I struggle with depression and I have this philosophical question that I need an answer for. Actually, it might even be a scientific question.
Now I need to know the answer to this very vital question. I am thinking that there is only one way love, joy, happiness, and inspiration can be experienced. That being, through our reward system (our good moods). The more our reward system is functional and healthy, the more of those things we will have in our lives since our good moods would be greater. But like I said before, there is the difference between words and phrases and our mental states.
So by depressed people focusing on words and phrases alone of love, joy, happiness, and inspiration, they are only fooling themselves into thinking they are in love, joyful, happy, and inspired while depressed when they never were since depression as well as anhedonia are what turn off our reward system (our good moods). Even if they focused on the mental state of their thinking while depressed and told themselves that this is a form of love, joy, happiness, and inspiration, then they would be fooling themselves here as well since they are not in the actual mental state of having those things.
So they would be fooling themselves through this whole world of personally creating our own meanings in life and personally defining them for ourselves which would have to be false since there is only one way to experience those said things I’ve mentioned. There is only one way to experience the mental state of visualizing objects (sight) and perceiving sound (hearing). If you were to become blind and deaf, then your thoughts alone cannot give you that mental state.
If a blind and deaf person thought to his/herself that he/she still has sight and hearing, then that would not give him/her sight and hearing. That would only give him/her nothing more than the labels (words and phrases) of sight and hearing.
So there is only one function that gives us our mental states of visualizing objects and perceiving sound just as how there is also only one way to experience touch, smell, taste, etc. So in that same sense, there is also only one way to have good meaning, love, joy, happiness, and inspiration. There is only one function of our brains that can give us that. There is only one mental state that can give us those things. That being, the mental state of our good moods as I’ve said before.
If you are going to say something to me such as that we can have good meaning, love, joy, happiness, and inspiration through our way of thinking alone even while depressed and not in a good mood, then you have to prove to me how this is the actual mental state of having those things and not just the words and phrases of those things.
My question is, is my theory right or wrong? If it is wrong, then you are going to have to prove it wrong. You cannot just say that we can have those things in our lives while depressed. You have to do what the last paragraph above says. You have to prove to me how that is the actual mental state of perceiving those things.
In case I ever have to live my life depressed, then it is vital I find the answer. I am thinking that having good meaning in one’s life is not just simply from knowing things. It is being in the mental state of love, joy, happiness, and inspiration in doing those things. For example, if you were not in any mental state of love, joy, happiness, or inspiration at all and were in a completely blank hopeless state and you just knew to yourself deep down that you have to go and save your family’s life since they have good meaning to you, then they would not have any good meaning to you at all. You are telling yourself nothing more than just words and phrases of good meaning. The only way you can actually perceive them as having good meaning to you would be if you were in an inspired, happy, loving, and joyful mental state in saving their lives.
So, in short, since you were not in a good mood while saving their lives, then your family would actually have no good meaning to you in that given moment when you were depressed and in a blank mental state. For you to live your life just through knowing things while depressed and just thinking that has good meaning to you, that is living your life as an utterly inferior dead lifeless biological machine. It is our good moods that make us and our lives something. It is only our good moods that can give good meaning to our lives from our friends, family, and our goals/dreams. Therefore, even all the famous genius artists and composers who struggled with depression were nothing great. They and their lives were nothing great. Their works of art cannot mean anything to them during their depression and nor can the idea that they helped/inspired others all around the world and made their lives good. Nor can their own works of art mean anything good to them either.
Here is a response from someone and my reply to it that gets the very idea of my topic across in a brief way:
Response: I find it funny that some people prioritize abstractions ( words,concepts such as physicalism) above the empirical (qualia). Qualia being our subjective mental experiences. In other words they hide from immediate reality (feelings/qualia) behind words. Symbols replaced reality! The word “food” does not provide nourishment and nor does the word “water” quench one’s thirst. So what Matt is saying here is that words and phrases of good meaning, bad meaning, love, joy, happiness, inspiration, suffering, despair, anguish, sadness, rage, grief, etc. do not give us anything either.
In that sense qualia is related to Matt’s theory.
My Reply: Yes, this is correct. I am thinking that even good and bad are qualia as well. They would be our good and bad moods. If we are depressed, then just the words and phrases of good meaning won’t give us anything. I think science has yet to discover that good and bad are qualia. Currently, we think they are not. But I am thinking otherwise.
I already answered this and you’ve given me no feedback, so don’t expect anything new. If you want to respond to something I’ve said, then we can have a conversation.
I already answered this and you've given me no feedback, so don't expect anything new. If you want to respond to something I've said, then we can have a conversation.remind him of where your previous response is. :red:
Honestly, I never saw the greatness and good value/worth having depression and an absence of good moods in one’s life. Our good moods take on the form of the very personality of things/people we witness. For example, if you noticed a heavenly goddess like character in an anime/videogame, then if you were to experience a good mood from her, then it would not just simply be a good mood. It would be a good mood that has her tonality (personality) to it. So you would actually be experiencing her personality through your good moods. It would be as if you are sensing her life (spirit) energy.
Same thing applies if you were to experience a good mood from a villan. Once your perceptions of this villan through your thinking alone sends the pleasure signal to your reward system and gives you the experience of a good mood, then your good mood would have an awesome, evil, hardcore, dark, gothic, heavy, serious, epic tone to it. It would be like you are experiencing the spirit energy of that villan. It would be as if you are experiencing the life essence of that villan in a good way.
Therefore, our bad moods aren’t the only things that have the heavy, dark, gothic, serious tone to them to create works of art. We can create such dark, gothic, and tragic works of art through our good moods alone and they can turn out to be just as good and even better than how we created them while down and depressed or in any other bad mood.
So you can see why my good moods are so vital and life depending for me. They are more important to me than the air I breathe. They are the only things that can make me “alive” since they are the only things that can allow me to experience and be a part of the goodness (“life”) of this universe, the world of anime/videogames, and my composing dream.
If I become hopeless (depressed), then all that life energy is gone. Me and my life are reduced to nothing more than a dead, lifeless, hopeless state similar to that of a hopeless zombie and a biological machine. I don’t care if my depression made me the world’s next greatest composing or intelligent genius. My life can still have no “life” (good meaning).
Life without “life” is not life at all. Our good moods are a sacred divine transcending energy and are the only things that give good meaning to our lives. But our depression is the opposite. It cripples and destroys our very being, destroys all good meaning in our lives, and gives our lives nothing but bad meaning regardless of what you think and tell yourself otherwise while depressed.
Read my post under Philosophy. It might cheer you up.
Lois