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The Psychic Unity of Mankind

By Niccolo Leo Caldararo

In The Psychic Unity of Mankind, Caldararo writes about how anthropology came into being. Caldararo writes how anthropology was a backlash to colonialism and the colonial powers that dominated the world. When the Europeans went anywhere, they would conquer the land and subjugate the native people. The colonialist just took them as savages. Anthropology was brought about mainly as a way to show that these native people were no less human than the Europeans.

The anthropologist had a fascination with learning about the indigenous people all over the world, especially in the Americas and Africa. The anthropologist came in to try and study and preserve the native people’s way of life. They showed that the native people had a value to their culture as well. Caldararo talked about in class once that history is written by the people that win the wars. The Europeans were always training their children for war, so wherever they went they dominated, killed the leader, took the land, and enslaved the people. The original anthropologist came when slavery was starting to be questioned as something that shouldn’t happen.

Caldararo writes in the first chapter how some of the anthropologist were taken as just promoting their own welfare by being able to write books and make money off of the profits. There was also anthropologist that took the native people as not completely evolved as humans because of their primitive societies. But with all of these controversies, anthropology survived as a creditable science.

In Chapter 2 Professor Caldararo’s focus is cultural relativism. He talks about how people argue both sides of this subject. It seemed as though cultural relativism was about characteristic that are only held in each unique culture. With cultural relativism there is no such thing as some innate divinity within man to function the same way. The anthropologist acknowledges that there are similarities with humans, but the traits very so much form culture to culture that there is not one binding force that makes different cultures synonymous.

The anthropologist point out, with cultural relativism that; yes, all humans have langue, but a lot of these languages are so different, especially when they haven’t had any influence of each other, that there is not one unifying principle. They talk about how the pronunciations of the words can have no similarity to each other, and this would show opposition to any type of anamnesis: Platonic doctrine of innate ideas. Anamnesis was a big thing in the European societies because of dogma that was required of the Christian societies. All of the colonialist would always use religion for the justification of dominating other indigenous people. Without one unifying deity they would have a hard time justifying their subjugation of others. Some other arguments apposing these innate concepts, that were held within each man, were things like the color spectrum. In different cultures they would have simpler

schemes of colors. Some cultures in Africa only had three main colors.

The use of mathematics was something that would encourage the concept of an innate unity, for most cultures would use a ten based system. One of the systems that isn’t ten based is the sexigesimal, which is a system that is based on the number 60. Clocks are considered this, and it sprung from the gnomon. The sexigesimal was something that was universal in ancient India and ancient Greece, but there could have been other cultures that came up with other types of numerical systems.

Another argument that supports some type of innate unity would be music. Caldararo was written about how all of the cultures that were researched had some type of musical ability. With all of this it would seem that there was some type of unifying principles within all of the human race, but this was because the cultures were also dominated and shaped by their own environment. It seems as though Caldararo was showing how the arguments on both sides of the topic are valid.

In chapter 2 Caldararo was also talking about the justification of the supremacist. There would be those that took the other cultures as stuck in evolution. They were primitive and it was a justification for the colonial powers to dominate. This also led to the eugenics, which was meant to purify the white race.

In chapter 3 Caldararo writes about those that doubt and appose anthropology.  Hymes was one of the main opponents that Caldararo refers to. Hymes seems to be lacking on his understanding of what anthropology is. Caldararo writes how Hymes gets ethnography and anthropology mixed up. He sources opinions in his writing that are not substantiated and are misunderstood.  Hymes, as well as Willis, talks about how anthropologist were just colonial powers that were doing research to benefit themselves. They were stating that anthropologist weren’t interested in the truth, they just wanted to advance their own ideas. It seemed as though Hymes and Willis had their own White Supremacist ideas, and that is why they were opposed to anthropology. It was as though they were trying to discredit the science.

The people that were opposed to anthropology would site anatomist that believed that indigenous people were stuck in evolution. The “savages” is how they referred to them. They didn’t want to give any credence to any of the indigenous cultures that the anthropologist did. Their basis for rejecting Boas and other credible anthropologist was Christianity, and the superiority of the white race, with the way that the Europeans were able to dominate everywhere they went.

Hsu was someone that objected to the anthropologist Malinowski, and Caldararo writes how Hsu misrepresents what Malinowski had written. Hsu’s main argument is to do things like judge his character by stating the Malinowski was getting some type of sexual gratification by doing research on indigenous people’s sex conduct. Hsu also says that if it were to be truly research it would be objective and Malinowski would have found a way of doing the research without interacting with the indigenous people.

One of the amazing things that Malinowski was able to discover was how people had different concepts of things like “love, hate, despair, rage, hope and anxiety” (p 51). This is something that most would think is universal to the human nature, but Malinowski shows how this is not so. It is the Europeans that enforce their concepts of these ideas upon all of the cultures that it dominated.

Caldararo’s main premise of chapter 3 was that anthropology was either a widely misunderstood science, or that people, politicians and supremacists, would distort what the anthropologist were doing to benefit their own political agenda.

In chapter 4 professor Caldararo writes about some of the objection that people were having towards two of the anthropologist: Margaret Mead and Freedman. The objections that were raised with these two important anthropologist were the facts that they might not have had objective research. People would say that they incorporated too much of their own points of view: subjectivity. This brought upon a lot of skepticism to the science of anthropology, as though it couldn’t even be considered a science.

