1. Depressives don't lack stimulus, rather the stimulus doesn't seem to have the desired effects.
1b. The healthy activities I take part in (sports, cycling, walking the dog, sex) provide an immediate reward. Reading and writing are no more healthy than playing video games.
2. How do you end up classing sex as unhealthy? Are you religious?

Your (somewhat moralistic) theories lie in ruins around you.

unhealthy activities tend to give immediate rapid gratification: drugs, sex, passive entertainment — Benj96

Do you classify sex in general as "unhealthy activity", or is it just sex with unhealthy people?

And would you classify theater as "unhealthy passive entertainment"? What if some regard it as intellectually stimulating and thus conducive to better philosophizing?

Statement 1: A healthy mind requires a constant stream of stimulus - that is to say things that elicit dopamine, serotonin and other feel good neurotransmitters. Unhealthy minds (eg depression) lack adequate levels of such stimulus. — Benj96

Looks like you're right! The body feeds on food, the mind feeds on ideas. Funny, never really thought about it that way. What if ideas are to the mind what nutrients are to the body? Speaking for myself, I do experience hunger-like sensations for ideas.

The chemicals you mention above are physical and yet ideas don't seem to be. I wonder how the physical (neurotransmitters) and the nonphysical (ideas) "talk" to each other as they certainly seem to be doing?

Statement 1: Healthy activities generally demand delayed gratification: more effort, slower and extending dopamine release, more planning and self control and maintaining a view of the “bigger longterm picture” - think studying, exercise, diet, active entertainment- reading and writing, investing in relationships etc. — Benj96

The trick is, I reckon, to somehow align one's short-term thinking with one's long-term thinking. It seems doable in my humble opinion. Get the best of both worlds!

Nothing more need be said!

Speaking for myself, I do experience hunger-like sensations for ideas. — TheMadFool

Haha yeah it’s definitely a path we should explore - to make loose analogies between the mind and body in terms of basic needs - to gain that dimension of perspective.

So if nutrients to the body are what neurotransmitters are to the mind, then curiosity, wonder, awe or “appetite for knowledge and engagement” - is to the mind what hunger is to the body.

By virtue of that line of thinking, the contrary- apathy and psychological withdrawal and a lack of care for anything - the feeling that everything is futile and pointless and meaningless - is the “loss of appetite” of the mind. When the body is ill it loses its appetite. When the mind is ill it too starves of specific stimulating and excitatory neurotransmitters - healthy brain food.

And just as a body that does not eat progressively weakens its resistance to stressors and saps it of nutrients necessary to prevent it from “self- eating” a which results in “death”, so too must the apathy and lack of engagement slowly sap the minds resistance to negative thoughts and self destruction - slowly causing its own form of starvation and self eating or “depression”.

Here, the phrase we use commonly use to console people - “don’t eat yourself up over it” in response to cynical/ pessimistic/ overtly negative self expressions, comes to mind.

So what is to be said about the ultimate result of severe depression in this paradigm? Suicide.

It stands to reason that if the body can no longer sustain its basic functions, cannot subserve the mind then both the mind and body perish.

Maybe then in a similar fashion if the mind cannot maintain some form of psychological “vitality” it can no longer justify serving its body and switches to a state of mind- body discord - “ the body must be destroyed” and unfortunately goes about making this happen by committing self- murder.

An interesting note to make here is that drugs that cause mind- body dissociation such as psychedelics; LSD and psilocybin and mescaline - have noted anti-depression effects. Maybe it is because it gives the mind and body a “break from each other” - just how unhappy couples “take some space from each other” to regroups themselves.
“Absence makes the heart grow fonder after all”.

That was fun I enjoyed running with that line of thought.

. I wonder how the physical (neurotransmitters) and the nonphysical (ideas) "talk" to each other as they certainly seem to be doing? — TheMadFool

Ah. The hard problem. Yes it’s a very important feature to address. Sadly I can’t offer a solution. But In my opinion the nature of the mind- brain couple is interdisciplinary as it is both an object and a subject simultaneously. We cannot reduce it to solely a subject nor can we fully reduce it to an object. Doing so would surely fail to explain it in its full breadth. And ethical principles prevent us from doing either because: it has physical needs (being a biological object/system) as well as emotional/ compassionate needs (being a self-referencing “feeling thing that can be victim of states of suffering and pain).

Philosophy comes in handy because it can mingle with both empirical evidence based or material scientific data and behaviour/ psychology. It is not confined to either the metaphysical nor objective method.

