Sorry if this is a bit spammy but:
Also regarding brain science and mental health I am finding this quote below really significant.
I love neoroethics, or IOW the science of how we can view morally relevant psychology (eg inner peace) in terms of neural activity (eg in the parasympathetic nervous system)
I am mentioning it because of the brain aspect I introduced to the thread
This relates to goodness in the form of mental health, and of the prevention of illness. A bifurcation is a change in behaviour, like for instance in retirement, you leave work and evolve a new pattern of habits. Or scientific medicine could be a bifurcation point in the treatment of illness in general. Or if you're an amputee, then you can no longer play basketball etc:
" Bifurcation theory is a common method for the analysis of nonlinear systems. Bifurcation is an abrupt qualitative change in the behavior of the system. The change may be slight or catastrophic. A parameter value at which a bifurcation occurs is called bifurcation point.
4 We hypothesize that the functional state of schizophrenic patients, because of their genetic predisposition, is located in the vicinity of a bifurcation point. In this situation, a moderate stress in life-events may induce a qualitative change in the behavior of the system; that is, bifurcation occurs, and the stability of the system may change. This can be equivalent to the onset of disease or its relapse. It seems that the pharmacological medications try to return the system to its stable state, preserve this stability, and prevent aggravation of the symptoms. In this context, it is important to take advantage of proper behavioral therapies to keep the system more stable when exposed to stressful events."
http://neuro.psychiatryonline.org/doi/full/10.1176/jnp.23.2.jnpe11