In chapter 5 the main question that is explored is: are there any universal characteristics to humans that are innately encoded into the genetics of all humans, or is everything determined by environment? This one of the main questions when it comes to anthropology. One of the anthropologist that was studying the Hopi tribes was coming to the conclusion after close observation that the Hopi had no concept of time as in the European societies. If it was true that the Hopi had no concept of time, which everyone would agree to be a basic idea that is innately built into all humans, then this would argue for the fact that humans are determined by their environment and not genetic traits. It was later discovered by another anthropologist that the Hopi, in fact, did have a concept of time that was very similar to the European concept, and this was something that gave support to the theory that humans do have some type of basic universals.

In the second half of chapter 5 there was the hypothesis of adaptation into environment. They were noticing that humans, once the acclimate of a particular environment, can have changes in behaviors that they didn’t have before, but were found within that environment that they acclimated too.

There was this example of a man who moved into a new environment where there was someone that would do things like sleepwalking. This man never did sleepwalking before, but once he got into this new environment he took on some of the behaviors that were found in this environment. It is the adoption of these new characteristics that support the theory of the environment determining behavior, so chapter 5 was showing arguments which supported both conclusions. One was that environment determines behavior, and the other was that genetics give rise to the belief that there are innate qualities that are with in all humans and are universal through different societies.

Caldararo writes in chapter 6 about how there are two main anthropologists that have the theory of epigenesis. Epigenesis has to do with the genetic makeup of humans being universal qualities which are innate. These two anthropologists believe that genetics are responsible for some of the innate characteristics that are in all humans, and for a matter of fact, in all life. The fact that there are determining factors that relate humans to other animals goes against some of the theories of anthropology, for they take humans as above animals in the way that our minds are so superior to them.

With epigenics they agree that environment plays a role, but there is also the determining factor of genes. The genes are responsible for the basic senses that all humans have, and all life has, but the way that those senses develop, and the way that they are used, is shaped through the environment. Everyone can see, hear, touch, taste, and think. It is how these senses are used that determines the development of a person. There was the theory that came with children and how they interact with their mother, mainly, that shaped the development of the individual. All of these conclusions were supporting theories, such as Freud’s psychological determinism, on how humans don’t have free will. So, the conclusion would be that there are innate qualities that are built into humans, and some would say all life, that are shared, so universal, but these qualities are shaped and sculpted by the individual’s environment.

Chapter 7 is about the epigenic constructs that all life has, not just humans. Caldararo writes about how it is not just humans that can come up with artificial societies. Bees, beaver, birds, and others living organisms are all able to construct shelters. Bees and ants live in societies, so this would show that there are epigenic rules to all life. It also gives evidence to how much humans have in common with other life, which was something that a lot of anthropologist argued against.

Some anthropologist wanted to take humans as unique in the way that they behave and are able to build and use cognition. They way that other life is able to achieve things that, humans thought for the longest time was exclusive only to humans, give evidence against some of the ideas about how unique humans are.

With the epigenic theory one of the problems is that if all thought and information is built directly into humans, then the Mayans would have been able to reconstruct the langue that was destroyed by the Spanish when they came and conquered. This would show that not everything is built into humans on an innate level. Some of the constructs might be, but there is still and environmental role.

One of the concept or stipulations was how Natural Selection played a role in the development of human behavior and even societies. The concept was the societies change though adaptation and natural selection as well. This has to do with the individual and the way that the brain develops in its lifetime. There is the mutation component as well, and with the mutation they see how humans develop.

There was an anthropologist that pointed out how humans develop through natural selection and mutation just like animals. This was showing some type of cultural determinism because they could see how animal behavior was determined. One of the arguments that a lot of people make is how different humans are than animals, and this is shown in the human ability to make choices.

With the cultural determinism, natural selection, and mutation the anthropologist could argue that the humans developed is just like animals. They could see that there was difference in the brain, and some speculated that this is what brought about choice, but they also compared the development of human brain to those of other animals, like rats, to see that it needed the simulation of the culture, or the society, and this is what encourages the belief epigenetics.

In book two Caldararo is combating the idea, which has been prevalent in humans from the beginning of time, that humans are so unique compared to animals. Caldararo is pointing out how there are other living things on earth that show such behaviors as the ability to form complex societies. An idea like this can go against much of the dogma that is in human nature, for humans need to take themselves as unique, but complex societies have been found and researched in insects such as bees, wasps, and ants. This is something that goes against most of the original thoughts about how people define themselves as so much different then animals, or other life, yet it would give a strong and wonderful support to the theory of evolution. The ability to form complex societies is called laterality, and some of the research that has given strong opposition to such things as creationism, is the animals have the ability to laterality as well. This is seen in insects and other hominins.

There is also the evidence of body to brain ratios. One of the arguments to show how unique humans are, was that it was thought that humans have the most unique brains. It is shown that humans don’t have the highest body to brain ratio. It has also been observed that whales have a more complex brain structure: the tissue is more elaborate. All of this supports the theory that humans aren’t so unique.

With this Caldararo write about the question: what is unique? It seems as though different scientist have different ideas of the concept of what makes uniqueness. This leaves it as an open debate on how special humans are. It is noted that other animals, even fish, are shown to use tools. It was thought for a long time that the usage of tools is what made humans unique, but we see how a lot of different life on the planet uses tools. I would say that it is not tool use, but the complexity of the tools. That and that ability to develop and constant changing of tool use through technology. I don’t know if any animals, that have been witnessed, developing new tools, but that would be a fascinating discovery if it was found.

