MOODS RULE. Want solutions? Change moods

MOODS SIN. But Free Will Can Act On Moods, By Acting On Circumstances (29th February 2024, thanks Julius Caesar!… for creating in 46 BCE the 29th every 4 years…)

Soljenitsin observed that there is a divide inside minds, that one could not talk of bad and good people. “The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either — but right through every human heart — and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. And even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained”

― Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago 1918–1956

The theme is old, it’s the story of the evil, bad, good and better angels (the Bible is full of specialized angels of all sorts). Catholicism then insisted that sinners can be saved by grace, etc. So the claim of divided hearts is ancient, very Catholic and… completely unhelpful. That a small bridgehead of good remained inside Hitler, Doctor Mengele, Heydrich, Goering or their ilk is irrelevant: those sinners should have been killed immediately, that was how to negotiate with them. Actually Goering, the only one of those sinners who was judged, had nothing to say for his defense, except, like Socrates, that he didn’t know anything. Never heard of an extermination camp, got very distressed, so Goering posed, when a movies was shown with grotesque extermination camp horrors in full evidence. Called that movie “awful”.

The effective truth then is different from the all too Christian perspective of Soljenitsyne.

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The Brain Is A High Dimensional Chemical Aquarium, A Space-Time Of Moods: 

A mood is a cocktail of neurohormonal states in various proportions, from different organs within the brain, ensured by some of the various brain generated chemicals hanging around.
The number of neurohormones, neurotransmitters, and related signaling molecules in the human body is vast and continually expanding as research progresses. Some such as NO were long unknown, because their influence last only seconds. However, one can provide an overview of some of the most well-known and extensively studied ones:

Neurotransmitters: Acetylcholine, Dopamine, Serotonin, Norepinephrine (noradrenaline), Epinephrine adrenaline), Glutamate, Gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), Histamine, Endorphins, Substance P, Glycine, Oxytocin (love hormone),

Neurohormones: Cortisol, Adrenaline (epinephrine), Noradrenaline (norepinephrine), Dopamine, Serotonin, Melatonin, Oxytocin, Vasopressin, Growth hormone-releasing hormone (GHRH), Growth hormone-inhibiting hormone (GHIH or somatostatin), Thyrotropin-releasing hormone (TRH), Gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH),

Neuromodulators: Nitric oxide (NO), Adenosine, Prostaglandins, Endocannabinoids, Neuropeptide Y
Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), Insulin, Leptin, Glucagon, Gastrin
Others: Cytokines (some act as neuromodulators)
Growth factors (e.g., nerve growth factor, insulin-like growth factor)
Steroid hormones (e.g., testosterone, estrogen, progesterone)
This list is by no means exhaustive, and new molecules continue to be discovered and studied in the field of neuroscience and endocrinology. Additionally, many of these molecules can have multiple roles and functions within the body, contributing to the complexity of neural and hormonal signaling.

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Brains  follow different laws according to the moods they are put in:

A person in one mood is a different person from the same person in a different mood. Moods can bring what is legally described as “temporary insanity”. That’s why people are told not to get angry, and why now the law punishes moods such as hate, and the related “hate crimes”.  So mood, not just people, are now accused as “moral” or at least “legal” persons. Just as one should not drive under the influence of some subtances, one should not lead one’s life under the influence of some moods. Or, at least, if one has a pretense of self-examination one should not live without knowing under which mood one is living. Especially when some of these moods, jealousy, envy, hate, vengeance can be dangerous to have around.

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Different Moods, Different Logics:

One mood is the struggle for life mentality, or, rather, mind seizure. In this case the brain goes into ultimate emergency mode (all motor neurons can act together, giving one supernatural strength… I had the “luck” to experience that in Chamonix). It happened in gas chambers, people clawed at each other without any human consideration whatsoever. Zondern Kommando (typically made of Jews) described this. It was the ultimate humiliation… for humanity. 

So there is a happy mood, a love mood, a concerned mood, a professional mood, a happy-go-lucky mood… But there are also moods for tough situations: apocalyptic mood, hate mood, panic mood, fight or flight mood, etc.

How does one get into these moods? The environment… But the individual controls some of her or his environment. For example, when Nietzsche saw Wagner engage in the antisemitic mood, Nietzsche could see that it was a one way street down the road of increasing ferocity, and Nietzsche had to dissociate himself and publicly condemn… which he did in Nietzsche Contra Wagner. Other example: Hitler was submitted to heavy bombardment and shooting from the French and ultimately gas. All his comrades died. That built in him an inextinguishable hate, which gave greater depth and murderous intensity to the hate he already had against Jews… The end result was a man full of hate… who felt, and thus believed, that France was controlled by Jews.

