The root causes of mental illness

[Xenland]

I have boiled down the root causes of mental illness to 3 things; feedback and comments/challenges are encouraged.

1)  Desire (I'll go with the Buddha on this one)
2)  Attempting to control things that are beyond one's control (an offshoot of desire)
3)  Identification with a false concept of identity.

Brief explanations:

1)  Desire:  Whenever a person has any type of desire, it implies that they are dissatisfied with what currently 'is.'  Dissatisfaction implies discontent and a lack of happiness.  If you want something that you don't currently have, this is a problem.

2)  Attempting to control things that are beyond one's control:  This is one of the leading causes of anxiety, anger, etc.  How often do we define our own happiness according to the actions of other people, communities, governments, girlfriends/boyfriends, husbands/wives, etc.?  How often do we become frustrated when our attempts to change these people, communities, governments, etc. fail?

3)  Identification with a false concept of identity:  Who are you?  How did you reach that conclusion?  According to all 11 definitions of identity in Webster's Dictionary, identity implies stability over time.  Yet, how often do we identity/define ourselves conditionally?  For example, let's say that someone says, "I am a teacher."  Ok, great.  Now, if your job is in jeopardy, then your identity is also in jeopardy!  Now, in contrast, how many would have answered this question by saying "I am an observer"?  For, as long as we live, we observe.

Note:  I would expect one of the most common challenges to these assertions would be, "Well, what about chemical imbalances?  What about genetic predispositions?"  To this, I would remind everyone that environment vs. genes (i.e. nature vs. nurture) is a false dichotomy.  It is known scientifically that interactions with our environment has effects on the genome which are then passed down and inherited generation by generation.  Thus, I would assert that any 'genetic predispositions' for a mental illness are the results of the 3 root causes that I listed to begin with, but in previous generations.

Basically ignorance is the root of all mental illness.

The Tibetan (Buddhism) philosophy has it right in my opinion as they acknowledge that their is two truths (but only one is the real truth, just stay with me).
The fake truth is when you watch tv you see a silly cartoon cat chasing a mouse.
The ultimate and real truth is you are viewing tiny dots of light.

So I say ignorance is the root of all mental illness because its ignorant to think one exists at all or even acknowledge an "I", "me" or "you" unless they are talking about the ultimate one "I", the infinite self.

I see what you're getting at.  I think that's half of it, for true knowledge I believe is still useless without application.  First you need to know what is true and correct, and then you need to act with that knowledge.  I think it's kind of like a feedback loop wherein knolwedge --> action -- > more knowledge --> more action etc. with better refinements each time.

I'd still give ya a +1 because I'm pretty sure I know what you mean.

Thanks for the plus one and I think you do get what I mean but check this out, In my perspective what you just said is flawed(aka Not the Ultimate Truth, fake truth) in my interpretation(even though I know what your really saying I just want to show others my perspective of this type of thinking)

I see what you're getting at. I think that's half of it, for true knowledge I believe is still useless without application.  First you need to know what is true and correct, and then you need to act with that knowledge.

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[Xenland]

Isn't that veird?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5DZexDYyuU#t=0m4s

[the joint]

Thanks for the plus one and I think you do get what I mean but check this out, In my perspective what you just said is flawed(aka Not the Ultimate Truth, fake truth) in my interpretation(even though I know what your really saying I just want to show others my perspective of this type of thinking)

I see what you're getting at. I think that's half of it, for true knowledge I believe is still useless without application.  First you need to know what is true and correct, and then you need to act with that knowledge.

Lol.

Yeah, the perspective issue is always the confusing part.

I tried to address this problem earlier in this thread with my explanation of different levels of logic.  We must always try to explain higher levels of logical syntax by first thrusting them into a lower level of logical syntax.  The example I gave for this is how we, as 3rd dimensional beings try to explain the 4th dimension by acting as though it were the 2nd dimension and thus capable of being understood comprehensively by our intellect (e.g. by representing the 4th dimension as a tesseract on a piece of paper).

