One of the most interesting sections in the first few chapters of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? begins on page one, where the reader is first introduced to a device known as the Penfield mood organ. The mood organ gives users the ability to preprogram their emotions. The main character, Rick, uses his mood organ to help him wake up content in the morning and perform in a professional manner at work. Rick’s wife, Iran, also has a mood organ but she uses her organ in a much different way. Iran sets her moods organ to allow her to feel despair. Iran believes that feeling hopeless, even if it’s only twice a month, is reasonable since she still witnesses the things that would have made her sad but the emotion is blocked by the mood organ (Dick 5). Rick on the other hand, disagrees and tells her to change her setting for the day.
Iran brings up a good question about the use of the Penfield mood organ. If we had the ability to control or change our moods with an external force, should we? How does the ability to use the mood organ relate to the use of antidepressants?
I think this brings up a very good point about how we are as people. Things already exist that can change how we are feeling such as anti depressants. This is a double edge sword because generally anti depressants are seen as a good thing because they can help people overcome their depression. It can also be a problem though because some people will continue to use anti depressants and never try to get off of them for the rest of their life. For the people that will never get off of anti depressants this could be a big problem for them because it be a constant artificial emotion that is produced and interfere with the emotions that they should be feeling.
While we generally don’t like sadness or mourning sometimes it is very helpful for us to sit and mourn the death of loved ones. Emotions seem to be a tool that we as humans use in decision making and with modified emotions we would probably make modified decisions. While we also have things like logic to use for decision making sometimes logic can be immoral an not have the empathy that emotional thinking would.
Overall I think that while medicines to change an emotional state like anti depressants are helpful for people who might need external help for their mental well being, but we also have to be free sometimes. I think the ability to think freely is very helpful and sometimes we need it to reflect on ourselves and learn from ourselves. I also think that in order to do that we might have to do it without artificial emotions.
I agree with most of your statement, except the phrase “people who will never get off anti-depressants.” In my experience, it’s not always a choice to go on anti-depressants, and clinical depression results in a life long imbalance of hormones that govern your mood.
Yeah, that is a fair point. Some people can’t make that a choice and I forgot to mention these exceptions.
I am very convinced that experiencing sadness is an inherent part of being human. We all mourn and are sad at times, but this can lead to a better understanding of the nature of the world around us, and the transient state of our reality. Obviously with clinical Depression, when one cannot shake the feelings of despair, hopelessness, etc., it is absolutely valid to use antidepressants in order to be a functioning member of society. This doesn’t mean the user won’t feel sad in other situations, and medication shouldn’t necessarily be used to mask all emotions either. It’s a very fine line.
The idea of controlling ones emotions is a very interesting one. I agree in part with what Iran says, we need to experience sadness and grief and other negative emotions. Not only do they help contrast the positive emotions, which make them better, they help up comprehend our own existence. Sadness and grief help us process things like mortality and these let us treasure our lives more. But, there is a limit to it. Once we start to experience these negative emotions, we tend to dwell in them. They become easy to lay dormant in. A person can become trapped in them, and that’s what depression is. Depression is more than just feeling sad a lot. Depression will affect your motivation, energy and happiness.
I’ve been struggling with depression for a very long time. One thing that has always scared me about antidepressants is that is I am a little scared of the idea of chemically manipulating my emotions. That seems like a thing that will create a huge difference in how I go about my life, and I’m scared I may start middling out, not as many low lows, but not as many high highs. I would end up just floating through the middle, without even noticing its happening so I can’t stop it.