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Comment by netizen-936824 | Hacker News Reader

I'm not sure I could agree with that. What I could agree with is a statement that live events can alter our epigenetic regulation mechanisms which impacts our neuronal chemistry which can alter our thought processes and behaviors.

At the end of the day its still chemistry, and at the end of the day chemistry is still physics, and as far as I've learn physics is deterministic. We can't separate our conscious experience from these underlying mechanisms because our entire existence is based on their rules. The brain is not a construct on which the software of the mind runs, it is the mind.

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I’m not claiming that consciousness is separate from chemistry or the mind is separate from the brain.

You could call every problem you run across a physics problem, since our world operates under the laws of physics. That’s just not a particularly useful way to go about things.

If I got fired from my job for a reason I thought was unjust, I’d be angry. And if someone saw me being angry and asked a third person why I’m angry they might say “he got fired for a bullshit reason”. This is all totally normal stuff. They wouldn’t say “his sympathetic nervous system is elevated”. That really doesn’t help the other person understand what’s going on.

Now if I have a tumor that’s smashing my amygdala, then expressing the problem in terms of chemistry/biology is helpful.

I brought this split up at all because it can be useful in figuring out how to treat illness. I think we get it wrong often. There are people in talk therapy who should get on meds to lower their heart rate, and there are people on depression meds who need to switch jobs. (And all of this vice versa).

You seem to be latched onto a specific claim I don’t even think I’m making. Could you engage with the heart of what I’m saying (the usefulness of cognitive changes in treating mental illness and how psychedelics help) and iron man my argument?

I went back and reread your original comment, and I may be a bit confused.

You state that issues are cognitive but then go on to discuss how psychedelics break down barriers. Psychedelics are drugs, one of the best ways of showing that out cognitive processes are determined by our neuronal chemistry.

Considering a traditional psychedelic like 4-HO-DMT or LSD, these compounds have activity at a few different serotonin receptors (and some other side interactions). This pharmacological activity (interaction of an external compound with our internal biomolecules) is how psychedelics alter our cognitive processes.

From my perspective, this shows how our cognitive processes are biochemical and using a drug can change it easily whereas other means are more difficult such as external sensory inputs (therapy, talking to people, reading, aromatherapy, massage?)

I entirely agree with the usefulness of psychedelics, they are massively powerful tools. They're great at helping catalyze significantly alterations in our thought processes, but these changes that they help induces are chemical and structural (structural such as changes in synaptic connectivity)

Structural changes between neurons are directed by chemical signaling as well.

If the changes that fix the problem are biochemical, the problem was biochemical. We alter the biochemistry and they induce changes in the emergent properties of the overall system: behavior and thought processes

Our thought processes and behaviors are the product of our brains (and some signaling from other organs, mostly the brain though) and even minor changes in certain areas or with certain regulatory mechanisms can have profound impacts on mental health.

> They're great at helping catalyze significantly alterations in our thought processes, but these changes that they help induces are chemical and structural (structural such as changes in synaptic connectivity).

Psychedelics don’t operate purely this way (it is part of it). They also, through chemistry, create an opportunity for change in cognition. It’s common for people taking psychedelics in a therapeutic context to leave with lasting insights (like in the article). I don’t know this to be true of any other drugs. SSRIs don’t have the “and then I realized” moment.

The change that they create an opportunity for in cognition is a change in regulation and structure at a biochemical level

Yes, I agree. There are also some important details.

1. That state is short. Minutes or hours. 2. That state is different from the long changes. 3. The long term effects can be enhanced by the activities you do during the temporary state, including thinking. 4. Long term effects can be enhanced and maintained by non-drug activities.

This whole setup seems to be especially good at curing illnesses that are caused by something “at the cognitive level”. It won’t do much for anxiety caused by a hyperactive gland. It will for anxiety caused by a fear of death.

Those long changes are chemical. Its all chemical

Cognition operates on the basis of neuronal dynamics and neuronal dynamics operate on the basis of biochemical interactions

All changes in neuronal dynamics are due to changes in biochemical regulation

Fear of death could be caused by a multitude of reasons, it's not as simplistic as you make it sound. People are innately afraid of death because there are pathways and regulations that occur naturally in our brain development driven by genetic biochemical regulation.

In case it helps, I think the original post was not meaning to say that the mind is not chemically based in the brain. I did not see it as a contradiction in their position.

I think their use of "chemical" was part of an assumed dichotomy between chronic disorders referred to in pop-culture as "chemical imbalances" versus other (learned or cognitive behavioral) disorders which could presumably be unlearned. The difference is mirrored in the assumed intervention: whether a continuous maintenance dose of some drug is needed to manage the chronic condition versus a transient dose or other therapy which allows the brain to assume a healthier posture and maintain itself thereafter.

> What I could agree with is a statement that live events can alter our epigenetic regulation mechanisms

For sure they can, and we also get to choose our reaction to said events.

This debate is ancient. Do we have free will, or are we predestined to fate? Knowledge of chemistry and physics doesn't give an answer to that question.

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