[Xenland]

Thanks for the plus one and I think you do get what I mean but check this out, In my perspective what you just said is flawed(aka Not the Ultimate Truth, fake truth) in my interpretation(even though I know what your really saying I just want to show others my perspective of this type of thinking)

I see what you're getting at. I think that's half of it, for true knowledge I believe is still useless without application.  First you need to know what is true and correct, and then you need to act with that knowledge.

Lol.

Yeah, the perspective issue is always the confusing part.

I tried to address this problem earlier in this thread with my explanation of different levels of logic.  We must always try to explain higher levels of logical syntax by first thrusting them into a lower level of logical syntax.  The example I gave for this is how we, as 3rd dimensional beings try to explain the 4th dimension by acting as though it were the 2nd dimension and thus capable of being understood comprehensively by our intellect (e.g. by representing the 4th dimension as a tesseract on a piece of paper).

You know I remember watching a video depicting a guy drawing on a piece of paper on youtube one time and I never realised that(until now of course) he was using a 2d object to present the 4d world.... this world is maddness!!

[bb113]

Basically ignorance is the root of all mental illness.

The Tibetan (Buddhism) philosophy has it right in my opinion as they acknowledge that their is two truths (but only one is the real truth, just stay with me).
The fake truth is when you watch tv you see a silly cartoon cat chasing a mouse.
The ultimate and real truth is you are viewing tiny dots of light.

So I say ignorance is the root of all mental illness because its ignorant to think one exists at all or even acknowledge an "I", "me" or "you" unless they are talking about the ultimate one "I", the infinite self.

Basically ignorance is the root of all mental illness.


So someone gets raped when they are 10 and now they are 20 and have social anxiety to the extent they can't get a job. You will tell them their "illness" is due to ignorance? How do you turn your hypothesis into something useful to a person like that? Or just in general? It sounds more like something upper-middle-class people (who have been brainwashed so much that only now are they realizing what existential anxiety is) going through midlife crisis will buy books about.

[Xenland]

Basically ignorance is the root of all mental illness.

The Tibetan (Buddhism) philosophy has it right in my opinion as they acknowledge that their is two truths (but only one is the real truth, just stay with me).
The fake truth is when you watch tv you see a silly cartoon cat chasing a mouse.
The ultimate and real truth is you are viewing tiny dots of light.

So I say ignorance is the root of all mental illness because its ignorant to think one exists at all or even acknowledge an "I", "me" or "you" unless they are talking about the ultimate one "I", the infinite self.

Basically ignorance is the root of all mental illness.


So someone gets raped when they are 10 and now they are 20 and have social anxiety to the extent they can't get a job. You will tell them their "illness" is due to ignorance? How do you turn your hypothesis into something useful to a person like that? Or just in general? It sounds more like something upper-middle-class people (who have been brainwashed so much that only now are they realizing what existential anxiety is) going through midlife crisis will buy books about.

Assuming your serious, I'd have to say that is a horrible situation to think about and I don't wish it on any one and  yes that persons illness came from the ignorance of the people that raped the person in that they thought they actually existed and that they actually thought they were receiving some type of satisfaction from that decision to rape that said person. The person(the victim) is also ignorant for acknowledging that they are "alive" and had a choice to avoid that said situation, even if they did have a choice the infinite true self wouldn't have moved it self in that way or inflicted that action upon itself unless it wanted to.
Your response almost sounds like an emotional fallacy where those who emotionally agree with you will think I'm wrong or something but It doesn’t matter to me since nobody can be right or wrong, it just is so I won't lose any sleep over it .

[bb113]

I just care about what is useful. "Every problem is rooted in ignorance" doesn't conjure up useful solutions in my mind.

[Xenland]

I just care about what is useful. "Every problem is rooted in ignorance" doesn't conjure up useful solutions in my mind.

I wouldn't expect you to think the answer to everything is ignorance... why that would just be ignorant.


We are talking about mental illness, remember?

[bb113]

Ignorance is also the cure to boredom though.

[Xenland]

Ignorance is also the cure to boredom though.

I swear you are just following me around the forums to make me laugh, haha

[bb113]

Ignorance is also the cure to boredom though.

I swear you are just following me around the forums to make me laugh, haha

The cure for hiccups is "digital rectal massage"... look it up on pubmed, it (supposedly) interrupts the firing of the vagus nerve. Better to just wait it out in my opinion.