One minute philosophy lessons

[Magical Realist]

He doesn't say it takes a lifetime to develop the impartial observer either.

It thus enters into the great school of self-command, it studies to be more and more master of itself, and begins to exercise over its own feelings a discipline which the practice of the longest life is very seldom sufficient to bring to complete perfection.
- https://www.marxists.org/reference/archi...part3b.htm

So obviously it is developed by the time we leave the nest, when our brains reach full maturity. Freud's superego serves the same purpose as the introjection of the parent's own values. They are all what we call the human conscience, which serves to help us navigate the world by making decisions that conform to our cultural and societal values. It isn't however the true nature of morality, as we already know he posits empathy as the basis for that. Which is how we can travel to different cultures and societies all over the world and still understand and treat people as others just like us with the same feelings and experiences.

Sigmund Freud viewed morality primarily as the internalization of social norms and authority figures (parents) through the development of the superego, often driven by guilt and fear of punishment. While Freud used empathy in clinical practice (as introspection), he did not emphasize it as a primary driver of morality, viewing it as a "mechanism" to understand another's inner life.
- Gemini

Empathy is hardwired into us thru our mirror neurons and is thus more fundamental than any overlays of our enviromental conditioning. It is the instinctive imaginative leap that lets us see both from a second person's perspective and the third impartial observer's perspective.

Instinct, as an unconscious process, can never be knowingly separated from self-interest and personal bias.

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I am opening myself more to this since going off of antidepressants recently. Escaping the famous "emotional blunting" of those meds on my feelings, life is becoming a richer and more subtler mix, with shifting extremes of melancholy and humor..

Good for you.

At best, psych meds may reduce some symptoms. They can perhaps be useful, in the short-term, to facilitate lessening extreme symptoms to an extent that helps allow therapy. But used long-term, they are just a crutch to avoid dealing with the underlying causes. Without any therapy, they are just a life-long dependency.

That also explains the extra emotional dysregulation lately, as those are skills that have not been practiced.

I got a new big bottle of my Effexor in the mail yesterday. I didn't have the willpower to resist taking them. From experience I've learned that taking them curbs my appetite and helps me lose weight. If I can get to my target weight of around 210 I may go off of them again. At least I know I can now.

That also explains the extra emotional dysregulation lately, as those are skills that have not been practiced.

I noticed while off my meds that I was getting angry at things for no reason. Cussing out the TV or dropping my keys and saying "Fuck!" etc etc. Even my voices noticed it and didn't like it. That may be due to the likelihood that while on meds I lost the ability to control my anger and cynicism. I'm out of practice so to speak.

[Syne]

I got a new big bottle of my Effexor in the mail yesterday. I didn't have the willpower to resist taking them. From experience I've learned that taking them curbs my appetite and helps me lose weight. If I can get to my target weight of around 210 I may go off of them again. At least I know I can now.

That also explains the extra emotional dysregulation lately, as those are skills that have not been practiced.

I noticed while off my meds that I was getting angry at things for no reason. Cussing out the TV or dropping my keys and saying "Fuck!" etc etc. Even my voices noticed it and didn't like it. That may be due to the likelihood that while on meds I lost the ability to control my anger and cynicism. I'm out of practice so to speak.

Both diet and emotional regulation take practice. Without the practice to self-regulate, we're always dependent on something external. So even if you lose the weight, you wouldn't likely have built the routines to keep it off, and likely to go back on the meds. Same for emotions. When I quit smoking, decades ago, I found out how much I used smoking to calm my emotions. It took time to build new ways to deal with stress. And even though I have been doing intermittent fasting for years now, I recently went to one meal a day. For one, I realized that I was eating more out of routine than hunger. Plus I think my metabolism/digestion has slowed as I've aged.