Biology vs. Insanity

I believe our biology has all the answers for what we now call mental health problems. Contrary to what we now perceive, these answers are amazingly straightforward and clear. This is because the path to optimizing the human mammal's personality is laid out for us by the dictates of our biology. 

Historically we have made up arbitrary notions of what constitutes mental health and we work backwards trying to "help" people comply to these ideals. However, the human mammal comes fully equipped to engage in a direct experience with his environment by analyzing information and make predictions moment to moment in ways that make sense to his unique senses, thoughts, instincts, and behaviors. 
  
We can only analyze how we can analyze according to our 100 percent unique nervous system that includes billions of interactions per thought. We cannot replicate how somebody else processes and analyzes information when there are billions of interactions going on in our nervous system every second.  When we have to conform or comply to achieve behavioral or personality ideals because they make sense to others or to standards, our personalities cannot engage inside of us the way they are suppose to. The reason we see the so called personality disorders in our society is because we are all forced to engage in the world in ways that make sense to other people and/or the standards in vogue.  

Some people manage to adapt to this backwards orientation, some people simply cannot do this, thus seem "disordered." Furthermore, we are wired to protect how we analyze with every cell of our body and brain. The true cause of all kinds of insanity, I am convinced, occurs when people are forced to engage in the world in ways that make zero sense from their vantage point. They are literally forced to operate blind in many ways. They either suffer constant humiliation for how they think and act in the world because it is so different than the people around them, or slip into an alternate reality (insanity) in which they can have control over how they interpret. 

Our Biology Does Not Get In Our Way, It Shows Us The Way.

I propose the working definition of the human personality is simply the manifestation of how each human being analyzes information and makes predictions in ways that make sense to the coordinated efforts of his or her unique sensory, motor, and nervous systems. Each human can only analyze how they are able to analyze. Trying to shape humans to think and behave within parameters arbitrarily set as normal to maximize their life success only serves to confuse, undermine, and severely damage his or her finely tuned and precisely calibrated personality.

Currently, all research on the human personality relies loosely upon the cutting and pasting of the 8 existing theories of personality, all of them psychologically and philosophically based, none of them mutually agreed upon or utilized, and all of them scientifically invalidated completely or partially. All psychological and psychiatric research to date cannot be valid when every researcher has used his or her own personal interpretation of what the human personality actually is and/or does.

If we understand that a human is simply how he or she analyzes and we re-remember the premise that  humans are created to be  biologically functional creatures like all other organisms on the planet, then we can start to look at our biology in terms of its functionality. Currently we look at the human personality in terms of how it is "suppose" to function according to arbitrary psychologically and philosophically based norms.

It makes less than zero sense that in 2012 we identified 1 in 50 individuals between the ages of 6 and 17 as having autistic spectrum disorder. First of all, human mammals cannot come into the world with personalities that are disordered. This defies all biological logic. One way to look at this number is to say one in 50 individuals are coming into the world who analyze and understand information in ways that don't sync up with arbitrarily and subjectively defined and referenced norms.   Differences in how one analyses and understands information should not be used to define psychological disorders. Just because someone does not analyze and understand in typical ways does not mean they will end up happy and socially dysfunctional if not "taught" how to think and behave more normally.

The true purpose of establishing norms is to maximize the efficiency of organizing groups of people for any given endeavor, not for the purpose of  identifying psychological disorders. If we understand each human mammal comes into the world set up to maximize his or her ability to interact with his or her environment in ways that can make the most sense to his or her particular sensory, motor, and nervous systems,  then we will understand each human mammal is designed to be as successful as possible given his or her particular biology.

The process of speaking to any child or adult as if they are existing from a disordered place is the only true way to cause them  biological distress, unhappiness, anger, and/or violent rage. We, the "diagnosers," have no notion of what human perspective is since we were not allowed to develop our own unique perspectives naturally like we should have. Therefore, we see perspective as mutually shared and interpreted as opposed to completely unique to every individual human.

If follows, then, that individuals we call autistic  who interact with objects and people radically differently than we do would seem to us disordered and likely to end up unhappy and unfulfilled. We are trying to make sense of them through our eyes, our desires, and how interacting with our environment makes sense to us.  We don't try to look at them through their eyes and their unique perspectives and the unique ways in which their sensory, motor, and nervous systems allow them to analyze and understand information.  We don't do this for anybody, however. And this is our most basic human tragedy.

