Prof. Nevzat Tarhan: "An undeveloped person aims bodily satisfaction while a developed person aims mental satisfaction"

President of Üsküdar University Psychiatrist Prof. Nevzat Tarhan participated in the Social Mentor Online Interview event. Underlining that it is the most important thing for young people to be able to pursue high ideals and meanings, Tarhan said; "An undeveloped person aims bodily satisfaction; however, a developed person aims mental satisfactions. People who pursue meaning are interested in high values. Therefore, you activate the hidden treasure within you when we do these things, if you say 'What is the thing I care about most in life?'”.

"There is a mental jury in the front region of our brain"

President of Üsküdar University Psychiatrist Prof. Nevzat Tarhan met with young people at the program organized by Gelişim University Career Guidance Center.

Underlining that the half-life of knowledge is reduced to one year, Tarhan said; "We live in such an age that the half-life of information was 30 years before, now it has decreased to 3 years or even 1 year. Within a year, within 6 months, the information becomes obsolete. In such a case, there is also information bombardment. Previously, the intelligence services hired special personnel to access information, but now they are trying to reach the right information due to the bombardment of information. So much information was coming in that they trained analyzers. As an analyst on this subject, they are trying to reach the information and choose the right information. In such a bombardment of information, it became even more difficult for a person to make the right decision and to decide, ‘Which is the right information?’ Especially when we think about the younger generations, it has become much more important to reach the right information. The front region of our brain has a feature, the information coming from the outside, our sensations about the five senses coming from the inside. After all this information, the front region of the brain decides that it is not appropriate-inappropriate, valid-invalid, safe-unsafe, healthy-unhealthy, there is a mental jury in the front region and even in the front region of our brain. This mental jury of ours has a judge, a president. Then there is a scientist, an esthetician, a business manager, an ethicist and four other members. We can make such an analogy to our brain.".

"Those managing the digital data will dominate the world"

Emphasizing that we are currently the object of the digital world, not its subject, Tarhan said that "In the 21st century, the information age is over. What is in Industry 4.0? There is artificial intelligence, there is big data, there's big data, there is autonomous robots, and there is 3D printers. All this will dominate the world right now, which has a serious digital data. Those who manage the digital data will dominate the world. In fact, in 2018, a decision is made in Davos. One of the secret decisions is that they say 'The new earth god is artificial intelligence.'. A global capital is making such a plan to lead the world towards digital dictatorship with artificial intelligence. After that, the pandemic broke out and the whole plan was disrupted. In the pandemic, the whole world had to go digital, their monopoly disintegrated. In fact, the digitalization in the pandemic is right now, maybe if it was not for the pandemic, we would not be using it. We would not have seen it so easily. Most of the undeveloped countries would not be able to use digital platforms. At the moment, we are not the subject of the digital world, unfortunately, but young people will hopefully do some things here. After all, we live in the digital age, and since we live in the digital age, the technology of the digital world is neutral. Whatever you use it for, it serves that purpose. The best system of using mentoring is to be able to use mentoring from virtual environments.".

"Meaning has been reduced to pleasure, and addiction has increased"

Prof. Nevzat Tarhan pointed out that addiction has increased a lot as a result of reducing meaning to pleasure and stated: "There is a syndrome called California syndrome. There are four symptoms of this syndrome. The first symptom is hedonism. A person pursue pleasure as their life purpose. An American works five days, and has fun for two days. They think as ‘What I like is good, what I do not like is bad”. One reduced the meaning to pleasure, as a result of that, addiction increased a lot because one idealizes the pursuit of pleasure. The current modernist system invites addiction reward deficiency syndrome in the brain. In an addiction case, the brain cannot get enough of the reward. A person wants more, and the reward punishment system in the brain is disrupted. The person becomes addicted to the substance while wanting more rewards. Secondly, self-centeredness emerges, thinking about one's own interests. For example, his wife gets sick and he says ‘I came into this world once, if I cannot live the way I want, why should I keep the marriage?’. Then he ends his marriage. Marriage is not about expediency. The purpose of marriage is to be together in good times and bad times. Modernism destroyed marital maturity. In the third one, loneliness appears. The biggest problem of the current modern world is loneliness. The fourth symptom of California syndrome is unhappiness. Unhappiness also shifts to depression after a while. We are heading towards a world full of rich but unhappy people. Our level of prosperity is increasing, we are getting richer, but we are not happy. It goes to such a humanity. Here the solution lies in the treasury above Anatolia, the solution is here. We need to bring it to life.”.

