were lawful to properly charge a defendant with obstructing a police officer under MCL 750.81d

[Garth Zietsman]

It would be encouraging if the courts support the right to a strong defense against unlawful police action.

I don't know what's going on with that family.  Is the girl psychotic?  Why does the mother think medication is not in her best interests?  It's not always clear that the parent knows what is in the best interest of their child than an expert or that parents should always have the final say.  This mom could be like those parents who don't get their kids vacinated or Jahovah's Witness denying their kids a life saving blood transfusion.  On the other hand the expert might simply be pushing the interest of their drug company shares.  If the girt is halfway rational she should be the one making the decision.

[Erik Peers]

You questions are valid concerning the particulars of this case. They can be argued either way depending on the evidence.

From a libertarian perspective however (and let's assume all adults) do I not have the right to choose against the knowledge of experts?

[Garth Zietsman]

Yes for sure adults should have the right to choose against experts when it comes to themselves but I am not sure I would agree when it comes to children.  I don't believe kids are the property of parents.  The presumption should be in favor of parents but I don't think that should be an absolute.

[Colin Phillips]

The problem is that there are many forms of mental illness where the afflicted cannot tell that their behaviour is crazy.

It seems to me there's a market for something along the lines of a "living will".  You can write up and make known a document which expresses your wishes in the event that you are unable to do so yourself.  Currently, people use this for comas and life support, but I don't see any reason this couldn't be extended to cover situations where you are found to be non compos mentis.

The only challenge would be determining who has the right to decide that you are not mentally well - ideally you would choose a trusted third party before you went insane, or, in the case of children, your parents would choose on your behalf until you were able to make that decision.  That (highly) trusted third party (not necessarily an individual, maybe a council of some sort) would have the incredible power of being able to over-rule the individual's choices for that individual's own life.  My guess is that most people would prefer to choose someone such as their family doctor, or a psychiatrist, or a religious leader.  Personally, I've had bad experiences with all three of those, but I have some friends I might entrust with the responsibility.

This is not inconsistent with libertarianism, as long as the individual can choose the third party for themselves, including not choosing any such party.  In the latter case, while it's not going to be pretty, I think the correct course of action is to let the crazy person go about their life.

And yes, Garth is right, in some, hopefully few, cases, that third party is going to be some sort of lunatic, but, in the extreme case, where all humans are lunatics, no possible system would be able to prevent lunatic outcomes.

In the case where the parents choose such a third party, who turns out to be a lunatic, I think the lunatic and the parents should be jointly held liable for any negative consequences.

Colin.

[Frances Kendall]

This is a real toughie. One of the most difficult questions of all for libertarians. When it comes to mental illness the individual may not be able to make their own coherent decisions. With a young child same applies re physical illness. Who gets to decide them?  Parents would say they have the right, and my intuitive response is they do - but as we know some parents are not capable of acting in their children's interest, and some don't even want to.

Leon and I have experienced this to some extent first hand, but our daughter Milly who suffers from a thought disorder (falling under the schizophrenic spectrum) was old enough to make her own decisions and we respected that although we debated it between ourselves ad nauseum.  As it turns out with all of the reading I have done in the 12 years since she became ill I have concluded that her decision was right, meds would have done her more harm than good. But believe me I had to learn a lot to discover that and at the time few doctors would have agreed with our decision.

But what if you have a schizoaffective child of 6 who has total psychotic breaks and damages themselves and others? And the parents refuse to act - what then?

Regarding the preconditions for mental illness, as the brain scientists discover more of what is actually happening in the brain it seems they might be able to discover preconditions and treat them before an illness develops. At the moment this is in its infancy and most meds for metal illness have serious negative side effects. But a time will come when you might be able to treat potential mental illness the way we treat polio (or something similar).

First choice is for parents to keep themselves informed - but that is hard work and requires a reasonably high IQ. Government imposed small pox vaccinations and polio vaccines have saved probably millions of lives and untold suffering around the world, so, as I said, this is a tough one.

Sent from my iPad

[Erik Peers]

@Colin. Yours is an elegant solution. I get to choose who chooses for me.

