I think maybe one has to understand in context just how deeply and darkly sarcastic Steve Earle's music can be to appreciate his anger in this song. I'm sure he would love to tear it down (in a sense) and start over. He's pretty radical. He's also one of the few musicians my age who are still pissed. That's why I like him so much. Wish I knew of more, but I'm off topic.

I have personal experience with both private and public care relating to major depression. My last deep episode was 8 years ago when, speaking of the DSM, I was diagnosed with Major Depression with Psychotic Features. I read somewhere that people with this diagnosis suicide at a rate of one in ten. I don't know if that is valid or not - as you say, there is plenty of misinformation out there. I don't find it implausible though.

I was hospitalized in a psychiatric ward during that period in a private hospital. I had no insurance or money to speak of. Upon admission, medication was started and I was interviewed by a psychiatric intern for 10 minutes who again interviewed me for 10 minutes shortly before being discharged and put on a bus 7 days later. I had some interaction with nurses and patients. With those exceptions, I was mostly left to myself and my delusions.

Could more have been done? Probably. Would more have been done if I had insurance. Not sure, but I was still deeply delusional and suicidal upon discharge. Still, I'm very thankful for that place. Being there even under limited care may have saved my life.

When I returned home, I plugged into the 5 county regional public mental health system. An employee there was responsible for finding me the nearest available bed in the above mentioned psychiatric ward. It was 120 miles from my home. Some say that hospitals are no longer expanding mental health facilities because the people that need them tend to be uninsured and short on savings. Again, don't know.

Though stretched to the limit, the local public mental health system was a true lifesaver. The people who worked there really cared. I was given a therapist who immediatly began seeing me 3 times a week until the antipsycotics took hold; sometimes she saw me while eating her bagged lunch during her lunch hour. Eventually the depression lifted and I continued seeing her each month to get an objective look at my mood. That went on for seven years. Each visit, after a brief recap of the month, I had the opportunity to work with her in an effort to clear some wreakage out of my past that we both feel probably played a role in the depressive episodes. It worked. That was a gift.

Six months ago, the state decided to severly cut funding for regional mental health systems and patients were handed off to for-profit clinics that would be funded through medicare/medicaid. Although I probably would qualify for Social Security Disability, I choose not to. But I can't afford the rates that would be required to use the new private facilities so I've simply stopped going.

Please don't feel sorry for me; I don't. :) I'm happy and healthy and very lucky to have had public mental health care available to me when it mattered. Instead I'm concerned for those who no longer have access. By the way, that's also why I never have any hesitation to speak up about my experiences when given the chance. One never knows when someone may be around that needs to hear something to let them know they're not alone, and I'm indebted.

Now, to your question. It seems pretty clear to me that the current system has fallen prey to the corrupting influences of power and money. I'm not sure much can be changed without a major upheaval and we know what drives political will. Perhaps as my generation ages we will become as pissed off as Steve Earle is in that song. It's the number one cause of bankruptcy for crying out loud! Until then, I'm not hopeful for much more than minor changes. However, I've seen public health care work...

Three months ago a friend, knowing my history, called me out of concern for a friend of her's who was delusional. She had a prior history of major depression but when I found her she was in a manic state and hadn't slept in 4 days. I shared my experience with her and was able to convince her to let me take her to the emergency room. She had no insurance. She stayed in the emergency room under court order as a threat to herself for 5 days until a bed could be found for her in a psychiatric ward, this time 160 miles away. It's broken.

Red, if I may call you that, I don't consider intuition a fallacy when defined as you have defined it. That's more or less what I consider to be intuition. Because our personalities, whatever one believes them derived from, differ from each other as individuals, I think there exists a spectrum for choosing ranging from purely intuitive to purely logical. In fact I think our leaning towards one or the other as a means of choosing is a basic part of our psychological makeup, as you stated.

Musical comment on the current state of the Health Industrial Complex (at least that's what I call it) and more:


http://www.actionext.com/names_s/steve_earle_lyrics/amerika_v_6_0_the_best_we_can_do.html

Ha! It depends on if you know yourself or not, you're saying. Whenever I hear someone say that they're trying to find themselves, I'll often reply "Well, if you do happen to find yourself, please tell yourself I said hello." :)

An affirmation.

Yes, I see the difference.I don't believe your example is an appropriate corollary to the true/false example though. And while I also agree that contradiction isn't paradox, contradiction is a necessary component of paradox. Two contradictory things that each appear to be true is pretty much the definition of a paradox.

I believe the reason the example "The following statement is true: everything I say (write) is false" is paradoxical is rooted in our necessity, as humans, to accept each others statements as true, unless we have reason for suspicion (dealing with a used car salesman), or the statement contradicts what we already know to be either true or false: A blue ball is blue = true. A blue ball is red = false. Imagine what life would be like if our initial assumption when someone states something is that it is false until proven true.

