Posts by Lyndon Hood
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
I just remembered I noticed a glaring instance of good reporting of health-related statistics somewhat recently, so I'll share.
When that new cancer drug was approved recently, TV3 explained the percentage difference it was supposed to make with startling clarity. Little diagrams and everything.
Their report on the SSRI thing is on Scoop TV (text report on TV3 website).
-
I just remembered I noticed a glaring instance of good reporting of statistics somewhat recently, so I'll share.
When that new cancer drug was approved recently, TV3 explained the percentage difference it would make with startling clarity. Little diagrams and everything.
Their report on this appears to be online.
-
RNZ did eventually talk to a chap who phoned in to say how whichever SSRI it was changed his life, and had a few emails too.
It occurred to me to wonder what this will do to the people in that famously hard first few weeks.
My resident psychologist certainly wasn't surprised, remarking that (depending on the person) if you're not seriously depressed the side effects can be worse than the disease.
I do recall that people point to SSRIs + cognitive behavioural therapy as very reliable, but I don't have a citation for you.
-
One thing seemed odd to me in all this: I seems to recall that in the absence of any other measure, don't we use wages as a measure of productivity.
-
the pixies have never been confirmed
but that would make the entire grunge movement a hoax...
the Zen approach to consciousness
Hai. In a similar vein, when people get overly concerned with 'what it's all about' I like to recommend Voltaire's Candide.
-
If the above is overly defensive or involved, it's just that I've tried running that line on psychologists and I'm still scarred by the lack of acceptance.
-
I tend to understand 'conciousness' (and/or the 'mind') to be the (as it were) space where things like thoughts and experiences happen. And appeal to my experience of it to suggest it isn't a physical thing and certainly isn't the same as brain activity.
[Which makes it effectively the only a priori style argument I will allow - partly because 'my experience' is effectively identical to my conciousness]
Neuroscience makes it fairly clear that it's caused by brains, but that's not the same thing.
We can postulate a being that functioned just like a person but just ran automatically rather than 'experiencing'. I'm not saying it's actually possible or not, just that the concepts are distinct.
We tend to assume other people have a mind because we do and they are like us. Which makes it difficult to sensibly assess other kind of entity (when people worry about the 'net coming alive, I always feel like, even if it were conscious, it might not want or be able to do anything other than what it would do anyway).
Consequence: I satified myself that while we can explore what changes in the brain do what to the mind, we can't 'explain' it - the things being so different you can't form a syllogism or make a scientific investigation. Maybe.
Am I getting myself into trouble?
Anyway, XKCD: Yay!
-
Okay, 'respectful' was Flavell talking about something else entirely. I'll stop now.
-
I think Annette King has said in Parliament that for something to be proper art it had to have permission and be respectful (? I'm not sure about the last one - this was inspired by someone else later and they may have been adding-to rather than summarising).
I feel like I'm being radicalised.
-