Re:Bruce McEwen, who found stress can alter the brain, has died
by coldtea on Wednesday February 12, 2020 @07:55AM
(#22308389)
>Emotional stress is biological stress unless you believe in an extreme form of cartesian dualism incompatible with modern understanding of physiology.
Not necessarily.
You can believe in the "modern understanding of physiology" and still think that "Emotional stress" is a "thinking" process that does not affect biological physiology.
It's not necessary that every emotion or brain process manifests in any other way aside from brain synapses firing and so on (e.g. that it affects the bodily operations in some other way).
So, it's not an either-or, but 3 options:
1) cartesian dualism (emotion and biology are two different spheres, soul independent of the body etc)
2) emotional stress triggers biological stress
3) emotional stress remains a brain process and doesn't trigger biological stress
And the case is probably sometimes (2) and sometimes (3).
Not necessarily.
You can believe in the "modern understanding of physiology" and still think that "Emotional stress" is a "thinking" process that does not affect biological physiology.
It's not necessary that every emotion or brain process manifests in any other way aside from brain synapses firing and so on (e.g. that it affects the bodily operations in some other way).
So, it's not an either-or, but 3 options:
1) cartesian dualism (emotion and biology are two different spheres, soul independent of the body etc)
2) emotional stress triggers biological stress
3) emotional stress remains a brain process and doesn't trigger biological stress
And the case is probably sometimes (2) and sometimes (3).