What Do the Personal Brain Specialists Recommend?

Dr. George Dawson’s post “The Freak Show” reminded me of how coarse and cruel we can be to each other, even when we’re not aware of it. Maybe I should say especially when we’re not aware of it. Dr. Dawson emphasizes the importance of the empathic approach. In the same way, Dr. Moffic in the articles in his column, “Psychiatric Views on the News” draws attention to the need for a socially responsible way for us to relate to one another. The Goodenough Psychiatrist blog expresses poignantly the emotional and courageously humanistic ways we can (or could) relate to each other. Dr. Ronald Pies has highlighted the importance of how human interaction with artificial intelligence must help us find a way to treat each other with respect, and teach that to AI because AI learns from humans.

This reminds me of a character in the book “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” by Douglas Adams. The character is named Gag Halfrunt who is the personal brain specialist for a couple of other characters. In fact, he’s a psychiatrist who orders the destruction of planet Earth, which is a sort of computer program designed to give us the ultimate question to the ultimate answer for life, the universe, and everything. The reason Gag Halfrunt wants to destroy Earth is, if the ultimate question is revealed, it would put psychiatrists out of work because then everyone would be happy.

Just as a personal comment, I’m pretty unhappy with the author’s position on psychiatrists in general, which tends to overemphasize our importance. And I’m pretty sure psychiatrists are not that important, having been employed as one for many years and seeing how much impact of any kind we have. We can’t make people more or less happy at all.

In fact, Adams also takes a shot at philosophers, who are also upset at being thrown out of work should the ultimate question to the ultimate answer be revealed (the ultimate answer, by the way, is 42 if you’re interested).

Giving psychiatrists and philosophers and anyone else who might have a stake in taking credit for making people happy is nonsense. We all bear responsibility for ourselves. You can argue about whether or not we have any responsibility for each other.

Rather than arguing about it, we could give something else a try. We could try a mindfulness approach like the Lovingkindness Meditation. I’m not an authority or expert on this, but you can check it out on the Palouse Mindfulness website, the link to which is in the menu on my blog. You can find the link to the Lovingkindness Meditation there.

There is no guarantee the Lovingkindness Meditation will make you or anyone else happy. But it doesn’t hurt anything to try it and, as far as I know, Gag Halfrunt is not opposed to it.