Where do we stand however for instance in an outbreak of foot and mouth disease? The state may invade my property and kill my cattle.  But if they don't it will be bad for everyone else.

[Garth Zietsman]

Frances did Milly ever try any anti-psychotic medicine?  

In her final year of med school Audrey's clinical partner was a schizophrenic who occasionally went off his meds because they inteferred with his creativity (he was a gifted artist) and every time he did so he became  a paranoid psychotic and unable to function.  Meds enabled him to become a doctor.  Without them he would be holding up in some room alone.  A large fraction of the US homeless are unmedicated psychotics.  Meds can make a huge difference to the lives of those with mental illness.  Unfortunately some people suffer intolerable side effects.

I like Colin's idea.

On Thu, May 30, 2013 at 2:03 PM, Frances Kendall <fken...@me.com> wrote:

Well yes, not a bad solution if the person is amenable and adult. But believe me if we asked Milly to sign a living will saying we should decide what to do with her in the case of a psychotic break she would definitely refuse. She would just say she decides or herself.

There is an excellent book by Elyn Saks "Refusing Care: Forced treatment and the rights of the mentally ill. Elyn is a functioning schizophrenic also a psychiatrist and lawyer who specializes in law for mentally ill. She argues after the first psychotic break the individual should be forceably hospitalized but not medicated, and once in remission should it happen again given the right to choose. 

Sent from my iPad

[Frances Kendall]

The drug this girl was on was risperidone usually prescribed for schizophrenia. Depending on the symptoms it can be helpful ie if the individual is floridly psychotic and terrified by his/her delusions. It has very serious side effects. So the mothers may or may not be right. I must say she sounds like a bit of a nut case herself!

It is unlawful in the USA to put adults on medication for mental illness against their will.  You have to prove that they are a danger to themselves or others which is not easy. Parents lie about their children's behaviour to get them medicated.

Sent from my iPad

[Frances Kendall]

Yes Leon often tells me this story when we debate the issue! There are tow types of symptoms for schizophrenia - negative and positive. Positive symptoms are delusions, hallucinations etc. negative symptoms include withdrawal from social interaction etc. There is a huge range from total florid psychosis (positive symptoms) to mildly delusional thinking, and from catatonia (negative symptoms) to withdrawal.

The meds can help the positive symptoms and some people, eg Elyn Saks who writes on the subject, function well on them.  There are no meds to help negative symptoms, that is agreed by everyone.  Milly has never had a complete psychotic break - ie she has always known who we are and been able to make some connection with reality. However she has strong negative symptoms. She lives in her own world of delusions where she seems quite happy.

She always refused meds and the psychiatrist told us she couldn't be forced to take them against her will. Then I realized over time they would do nothing to help her withdrawal and would put her at risk for diabetes and tardive dyskinesia (Parkinson's symptoms). They would remove her delusions but make her feel dreadful and put her health at great risk. Her delusions don't make h unhappy. So I decided not two try to force here onto the medication. Sue has never taken it.

Then recently I read "Mad in America" and was supremely great full she was so bloody minded! These meds do severe brain damage because they wipe out the dopamine receptors.

[Frances Kendall]

Well yes, not a bad solution if the person is amenable and adult. But believe me if we asked Milly to sign a living will saying we should decide what to do with her in the case of a psychotic break she would definitely refuse. She would just say she decides or herself.

There is an excellent book by Elyn Saks "Refusing Care: Forced treatment and the rights of the mentally ill. Elyn is a functioning schizophrenic also a psychiatrist and lawyer who specializes in law for mentally ill. She argues after the first psychotic break the individual should be forceably hospitalized but not medicated, and once in remission should it happen again given the right to choose. 

Sent from my iPad

[Garth Zietsman]

Makes sense.  As you say - a tough issue.

I think we agree the cops don't have the right (or shouldn't) to break down doors to force people to take meds.  On the other hand if it was a case of the mother denying the child the right to take the meds if she wanted to then maybe the authorities had a case.

