How does the Engagement Formation Personality Spectrum Filter impact our ability to freely (purposefully) modulate (controlled management) between Engagement and Withdrawal in the regular unfolding of our lives?

What impact does the ability (or inability) to cognitively (decisively) regulate our moods imply regarding our actual ability to make "free will" choices?

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Let's define a few terms we will use in this chapter.

Bipolar disorder (manic depression) - a mental disorder with periods of depression and periods of mania or hypomania (elevated mood):

• Depression - a state of low mood and aversion to activity or apathy.
  • Apathy - a lack of feeling, emotion, interest, and concern. A state of indifference. An apathetic individual has an absence of interest in or concern about emotional, social, spiritual, philosophical and/or physical life and the world. Apathy is something that all people face in some capacity and is a natural response to disappointment, dejection, and stress. It is a way to forget about these negative feelings. Usually only felt in the short-term. When long-term, deeper social and psychological issues are most likely present.
  • People with a depressed mood can feel sad, anxious, empty, hopeless, helpless, worthless, guilty, irritable, angry, ashamed, or restless. It may be a normal reaction, as long as it does not persist long term, to various life events.
  
  
• Hypomania - a mood state characterized by persistent disinhibition and pervasive elevated (euphoric) with or without irritable mood but generally less severe than full mania.
  • Disinhibition - A lack of restraint manifested in disregard for social conventions, impulsivity, and poor risk assessment.
  • Euphoria - an affective state and a form of pleasure in which a person experiences intense feelings of well-being, happiness, and excitement.
  • Hypomania is distinguished from mania by the absence of psychotic symptoms and grandiosity, and by its lesser degree of impact on functioning.
  • Individuals in a hypomanic state have a decreased need for sleep, are extremely outgoing and competitive, have a great deal of energy and are otherwise often fully functioning (unlike full mania).
  • People with hypomania are generally perceived as being energetic, euphoric, visionary, overflowing with new ideas, confident or overconfident, very charismatic. Unlike those with full mania, they are sufficiently capable of coherent thought and action to participate in everyday activities.
  
  
• Mania - a state of abnormally elevated arousal, affect, and energy level.
  • Symptoms: heightened mood (either euphoric or irritable), flight of ideas and pressure of speech, increased energy, decreased need for sleep, and hyperactivity. In full-blown mania, they undergo progressively severe exacerbations and become more and more obscured by other signs and symptoms (disorientation, florid psychosis, incoherence, catatonia, fragmentation of behavior.)
  
  
• Findings point strongly to genetic heterogeneity, with different genes being implicated in different families. Robust and replicable genome-wide significant associations have shown several common single nucleotide polymorphisms, including [→ variants within the genes CACNA1C, ODZ4, and NCAN ←].

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ConserveLiberty proposes that Engagement and Withdrawal are moods or behaviors that are enabled by the same primary engine, the Engagement Formation Personality Spectrum Ensemble. As with all the Filters, the degree of enablement can be expressed as a "setting". Each individual has his or her own implementation of the Ensemble. Since we are all genetically variant from one another, both the action and the level of expression of our ensembles vary from one another. Finally, as our Engagement Formation Ensemble "settings" vary towards one extreme or the other, we observe clinically significant behaviors that have been given the terms "Mania", "Hypomania", "Depression", and "Bipolar Disorder". This concept has been previously described in this chapter's Preface.

ConserveLiberty believes that these "moods" and their recognized "disorders" are simply manifestations of the same mechanism, applied to differing opportunities for mood expression, and differing sensitivities (chemical, biochemical) to environmental factors as well. Genetic factors (we're all made differently), mechanism factors (we may be more or less sensitive to the different things we might may need to respond "appropriately" to), and even environmental factors (e.g. experiences, culture, etc.) are in play, and render our understanding of Engagement Formation as "not so simple." Which makes it more fun to consider.

