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All of Sara C's Comments + Replies

If someone you loved was experiencing unremitting suffering (related to a constellation of multi-dimensional factors and processes, those of which include anomalous states of consciousness and an iatrogenic mental health system), what would you think and what would you do?
Sara C
30

Hi Christian,

Thank you for these pointers. I had not heard of the Feldenkrais Method, and I definitely feel like integrating intentional physical movement and breathing would be necessary to becoming aware of the somatic context within which mental self-identification emerges...when reflecting on my own habits with respect to this, I am realizing how critical my own habit of going running is, to my ability to function...

I was reading Nassim Taleb recently, and the idea of biophysical fitness (or fitness in general) seems to me to relate to this idea of&quo... (read more)

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2ChristianKl
Breathing has it's positive effects on some issues, but it doesn't build general perceptive awareness. Part of what makes breathing a tool to deal with an emotion like fear is that it's harder to feel the fear and the breathing at the same time.  To build general perceptive awareness slow movement that's exploritive in nature instead of focused on having to express a fixed form, seems to me the way to build it. There are a variety of methologies that do this and somatics is a term coined by Thomas Hanna for them. There are claims in Korzybski's Science and Sanity (the book that coinend the map is not the territory) that schizopheria is due to dealing to much with abstraction instead of base reality and that conflicts of abstractions are partly the cause of the problems. Steve Andreas makes a more specific claim that schizophrenia often comes with schizopherics having a self identity of not having quality X, Y and Z instead of positively having specific qualities.  Those neurolinguistic approaches don't have peer reviewed evidence to back them up as they aren't studied by academics but they have a community of practice behind them.  This kind of work is also likely benefitial to becoming less fragile in Taleb's sense.  One word of caution: If you help someone to feel their emotions better, they can have an increased sense of agency in a state where they also feel strong negative emotions. So it's good when they have a stable enviroment around them. From a more Talebian perspective I wouldn't expect modafinil and MDMA to increase resilience. 
If someone you loved was experiencing unremitting suffering (related to a constellation of multi-dimensional factors and processes, those of which include anomalous states of consciousness and an iatrogenic mental health system), what would you think and what would you do?
Sara C
10

Hi remizidae,

Thanks very much for your response. It is really helpful for me to have action items/relevant questions laid out, so again thanks very much. In answer to your points and questions:

1. My perception is that my other family members (other brother, mom, and dad) acknowledge that going through the same cycle of crises and downstream coercion that functions such that the outcomes then feed into the re-emergence of more crises, etc, is unhelpful (at best). I think though, that my family feels "at a loss" for how to move forward, given that ... (read more)

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What are some Civilizational Sanity Interventions?
Sara C
10

I think a lot about this difficult, ill-defined (in the sense that people conceptualize the relative importance of the conditions that perpetuate senselessness, differently) problem, and I often times find myself coming back to ideas/hypotheses related to a) individual desire for power/authority (of various forms) that is appealing expressly because it can is higher than and can be imposed upon the 'lower' power of others, and/or b) individual desire for closure, certainty, cognitive fluency, and a reduction of cognitive dissonance. See This Arti... (read more)

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