What is the difference between depression and sadness?

[Valka D'Ur]

According to someone in one of the group therapy sessions I attended a few years ago, none of the people here on CFC other than myself are real, and it's stupid for me to pretend that anyone is reading the words I type - because I can't see any of you.

I told her that in that case, none of the people we write snailmail letters to are real either, because we can't see them. She couldn't wrap her mind around the idea that there are real people posting messages on forums, blogs, and comment boards, and that they didn't just appear because some computer made them up.

 

[Borachio]

I suspect I speak to a lot of computer-generated simulations of people in real life, too.

Spoiler :

Actually, I don't*. As if you need telling! And I think it becomes obvious pretty quickly when I'm talking to a bot on line that that's what it is, too.

*Though it's of course possible that I do! How would I know?

Link to video.

 

[Old Hippy]

I suspect I speak to a lot of computer-generated simulations of people in real life, too.

just to give you something to think about (like you need that)... there is a chance your not real

http://www.scala-lang.org/old/node/11616.html

 

[Borachio]

>for n= 1..10 do
> printstring("what do you mean?");
>smilie face;
>end.

 

[classical_hero]

"the opposite of depression is not happiness; it is vitality"

https://www.ted.com/talks/andrew_solomon_depression_the_secret_we_share

That was certainly an enlightening talk.

 

[Hygro]

I always liked "expression" as the opposite of depression.

 

[Cutlass]

Severity, duration, and impairment. To be diagnosed with major depressive disorder you have to meet at least 5 symptoms, they must be present most of the day almost every day for at least 2 weeks, and they must cause clinically significant distress or impairment.

Last time I was in a docs office he had a poster on the wall with 15 symptoms. For me I've had 10 of them every day for over 20 years.

 

[Zack]

According to someone in one of the group therapy sessions I attended a few years ago, none of the people here on CFC other than myself are real, and it's stupid for me to pretend that anyone is reading the words I type - because I can't see any of you.

I told her that in that case, none of the people we write snailmail letters to are real either, because we can't see them. She couldn't wrap her mind around the idea that there are real people posting messages on forums, blogs, and comment boards, and that they didn't just appear because some computer made them up.

Thankfully the Ron Paul bots are mostly gone.

 

[Bootstoots]

According to someone in one of the group therapy sessions I attended a few years ago, none of the people here on CFC other than myself are real, and it's stupid for me to pretend that anyone is reading the words I type - because I can't see any of you.

I told her that in that case, none of the people we write snailmail letters to are real either, because we can't see them. She couldn't wrap her mind around the idea that there are real people posting messages on forums, blogs, and comment boards, and that they didn't just appear because some computer made them up.

Did that person know anything about solipsism, or was it just a strange comment by somebody? In a sense it's completely defensible to think that your mind is the only thing that "exists" and the rest of the world is a hologram, generated by your mind, which exists to simulate the rest of reality as you perceive it.

Other related things:
Brain in a vat
Last Thursdayism
Boltzmann brain (my favorite of these three)

The main point is that none of these things are falsifiable: they could actually be true based solely on our observations, but we would have no way of testing them. The view that nobody on the Internet is real, but the rest of the world somehow is, is in a similar (if maybe a little less coherent) vein of thinking.

These points have some importance for the philosophy of science: the set of claims that is falsifiable is smaller than it may appear, which leaves plenty of room for Matrix-like simulations, god(s), and the like; strictly speaking, science can't make any claims about those things. Taken too far, though, they're basically just dorm-room speculations.

Anyway, on topic: depression and sadness are very different, in a way that warpus's post about cake probably summed up best. I'll make a much more substantial post here once I find the time in the next day or two.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Did that person know anything about solipsism, or was it just a strange comment by somebody? In a sense it's completely defensible to think that your mind is the only thing that "exists" and the rest of the world is a hologram, generated by your mind, which exists to simulate the rest of reality as you perceive it.

Other related things:
Brain in a vat
Last Thursdayism
Boltzmann brain (my favorite of these three)

The main point is that none of these things are falsifiable: they could actually be true based solely on our observations, but we would have no way of testing them. The view that nobody on the Internet is real, but the rest of the world somehow is, is in a similar (if maybe a little less coherent) vein of thinking.

These points have some importance for the philosophy of science: the set of claims that is falsifiable is smaller than it may appear, which leaves plenty of room for Matrix-like simulations, god(s), and the like; strictly speaking, science can't make any claims about those things. Taken too far, though, they're basically just dorm-room speculations.

Anyway, on topic: depression and sadness are very different, in a way that warpus's post about cake probably summed up best. I'll make a much more substantial post here once I find the time in the next day or two.

