Maybe Our Outlook on Life and the World Is Determined by a Series of Biochemical Reactions
The mind of the past cannot be grasped; the mind of the present cannot be grasped; the mind of the future cannot be grasped.
— Diamond Sutra
If one day bio-neurology advances to the point where the psychology and philosophy that we moderns so enjoy seem as absurd as witchcraft, I will not be at all surprised.
Because, once we have seen with our own eyes how drugs such as lithium carbonate, chlorpromazine tablets, olanzapine tablets, and carbamazepine tablets rapidly transform a bipolar patient from an extreme thinker into a calm-minded person, we cannot help but exclaim: what human cognition most needs is not ideological persuasion or moral preaching, but drug regulation of neurotransmitters.
What determines a person's cognition is not necessarily his education or environment, but a certain gene he has inherited and the various neurotransmitters that gene brings. Popular notions of a person being "high-cognition" or "low-cognition" are pseudoscientific concepts manufactured by the ignorant, and after their birth they produced new forms of social discrimination, whose targets are mostly patients with neurological or mental illness.
In fact, neurotransmitters play a decisive role in human cognition. Oxytocin and antidiuretic hormone make it easier to build trusting, dependent relationships and enhance one's capacity to love; serotonin and dopamine make a person more sunny, confident, positive, and optimistic; people with high testosterone are more aggressive and hold more extreme views; the stress hormone cortisol suppresses the dopamine reward system, making a person gloomy, more pessimistic about problems, and more prone to blaming family. The difference between the writing styles of Su Shi and Du Fu may simply be determined by their different neurotransmitters.
None of the above can be changed by free will. The formation of any personality is inseparably tied to the neurotransmitters in one's body. We habitually assume that mentally ill patients have a cognitive problem, but this idea may be entirely wrong. Many bipolar patients, when emotionally stable, reason more rationally and calmly than normal people. But during an episode, their brain is as if hijacked, involuntarily plunged into madness and depression. The moment oppressive emotion arises, the patient's neurotransmitters change greatly, and his thoughts become very different from usual.
Drugs are addictive precisely because they briefly alter the body's biochemical reactions, producing euphoria and making one more positive. The psychiatrist Freud himself used drugs for a long time; in an 1895 article describing his experience of cocaine, he said the pleasure from cocaine was not significantly different from the good feeling obtained in normal ways.
But the human body is a highly complex system, and the biochemical reactions inside it are constantly changing. The reactions in our body at one moment may be completely different from those at another. So a person's outlook on life and the world may be changing all the time; we often pride ourselves on being people of firm conviction, but this cognition may be just an illusion of feeling good about ourselves. More commonly, people often feel "today I am right and yesterday I was wrong"; our cognition changes at any time, because our body's biochemistry is always changing. The Buddha observed this more than two thousand years ago, which is why he said: "The mind of the past cannot be grasped; the mind of the present cannot be grasped; the mind of the future cannot be grasped."
External stimuli cause changes in the body's biochemistry. For example, when we fall in love, dopamine and endorphins surge, bringing euphoria. But this euphoria means different things to different people. Some mentally ill patients—such as those with bipolar disorder (manic-depression) or borderline personality disorder—may trigger catastrophic consequences under this euphoric stimulation, because it pushes their already unstable emotions into even greater swings, sometimes even inducing violence, self-harm, or suicide.
Interactions between people also trigger a series of biochemical reactions, because our nervous system gives us strong imitation ability. Being around positive, optimistic people, we are more easily infected by optimism and secrete more serotonin and dopamine, producing more well-being; being around negative, pessimistic people, we easily catch their gloomy mood and lose happiness. Living things seem to have an instinct: gloomy people subconsciously know that well-being is contagious, so they seek out emotionally stable, positive, humorous companions, because such partners can improve or even cure their depression.
Science will eventually further reveal the biological principles behind people's outlook on life and the world, eliminating outdated theories and thereby reshaping humanity's overall cognition, just as the geocentric theory was overthrown. Many books and courses from today's spiritual teachers may ultimately be swept into the dustbin of history, discarded as outdated and wrong. So do not be overly superstitious about any popular idea; we must pursue in evidence-based ways the knowledge and experience that can truly help us.
If we often cannot feel joy and calm, it is mostly our neurotransmitters at work. Do not fight your body, do not tough it out; seek psychiatric care in time, and take medication when it is indicated. About 20% of people have a mental or neurological illness, and almost everyone experiences transient mental or neurological problems multiple times in life. Heartbreak, bereavement, major trauma, unemployment, bankruptcy, exam failure, and so on can all trigger such episodes. Mental illness is like physical illness—a physiological illness anyone can get; having a mental illness is nothing to be ashamed of but one of life's unavoidable misfortunes.
Nowadays I see many ignorant opinion leaders criticizing personality problems that are obviously pathological mental illnesses. In fact, such patients' behavior is beyond the control of their subjective will; the vast majority of patients I have encountered do not want to behave in ways that harm their families. They often feel ashamed of their uncontrollable harmful or self-harming acts, and this shame has become one of their main oppressive emotions.
Yet many in our society still insist on judging these phenomena from a moral rather than a scientific standpoint. This is undoubtedly a cruel act against the humanitarian spirit, and it objectively raises the suicide rate among such patients.
To change this—to eliminate patients' stigma, eliminate public prejudice against mental illness, and give them more scientific, standardized, and effective treatment—we still need much popular science, to raise public scientific literacy and build a more inclusive social environment.