Intelligent People More Likely To Suffer From Mental Illness

[Prosper]

I'm urging you not to state your case as the rule, or even the norm for that matter.

I did not argue in absolutes. That is a misinterpretation on your behalf. While I am aware of my issues, I am also aware that the problems I face are COMMON among people within a certain bracket of intellect.

 

[Such_Saturation]

I did not argue in absolutes. That is a misinterpretation on your behalf. While I am aware of my issues, I am also aware that the problems I face are COMMON among people within a certain bracket of intellect.

As for your optimism towards people with high IQ, beyond a certain point it becomes relatively easy to grow completely disillusioned with not only the surrounding society, but the reality itself. The more intelligent you are, the harder it is to care about the things most of the general public cares about. The harder it is to relate to other people. The harder it is to find activities that appear purposeful and worth the effort. What you refer to as "seeing the world as it is" tends to translate to a series of existential conclusions and value judgements that result in either pessimistic nihilism or self-centered zen, not a desire to make millions. Since high self-awareness leads to high capability for self-validation, for most highly intelligent individuals simple personal pursuits become more meaningful than anything else, and these interests rarely align with what is commonly defined as success. The only societally impactful outcome can occur when the high IQ individual decides to embrace the society by dedicating their life to helping it in any way they can. Yet that seems to be rare.

 

[Prosper]

If you have a specific sentence in mind, bold it so I can elaborate on it in case my point got lost in translation. From my perspective the paragraph you quoted changes nothing.

 

[x-ray peat]

Grammar police/authoritarians have turned up......
Why must we bow to those who defined the rules of grammar,it’s an evolving creative force,changes throughout time,luddites trying to stifle.
The intelligence in this thread......

It's actually the authoritarians in charge who are lowering the quality of our language in a planned dumbing down of the population. Rules of grammar are probably the only real democratic legacy we have left.. and they're dying with every tweet we make.
A country's quality of thinking is highly dependent on the quality of its language. A simple language where anything goes leads to simple and very sloppy thinking as sentences lose their precision and a multitude of interpretations become more and more possible. Idiocracy anyone?

 

[Constatine]

Interesting theory... is it solely based on your experience ? Or do you have other sources to back it up ?

There is some research. Meditation has been shown to increase dopamine, semen retention or rather the absence of ejaculation has been shown to increase androgen receptors in the brain, which would have an effect on motivation, and dopamine receptors have been shown to upregulate when senses or other stimulus are limited.

I have been on the NoFap wagon on and off since 2011. You're certanly right, prolonged periods of abstinence do increase the general pleasurability of daily life. It's nice, but not much else than that. The web of existential axioms you have weaved upon your unconscious interpretation of the sensorily experienced reality remains the same. Hedonism is not a real philosophical stance. It's childlike denial. Abundance of joy is not an absence of despair. Likewise, abundance of meaning is not an absence of meaninglessness. Using fundamentally hedonistic means to justify proactive maintenance of your conscious experience is unsustainable in the long term. Passion (or even absolute bliss) by itself doesn't penetrate deep enough to concretely interact with a worldview built on existential pessimism. It's a distraction. Nothing else.

Meditation is a more legitimate focus of yours, but you miss the whole point. Merely seeking to empty your mind is fruitless wankery. The ultimate meditative experience is to not exist at all. That's when you have reached something real and profound.


I don't care. That's life. Would you also urge me to feel bad for being less handsome than someone else? What kind of sick mind are you?


This level of surely intentional misinterpretation is almost impolite. Please don't reply to posts made by me or my family ever again.