There was the concept of sexuality, and how humans have a lot in common with other animals when it comes to the female ovulation and male ejaculation. It was hard to research because humans have such varied sexual habits, but some similarities were found in the bonobo chimpanzees. There was also a book that was written by a lady who was talking about how rape is something that is natural when it comes to humans. They saw that lot of animals have these overwhelming sexual desires which are not exclusively human.

One of the other arguments against human uniqueness it the concept of langue being specifically a human trait. There is research that is done which shows this not to be true. They notice that birds have unique songs that are held to the species. Apes are able to sing and have distinct calls. One that I didn’t see mentions was whales. I’ve read about how killer whales have unique songs that are exclusive to their herd. This is something that shoots down the idea of human uniqueness.

There were also those that argued that animal’s behavior was determined, and if they had the ability to comprehend things, just as humans, then why wouldn’t they have taken humans as a threat and attach us, as humans do to other humans in war. This was seen as a fallacy because animals will attach humans, like wolves, and bees will attach anything which tries to attach their nest. It was also shown that ants can infiltrate human living spaces and render them inadequate. I would say that one of the consequences of being at the top of the food chain is the ability for humans to defend themselves better than other living species. I wouldn’t say that animals don’t take us as a threat, they just don’t have as great an ability to fight back.

It was the main purpose of the second book to show how much humans have in common with other life. It is important for us to see that we do. Evolution is a widely accepted theory when it comes to science, and in fact anyone who is a scientist should believe it: with the exception of the Republican candidate for President Ben Carson. Evolution is important to understand all life, and when humans have an understanding of all life, they have a better understanding of themselves. It was shown in book two that animals form societies, use tools, have a use for langue, as well as other human traits. I would also argue that humans are unique, but no more unique than any other life form, for it is proven that we all depend on each other for existence.

Book one was fascinating in that it was showing how different human cultures can be from each other, and how there is a need to understand every culture, not just the European. Book two was about how much humans have in common with all life, and how one of the biggest misconceptions, enforced by dogma and ego, is that humans are so unique when it comes to other life on the planet. It was interesting to see Caldararo juxtapose these two concepts, which seem to almost oppose each other: how human societies are unique when it comes to each other, but how we have so much in common with all life. This shows the necessity for the science of anthropology. The Psychic Unity of Mankind, by Niccolo Caldararo, is an important read that lays the premise for anthropology and the need for its continued development

just with in the obscure schemes

of moments where i weave in and out

to disembodied soul,

clutter my grim sights insane,

while each wish will slowly disperse

to colored emotions portrayed in gray.

 

all my worries fall from love

to pity of the rich man’s pocket,

yet the think of me so sick

with concerns in shamed distain,

as cold rays of bitter sunshine

show their addictions so far from their dreams.

 

these yearnings will enhance urges

of times where i danced from the trees,

where i imagined all bliss,

and took breaths to sooth my pain,

yet my heart has been deflowered

so i’ve lost the airy hopes of a child.

In The Unreality of Time John McTaggart Elis McTaggart tries to argue that time is unreal because essence of time relies on the distinction between past, present, and future. He calls a series of time of past, present, and future and A Series.  McTaggart argues that if a moment in time is past, present, future all at once, then time is unreal because that violates the Law of Contradiction. McTaggart’s whole paper rest on the relativity of language. McTaggart’s mistake is he confuses the semantics of the English language with reality. He believes because he can play a word game and show that he can make it so he represents a moment in time as having characteristics of past, present, and future all at once, that time is unreal. The only thing McTaggart’s paper really proves is that langue, with all its ambiguity, is insufficient for portraying an exact definition of the reality of time.

McTaggart tries to show that time is unreal through the relativity of langue by writing, “Since our language has verb-forms for the past, present, and future, but no form that is common to all three” (McTaggart P57). McTaggart is trying to lay the foundation for his argument, but as anyone can see he is using the semantics of the English Language as the foundation for his argument. His whole concept is based on verb forms, and how no one verb form will be able to give someone all three aspects of past, present, and future at once.

McTaggart shows that there is no contradiction in the fact that in order to get an A series of time of past, present, and future, we have to assume time is real. McTaggart argues that in order to get time to be real we have to assume an A series. The problem he has is that it is a cycle of assumptions. He says that in order to get time we have to assume an A series, but in order to assume an A series we have to assume time, and he shows this through the verb forms.

Dr. Carlos Montemayor writes about language relativity and the how it impacts the perception we have of space and time in Early and Late Time Perception: on a Narrow Scope of the Whorfian Hypothesis. Montemayor explains how language relativity has an influence on our perception of time in late stages of cognition, and it is through the late stages of cognition that McTaggart tries to show the unreality of time, but all McTaggart is doing is fooling himself over semantics using late stages of cognition with linguistic relativity.

Montemayor writes about how Benjamin Lee Whorf came up with “Linguistic Relativity” through the discovery of the Hopi language, and how the Hopi people have no references to time in their language. Montemayor writes how this allows Whorf to come up with the hypothesis of Linguistic Relativity which speculates that language dictates how we think, and even how we perceive the nature of time. This goes even deep into the nature of spacetime according to Whorf. Montemayor writes how Whorf claimed how there is a strong relationship to language and how humanity perceives reality.