[Erik Peers]

I started this thread for two purposes.  The second is to advance my own cause amongst libertarians that the world is messy out there, and that as soon as we have opinions we end up making moral judgements and that there is no simplistic libertarian 101 solution to everything.  We can be guilty of an arrogant reductionism on this forum,  and I just don't believe it is helpful.

More important is the first purpose. That is to bring to attention that we have a recurrence of the psychiatric institutions of the mid twentieth century, only this time it is by chemical means and not by physical containment. In those days one could be committed for opposing the state.

Now we have the psychiatrists who claim an objectivity, but who nevertheless follow the medical model of philosophy, that, to simplify is that everything has a single physical cause, that if we can poison the cause within ourselves we can be restored to health eg if we are invaded by bacteria we poison the bacteria and get better. Great advances have been made using this model. However sticking to a model when it does not apply leads to erroneous conclusions. Some 30% of adults in affluent countries are on antidepressants. The presumption is that the fault lies within themselves that they struggle with modern life.

However if we deviate from the medical model we can see that maybe there is something wrong with modern life, and if we change that, then we will be fine (excluding the clear cases of extreme psychosis where meds do help).

My personal solution has been to gain more liberty, and hey presto, I am no longer depressed.

To put it in perspective, as recently as DSM III, the third edition of the psychiatric manual homosexuality was listed as a disorder, and treated as such. Given our contemporary drug culture if it was still a disorder I am sure big pharma would market a drug to treat it. Fortunately, mostly, homosexuals have freed themselves to be who they are and are no longer prescribed treatment.

We need to be wary of judging those who fight for freedom as nut jobs. Because just maybe big brother has got to us too.

Fortunately there are individuals in whom liberty refuses to die and will defend this seemingly irrationally. The question remains: is the mother at the beginning of this post a nut job or is she an examole to us all?

[Erik Peers]

This begs the question, do we (collectively) medicate others for their good, or our comfort?

Your daughter has a way of knowing that is not accessible to us, given the way we think. You are (fortunately) unusual in that you have the capacity to suspend your certainty that you and your expert advisors are right, and the patience to let the scene play out until you do know.

I have grappled with what the libertarian approach to pharmaceuticals should be. If we are all rational informed beings, then let the individual and the market decide. But if not? Is the influence of big pharma because the drug market is regulated or because it is not regulated enough.

I have come to the conclusion that if there wasn't a government to lobby,  if the state didn't have the power the effectively grant monopolies through licencing,  then big pharma would lose its power. The oligopitalistic nature of the pharmaceutical market and the hold they have on medical schools is enabled by state intervention in health.

Or do we need protection?

[Frances Kendall]

Very important issue Eric I agree. Have you read "Mad in America"? The author argues very cogently that psychotropic meds are just a new form of straight jacket targeted at the brain.

If you watch the Charlie Rose brain series the top world experts on neuroscience agree the meds for psychiatric disorders a hit and miss and cause serious damage.

However they are also incredibly impressive in terms of the research they are doing and the effort to find something that will help without causing damage. 

At the top level there is real dedication to finding solutions. So people with loved ones suffering from mental illness should do their own homework and keep up with all the latest findings. As I said before not all are capable of that.

I have great sympathy with the woman in the story, chances are high she was doing the right thing for her daughter, but barricading herself and using a hand gun wasn't the smartest move.

Sent from my iPad

[Frances Kendall]

I think parents medicate their children largely for their own comfort. I remember reading in a chat room a mother who said she couldn't bear it when her son laughed at something she couldn't see! She preferred him medicated and depressed.

I don't know about big pharma - it's also a hard question because someone needs to put money into drug research. If there is no protection for patents etc there is no incentive and we are all worse off. 

I we are not all rational and informed - you could argue none of us are!

Sent from my iPad

[Garth Zietsman]

I think we need big pharma and a lot more drug R&D.  

I do however think there is a problem with the incentives facing experts e.g. where psychiatrists are essentially inventing mental illnesses because there is a drug (from which they financially benefit) that supposedly treats it.  I have heard that every psychiatrist that contributed to the latest DMS manual has an intimate relationship with some pharma company.  That isn't good.  Freakanomics reported that according to the manual being free of mental illness is now a minority condition.  There really needs to be some kind of independence between doctors who 'discover' illnesses, professors and pharma.