So:

What I am about to say is true. Response- OK

Everything I say is false. Response- OK... Hey, wait a minute! That means what you said before is false, which means that what you're saying now is true, and so on.

Where, to paraphrase, if you don't mind:

All blue balls(!) are blue. Response- OK

This blue ball is red. Response- "...Whoa... no sorry try harder" - as you say.

so true

I once heard of a professor who would regularly interject the question "Can you see me now?" into his conversations.

I may be moving to Asheville in a couple of months...

I reckon paradox is in the eye of the beholder.

I'm just using a looser definition of paradox than yours. In mine, I'm referring to statements or ideas that - on their face and otherwise - confound intuition. We can probably agree that once one unravels them to their own satisfaction, they no longer appear to be paradoxes to the one that did the unravelin', though they still may appear that way to others.

Using the chicken/egg example as an example: Yesterday, after Billy answered "egg", I logically, same as you I assume, began following the trail of evolution backwards through time. However I just kept on going back and back until I realized that the real question is "what came before ANYTHING?". That resolved the conflict momentarily, until the follow on question arose "well, whatever that was, what came before that?" That one kinda made me feel like throwin' up, so I went back to the chicken and egg question, eventually arriving at the following.

I think because we were discussing the concept of how a whole relates to its parts in a different thread, the thought occurred to me that perhaps the chicken and egg aren't two different things as much as they are one whole thing, that is, some sort of gd diabolical "chicken system." This idea seemed somehow to hold enough intuitive truth that I was able to say to myself "Eff it, that's good enough. I'm tired of thinking about it," and went on about my business. That was yesterday.

Today I went back to the question of "what came before whatever came before anything, ad infinitum." I know that question appears to be thoroughly absurd but I can think of no better way to put it. I went on to apply yesterdays partial resolution to this question and decided that although somethingness and nothingness appear to be two separate things, they are actually more of a "one thing," which is also what I happen to already believe, sort of.

What's the upshot of all this? Well, I feel I now know slightly more than I did before, at least to my personal satisfaction. That's what we want, right? To know?

At any rate, this is a long response to your short question "Who gives a sht?" concerning the chicken and the egg. The above is more or less "why" I give a sht. As for the question "who gives a sht," - well, people who tend to think way too much, obviously.

Finally and seriously, don't you find arguing over these types of things rather pointless?

JB, I wondered about that, eventually concluding that what he meant was, because he did understand quantum physics, including it's seemingly irrational component, that it wasn't possible to "understand" it in the way that we normally think of understanding something. Also dubious. Don't know. I'll look into it.

Anyone who has experienced clinical depression will certainly attest to the truth of that! I think of the "rose colored glasses" frame of reference as being just as pertinent.

While I do believe it possible for some people at times to have a - however brief - objective glimpse of reality, it sure isn't our every day walking-around state.

Hi Billy-

Here's one you might think is funny. "Anyone who thinks they understand quantum physics, doesn't understand quantum physics." Dawkins

Seems because of the way we are, nearly everything associated with quantum physics appears paradoxical.

Same here. I'm pretty sure there's a middle in there though. Sort of like being engaged without being attached. That's my ideal. The idea of a nurse who cares comes to mind.

Yes, I have problems. I think what were talking about is something that negatively impacts our peace of mind?

Because I can be stubborn and selfish, when I feel that I have to do something that conflicts with what I want, I gotta problem. This was never a big problem; more like a medium one. :) I think it's a very human kind of thing. Once I saw it for what it was, I learned to accommodate it and it became just a small little annoying problem. Still, it persists.

I really agree with this. I think of it as allowing others the rights to their problems and feelings. Often I believe the best response to someone who has described one of their problems is "Yeah, that's a problem alright."

I don't think post contradicts the OP.

There is another topic going on now about the meaning of life. I'm not so sure what you are saying could be considered a meaning, as much as a possible purpose of life. It's about the only one that "makes sense" to me.

I think emotional pain will inevitably enter our lives. After it does, we have some degree of choice. We may continue to entertain it, by choice (or default, if we don't realize we have choices). Or we may employ any number of coping mechanisms- healthy, benign, or unhealthy. What works best for me is choosing to accept that emotional pain IS an inevitable part of life. To what ever extent that I'm truly able to do this, I find, is the extent to which I'm available to others, in their times of need.

The meaning of life is: no letters :)

I may have confused the above idea with the quote:

"I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand." Matthew 13:13

... which, ironically, is very nearly its opposite. Confusion- my steady state :)