Montemayor argues that the influence of language on reality is only on long term cognition, such things as thinking back and describing aspects of our days through memory. The specious present wouldn’t be anything that would be affected by Linguistic Relativity according to Montemayor. It is the late stages of cognition which are affected. Montemayor writes how “Linguistic Relativity predicts language modulation at the levels of cognition and perception” (Montemayor P2). This is what is happening with McTaggart’s argument. Montemayor writes how it is through language that human thought is displayed, and the display of that thought is our reality. Montemayor explains how linguistic relativity is a widely held view in anthropology, psychology, and linguistics.

Montemayor goes onto explain how the claim of the Whorfian Hypothesis has a lot of support because of the way we use tenses of “past, present, and future” (Montemayor P4). So, even Montemayor goes onto use the exact terminology that McTaggart’s whole theory rests on. Montemayor is showing the language modulation and reality connection. The problem I have is the term reality when it comes to McTaggart, for all language is truly showing in the individual’s perception. What is truly happening with McTaggart is “Language modulates semantic content in time cognition, such as the categorization of events” (Montemayor P4). This is what McTaggart is doing when he tries to show the unreality of time. He uses verb tenses to show that every moment has the aspects of past, present, and future by showing how a moment is present, then it was future and will be past. If there is another moment that is past it was both present and future at other times. McTaggart is showing through language that every moment has aspects of all three, and to get an A series you have to both assume time and assume the A series itself; therefore, there is a contradiction; therefore unreal, but all that McTaggart is truly doing is using language modulation in a strong and absolute sense of linguistic relativity in order to give a different perception of reality! All McTaggart is doing is confusing semantics, and the perceptions that we get out of it, with reality.

There are lots of things that prove the existence of time. The fact that we do not completely understand time, or might not be able to completely explain time in language, does not mean that time is unreal. The only thing that truly means is that language is inefficient for giving an exact definition of reality, and the fact that the proof of time shows up in more living creatures than just humans. Montemayor explains in Minding Time: A Philosophical and Theoretical Approach to the psychology of Time, that “spatiotemporal coordinates are essential for the sensory-motor system to make sense of the features it registers” (Montemayor P6). All living creatures are dependent on a concept of time. Our motor and survival functions depend a necessary connection with the circadian clock. This is showing that time is an innate aspect of any living creatures’ reality. Time is part of the innate aspect of who we all are as living creatures. We need time, and some type of understanding of it, if not a limited one, for survival.

Montemayor goes onto explain how the circadian clock is something that is innate within all living creatures. The circadian clock is something that is necessary for the survival of all living animals and we have been able to detect that animals have the capacity of registering time of occurrences, so they can get food to survive and even perform other tasks. It is an anticipatory behavior which has been shown to us in rats, birds and bees (Montemayor P42).

Montemayor goes onto explain how the way animals do this comes down to two different theories both based on the circadian clock. The first one has to do with repetition and anticipatory behavior. The insects and animals have phases that they would depend on which would be directly related to rhythm of the circadian clock. They have memories, and the circadian clock would be innately linked to those memories. The one thing animals do not have though is linguistic memories, yet time still exists in both them and us. The more frequent the occurrence of these events, the stronger the association of the timing will be (Montemayor P42).

The other theory which Montemayor gives is a “semi-hybrid clock.” (Montemayor P43). With the semi-hybrid clock, which is dependent on an “episodic like memory” (Montemayor P43). This is different than the phased based memory because with the episodic like memory living creature stores all kinds of memory in with the timing, and they have access to that memory at any time. This allows them to do things like get their food, so they can survive.

The innate connection to these clock systems is something which shows that time exists and is an intrinsic feature within all of us. If we cannot explain it in words without a language that has a proper tense to represent all three phases of time, it does not mean time is unreal, it just means our understanding, and the use of language in itself, is inadequate for an exact understanding.

What the animals would be using is when it comes to time modulation would be what Montemayor calls the early stages of processing. In these early stages Montemayor argues that language has no influence in time perception. This goes to the most basic and fundamental aspects of survival, and Montemayor is arguing that the Whorfian Hypothesis does not affect these early stages. The fact that we can find them in animals, shows that they exist, and that human reality, and the reality of linguistic relativity, is nothing but a perception, and perception is about probability and speculation, not necessarily reality, but a perception of reality.

In Chapter 3 of Montemayor’s book on Minding Time, Montemayor shows the representations that nonlinguistic animals take. In this chapter Montemayor shows that “belief-like representations that ground beliefs about duration in humans need not depend on linguistic capacities” (Montemayor P57). Montemayor is showing how “minimalist approach,” proposed by J.L. Bermudez, states that there are concepts of time representation which are not dependent on language, so animals that do not have the capacity of language, still have a perception of time. They do not have the propositional thought. Their thinking is context bound (Montemayor P57). The animals take the representational outputs, which are tied to their sensory-motor system, and are able to emulate the system. They use this innate talent of time within them to calculate when things will happen. This is about feeding behavior, sun-compass navigation, and other aspects which are necessary for survival. It is an innate feature they have, and they do not have a language capacity.