Remember the recovered memory industry and the harm that caused?  At least the experts have cut that short and courts are awarding compensation claims against the psychologists. I have hope there will be some pruning of mental illnesses (apparently Asperger's no longer exists as something other than autism) and advances in treatment.  Unfortunately there will be much abuse in the name of psychiatry on the way.

It doesn't help much when much of the opposition to psychiatry are nut jobs e.g. scientology and probably some churches.

I too have seen far too much of the parents medicating kids for their own convenience thing as much as I have seen the denial of treatment because of parent's own convenience (and both sometimes because of their weird beliefs). 

[Frances Kendall]

I have gained the impression over time that mental illness comprises a wide range of thought, cognitive, memory and mood disorders many of which overlap. The doctors latch onto one obvious set of symptoms and give it a name/label. (For instance autism was originally coined to describe the negative symptoms of schizophrenia). But in fact people suffer from symptoms that fall into many categories. So far medical treatments for mental illness have been stumbled on - they are designed for a completely different illness then found by chance to treat some or other symptom of mental illness and prescribed wholesale. 

The problem is that these drugs give rise to other mental problems, then those have to be treated. Just as regulations beget regulations. Nonetheless many mental patients suffer terribly and badly need help.

Then as you say there is the unholy alliance between the docs and pharma. And pharmaceuticals are often funding the valuable research done by the neurologists and geneticists which no one else will pay for, so the docs owe them. Should government do the funding? Obama passed an executive order to map the human brain which I think was a good thing.

The whole area is very confused and intertwined and it would be nice to fantasise  that getting rid of government would solve the problems, but even if we could get rid of government I believe many of the motivations would remain.

Sent from my iPad

[Trevor Watkins]

On 30 May 2013 14:45, Erik Peers <erik...@gmail.com> wrote:

The second is to advance my own cause amongst libertarians that the world is messy out there, and that as soon as we have opinions we end up making moral judgements and that there is no simplistic libertarian 101 solution to everything.  We can be guilty of an arrogant reductionism on this forum,  and I just don't believe it is helpful.

Just because the world is messy does not mean that our response to it needs to be equally messy.  I believe that we can define useful, rational responses to our myriad problems, simplistic libertarian 101 solutions, as you called them. Einstein said that true genius is simplicity. I am sure several people assured him that the relationship between matter and energy was far too complex to be reduced to a 5 character equation.

In the Godboldo case, the level of confusion amongst the police and the judges as to who had what rights was immense and messy. In America your property is sacrosanct, except when it isn't. Your children are your business, except when they aren't. What you put in your body is your decision except when it isn't. And any old rubbish written on an official looking piece of paper trumps everything else. 

In a libertarian state, there would be no action without the consent of the 16 year old in question, if she is capable of informed consent. End of story, at least in this case. If someone asserts that she is not capable of informed consent (the state in this case), then they must prove this assertion before a jury (not a state sponsored panel). If her incapacity is proven, then the consent decision devolves to her guardian (if previously chosen) or to her parents (in the absence of explicit instructions), family and friends, in that order. Only if no one will stand up for her decision does the state (or village or community) get to intervene. There is always a host of experts who think they know better than some dumb 16 year old what's good for that 16 year old. It does not matter if they are right or wrong, it's not their call.

I may be guilty of arrogant reductionism, but I prefer the simplicity and clarity of this approach to the circus that developed in the Godboldo case.

Trevor Watkins 

[Trevor Watkins]

On 30 May 2013 13:53, Frances Kendall <fken...@me.com> wrote:

most meds for metal illness have serious negative side effects.

I can never resist highlighting a "Freudian" slip when I see it. Many serious mental conditions are caused by heavy metals (lead, mercury, etc). 

Trevor Watkins - Base Software
bas...@gmail.com 083 44 11 721 - 042 293 1405 - (fax)0866 532 363
PO Box 3302, Jeffreys Bay, 6330

[Erik Peers]

Thanks Trevor.  I find your advice, as always, useful.

--

[Frances Kendall]

Only problem is the girl was 15 and what if she was nine?

