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It's probably a bit old now but I wanted to mention that there's no compelling evidence that Gage changed in his personality in a way consistent with brain damage and not with having had an incredibly traumatic event happen, or the extent that his personality changed, or how long that change lasted. It's even in the drat Wiki: Despite this celebrity the body of established fact about Gage and what he was like (before or after his injury) is small, which has allowed "the fitting of almost any theory [desired] to the small number of facts we have" having been cited, over the years, in support of various theories of the brain entirely contradictory to one another. Historically, published accounts (including scientific ones) have almost always severely distorted and exaggerated Gage's behavioral changes, frequently contradicting the known facts. A report of Gage's physical and mental condition shortly before his death implies that Gage's most serious mental changes were temporary, so that in later life he was far more functional, and socially far better adapted, than in the years immediately after his accident. A social recovery hypothesis suggests that Gage's employment as a stagecoach driver in Chile provided daily structure allowing him to relearn lost social and personal skills. Gage should not be used to argue for anything. We don't actually know enough about the story. The main problem with asserting personality change post-brain damage is that brain damage is normally associated with a traumatic event, which we know can change personality. Any 'cure' for autism, like cures for other forms of mental illness, would come with side effects and it'd have to be a case-by-case analysis about whether those side effects were worth the benefit of the cure. Most of the autistic people I've worked with would have loved a cure because panic attacks and frustration-screaming aren't actually fun, but the likelihood of just a straight-up 'cure' is low. Anyone who has a problem with a woman aborting a fetus because it has needs that she doesn't think she'll be capable of dealing with is a shitheel.
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Jul 6, 2014 12:32
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AVeryLargeRadish posted:Traumatic events, or really any event or experience causes changes in the structure and composition of the brain. I think that separating events and direct physical damage when both cause physical changes and when we have so little knowledge of exactly how the brain works is premature. Whatever. The point is that using Gage to argue for personality change via changes to the brain is dumb. Your personality might change if you got a hand cut off, or it might not. And aside from the many incarnations of the buddha that post here on SA, there's nothing at all wrong with personality change, either. Pretty much everyone wants to change their personality, it's a rare (and usually awful) person who wouldn't like to change some things about themselves.
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Jul 6, 2014 13:47
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duck monster posted:Its a bit cartesian to suggest personality is anything other than structure and composition of the brain however. Like, everything about human thought and behavior is a byproduct of brain states Who cares, though? It's irrelevant to the question of "Is changing your personality by taking drugs to address a mental illness a bad thing?" or any iteration thereof. Personality change is not equivalent to death or anything extreme, it is mutable, it is part of what we do throughout our lives, and what we want to do.
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Jul 6, 2014 13:59
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AVeryLargeRadish posted:You are arguing with your own idea of a cure in your head, others are arguing with their own ideas of a cure. Until we have some idea of what a cure would entail or agree on a stand in for such a cure arguments about this unknown cure's moral or ethical implications are pretty pointless. That's my point. I don't have any idea of what a cure would be like. It'd depend on the side effects, like any other medication. There's no metaphysical problem with taking medication that alters brain function, we do poo poo that alters brain function constantly, and human beings tend to want to change personality. Ignatius M. Meen posted:This logic could be used to justify stopping research into a cure for Alzheimer's, which I'm sorry but I'm not fond of that in the slightest. No, it couldn't. I'm saying you have to evaluate the change, not quack about how changing someone is like killing them. Ignatius M. Meen posted:That said, I'm not worried anyone would force a cure on those with mild symptoms, but Obdicut has sounded like he doesn't see any rational reason for someone to be mistrustful of the idea that their personality might change in ways they don't like because in an absolute sense there'll still be the same body walking around that's identified with the same moniker in the end. For some strange reason that tack doesn't make me believe in the 'compassionate' part outside the kind that Bible thumpers might say they have when they recommend gay members of their church to go to those ex-gay camps. Again, homosexuality and autism are not things that should be compared. They're not similar, and I don't feel it's compassionate towards autists to pretend that they are. There's a lot of frustration and pain involved with autism that is not involved with homosexuality, except in the presence of bigotry. It's completely possible to be completely compassionate towards people with autism and still want to reassure autistic people they won't be 'someone different' if a cure were actually available. I have an anxiety disorder. So far, no medication has been super-useful in addressing it, but if I find one that helps and doesn't have side effects I can't deal with, then I'll be quite happy to take it. It will change my personality, as has getting back into shape, quitting drinking, and a host of other things. Change in personality, even a dramatic change, doesn't destroy the self. Neither does getting drunk. Obdicut fucked around with this message at 22:00 on Jul 6, 2014 |
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Jul 6, 2014 20:27
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Ignatius M. Meen posted:Okay, that's a more reasonable position I can agree with. But that's not the proposed hypothetical change we're talking about. quote:Being the same absolute person is not the same thing as being the same subjective person. I think you're assuming neutral or positive changes which isn't always the way medicine works as has already been mentioned. We're talking about a cure for autism, if it doesn't actually work to address the issues caused by autism for the better, it wouldn't really be a 'cure'. quote:I think the "side-effects I can't deal with" might be what you'd fit turning into an rear end in a top hat under, but it's not obvious from the way you're writing. Well, that's entirely up to the individual to decide. If they can deal with turning into an rear end in a top hat and in return not suffer as badly as some autistic people do, they might find that worthwhile. It's not up to me to decide. For severely autistic people who can't make decisions for themselves or make their wishes known, we have to default to what we always do, and let medical professionals and family make the decision. This is all based on a hypothetical 'cure' whose qualities we don't know. The meat of what I'm saying is: You don't become a different person because of drugs, except in the way that you do from every change in your life. The change may be dramatic, but so can other, non-pharmaceutical things. Autistic people who take medications that they benefit from are not losing their personalities. IF there were a 'cure' it would not kill their old self. Perhaps some people would actually prefer their previous state: that's fine. But most autistic people I know live very difficult lives filled with a lot of pain and confusion and frustration and would really like for things not to be as hard as they are. Ignatius M. Meen posted:"Personality is mutable and in fact, the whole of a 'mind' is mutable and subject to change, therefore not essential. Since it is not essential that this man keep his mind the same, we don't need to treat his Alzheimer's. He'll be just dandy without it because he'll still essentially be the same person." If the patient wants it to be treated (and is capable of expressing their desires) then it should get treated. I don't think Alzheimer's patients should be forced to get treatment, nor would I say that there's some definitive moment they are 'not them'. It's a degenerative disease. My grandfather died slowly from a different progressive disease, and there was definitely a time he was no longer there most of the time, but even then he'd have occasional moments of lucidity. But this is kind of besides the point, because there's no analogy between not treating a progressive disease which just takes away faculties and taking some hypothetical drug which alters brain function in an autistic person in a large enough way we could call it a 'cure'. Obdicut fucked around with this message at 01:05 on Jul 7, 2014 |
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Jul 7, 2014 01:01
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