> > Point taken. But [...]
>
> I don't think you can say the point was taken if you then go on to repeat exactly what you said before people made that point. People have been telling you ADD and clinical depression ARE problems in the physical brain with known and well-described physical causes. You're still saying they aren't.
>
> Medical knowledge of the brain is still some way behind medical knowledge of the rest of the body, but I think you need to realise that some things ARE known about it, and these two disorders are pretty good examples. Ignoring people's replies and just repeating your original post in slightly different words isn't really a good way to back up your theories.

Hmm... Again, point taken. Maybe more reasonably this time. :-) I think I may have misread Matthew's post. Even after reading it again just now, I'd say that I agree with just about everything he said. The only unclear bit seems to be whether the chemical imbalances in the brain are *causes* or *byproducts* of mental illnesses like ADD and depression. I think that they're byproducts, but several people here have said that they believe the imbalances are causes of the illnesses. If "point taken" was the wrong phrase to use, my apologies.

But in a realm in which so little is definitively known, I think all of us are out of place to say we know what causes ADD or depression. We can only speculate. Medical science hasn't revealed terribly much about mental illnesses -- except for these chemical imbalances -- so we look to psychology for explanations. But with all the competing branches of psychology, it's little more than philosophy and intellectual guesswork. I'm not really qualified to speak on this subject as an authority, but I doubt anyone on the Forum is. If I'm wrong about this, please let me know. I'm wrong a lot. :-)

-useless"Okay, okay... I admit, I like to hypothesize about things I don't know much about!"ness