Leon is an advocate of clear & simple solutions like you Trevor - and as you know has held to the view that children should make their own choices.

However with Milly who is now 33 he often tells me she is "like a child, can't make sensible decisions" -- because he is worried and concerned about her. 

Messy.

Sent from Frances iPhone

[Trevor Watkins]

Most interventions in other people's affairs arise from a genuine concern for their welfare, the state's interventions included. Often these interventions are necessary and useful and the person involved is grateful for your concern. But if a person rejects your intervention, denies you their informed consent, instructs you to desist, then in my libertarian state you are bound to respect that or be guilty of a consent violation, and must face the consequences. For me, it's either that or the nanny state.

And yes, if it was my daughter, I would take those risks, and face those consequences.

Trevor Watkins

[Garth Zietsman]

Einstein advised to make things simple but not simpler than they need to be.

[jacos...@gmail.com]

But he was also a socialist, so how smart was he really?

Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

---

From: Garth Zietsman <garth.z...@gmail.com>

Sender: li...@googlegroups.com

Date: Fri, 31 May 2013 18:14:25 +0200

To: LibertarianSA<li...@googlegroups.com>

ReplyTo: li...@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: [Libsa] State imposed medication

[Stephen vJ]

One day when Bill and Melinda Gates kill Malaria more completely and efficiently than any government could have, the libertarian dilemma will disappear.

S.

Sent from an electronic device.

[Stephen vJ]

The collectivist force runs deep... if your cattle infect mine, you will pay damages to me. You can sue the person who's cattle infected yours as well as the damage you had to pay me. The original source will carry all the damage and the closer you are to that, the bigger part of the damage you will carry if the original culprit is not found or if it is you.

In other words, the incentive not to be the originator is HUGE and the risk of not knowing the source of all possible sources of infection of your cattle is potentially devastating. I wish people would sue those who give them the flu for productive hours lost. It would be stopped in its tracks.

The same could apply to people who cause so-called "accidents" on the highway, making thousands sit unproductively burning brontosaurusses in the resulting jam.

S.

Sent from an electronic device.

[Stephen vJ]

No, then the child would have a case... The government would still have no business meddling in private lives.

S.

Sent from an electronic device.

[Stephen vJ]

Map the human brain ? Good grief.

Read "The accidental mind", to see how silly that idea is. "The man who mistook his wife for a hat" also contributes. Can't remember the authors of either right now... I think it might be the meds.

S.

Sent from an electronic device.

[Stephen vJ]

Einstein lived next to Henry George, who was an anarcho capitalist, except that he believed in the communal ownership of land and travelled the world advocating his doctrine of complete anarchism just without private ownership of land.

No doubt Einstein was influenced by his neighbor, but I would be careful to call him a socialist based on one or two collectivist notions he may have held.

This is after all a man evicted from his native country by nationalist socialists, so when he said that men who march in rank and file would suffice with only a spine and need no brain, I'd like to think he appreciated the value of individual liberty, at least to some extent.

S.

Sent from an electronic device.

[Erik Peers]

Oliver Sacks

[Frances Kendall]

Do you think the people doing this work - mapping the brain - know less than David linden & Oliver sacks? 

Sent from Frances iPhone

[Stephen vJ]

That's right. The other one is David Linden.

S.

Sent from an electronic device.

[Stephen vJ]

I think they know the politicians funding the venture know less than Linden and Sachs, so they can milk us via the tax system for a long time before some catches on to the fact that the human brain cannot be "mapped", by which time their wild goose chase would have provided them with a pretty decent living.

S.

Sent from an electronic device.

--

[Leon Louw (gmail)]

I'm entering late and haven't read all contributions, so this have been said. 

Frances described our personal dilemma well. My contribution is some notes on how this has been addressed in Western common law, especially Roman-Dutch law.  The virtue of common law is that very bright people have grappled with real-world challenges and come up, for the most part, with pretty good solutions.