Same thing with Putin. He was going to make a splendid career in the magnificent USSR, when, “greatest tragedy of the 20th century” (he said) the USSR collapsed. Not only that, but to become Russian president, he had to do unspeakable things, including a ferocious semi-genocidal war in Chechnya. That Putin had to become a mass murder perpetrator to save Russia added to his fury and desire of vengeance. 

When someone is deep in a different mood, the brain changes operations completely. Any solo climber knows it. In that case it’s described as total concentration. The point is that a mood, especially one involving survival, can muster all of the brain: there is no activity of the rest… of the brain. 

Now when one person spends years in a particular mood, the brain probably modifies itself. 

Verdict: Moods, rather then detailled reasons, are what wisdom should target. And that means the circumstances which lead to these moods. If, for example, a religion hates Jews, one can’t just try to separate Jewish haters from Jews. Instead one had to terminate the Jew-hating religion. Other examples: after WW1 lethal racism and war crimes on part of the German army were forgiven (the war criminals were not hanged). So the sinners were forgiven. But that only reinforced the notion that moods such as racism, tribalism, warcrimemism, invasionism, imperialism, German superiority, etc. were so good that they were above any suspicion. Thus they all reappeared in a neat package called Nazism. Instead what had to be done was done in 1945: Nazism was outlawed. 

Still another example: Socrates’ I don’t know nothing mood, or Kant/Prussian obedience-uber-Alles mood… have to be outlawed in democracy… “Woke”, “Me-too” and eco-fanaticism are also moods targeting racism, sexism, and eco-vandalism.

 

What does this painting (Scream version 4′) represent? The mood of the scream. An excerpt from Edvard Munch’s diary gives us some insight. On 22 January 1892, he wrote these lines:

I was walking along the road with two 
friends – then the sun went down 
Suddenly the sky turned blood-red 
– and I felt a breath of melancholy – an exhausting pain 
under my heart – I paused, leaning against the fence, tired to death – above the blue-black fjord and city there was blood in tongues of fire 
My friends went on and I stood
there trembling with anxiety –
and I felt that a great infinite scream went through nature

… Nature caused the scream… I emote, thus I scream, then I think.

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An example of weird, seven century old mood: Kremlinism, the mood, since Alexander Nevsky, that ruthless imperial authoritarianism is best for Russia, rose for understandable historical reasons… collaborating with the Mongols and other savages, and beating them at their own game. However increasingly the “savages” turned out to have been civilized, arguably more civilized than the masters of the Kremlin.

So to beat that mood, one has to beat Putin at his own perverse interpretation of history, which he uses to justify his vengeful mood.

In the middle east, the change of moods has to be from viewing Jews as creatures to be killed before the Final Judgment (as some of the most prestigious Hadiths have it) to a mood where Israel is seen as an asset (be it only because of its different way of thinking and its great achievement in tech)

When some people are depressed, a good electric current can cure them. I used to view that as barbaric. A friend in math at Berkeley was adamant that I was wrong. He finally fessed up. Turns out that he had been severely depressed, near suicidal and electrotherapy cured him. He pursued later a full life with spouse, children and a prestigious career in one of the world’s most famous companies (hint: it helped Hitler). 

How does electrotherapy works? Nobody knows for sure. I would suggest electrotherapy changes the mood machinery. It fries the old, erroneous mood. When the great mountaineer Walter Bonatti was deeply depressed, he self-diagnosed and went on a semi-suicidal first ascent, solo, the Bonatti pillar, in an attempt towrds a shock therapy. He nearly died at some point… And that cured his depression…    

Democracy brings the democratic mood: every person thinks as independently as possible. hence intellectual creativity. Political fascism brings intellectual fascism: everybody tries to think like the leader, the one and only mind. Hence an intellectual desert.

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Traditional rationality fails because it ignores moods. Minds don’t ignore moods. Many apparently “irrational” acts are motivated by a highly rational calculus of moods. Moods are meta to logic. Any logic has a meta… This is pure logic [1].

Want solutions? Change moods

Patrice Ayme

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[1] Meta-logical arguments are encountered even in the most basic mathematical logic such as Godel incompleteness…

Tags: Hate, Moods, Solutions