Montemayor goes onto explain how the circadian clock is found in mammals. This shows again that time is an aspect of nature which truly exists. Montemayor explains how one of the greatest achievements of biology was the finding of the suprachiasmatic nucleus. In the suprachiasmatic nucleus Carl Richter showed that the “hypothalamus of rats emulate rhythmic behaviors” (Montemayor P40). The hypothalamus is a part of the brain which is necessary for survival, and in this the suprachiasmatic nucleus is in sync with the circadian clock, so the circadian clock is an innate aspect of the biology of living organisms with a nervous system. This “regulates neurological functions” (Montemayor P40) in all animals, so time, and the circadian clock, are built within all life that has a nervous system. Montemayor goes onto explain how the circadian clock is even found in bacteria and fungi which have no nervous system. These are living creatures which do not even have thought, let alone linguistic thought!

Montemayor goes onto explain in Minding Time that there are other forms of clocks besides the circadian clock that is innate with life as well. The interval clock is a clock that is a “one-time” process. There are no rhythms or repetitious cycles to it. This is like a sand clock (Montemayor P19). It is a one-time measurement that tells when the task is up. This measurement is something which functions off of dopamine according to Montemayor. The interval clock is an accumulation process.

The stopwatch is a type of interval clock, and with the stopwatch, “it is a biological interval clock, neurologically instantiated in the brain” (Montemayor P46). The stopwatch is used on the short scale of timing from second to minutes. Montemayor writes how there still is not exact agreement on where the stopwatch is located in the brain. Montemayor tells how it could be located in a dense form of neurons, instead of just one area like the hypothalamus. Montemayor argues how the stopwatch has a deep significances and relation to attention. This is why it is about dopamine. It requires that the organism has a focus on a specific task. The stopwatch is required for attention to detail, which Montemayor points out would have evolved later than the circadian clock. The stopwatch requires a dense nervous system and is an aspect of living organism with it. Timing and attention to detail is something that even McTaggart would rely on when writing his thesis.

It is the linguistic of thought that time perception is influenced. Montemayor is arguing for a limited influence of language on time perception to the late stages of processing. These late stages of processing are what McTaggart was doing when he wrote The Unreality of Time. McTaggart was thinking and writing an essay to prove time was unreal all through late stages of processing in linguistics. This is why he was able to come up with a theory that completely denies the reality of time, yet he was relying on attention to detail and his ability to focus, which is heavily related to the nature of time itself.

McTaggart takes his perception, based on linguistic relativity, and applies it to everything! This shows nothing but an error of judgement because all he is pointing out is verb tenses, and it is the verb tenses that his whole theory rest on, which is not that strong of a foundation.

The problem with language is the ambiguity which is the fundamental part of each one of them. Especially English! The same word can have different meanings depending on which sentence it is used in. This is only a matter of semantics. What people say, and what other people interpret can always be different things as well. A good communicator will be able to give the best description of reality in a way that gets others to believe and see things the way they do. But when it comes down to language, it has uncertainty within it because we are all trying to give our best description of that which is truly beyond words: The Empirical World! Someone’s own language that they use is nothing but their own understanding of reality which is limited in its scope no matter who they are. We are all subjective beings, and we use language in a subjective way to give the best description of the universals, but the exact definitions of the universals are beyond the capacity of language.

To take the Whorfian Hypothesis and say that the mind is based in language has a lot of truth, but to say that those discerptions that we give of reality from language are not true because we can put them in the right syntax and semantical structure is erroneous. The mind in its very essence is nothing but a hermeneutic. It is a principle of interpretation, to confuse the conclusion that the mind comes through syntax and semantics with reality is giving too much power to the power of language. Montemayor writes how “Language is, by definition, a non-encapsulated system in the sense that it manipulates highly integrated information, susceptible to all forms of conceptual influences” (Montemayor P12). This is exactly what McTaggart is doing. He is manipulating information through language to come up with his own reality. In his reality time is unreal. This is nothing but a manipulation of information in late stages of cognition. There are no early forms of cognition in McTaggart’s paper. It is all about thinking backwards and coming up with a linguistic interpretation of reality.

Montemayor argues how the encapsulation of time becomes less accurate through complex cognition at later stages (Montemayor P29), and it is in complex cognition and linguistic relativity that McTaggart is tricking himself with. It is language which sets humans apart from other species I agree, but those other species share other characteristics with us that Montemayor points out all life has which is necessary for the survival of everything. Montemayor shows how the circadian clock is build into all life, and that an understanding of time is necessary for survival of all living creatures in order to preform tasks and stay alive. The circadian clock is built into all life, from complex to simple forms: bacteria to humans. Living creatures with dense nervous systems are able to perform tasks with high levels of detail that are based on the stopwatch and the dopamine in the brain. Montemayor shows how an innate relation to time is a necessary aspect of survival for all life. If time was unreal there should not be that much of a dependency on it. To say time is unreal because we can use language only reaffirms our limits, and the limits of language. If the circadian clock and the interval clock is something we can find in both humans and animals, and if the only thing which sets us apart is language, then how are we to deny time based on verb tenses alone? This is why I find McTaggart’s theory to be based in error. McTaggart is fooling himself on syntax and semantics using a strong sense of linguistic relativity.

 

 

 

Work Cited

Carlos Montemayor, Early and Late Time Perception, On a Narrow Scope of the Whorfian Hypothesis, @2013

Carlos Montemayor, Minding Time: A Philosophical and Theoretical Approach to the Psychology of Time, Leiden Boston @2013

John McTaggart Ellis McTaggart, The Unreality of Time

            @1908

 

let me be! just let me be!

beating this fever down on me!

let marrow fall to sooth pain,

don’t veer my simple dreams insane!