The principle here arises in countless contexts.  Assume, for clarity, it has these elements:

1. Person A (in this case the teen) is incapable of making coherent choices.
2. Accordingly, A's survival depends on others.
3. It does not matter how old A is; what matters is mental incapacity (eg youth, dementia, intoxication, insanity, drugs, stupor, stroke, unconscious, non-communicative, whatever).
4. In these circumstances which others should prevail in the event of disagreement?
5. Common law says the courts are the "upper guardian" of incapacitated people (esp. children).  
6. In other words, courts can overrule everyone else.  
7. The premise is that they interfere only as a last resort, eg when custodians, guardians or other third parties clearly act against the interests of A.
8. The default assumption favours relatives; closer relatives trumping more distant ones (called "degrees of consanguinity" or "affinity").
9. That, by the way, is not directional; the same interference rights and "duties of care" apply upwards (children being responsible for parents) as downwards, and horizontally (siblings).

Discussions like this easily get bogged down in detail, which is fine, but can lose sight of the search for principles of general application.  Consider, for instance, a crash site with a badly injured unconscious person, A.  B and C disagree about what to do.  They are in the same relationship (eg siblings, parents, kids, strangers).  B wants to lift A into a car and take A to hospital; C wants to stabilise A and not move A lest A's neck or back is broken and moving A would make things worse.  Were a judge on hand s/he could decide which, if either, should prevail.  

He/she would consider such factors as whether B or C have medical expertise.  If B is A's parent and C a stranger, the judge would be biased towards B.  But B might be 13 and C clearly sophisticated adult.  

The point is that each case has unique and confounding details, which means there is no easy in absentia solution, so common law has settled on a reasonable, if not, perfect approach: empower legal specialists to consider the facts and decide.

Having said that, Frances and I would consider it an outrage were a court to rule that our daughter should be taken from our care and medicated forcefully in an institution.  

As has been observed these are really tough questions, and I doubt that libertarianism is much better than other paradigms at answering them.  Libertarianism wants solutions consistent with liberty, but liberty is not the issue here, unless we assume that 3rd parties (eg relatives) have rights over others and may exercise those rights in ways that harm or even kill incapacitated people (eg letting them starve, be denied medical care, or endanger themselves).

This is the kind of truly challenging question for which LibSA is splendid.  It should not be assumed that such questions have obviously, objectively or  unambiguously correct libertarian answers.  They are jurisprudential rather than libertarian.

(I'm sorry if this countermands or duplicates earlier contributions.)

Leon Louw

work:  +27-11-884-0270

mobile:  +27-84-618-0348

www.freemarketfoundation.com

[Garth Zietsman]

I wasn't trying to imply Einstein was smart - Trevor already did that - only that he said more than "simplify".  There is of course no doubt that Einstein was very smart - his socialism notwithstanding. Many very smart people are socialists (and visa versa) - or they were e.g. Christopher Hitchens, Thomas Sowell, Karl Popper, Bertrand Russell, Arthur Koestler or Leon Louw.

The human brain can be mapped. In fact the efforts of Sachs and others who research brain damage is an important part of that.  The brain is a very structured organ built up of modules with dedicated functions and not some kind of random neural net.  The structures have a very tight relationship with thought, feelings and behavior.

[jacos...@gmail.com]

I was being a little facetious, should perhaps have added a smiley face ;-)

Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

---

From: Garth Zietsman <garth.z...@gmail.com>

Sender: li...@googlegroups.com

Date: Fri, 31 May 2013 22:55:01 +0200

To: LibertarianSA<li...@googlegroups.com>

ReplyTo: li...@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: [Libsa] State imposed medication

[Stephen vJ]

Ok, so maybe I should also have included Pinker's "Language instinct" in the bibliography. What I meant was that, when a particular part of a brain is damaged, you could possibly predict that the person will subsequently fail to identify colours by name or will phrase everything in the past tense. However, there is no region of the brain for language per se or for depression or for  autism. Major functions cannot be mapped, even though certain aspects can be. Thinking happens in the brain, so in that sense it is mapped within the body. Language happens all over the brain, as does memory. Mapping function to location thus has limited application.

S.

Sent from an electronic device.

[Erik Peers]

Mapping function to location has many applications.

