Ecstatic Seizures

Re: Ecstatic Seizures

Submitted by zealot on Tue, 2009-10-06 - 15:42

Tadzio, Once again, we have people trying to reduce the mind to the brain. Some of it is almost as funny as those links to those idiots at Columbia trying to apply statistics to Quantum Mechanics. We have physics and we have metaphysics, which has turned into a bunch of philosophers (or Columbia students (I hope) pretending to understand physics. We have neurology and we have meta neurology (oh, excuse me, neuro psychology/psychiatry, which is a bunch of psychologists/psychiatrists with access to MRI labs who induce various emotions in their human lab rats via questionable protocols and get articles printed in the Science Times section of the Tuesday New York Times (suitable for use under the "kitty litter" that breathlessly exclaim, "Scientists Locate Area of Brain That Feels _____ (insert emotion or more accurately, memory of your choice)!" Of course, it's always the same part of the brain. Real neuro scientists speak of these people with great derision. Some if it was quite interesting. Are we to believe that Einstein had TLE? And maybe those psychiatrists who waste their time assigning DXs to historical figures based on our cultural norms better take another look at Jeanne d'Arc. They have saddled the poor girl with a Psychotic Disorder. Maybe they should take a look at TLE. It is a rule out, you know. Next they'll be saying that Kehaleth was bipolar. I know from my own experiences that if you have these seizures with sufficient frequency and severity, especially with 2ary TC limbic system involvement, the brain changes are permanent. I Also know that if you reinforce the new "religion circuits" through constant use (things like praying/talking to G-d a lot, theological discussions, certain types of meditations, you can save yourself the seizures. Right or wrong, that's what this girl who sleeps with her neuro/pharm books on her bed did. Her Tanakh is right next to them. That doesn't mean that this is the only way to "find religion." Spirituality is part and parcel of the human existence. It is as natural to us as language. Now we can map areas of the brain to specific functions, but in limited areas of the brain. But if it can't talk or we can't see it, well it must not do very much. I can't forget that poor epileptic man who had surgery and they looked at his hippocampus and said this doesn't look like it does very much, kind of like the appendix. Whoops, sorry. And we haven't even begun to understand what we can see. We don't even know very much about what happens in down stream signal cascades, let alone the interactions among them. We have no understanding of the relationship of the mind to the living, working brain. One very brilliant man I knew used an engine as an analogy. The brain was the working engine and the mind was the electrical flux. I was 17 then and his life force is no longer supported by a human body, but I will never forget that. I believe that the relationship of the mind is more analogous to the relationship of the quantum universe to the observable universe and that it is changed by the very fact that it is being observed. Much of the mind is in the eye of the beholder. I do not know if this statement has any predictive value; that might be an interesting line of inquiry to pursue. I'm suffering from brain strain drain, one of those headaches with which I am sure you are all to familiar. You know, I just remembered. One of my witch docs mentioned Keppra. That's as far as it went. I guess she would have charted the TC seizures. Glad you're back to your old self. Zealot