Thus, what might have been a mood enabled by the Engagement Formation Ensemble that changes appropriately, is appropriate under the circumstances, and is managed well by one person could instead be somewhat out of control, inappropriate, and managed poorly or not manageable at all (bipolar disorder) by another.

Why? Among other things, variations in the components that make up the Engagement Formation Ensemble mean that no two people's moods are enabled the exact same way. The ensembles differ. Variations in components from one individual to the next mean that none are enabled by the exact same ensemble under the exact same conditions.

We can clarify the view that they are one and the same with a simple example - cars. Assume you have two cars, and they each have a different maximum speed that they can attain, one higher than the other. In this case, the difference is simply with the engines. The two engines work the same way, they just have slightly different components. The two different "ensembles" thus produces different results.

Keep in mind that General Moods (Engaged, Withdrawn) may form with sufficient effective contribution from the Engagement Formation Ensemble such that they don't become difficult to manage, inappropriate, or clinically significant. Most of the time.

This is how ConserveLiberty views Engagement Formation. The Engagement Formation Ensemble (or, engine) functions similarly between two people, even though the "ensembles" of the variable parts are different. Thus, one's moods becomes more well controlled and appropriate and managed, the other less so. For no other reason than that the Engagement Formation Ensembles are set differently. Because they are different. And, even slight differences can have a significant impact.

For this reason, ConserveLiberty regards Engagement Formation and Withdrawal Formation as coming from the same ensembles, the same "mood engines". Whether Engagement or Withdrawal is observed (or clinically significant, mania or depression) is simply a matter of the ensembles executing differently. From ConserveLiberty's perspective, whether it be Engagement or Withdrawal, we regard both as Engagement Formation Ensemble driven.

→ The Section above was last updated 30 Dec 2016 14:20 PST ←

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How is it that one can portray credibly to another how the Engagement Formation Personality Spectrum Ensemble works factually?

Well we can't. Yet. Not enough has been worked out. The complexity of interactions and small genetic contributions are enormous. But what has emerged so far is fascinating!

We need to be able to understand the parts that make up the ensemble. Using our car as an example, in order to understand how the car works, how it actually works, we need to be able to understand its individual components. Those would be the screws, glass, clamps, tires, etc. that make up (together in ensemble) its filters. Those filters (the engine, transmission, steering mechanism, radio, etc.) come together, in ensemble form, to make the car's traits. Those ensembled traits (ability to accelerate, stop, protect one in an accident, hold the road while turning, etc.) come together, again in ensembled form, to make the car.

A few of the individual biological components have been uncovered that appear to be relevant somehow to the neurophysiological mechanisms that result in "mood" behaviors. For an example of components that has been studied, check out the Multiple Filters section in this chapter.

One review which may be helpful for appreciating the multiple dimensions that mood generation and its disorders have been studied can me found at The emerging modern face of mood disorders: a didactic editorial with a detailed presentation of data and definitions. Written by Konstantinos N Fountoulakis, it can be found at Annals of General Psychiatry, 2010, 9:14, DOI: 10.1186/1744-859X-9-14, Published: 12 April 2010.

Understanding the mechanism of mood generation relies on more than simply understanding various of the chemical transformations and gene induction and repression events that occur. Where these are happening in the brain are also very important, since the various structural areas correlate with the functions they are responsible for.

It is certain that additional biological components, either individually or acting in ensemble with each other will be uncovered as we better understand the biological basis serving as a foundation for the development of mood generation, and the Engagement Formation Personality Spectrum Ensemble.

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While the Engagement Formation Personality Spectrum Ensemble cannot be described accurately for each of us, those with more balanced settings for their Engagement Formation Filters can get closer to recognizing and participating in a productive relationship with All That Is, as it unfolds than those with Engagement Formation Filters that are set closer to the extremes.

Because we'll want to. Because we will care too. Because we will be focused and careful to.

→ The Big Picture section above was last updated 30 Dec 2016 15:00 PST ←

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