Not least is overcoming learning difficulties. By identifying which area of the brain is affected, excercises can be prescribed to overcome the learning difficulty. Conversely by determining which functions have been affected by a stroke, the stroke can be located.

Different drugs affect different parts of the brain. Alcohol affects motor areas that is why you can't walk when very drunk, but you can be stoned out of your mind with cocaine but walk just fine.

The list just goes on and on.

As we have evolved additional parts of the brain have developed. They have not replaced earlier parts but  have added to them for instance reptiles don't have a pre frontal cortex which is responsible for higher levels of thought, but we do have the same parts of brain that are found in reptiles,  the parts that control breathing etc. A teenager's brain is not yet fully developed as an adult's, hence one of the causes of teenage risk taking.

One of the many problems with psychiatric medication is that they affect the whole brain, and not just the part that is affected. It is a science that is in its infancy. Discoveries are happening by the day. The better the brain is mapped, the better it can be treated.

Sensors can now be surgically placed in the brain so that a quadraplegic can control a robotic arm. This would not be possible without brain mapping. There are possibilities to cure blindness in the same way.

Maybe you confuse brain with the mind. That has not been mapped. It possibly can't.

But think of the possibilities,  if we could only locate the part of the brain that desires liberty, we could free the world with a scalpel!

PS there are specific areas for understanding and for producing speech. Speech production is controlled by Broca's area in the temporal lobe. Wernicke's area is responsible for understanding spoken and written speech.

[Garth Zietsman]

Thinking, language, maths etc does happen all over the brain but always with a well defined combination of dedicated modules.  Some kinds of thinking are already well understood in terms of neuro-anatomy e.g when people do this sort of task these areas light up in this order.  

[Stephen vJ]

"But think of the possibilities, if we could only locate the part of the brain that desires liberty, we could free the world with a scalpel!"

I like that idea. Can we force people to have such an operation for the common good ? What would it be called ? A collectivistobotomy ?

S

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[Stephen vJ]

Speech is achieved by much more than just Broca's area. But I see my point was so thoroughly missed all around that I might as well throw in the towel on this one.

S.

Sent from an electronic device.

On 01 Jun 2013, at 0:31, Erik Peers <erik...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Erik Peers]

Speech is produced by Broca's area. Thinking about what to say is produced by many parts of the brain. Point not missed.

Towel throwing will use your motor cortex, your limbic system, and other areas, but not Broca's area. Mutes have been known to throw towels.

[Stephen vJ]

I think my original point is a lost cause... So let's move back a little bit towards the original point... Why would a self-confessed socialist government want to fund such mapping ? Surely not to find the Bipolar Depression region and fund eradication of that scourge. I would rather expect a bonus for anyone who finds the region responsible for creative tax evasion.

S.

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[Garth Zietsman]

To find the tax evasion areas they would just need to see which areas of the brains of libertarians are well developed relative to those of liberals/socialists.

[Stephen vJ]

That's funny. Had a good laugh now.

Parts of grammar come from outside Broca's area. Certain vocalizations do too. And here is my very small towel.

_____

S.

Sent from an electronic device.

[Stephen vJ]

What about socialists or communists who become libertarian through study and debate ?

S.

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[Garth Zietsman]

Maybe there are different varieties of libertarian - those by virtue of temperament and those by virtue of reason.

The brains and thinking patterns of conservatives and liberals in the US have been studied and they are different.  For conservatives risk, threat or fear seem to be central, whereas for liberals reconciling competing claims seems to be central.  No work on libertarian brains as yet as far as I am aware.

[Frances Kendall]

The brain changes all the time, it is plastic and our thoughts, experiences & responses alter it.

When a person becomes an expert on any subject or activity that part of the brain develops and is far more active than in others.

Nonetheless as others have observed functions can be quite well identified. Also "mapping the brain" includes looking at the genes for mental illness and trying to find out precisely which chemical pathways are involved, at present knowledge still rudimentary.

The primary purpose of mapping the brain, as the genome, is to understand humans better and help cure disease.

Stephen do you think Reagan funding the mapping of the genome (much more expensive project) was also done with nefarious political goals?