 

let me be! just let me be!

under God’s reign i’m still not free!

i just wish to be in peace,

let my Lord’s ancient hymns decease!

 

let me be! just let me be!

fade Apollo to dusk at sea.

set spirits free of law’s might,

and let night’s vision hold delight.

 

8/01/95

just with in the obscure schemes

of moments where i weave in and out

to disembodied soul,

clutter my grim sights insane,

while each wish will slowly disperse

to colored emotions portrayed in gray.

 

all my worries fall from love

to pity of the rich man’s pocket,

yet the think of me so sick

with concerns in shamed distain,

as cold rays of bitter sunshine

show their addictions so far from their dreams.

 

these yearnings will enhance urges

of times where i danced from the trees,

where i imagined all bliss,

and took breaths to sooth my pain,

yet my heart has been deflowered

so i’ve lost the airy hopes of a child.

 

In the article Bioethics and the Marginalization of Mental Illness, Janet Nelson argues that bioethics needs to tackle the mental illness problem in America. Nelson explains how bioethics has mostly neglected the field of mental health in recent years, but the need to take care of people who are underrepresented and cannot stand up for themselves nonetheless falls within its scope. This is why it is imperative for Nelson that bioethics addresses mental health crisis.

Nelson holds that one of the main premises of bioethics is the principle of autonomy. The principle of autonomy asserts the self-sufficiency and rights of the individual. Being self-sufficient and having rights is what it means to be autonomous. It means to be an individual that can make their own choices and take responsibility for those choices. Nelson claims that it was the principle of autonomy that first got the bioethicists into the mental health field back in the 60s and 70s because of how patient’s rights were at that time so limited. Doctors were given wide latitude in their care of patients, for example, in ordering treatments and confinement, and because the principle of autonomy had not played a guiding role in the practice of mental health, the patient had little choice if they were to seek treatment or not. People were just committed to hospitals for life, and there could be all kinds of things done to them against their will such as electroshock therapies and lobotomies. She explains how it was the bioethicists that came to rescue of these patients. It was the bioethicists who were able establishing the principle of autonomy in the mental health field. Establishing the principle of autonomy gave patients their much-needed rights.

Nelson explains how the bioethicists have mostly stayed out of the mental illness debate since the deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill because the principle of autonomy was fully established giving patients more rights than they once had, but Nelson proposes that there is a solution to mental illness that bioethics to work on today. This solution is to take on the social aspect of mental illness through stigma and religion.

Mental illness is a serios crisis in America. Nelson explains how by the year 2020 the majority of people who will be on disability will be on it for mental illness. Her approach to solving this problem is how bioethicists will address mental health through social and cultural aspects. Nelson tells how there are stigmas in society, some brought by religion, and some brought by the uneducated public, that the bioethicists need to be the ones to address.

She writes how historically religion has played a big part in the stigma of mental illness as well, but through religion people can get some relief. She tells how when people were crazy, they were seen as possessed by evil spirits, or there was some curse from God. This was one of the only explanations people had for mental illness at certain times in human history; therefore, a mental illness was a punishment from God. This means that when it comes to religion, and the religious, if you are mentally ill, you are evil in some way. This is a big problem with society, and it goes to the stigma of the individual. God is punishing someone if they are mentally ill. This makes it so people who are religious do not seek treatment, and they are not able to have any type of acceptance of themselves because it goes to a direct challenge of self-worth if God is punishing them for who they are.

Nelson then goes onto propose how through the morality of religion people can get such things as love and acceptance. Nelson argues one of the answers the bioethicists should seek is a religious solution to the mental health crisis. All religions speak of universal principles that are about helping each other. They are about “Loving thy neighbor,” or doing such things like volunteering in the community and showing compassion for those who are less fortunate. This is one of the social aspects of the bioethical approach that Nelson says should be taken. Nelson is arguing how people who are mentally ill should seek some type of religious solution for their mental illness because of the universal principles that Christianity preaches.

The other social aspect that the bioethicists should take on is stigma according to Nelson. In society there are all kinds of misconceptions about what mental illness is, and such things as how dangerous mentally ill people are. Some people have the notion that they are going to be attached by people that are mentally ill, so people who are insane are dangerous. The overwhelming majority of people who are mentally ill are not violent. This is a total misconception, and no one wants to be labeled with this stigma. Misconceptions such as these give a direct threat to someone’s self-worth.

Nelson explains how these misconceptions of mental illness make it so people are less likely to seek treatment because of how society judges people who are taken as mentally ill. There is misinformation, and this misinformation gets people to not want to address the problems that they have. No one wants to think they are defective because that challenges their self-worth; therefore, people do not seek treatment, and when they do not seek treatment they suffer even more.

My problem with Nelson’s idea is having the bioethicist approach the individual suffering from mental illness and trying to relate to them through religious issues. I agree there is a stigma that needs to be overcome in the communities, but to have the bioethicists approach the individuals suffering from mental illness and have some type of proselytization would just make the situation worse. The sufferer’s relief cannot be contingent upon their spiritual beliefs. Making their relief contingent on their own spiritual beliefs just impose even more of a burden on the sufferer’s already trouble mind. They will be thinking there is a motive of the bioethicist besides just what is ethical, and what is truly ethical is for the bioethicists to do their very best to relieve the burden of the sufferer for no other reason than they are suffering. It is the bioethicist that needs to take the religious principles and apply them to themselves in a way that will abate the minds of the mentally ill people. The bioethicist will do this by practicing the principles of Christianity themselves.