When we assume people will be happier and more functional if they think and behave like we do, or like a normative reference, then we sow the sees for addiction, depression, rage, violence, or worse. When our biologically based personality is not accepted as valid, no matter who we are, we suffer greatly. None of us can analyze and understand information in any other way than how we can analyze and understand it. Our personalities are the sum total of how we analyze and understand information, whether the information is social, mathematical, scientific, observational, literary, etc. We are nothing more and nothing less than a reflection of how we make sense of information. How we make sense of inromation Striving to achieve a normality that does not exist in nature and/or trying to compel other people to achieve it, is the single most destructive human dynamic, and in my opinion, the root cause of all human suffering.  We cannot solve our greatest societal problems until we  cease and desist in the attacks on our own biologically based personalities that were perfected for our use in the womb. When how we analyze information is second guessed or deemed disordered, our physiology is wired to hide or attack. All of our so called personality  disorders are based in humans withdrawing or attacking. Our biology doesn't get in our way, it shows us the way.

The Biology of Human Perspective

When we are in the womb, dividing and becoming a human infant, we develop eyes, ears, nose, skin, and neural pathways that interconnect these sense organs to our brain.  We are fine tuned in the womb to come out able to use our senses to know how to survive in the world at each developmental level using our particular and unique senses and brain.

Humans are comprised of billions upon billions to the billionth power of cells, with axons, dendrites, and neurons. Every piece of information we take in through our senses or our thoughts causes billions upon billions of interactions to occur throughout our sensory motor system to allow us to interpret that information and make a prediction about it.

 The organs in our bodies work symbiotically with our brain for the ultimate reason of allowing us to make predictions. Another way to describe the human personality is as a prediction generator. We are organisms of prediction. Predictions are how we exist moment to moment. Predictions we make frequently, like how far to tip a glass into our mouths while drinking, or how to type without looking at the keys, are the kinds of predictions that get filed into our brains and become almost automatic and effortless. 

          It is my belief that the sole purpose of human biology and the biology of all species is to fine tune an organisms ability to make predictions. Reproduction takes care of itself in the same way that digestion, elimination, circulation, and sensing does. The only active role a human organism has, or any organism has, is that of prediction. If you sit and think about what a human does, and distill the activities down to their origin, you will find that they all start with a prediction for what to do next. Once we make the prediction, our nervous system takes care of the rest.

     If we stop predicting, we cease eating, reproducing, moving, etc. Our sole job as human beings is to make predictions moment to moment about what to do next.

The magnitude of how differently each human's billions to the billionth power of cells process sensory information in order to interpret it and make predictions about what to do next is a concept one could ponder forever and never quite understand the ramifications.

Every single human being speaks a completely unique language. We share words in common if we grew up in America, but there isn't a word, object, experience, or concept, that any two people could possibly interpret exactly the same way. We simply cannot come close to replicating how billions upon billions upon billions upon billions of interactions occur in another person..... Each one of us interprets the world and makes predictions utterly and totally uniquely......

This is what perspective is all about. We all have a perspective that is one hundred percent unique to us. When we walk in a room and expect people to interpret what is going on like we do and hold them accountable to do so by becoming irritated or angry when they don't, we are existing as if everyone has the same perspective as we do or should have the same perspective as we do.  

Understanding when two people are in a room, that room can feel like two completely different universes to those two people is essential to relationship and societal harmony.  One person making an assumption about how the other person should think or feel or behave based on how they think or feel is like saying the Pacific Ocean should sync up with the Atlantic Ocean so the water and the waves move exactly at the same speed and direction. 

Ironically, understanding how overwhelmingly complex, unique, and utterly different every human being is allows for complete effortlessness in communicating and interrelating with other humans.  Assuming common ground that doesn't exist makes for communication that is confusing, contentious, and painful.  Assuming there is no common ground, and knowing the person to whom you are communicating with knows this, frees you both up to create an interaction you can both participate in equally. 

Understanding there is no common ground makes everybody equal and equally responsible for creating calm and mutually agreed upon interactions.  Understanding no two people think about time, space, concepts, sensory input, etc. exactly the same causes you to listen to people differently than when you assumed they had lots of common interpretations as you.  Even similar interpretations between two people are vastly different. 

The definition of autism is more or less individuals who can think from their own perspective only. Funny thing is, this is the definition of all humans beings. If we come to understand perspective as 100 percent unique to every human, we will stop diagnosing 1 in 80 children as on the autistic spectrum.  This is one ramification of many that can potentially occur.  Children with autism tend to have only one way to understand any one concept or idea or experience. Often they understand concepts in atypical ways that don't sync up with their parents or teachers or peers.  When we try to persuade them to think differently, they feel threatened and attacked and exhibit "bad" or wild behavior. This behavior is why they get labeled. If we knew how to speak to them in ways that didn't make them feel wrong or defensive, their behavior would be fine. This is true of all people. As soon as we feel wrong or defensive about our predictions, our biology feels threatened and attacked. We have all had to adapt to feeling constantly threatened and attacked.  Some people are better than others at managing their biological reactions to being attacked for their predictions, but nobody should have to manage this sort of biological chaos and breakdown on a daily basis. 

We can change the world by understanding how to stop putting our biologies under siege every moment of every day.