Erik the brain people seem to think the brain and mind is the same thing.

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[Stephen vJ]

The nefarious goal was a joke. My earlier point was that government funding complex science is almost always a misallocation of resources. The justification for the spending is always warped. The mapping of the human genome for example, was hailed as this enormous advance worth the investment... but at the end of it, they realized that it was only the start. For the work to be really useful, they also need to map various proteins, the genomes of the viruses they want to combat, the genomes of countless bacteria with which we share life and determine or match billions of chemical combinations of substances with their impacts on various bits of genome. Like all government projects, the costs multiply and the scope expands. When you look back, you have to wonder if that was really the best investment of our tax money, when people died of hunger and exposure in the meantime. Private companies would have done a much better job weighing up the costs against benefits, would have been more realistic / truthful with their investors and would have had the incentive all the way through to spend frugally and get benefits as much and early as possible. In the meantime, the saved tax money could have been applied to make all of society richer and more capable of spending on further research. We are poorer off because of government funding such mapping than we would have been otherwise. When government builds a train or a road, it is clear that there is a benefit, but also an invisible cost and we know we would have been better off had they left it to the market. Ditto brain mapping and moon landings and electricity supply and water and sanitation services...

S.

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--

[Erik Peers]

The brain people would by definition think that mind and brain are the same thing. Philosophers have battled with this debate since René Descarte first proposed mind brain dualism.

The mind people of course think that the human sense of self, of consciousness, is not synonymous with the brain.

I do know that if I haven't eaten for a while and my blood sugar drops,  that I see the world entirely differently, hence my mind and brain are one. But in Victor Frankel's Man's Search for meaning, those who had a sense of meaning survived the concentration camps and those without, died. This tells me that the mind is not just brain. One could of course argue that that sense of meaning is also in the brain, but to my mind we are then bending definitions.

Personally I see the two converging as we learn more about the brain. However we are more that a mechanistic chemical soup. But that view is more a hope than based on empirical research. Ultimately we find what we look for.

--

[Frances Kendall]

I have watched the Charlie rose brain series one & two a couple of times. He mixes neuroscientists, psychologists, geneticists & on the occasion philosophers. One of the best was on consciousness with a world leading philosopher at the table. (Worth downloading if you havent seen it). The consensus seemed to be the two are the same.

Re Frankel your attitude alters your brain and body - I'm sure you've seen the studies on this, optimists healthier etc. so Frankel's fellow prisoners who found meaning probably altered their brain chemistry.

Chemical soup, but not mechanistic I would guess.

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[Erik Peers]

We agree.

Significant that you said that optimism can alter brain chemistry. If the mind was totally brain then the brain chemistry would alter the mind.

Analogous to imcome and freedom. The affluent favour freedom more than the poor. So if we could alter the physical money (brain) then we would desire more freedom (mind), but as we know if there is more freedom there will be more money. The two correlate closely but are not the same.

This is the debate between the psychiatrists and the psychologists. The psychiatrists believe that a "chemical imbalance" of seratonin causes depression.  The psychologists believe that depression causes lower seratonin.

Frankel believed that meaning caused the body to survive.

I know the two interact but are not the same.

But I believe we agree, we are just gaining further understanding through this exchange.

Where the difference is material is where the state wants to control oir minds through our brains.

[Garth Zietsman]

I think the issue is if you could exactly reproduce the brain structure and chemistry would you reproduce the thoughts and feelings exactly.  I believe the answer is yes.

[Erik Peers]

The answer to that is for me self evident. If we reproduce the chemistry we reproduce the thoughts and feelings. There is no independent external spirit. The religious may disagree.

What is still not well understood is cause and effect. Particularly regarding neurotransmitters ie chemicals. This is not a moot point as it directly affects the appropriate prescription of antidepressants and other psychotropic medications.

Just as epilepsy is contained wholly within the brain, but in recent times was thought to be possession by an external demon,  so too we will come to understand more of this.

But, and this is where this thread started, until then I don't want the state to decide who is a witch and who isn't ie who needs their brain chemistry altered.

[Garth Zietsman]

Yes I agree.

[Frances Kendall]

Me too.

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