But the reality you build is high dependent on your mood. Ones map of reality does not remain constant and is never absolutely right. It changes based on new thoughts and experiences but such things are first filtered through our already present mood. Even harsh realities such as death can change in meaning, even without making up what some may call delusions.
When the mind is not fully immersed in the present and in the body it is easy for our thoughts to take over. We begin to build our own reality and we drift away from the experience. We become too confident in our own map and we forget that the experience is our reference. This is how many Rationalists are born. Such people often dwell on negative subjects because fear is an overwhelming emotion that by nature demands ones attention. The more time one spends in their head the more likely they happen upon subjects that spark fear, which due to the nature of fear brings them back to the thoughts, each time reinforcing the neural circuitry. It is a positive feedback loop that denies positive experiences as credible. Not because they are not, but because we compare such realities to the dark one we know. To break the cycle one must challenge his/her map of reality and use experience as the ultimate reference again.
I am not advocating Hedonism. When it is pleasure and pain that rule your reality then you can know that you are truly numb. When your brain is functioning properly the vast array of complex emotions you experience should make it impossible to be bored with reality, for better or for worse.
As for meditation there are many different types of meditation with many different goals. The meditation I do is meant to give me more self control in life. I simply sit in a meditative position and refuse to move my body at all for a set amount of time. Clearing the mind can actually be counterproductive here as it allows the time to pass easier.

 

[Makrosky]

There is some research. Meditation has been shown to increase dopamine, semen retention or rather the absence of ejaculation has been shown to increase androgen receptors in the brain, which would have an effect on motivation, and dopamine receptors have been shown to upregulate when senses or other stimulus are limited.

Yeah I am aware of the upregulation from abstaining ejaculation. Do you have a link to the papers that limited stimulus can upregulate dopamine receptors? Sounds interesting.

 

[Constatine]

It's actually the authoritarians in charge who are lowering the quality of our language in a planned dumbing down of the population. Rules of grammar are probably the only real democratic legacy we have left.. and they're dying with every tweet we make.
A country's quality of thinking is highly dependent on the quality of its language. A simple language where anything goes leads to simple and very sloppy thinking as sentences lose their precision and a multitude of interpretations become more and more possible. Idiocracy anyone?

Language does indeed change the way we think but a more complex language and even more complex ideas, does not equate to more intelligent ideas or a better language. A thought is worth a million words, unless said thought is made of words. When we are trained to think via a language our thoughts become slowed and the original meaning of such thoughts become distorted by the language. This is actually commonly used by Mentalists to influence people. When we talk to ourselves in our own heads we are actually listening to the words our thoughts create and then interpreting the words. Our thoughts have been distorted by the our interpretation of our own thoughts via language.

 

[Constatine]

Yeah I am aware of the upregulation from abstaining ejaculation. Do you have a link to the papers that limited stimulus can upregulate dopamine receptors? Sounds interesting.

Olfactory deprivation increases dopamine D2 receptor density in the rat olfactory bulb. - PubMed - NCBI
Increased dopamine D2High receptors in rats reared in social isolation. - PubMed - NCBI - though this one is not a positive study it does show stimulus deprivation upregulates dopamine receptors.
I've read more but I forget what the papers were called. Ill post them when I find them.

 

[Makrosky]

Olfactory deprivation increases dopamine D2 receptor density in the rat olfactory bulb. - PubMed - NCBI
Increased dopamine D2High receptors in rats reared in social isolation. - PubMed - NCBI - though this one is not a positive study it does show stimulus deprivation upregulates dopamine receptors.
I've read more but I forget what the papers were called. Ill post them when I find them.

Ok thanks! Definitely I'll need more proof than two rat studies to buy your theory ;-) Regarding the second one, we have talked about this many times in the forum : isolation is deadly. Even if the benefit is upregulated D2 the stress of isolation probably obliterates any other benefits. Unless you are doing something like being an expert yogi meditating in a cave in the himalayas.

 

[Constatine]

Ok thanks! Definitely I'll need more proof than two rat studies to buy your theory ;-) Regarding the second one, we have talked about this many times in the forum : isolation is deadly. Even if the benefit is upregulated D2 the stress of isolation probably obliterates any other benefits. Unless you are doing something like being an expert yogi meditating in a cave in the himalayas.

Well yeah it is deadly, that's why I said this is not a positive study. Also I've seen things that make me believe that upregulated D2 high is not a good thing. But the mechanism of action behind meditation is likely something similar to stimulus deprivation. Excess stimulus downregulates dopamine receptors, take away the stimulus and the dopamine receptors will resensitize.

 

[Frankdee20]

Based on personal experience, I totally agree. Throughout middle school and high school I was considered by my peers to be one of the smartest kids in our class. Now thirty years old, I haven't been as successful as many of them. Plus, much of my adult life was marred by severe mental illness and alcohol abuse. I've always been so self-aware that it's an impediment to normal functioning. Only in the past year have I gotten to the point where I feel grounded (i.e., worked out my sh**).

