You've linked me to a summary article on depression by Verywellmind. Please provide actual specific evidence for your blanket assertion that depression is very rarely caused by lifestyle or life events. Remember, you've made this assertion as if it were fact, and I'm merely asking you to actually prove it. If you can't, then stop asserting it as if it were fact.
> There is no contradiction here; the correlation you think you see is not causation.
You're doing literally the exact same thing. You're pointing to chemical differences in people with depression and saying "there, that's causation! it has nothing to do with lifestyle or life events!". Consider that the chemical differences that result in depression could be caused by lifestyle factors and life events (and it's undisputed that these things cause chemical differences).
> You misunderstood. Daylight regulates mood. Sunlight can cure depression; it does not cause depression.
No, it's you who misunderstood me. If sunlight cures depression, then our basic actions in life are the issue, i.e. our lifestyle is a low-sunlight lifestyle (something very much in conflict with the environment our brains evolved in).
You simply haven't given enough evidence to back up your confidence on the idea that depression isn't caused by our actions in life, or life events. Yes, brain chemistry is involved, we know that. But our actions and experiences affect our brain chemistry. So you're going to have to work a lot harder than you have to rule it out.
The most I can see you saying is that the start of the causal chain (life events) doesn't matter because you only care about the end of the causal chain (brain chemistry). But this is a wildly different statement to saying that actions or life events aren't part of the causal chain, which you appear to be asserting.
You're basically saying "getting shot doesn't kill you, bleeding to death does!"
> There is no contradiction here; the correlation you think you see is not causation.
You're doing literally the exact same thing. You're pointing to chemical differences in people with depression and saying "there, that's causation! it has nothing to do with lifestyle or life events!". Consider that the chemical differences that result in depression could be caused by lifestyle factors and life events (and it's undisputed that these things cause chemical differences).
> You misunderstood. Daylight regulates mood. Sunlight can cure depression; it does not cause depression.
No, it's you who misunderstood me. If sunlight cures depression, then our basic actions in life are the issue, i.e. our lifestyle is a low-sunlight lifestyle (something very much in conflict with the environment our brains evolved in).
You simply haven't given enough evidence to back up your confidence on the idea that depression isn't caused by our actions in life, or life events. Yes, brain chemistry is involved, we know that. But our actions and experiences affect our brain chemistry. So you're going to have to work a lot harder than you have to rule it out.
The most I can see you saying is that the start of the causal chain (life events) doesn't matter because you only care about the end of the causal chain (brain chemistry). But this is a wildly different statement to saying that actions or life events aren't part of the causal chain, which you appear to be asserting.
You're basically saying "getting shot doesn't kill you, bleeding to death does!"