JusticeMachine

What/Who are we using for a basis of comparision when we say someone is sane or insane?

Or if we say someone has a disorder of some sort, it implies that there is an order that is normal/nature/proper/correct, that this someone is out of sync with.

I am asking, if we base actions/thought patterns/beliefs on a norm, what is that norm? Who decided it? Where did it come from? Does it apply only to humans, or to the entire animal realm?

Bluenose

So once upon a time, I started telling psychiatrist jokes to a psychiatrist and he quietly asked in his best professional manner. "Do you think I am normal ? "

So I said, "How should I know, I'm not objective."

Since my forte is research not objective answers, I offer the following suggestions for further reading:

Hamstra: How Therapists Diagnose
DSM-IV
anything by Thomas Szasz
Peter R. Breggin,MD: Toxic Psychiatry
Duberman: Cures
and last an oldie,
Menninger et al: The Vital Balance (1963)

Hugo Holbling

Try Foucault, Szasz or anti-psychiatry in general. The jist of their complaints is that the concept of normality is ontologically empty; ergo, it is meaningless to describe behaviour as sane or insane. According to both the thinkers mentioned above, such categories are used to enforce social prejudices. while other theorists see them as instances of wider problems, perhaps due to Nietzsche's herd mentality.

Gurdur could probably provide a better answer (:notworthy ); try considering the qualitative and quantitative difficulties of testing criteria of normalcy in a non-circular fashion.

JusticeMachine

As much as I wish I had the time to read all that, I believe the underlying premise it the same, once the 8+ years of college education is stripped away.

I will dispense of the terms sane or insane. If I have an eating disorder, then we can asume that there is an orderly way of eating or a value to which my eating habits are compare to to derive the fact that my eating habits are not within that value, which is considered acceptable/normal/orderly.

Don't get me wrong, I like to learn and will look at the resources above, but the underlying ideas are what I am addressing.

Oxymoron

You will appreciate this is a complex question. Human minds are not static entities: what is acceptable or "normal" for a child isn't necessarily acceptable or "normal" for an adult. For example, if a child has an invisible friend, it's not a matter to worry about. If an adult has an invisible friend, they may need some help.

So what changes from zygote to child to adult mind? The answer is: the degree of sophistication with which they model the world. Everything, from the fact that flames are hot to the way that we interpret the gestures of other humans and the meanings and intentions of their communications, and the way we must act in certain circumstances, is all part of that evolving model.

The basis of comparison is how well that model relates to the world given the expected phase of development of the individual. The psychologist Piaget described a number of phases that humans go through en route from child to young adult. After that, things get more complex. One needs to start asking critical questions about the details of the patient's internal model:

* Is something in the model preventing the patient interact socially?
* Is something in the model a risk to the physical or emotional health of the patient?
* Does the patient pose a physical or psychological risk to others?
* If any of the above, is the patient aware of it?

Sanity/insanity are sledgehammer terms. It's more useful to think of dysfunctional elements of an internal model leading to emotional or behavioural problems. There are two ways to gain malfunctioning elements:

1.) the model simply contains invalid information that is at odds with external reality.

2.) the processes by which we analyse the world, filter senory data and build and update our model becomes corrupted.

These are software concepts. It is also possible for brain hardware to malfunction, possibily resulting in cognitive malfunctions that are symptoms of the disorder and not the problem itself.

As I understand it, all human beings share a common cognitive methodology. We might represent a given aspect of reality in widely differing ways in our interal model, but the evolution of the model is common to our species, and I would venture that animal species are similar in this respect (by which I mean they will share a per-species common cognitive development and methodology).

Norms are dangerous and misleading: We all want to be "normal", but we all want to be valued as individuals; is the norm simply the majority (is it then the norm to be theistic since the bulk of the world's population is? Then again, if 51% of the world came down with measles, would having measles be the norm for humans?)

JusticeMachine

Both dysfunctional and malfunctioning have function at their root.
Still implying that there be a proper function that they need to be compared against.

I will bring it down to a simple idea: If the purpose/meaning/cause of being of a wolf it to thin the populations of its prey, and procreate to ensure the survival of its species, then to have a wolf that preys on it's solely on other wolves in it's imediate pack would be counter productive to the purpose/meaning/cause of being.

If we can't determine what the purpose/meaning/cause of being is, then we have to basis of comparison, thus no norm/natural state/function. We cannot say a person has a malfunction when we can't say what the proper function is.

I know we can say on a micro level, for instance: If my goal is the become emotional closer to my spouse, then it would be a malfunction if I were to withdraw from her when dicussing deeper emotions.

But, we can't say on a macro level, why should I try to get closer to my spouse at all?

Yes, I agree that norms are dangerous and misleading, but only if our function is undefined.