The reason the bioethicists needs to be the ones the practice the Christian principles is because the bioethicists are the ones who are claiming to be virtuous, and as Socrates said, “Virtue is another branch of knowledge, to know is to do.” The bioethicists are the ones who are claiming to have the ethical solution, and the way the bioethicist should do this is by advocating for laws and political policies which will destigmatize mental illness and make such things as treatments more acceptable and more affordable through legislation.

The principles of any religion comes down to common sense. They are simple premises which just need to be practiced and fulfilled. The problem is getting people to truly understand what the scriptures say, and then practice and fulfill those scriptures. It is the virtuous who are the ones who will understand the true meaning of the scriptures and be willing to apply those principles to their life. Once they apply the true meaning to the foundations of their life, they will abate the suffering of the mentally ill. They will be able to apply those principles to the people’s lives around them. The bioethicists have a unique opportunity because they are the ones who claim to have the virtues and understanding of what actions are virtuous. They are the ones who have a true understanding of what is ethical, and by understanding what is ethical, they can take those religious principles of Christianity and help abate the sufferer’s mental illness.

Jesus states clearly in Mathew 25 36-40 how it is we should treat each other in any situation:

 36 Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.

37 Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink?

38 When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee?

39 Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee?

40 And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.

It is these verses which should be the guide of the bioethicists. It is these premises which tell us all how to treat each other. These verses clearly state that when someone is in need, it is our duty to help them. Nowhere in these verses does the King Jesus say the help we give one of our brothers depends upon their beliefs, or who’s God they are worshiping. Jesus does not say there is anything contingent our brothers need to be able to do in order for us to give them this help. It is up the bioethicists to practice these principles. It is up to the bioethicist to make sure their neighbor’s sickness is taken care of just like Jesus says should happen. For if we deny one of our brother’s help for their sickness, then we are denying Jesus! That is what it clearly states in this passage, and nowhere in these verses is the faith of one of our brothers brought up. That is why it is up to the bioethicists to practice these Christian principles, and the faith of the sufferer should not be a factor in any way!

If the faith of the sufferer is a factor, it will cause all kinds of complications. People who are mentally ill already have complications of perception, and if they feel as though the help they are going to be getting is dependent upon anything besides just the fact that they are suffering, it will trouble their minds even more. The best way to convert another to what a true solution is, is not proselytize, but just live by example. When people are known for doing the right thing, others will want what they have. If Nelson truly thinks Christianity is the solution, then just live by example! That example is to take on the problem of mental illness through the foundations of American society, which are the government policies!

The way the bioethicists should take on the mental health crisis in America is confronting the ones who have the capacity to fix the problem in the best and most efficient way. The ones who have this capacity are the politicians. The politicians can put forth legislation which will make mental health a priority in America. The politicians can even provide funding for treatments and make those treatments more affordable.

Regan was one of the main politicians that talked about the welfare Queen. This political myth made it so lots of funds were cut, and a lot those people who were in the institutions that the bioethicists played a role in getting rid of, are now homeless. If bioethics is going to make a dent in mental health crisis, they need to address the funding through politics. This is the main goal. The stigma is not just about the population’s misconception, but it is about the politicians and how they misinform the population about what it means to be mentally ill.

Regan clearly misinformed America when he created the myth of the Welfare Queen. This was a myth that goes directly against the verses in Mathew.  To counter this myth means the bioethicists need to approach the monetary aspect through government policies. As is clearly stated in Timothy 6:10 in the Bible “The love of money is the root of all evil.” By demonizing the people on government assistance, people who truly did not have the ability to care for themselves completely, Regan was able to take those funds and turn them back into tax cuts of the 1%. Since Regan a lot of the stigma about illnesses of all kinds apply to someone’s sense of self-worth. Nelson explains about how with these stigmas we demonize other people. This is something Regan clearly did, and it is something all politicians have been willing to participate in since then because they saw how it worked. The bioethicists need to be the ones who take this on. They need to take it on in how Jesus commanded in Mathew. If Nelson wants to abate the stigma, and make it so mental health is treatable, she needs to see how it is the bioethicists who need to step up and be the chief advocates for laws and policies which will make treatments more affordable and more acceptable, and not to have that money redirected to other’s pockets, but put into funding which will abate the crisis.

It would be an impossible task for Nelson to get all the Christians in this country to practice what Christ taught. Let people go to church, but if we truly want change in the mental health field, it needs to be address through the politicians not the ethical standards of religion. The religious principles Nelson is writing about are universal but have never been practiced or understood all that well. What needs to happen is the bioethicists have to pressure the politicians on their political views. This can be done with things like laws that will lower the price of prescription drugs.

Another big part of the problem of treatment is the access to medications and the doctors which prescribe them. Saphris is a medication which is an anti-psychotic. It blocks the dopamine in the brain from getting to high. It is a D2 receptor site blocker. One of the problems with people who are psychotic is that their dopamine in their brain can be too high. It makes them delusional and can give them hallucinations. Saphris is a medication which keeps this from happening.