I followed the first link, and that sounds like a recipe for insanity. If I thought my mind was the only truly-existing thing, wouldn't I arrange the world I perceived to my own preferences, instead of how it really is? 'Cause there are a lot of things I'd change if reality were like some huge holodeck that could be changed on a whim.

The woman in the group therapy had no trouble conceding that all of us in the room were real, everything she could perceive with her five senses was real... but she refused to concede that people I emailed are real. She insisted they were imaginary, and got quite defensive about it. I decided I didn't want to be in the same group with her, and quit.*

*If I were to talk to her now, I'd ask her to explain how, if none of these people are real, I had a couple of phone calls from two of them - one of my co-admins from another forum, and the other from one of my Cheezburger friends. I'm pretty sure I didn't imagine those phone calls!


The thing is, I am very aware that on the other side of my computer screen there are real people, each of whom is sitting in some other room in some other location, typing words and posting images that other people see and react to. That's why I try to be as honest as I can in all my online interactions - out of respect for the fact that there are actual thinking, feeling people who are reading my words.

 

[Agent327]

"the opposite of depression is not happiness; it is vitality"

https://www.ted.com/talks/andrew_solomon_depression_the_secret_we_share

True. One can be depressed (for years) without even realizing it. One grows into it until it becomes a state of 'normalness' to oneself. But one can't be unhappy without knowing it, or happy without knowing it.

As per use of drugs: I know one person who becomes completely unreasonable when not taking them and another who responds primarily to the negative side-effects of drugs. But I would agree simply prescribing drugs without any further care is quite meaningless. In general one doesn't become 'mentally unstable', depressed or whatever because of lack of drug use. That's simply not the cause.

 

[El_Machinae]

"the opposite of depression is not happiness; it is vitality"

https://www.ted.com/talks/andrew_solomon_depression_the_secret_we_share

That was ... wow ... that was really hard to watch. In an emotional sense. Bang on.

 

[Smellincoffee]

The easy answer seems to be that sadness is momentary and depression is chronic. I'm most interested in whether depression is caused by chemical misfires or if some kinds of behavior tend toward depressed states -- or are there behaviors that cause the chemical misfires? Is depression just another symptom of modernity, our brains and bodies struggling to adapt to lives that are so radically different from what they evolved to handle (for those living in cities, the near-constant surrounding by total strangers, for instance)?

 

[timtofly]

Depression may have a re-enforcing chemical element to it. The only thing that may be effected by modernity could be the fact that modern manufacturing is breaking down chemicals and creating new ones, that was in the past broken down and used by the body itself.

I don't think that being around a lot of strangers is that life altering. Even in the past empires raised huge armies to go out and fight. I doubt that every individual knew every other one. Most humans are able to tune out what goes on outside of their immediate sphere of perception.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

I don't think that being around a lot of strangers is that life altering. Even in the past empires raised huge armies to go out and fight. I doubt that every individual knew every other one. Most humans are able to tune out what goes on outside of their immediate sphere of perception.

As recently as fifty generations ago the vast majority of human beings met fewer people in their entire lives than I went to high school with.

 

[Cutlass]

Depression may have a re-enforcing chemical element to it. The only thing that may be effected by modernity could be the fact that modern manufacturing is breaking down chemicals and creating new ones, that was in the past broken down and used by the body itself.

I don't think that being around a lot of strangers is that life altering. Even in the past empires raised huge armies to go out and fight. I doubt that every individual knew every other one. Most humans are able to tune out what goes on outside of their immediate sphere of perception.

There's the age old question: Are you depressed because your life sucks? Or does your life suck is because you're depressed? And, further, is there a feedback loop making both true?

 

[El_Machinae]

If schizophrenia doubles to due an urban environment, I'd not be surprised if other mental issues were increased in incidence/prevalence due to our urban lifestyles.

 

[bhavv]

So far I have avoided, and I will carry on avoiding any kind of group therapy sessions like the plague.

I'm not as mad, or dumb as the usual oik.

 

[timtofly]

So we will not inform you that this is just a group therapy session.

 

[JollyRoger]

I don't think I experience true sadness all that much. Certainly over the death of one grandparent, but not really a whole lot else. Depression is another animal altogether. My personal downward spiral is something I have to be wary of and deal with in certain ways that are against my personal nature as my baseline personality is anti-medication and therapy.

Sadness is when you don't get cake.

Depression is when nothing tastes good anyway, so it wouldn't have mattered if you got cake or not.

I would like to echo that this seems pretty spot on

There's the age old question: Are you depressed because your life sucks? Or does your life suck is because you're depressed? And, further, is there a feedback loop making both true?

There may be something to this, though depression for me has always lurked for me in the background, even in the best of times. I can remember when everything was as perfect as they could get for me (first couple of months of college) and I had trouble sleeping because of some nagging feeling that I couldn't explain then and can't quite explain now.