"The Western world has bought the wisdom of the East and applies it"

Underlining that there is a suicide epidemic, Tarhan said that "There is a joint loneliness study in the UK by Manchester City University and the BBC. In the loneliness study, the rate of those who say they are very lonely at the age of 75 and over is 27 percent among approximately 50,000 people. The real surprising finding is that the loneliness rate among 16-24-year-olds is 40 percent. This is a study done in 2018. After Covid, it increased even more. Suicide in young people is seen quite often. There is an epidemic of suicide. For this reason, they added positive psychology lessons. What is taught in these courses? They took Mevlana, systematized it, and presented it to us as a new branch of science. Good thing they did it, it was due to our laziness. I was very disturbed when I realized this. I had to write the books Rumi Therapy, Yunus Therapy, Love Therapy. That is where this information comes from. The Americans created a branch of science without referencing Mevlana as their own sources. The Western world has bought the wisdom of the East, and applying it. Let's take it from them and implement it at least. As Üsküdar University, we added positive psychology as a course in 2013. In 2015, Harvard added it to their curriculum. In 2019, Yale started to give it. It was put as a solution to the suicide epidemic. It is also called the science of happiness. The science of goodness is called the science of happiness. We are also holding a congress. We made it traditional. They are actually looking for this as a remedy for loneliness.".

"Goals of a developed person mental satisfaction"

Prof. Nevzat Tarhan touched on the subject that modernism always offers temporary meanings. Tarhan said that "Modernism offers us such meanings as sexuality, possessions and fame in the pursuit of meaning. Modernism always offers us temporary meanings. Right now, modernism does not teach us that ‘what kind of person you want to be when you come to the end of your life, how do you want to be remembered, what kind of mark do you want to leave, what have you done for the society you live in, what have you done for humanity, what do you want written on your tombstone?' The moment we pursue this goal and meaning, the dangers of modernism come and go, and nothing can do. The most important thing is that young people are able to pursue high ideals and meanings. Let us do this to make sure that the youth who shows these backs of their hand leads towards this way. An undeveloped person aims bodily satisfaction; however, a developed person aims mental satisfaction. Who is an undeveloped person? To satisfy the body is to eat, drink, reproduce, have fun, have possessions, assests, positions. On the other hand, a developed individual aims mental satisfaction. Mental satisfaction is also dealing with abstract ideas, dealing with abstract subjects, existence, meaning, music, art, literature. People who pursue meaning are interested in high values. Thus, you activate the hidden treasure within us when we do these things, if you say, 'What is my most important thing in life?'”.

"Wrong and evil are part of good and perfect"

Pointing out that the pain, troubles and difficulties in life are actually a part of growth, Tarhan said that "The decision-making mechanism in the front region of our brain is currently the most interested subject in the science of psychology, that is, how we make decisions and what is consciousness. There is free will in consciousness here. Alvin Plantinga says: ‘God is omnipotent, omniscient, and a mere good being.’. His premise does not logically mean that ‘God does not create something that can do evil. It is not to bring about such an outcome.'. In order for freedom to be tested, there must be the possibility of doing the wrong thing. Angels, for example, are not free. They do not have the freedom to do what is wrong, they always do it right. There must be an opportunity to do the wrong thing so that it can be called freedom. The fact that an individual is always doing the right thing should not be because one cannot do the wrong thing. If a person always does the right thing, it should not be because they cannot do the wrong thing like the angels." If so, one becomes a spiritual being, but man is free to do both right and wrong. Then that person will choose the wrong but will not have the power to enforce. Life is choice. A person makes a choice, and then one turns it into action with the knowledge of Allah and His power. This is what the monotheistic faith says. We just choose. We choose good-bad, right-wrong, useful-useless, and then every time new creations happen according to our wishes. Thus, in evil, even in quantum physics… A meteorologist is making a weather forecast in the 1960s on a computer. One day, He takes a break for tea for a moment while they are making the prediction. He does not record the probabilities in his calculations. After he arrived, he realized that the whole program he had done had been turned upside down. He says, 'Oops, I'd better pick up where I left off,' and he sees that better possibilities have emerged. So, he says: ‘Mistakes are part of perfection,’ and the Chaos Theory emerges. Quantum scientists take this and call it the 'butterfly effect'. Therefore, wrong and evil are part of good and perfect. Pain, problems and difficulties we suffer in life are actually part of growing up. Let us all aspire to difficulty, move forward, overcome those difficulties and experience the pleasure of it. These would be resilience training for us”.

Üsküdar News Agency (ÜNA)