OMG, this was me, too reflective for my own good, but it’s okay. Derive success on your terms, not juxtaposed against external parameters of it.

 

[Frankdee20]

I’ve been so chronically and morbidly depressed in my life, I never would’ve imagined anything else existed. I keep seeing the promised land though as of late, it’s beatification personified, and my integration in it. How many years I lost desperately crying out to God for my exclusion from it. When I say morbidly macabre, disquietingly fatalistic, all without the motivation or courage to attempt my own life’s ending directly, you have no idea. Drugs, alcohol, self sabotage, all done as a means to indirectly die, desiring death. Now, I see life, my participation in it, as one of my greatest rewarding satisfying experiences. I don’t know what else to say.

 

[Frankdee20]

How many nights I spent secluded from the world, my arms smelling like cattle from mainlining cocaine 30 times a night. Did I ever think in my wildest nightmares, I say that because I didn’t dream then, in the metaphorical sense, that I’d be sober over a decade. Alcohol though, less soul destroying than illicit drugs. These days, it doesn’t wreck my life. Ultimately, I just want to be in a place I never could’ve imagined then. The irony though, it’s a place most would suggest is successful, based on the same external parameters I said One need not measure themselves. Lol. I want to live now, but efficiently and confidently, sans learned helplessness.

 

[Dhair]

I’ve been so chronically and morbidly depressed in my life, I never would’ve imagined anything else existed. I keep seeing the promised land though as of late, it’s beatification personified, and my integration in it. How many years I lost desperately crying out to God for my exclusion from it. When I say morbidly macabre, disquietingly fatalistic, all without the motivation or courage to attempt my own life’s ending directly, you have no idea. Drugs, alcohol, self sabotage, all done as a means to indirectly die, desiring death. Now, I see life, my participation in it, as one of my greatest rewarding satisfying experiences. I don’t know what else to say.

Wow, that is a pretty profound change. What have you done differently?

 

[Frankdee20]

Wow, that is a pretty profound change. What have you done differently?

Why should I take any credit ? There before the grace of God go I....I’ve never known him, but should I not have died before my friends ? Why did I survive waking up with catheters in me after Bourbon and Benzodiazepines blacked me out ? Why did I survive the ravages of heroin ? I’ve got 18 years of sobriety from that. Yet some died after falling off the wagon. There’s no rhyme or reason, that’s my simplest answer.... On top of that, co morbid major depression. Waking up sober, but my only desire was wishing I had something to desire. Apathy, and anhedonia personified ! Yet today, I desperately desire to chase life, to cook it in a spoon, filter it with cotton, and inject it, pull the shot back, and slam it again.... that is all I want. I kid you not

 

[Dhair]

I do not consider myself to be especially intelligent, but this thread is depressing me. It seems that mental illness is rampant.

 

[Frankdee20]

So for the record, my intentions aren’t to disquiet or depress anyone. Guess I should’ve kept my new found paradigm shifts to myself. Sorry If I was glad to be in a happy place. Guess my elaborative deeply personal musings came at others happiness expense. As always

 

[Travis]

I do not consider myself to be especially intelligent, but this thread is depressing me. It seems that mental illness is rampant.

Mental illness and intelligence aren't even the same concept, and I doubt that they're even correlated—just look at Ted Bundy.

 

[x-ray peat]

Mental illness and intelligence aren't even the same concept, and I doubt that they're even correlated—just look at Ted Bundy.

this study as well as many others I have seen say that they are correlated.

 

[lollipop]

So for the record, my intentions aren’t to disquiet or depress anyone. Guess I should’ve kept my new found paradigm shifts to myself. Sorry If I was glad to be in a happy place. Guess my elaborative deeply personal musings came at others happiness expense. As always

Actually I was so happy you shared and wanted to tell you @Frankdee20 It was BEAUTIFUL and INSPIRING. In fact I felt sad at the immature response to your profound journey. Please do not stop sharing because of differing views. I personally have been appreciating your responses in different threads - not to mention your awesome new photo - lol.