I would say the brain describes its inner working best when given full natural freedom to do so. Philosophy.

Do you classify sex in general as "unhealthy activity", or is it just sex with unhealthy people? — Apollodorus

No I don’t classify sex as inherently unhealthy.
But I’m using it in the context of the brains preference for either immediate or delayed gratification with relation to intimate interpersonal relationships.

As in “I can get a quick hook up now and feel exhilarated and satisfied but most likely won’t have engaged the non-sexual partnership of another. Won’t be there in the morning won’t call back basically, or, I can invest in a longterm seduction and sequester a long term partner which will not only have sex with me multiple times but will also reciprocate several other beneficial emotions; empathy, compassion, affection and non sexual intimacy etc.

Obviously sex can be seen as unhealthy when done in excess with many partners as it has a direct correlation with an increase in sti transmission whilst being highly sexual with one person only usually confers more safety in that regard.

And would you classify theater as "unhealthy passive entertainment"? What if some regard it as intellectually stimulating and thus conducive to better philosophizing? — Apollodorus

Yes there will always be exceptions. It is a generalisation on my part in order to spend more time describing my line of thought rather than overly qualify a starting point to begin with. It should not be taken as exact nor literal but rather to generate a loose general idea of the now vs later choices we make with desirable things.

I find too much focus on the highly specific nature of various definitions can often stagnate a good discussion. Language is interpretative after all - there is always discord between personal definitions as they are personal: based off each of our observations.

Trust that I - like many others - will surely omit many valid points and noteworthy deviations from the argument to keep it focused on the topic I’m trying to explore. Definitions are important but so is fluid progression

Depressives don't lack stimulus, rather the stimulus doesn't seem to have the desired effects — Daemon

Yes you’re right, it’s qualitative not quantitative. The brains of depressives still have the same energy usage as those without depression it’s more of a matter of which part of the mind is consuming the stimuli and energy provided to it.

2. How do you end up classing sex as unhealthy? Are you religious — Daemon

See my response to apollodorus for this one. I’m not religious. I tried to use it in a very specific context. Context often determines the nature of a single act or thing. In some contexts it is good and in others it is bad. Depends what you’re referring to.

Your (somewhat moralistic) theories lie in ruins around you. — Daemon

Personally I don’t care what people choose to do with their lives or behaviour. Not for me to judge with any sort of moral high ground as I also participate in them and don’t fancy myself as a hipocrit .

Note the topic is “what is beneficial for both mind and body?” and the nature of “immediate gratification” vs “delayed - pros and cons It was not my intention to explicitly outline what is moral or immoral and if I have accidentally been biased I apologise.

However I was trying to define activities that represent immediate and delayed reward.

The reason I classified immediate gratification as unhealthy - was not from a moralistic perspective but one of advantage to the individual in the modern era - financially, socially, healthy wise and ultimately to the mind itself.

Being impulsive is good in a “reactionary” survival state - but for most of us in the developed world we are generally in a “self-actualisation” state - we have most of our basic needs met, now the focus shifts to longterm planning and pre-meditated thinking.

I would personally consider myself on the impulsive side naturally and have found great value in exploring the pros and cons of each. I think training myself in the art of things like sustained satisfaction, patience gratitude and longterm goal orientation helps me a lot in the balancing act between these two reward pathways.

I hoped to offer my insights into how I try to keep myself healthy when a). My mind needs dopamine and b). There are multiple ways to get it and c). How should one classify these ways in order to establish a balanced approach

Definitions are important but so is fluid progression — Benj96

Sounds good to me.

Honest question: Has it been determined that depression is not the result of leisure?

I ASSume we can't tell if the Neandertal or the Cro-Magnon ever suffered from depression; but how about hunter-gathers, or fourth-world, or even third world people? And let me qualify this by saying, I'm not talking about the statistical outlier, but, rather, the relative "norm" that we see to day.

It seems to me that when you are literally on the search for food (not money to pay for food, but food), water, clothing and shelter, you might be less depressed. Life may suck, but you aren't depressed as we think of depression today.

And if the natural state of human affairs (200,000 years before the last 10,000) does not have depression as a frequent occurrence, is our current situation due to leisure, or some chemicals in the air or water, or what?

I know people say some things were always with us and we just notice them more now because we have to tools to see or diagnose, but is that true with depression? Has anyone compared "us" with "them"?