I do find it interesting that their are so many profession based on helping people function in society, but those same professions seem to not believe that there is a proper functioning.

Keith Russell

Greetings:

'Sanity' and 'insanity' are legal--not philosophical or psychological--terms.

Keith.

Oxymoron

Well there is an external world to compare against. And there's an internal world as well, where each individual is party to a vast amount of information about themselves.

Assume for a moment that there is some merit in describing an element as dysfunctional. The implication of my original statement was that any behaviour that causes physical or emotional harm, distress to an individual or others is as a result of some "dysfunctional" element in their cognitive system.

Consider what the purpose of our cognitive system is. It models the external (and internal) world, and allows us to make interpretations and predictions about it (them). Our senses relay information into it; the information is filtered (think about how much stuff actually goes on - we couldn't take heed of every person in the street or raindrop or blade of grass etc - vast amounts of it are pruned); what remains is then compared against our current model using an associative recall system and classified; finally, the new information is added to the model, strengthening or weakening or maybe even forming new associations. In this way, the model is self-regulating, because what it amounts to is a continual testing of how well elements in the model map to associated elements in the world. This "feedback" step is crucial because without it our internal models become poorer and poorer at prediction and interpretation (and this compounds exponentially because poor predictions leads to a poorer model leading to poorer predictions...).

We can then say that a dysfunctional element is one that is erroneously maps to external or internal reality. This can happen for a bunch of reasons:

• Associative memory can connect just about anything with just about anything else. Worst case, associations can be just plain wrong: children who've only ever seen cats - animal + four legs + fur - say "cat" when they see a dog.
  
  When association takes places, we don't just recall a single element, we can recall many elements, including stuff like what our nervous system was doing at the time the association was first made. Hence a lot of bizarre hangups and phobias.
  
  People can just plain interfere with their cognitive mechanisms. For example, a little thing called "faith", whose purpose is to prevent elements of the believer's internal model of the world from being tested against the external world ("it's true because I want it to be, right?"). Hence I cannot help but conclude that faith - religious or otherwise - is a mental illness.

Let's ditch 'sanity' and 'insanity', and talk about 'well-adjusted' and 'poorly-adjusted'. Both of these sets of people have models of the world that contain elements that map to reality and elements that don't. The well-adjusted consciously maintain their cognitive models of the world, weeding out the potentially harmful stuff; the poorly-adjusted don't maintain, they may not even realise there is something to maintain, and they may even deliberately block any "natural" maintenance via faith or drugs or self-harm or some other mechanism.

Ah, lunch-time...

JusticeMachine

Okay, so you would agree that the world is objective/factual, but our cognition is subject to our ability to sense it?

QUOTE]Consider what the purpose of our cognitive system is. It models the external (and internal) world, and allows us to make interpretations and predictions about it (them). Our senses relay information into it; the information is filtered (think about how much stuff actually goes on - we couldn't take heed of every person in the street or raindrop or blade of grass etc - vast amounts of it are pruned); what remains is then compared against our current model using an associative recall system and classified; finally, the new information is added to the model, strengthening or weakening or maybe even forming new associations. In this way, the model is self-regulating, because what it amounts to is a continual testing of how well elements in the model map to associated elements in the world. This "feedback" step is crucial because without it our internal models become poorer and poorer at prediction and interpretation (and this compounds exponentially because poor predictions leads to a poorer model leading to poorer predictions...). [/QUOTE]

Then objective reality moves through our subjective senses and it is interpreted by our objective cognitive mind which intern creates a model of what was sensed and uses this model as a medium to re-sense the same objective reality, by which it improves/changes it's model?

I would agree.

But, we may know how a thing works, that is not my question.
It work toward what end, for the end/goal is what assigns purpose.

My point is adjusted to what? Life. Society. Myself.
You can only maintain there is something incorrect/wrong/poorly adjusted if you are comparing to that which is correct/right/ well-adjusted....And have something that is considered correct/right/well-adjusted, implies a goal/meaning/purpose to which we are trying to aspire.
Now if that goal/meaning/purpose is believed to be subjective, where is the motivation to change?
If the goal/meaning/purpose is believed to be objective (whether or not it is true) then there is motivation to change to accommodate that perceived objective truth.

For instance, can a person change if they don't desire that change?
Will an alcoholic change his patterns if he doesn't desire to do so?
No, you can help a person who won't help themselves, and I contend that to want to help yourself from a subjective point of view will lead to circular though process that got you into that pattern in the first place.

Where as, if a person wants to help himself or herself, and approaches it from an objective point of view, that perceived objective belief is what will break the self-defeating circular pattern of reasoning.

I speak from personal experience of course, I am not a doctor or psychoanalyst. So I am coming from a standpoint of the layman, please take that into consideration when responding.

JusticeMachine

OOOppps
Should've been "CAN'T" on my last post