The problem with Saphris is how expensive it is, and most people who need a drug like Saphris are not autonomous individuals. They need the treatments, and the treatments are expensive. A 90-day prescription for Saphris without insurance is $2400.00 for the lowest dose, and the copayment with insurance for a three-month supply is approximately $300.00. In America we have an insurance system, even with the ACA, that is mainly employer based. That means in order for most people to get any type of medication, they need to be able to be self-supporting and autonomous to begin with.

If a patient is psychotic, they most likely will not be able to support themselves and hold down a job. Then we have medications, which are extremely cheap to make, whom the companies who make them do not do the research to create them, sell them for extremely high prices, and some of the medications that cost the most are medications which are for the mentally ill.

The bioethicists need to be the ones to advocate to the politicians in order to make drugs like Saphris more affordable. These drugs cost pennies to make yet are sold at an extremely unaffordable price. What could be done is just put taxes on the medications if they are sold at too high of a price. Congress has the power of taxation! “The power to tax is the power to destroy!” as the great Justice John Marshal said himself. There could be a law that makes so if the price is to high, then the company would not get any profit. The government would receive the full price! This would force the hand of the companies who make them to sell them at more affordable pricing. There could even be laws which would make it so all drugs are able to be sold as generic. This would reduce the pricing dramatically.

There also needs to be other legislation which opens up healthcare access to the mentally ill. It is not just the medication, but the clinics and the doctors which prescribe those treatments. The bioethicists need to be the chief advocators to get this type of funding passed through congress. These would be some of the first steps of what it would truly mean for the bioethicists to practice the virtues Jesus taught! “Or saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee.” This is what it truly means for the bioethicists to practice what is virtuous!

In the midterm elections of 2018 according to an article in Forbes written by Robert Pearl MD, Healthcare is the No. 1 Issue for Voters; A New Poll Reveals Which Issues Matter Most prescription drug prices are the number one issue. 58% of voters are more concerned with the ability to afford their medication. It is essential for the bioethicists to tackle this problem. The country is feeling it all around, and with the mentally ill, a lot of them do not have the advocacy for themselves that is necessary for them to live those autonomous lives. They need help. This help is something the virtuous cannot deny another who is suffering.

Nelson even explains about how the mentally ill are not really represented well in society, but the only way we are going to be able address this mental illness is through the funding and legislation. Stigma is a big problem, but the stigma is about being a self-supporting and self-sufficient individual. With appropriate treatments these people can become self-supporting and self-sufficient. That is what it means to truly have the principle of autonomy. With treatment people who are mentally ill can be autonomous, and they do not need to be institutionalized! But there needs to be legislation and funding which allows people who are mentally ill to afford treatment so that that autonomy can be reached for them.

No one enjoys government assistance. The government makes it so that if you are on it, you cannot do anything else. The minimum that people get is what they get just to survive, and with the mental health crisis the people truly have no choice. I was on SSDI for 15 year, and I was on it for mental health reasons. I did not get denied once with my disabilities. I was locked up and confined over and over, but today I am a productive member of society. They reason I am a productive member of society is because I have been able to overcome my disorders. What I truly want is anyone who is suffering from mental illness to the desperate point I was have the resources to overcome their mental illness and lead autonomous lives. This is what it truly means to be ethical. It means to love thy neighbor for no other reason than they are thy neighbor, and when one is sick and suffering, no matter who they are, they need to be helped. I was able to get help, and now I do accounting. I am autonomous in the bioethicist’s eyes. If we help people and give them a way out, they will be able to practice the principle of autonomy that Nelson holds so dear.

If the principle of autonomy is truly precious to the bioethicist, then they need to take on the politicians so that laws are passed for more affordable medications, and more types of treatment centers. Giving these people treatments is the only way they will be able to become autonomous in any way. The stigma Nelson is talking about is the problem, but she is saying it is just the misinformation of the social issue with the religious aspect. It is the politicians which have exploited these issues, and if bioethics is truly wanting to do something ethical, then the bioethicists need to take on the politicians, and have the politicians destigmatize mental illness. The bioethicists are the virtuous ones, and the only true way to be virtuous is to practice the principles that are laid out in Mathew, for when someone truly knows, then they will take the right action, and this is why the burden is on the bioethicists to be the chief advocator for the mentally ill in the American society, so the mentally ill will be able to live happy and autonomous lives.

 

 

Work Cited

Holy Bible – King James Version

Robbin, Leon, Greek Thought and the Origins of the Scientific Spirit

            @1996 Routledge

Pearl, Robert, Healthcare is the No.1Issue for Voters; A New Poll Reveals Which Healthcare Issue Matter Most,

https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertpearl/2018/08/13/midterms/#7f25ab153667

Forbes 10/26/18

 

THAT MIGHT BE ME i HATE

 

i recall his swing

as my blood flew,

screams in the night

while hatred grew.

 

with bottle in hand

he still must drink,

cast aside

as my heart does sink.

 

in silence alone

i did so weep,

with all our tears

in sorrows deep.

 

and upon his leave

i still do cry,

from this man

whom i wish would die.

 

for along these years

flow swiftly by,

his thought in mind

will gently pry.

 

so thinking of him

others do see,

him in this picture of only me.

 

a downward fall I seem to concede,

with all this Rage my soul does bleed!

 

for within this life’s unlawful fate,

i might just be

that man i hate.

 

05/18/94

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