What's with all these bi-polar people?

[Kev]

I find it weird that the man who doesn't believe God, and therefore a soul keeps talking about accepting the 'way we are'.

How are you exactly? Personality and feelings according to evolutionary biology is nothing more than chemicals in the brain. If somebody is feeling shy, or angry, miserable all it is is chemicals in the brain being released to make them feel that way.

So why are you against giving them pills to alter that biochemistry?

You have a commitment to personhood that is entirely at odds with your world view.

[Gandalf]

I find it weird that the man who doesn't believe God, and therefore a soul keeps talking about accepting the 'way we are'.

How are you exactly? Personality and feelings according to evolutionary biology is nothing more than chemicals in the brain. If somebody is feeling shy, or angry, miserable all it is is chemicals in the brain being released to make them feel that way.

So why are you against giving them pills to alter that biochemistry?

You have a commitment to personhood that is entirely at odds with your world view.

I exist in the here and now and I have my values in the here and now. I cannot just eradicate all thought because I am godless. I believe in life and I believe in death, these are things that we all have to go through either with or without delusion. To alter a natural state through drugs is to delude the natural self.

If someone is shy then that is their nature. Perhaps it has been socially conditioned or perhaps it was there all along, but that person has the ability to adapt.

I don't like the idea of using drugs to alter what is a natural human condition. If we are to allow pharmaceutical companies to produce such drugs then we should allow the black market to compete too. Cocaine is probably just as effective when it comes to reducing shyness.

I like the way nature has designed people and am against artificial manipulation of the mind via drugs and the body via plastic surgery.

[Gandalf]

Ultimately, if that is what people want to do then so be it. I am a libertarian and people are free to make their own choices, but I do find it false. You have one real life time, you might as well be yourself no matter how miserable it might be.

[Gandalf]

Mind you I shouldn't talk about mind altering drugs when it was me that went to work with a hangover on a bloody wednesday. Drugs are all over the place you can't even drink a cup of coffee without polluting the mind. Sod it, let everyone take their anti-angry pills, their hard on pills whatever. Aesthetically I find it very unappealing, but then again I find many aspects of the modern capitalist consumer society unappealing too, but I continue to live within it. I haven't gone and camped out in the forest yet.