[ExI] Prisoner of bad philosophy: Carl Sagan couldn’t allow himself to hope

[William Flynn Wallace]

A further criterion distinguishing religious belief from delusion is that
in the case of delusion the belief leads to dysfunction within the society
where the delusional personal lives; but how is this criterion to be
applied when, for example, people blow themselves up to honour their god?

> --
Stathis Papaioannou
Many delusions never surface.  Most of these cases are borderline paranoid
schizophrenia. (Borderline because if it were fullblown the person would
not know the difference between their delusions and reality and would
likely make them manifest in some way to observers).  They are quite aware
that their ideas are forbidden or in some way antisocial.  Thus they keep
them inside because they know that if they made people aware of them they
would face institutionalization or something bad.  Probably millions of
people live and die without ever giving any indication of problems.  Recall
that the estimation of the incidence of schizophrenia is 1% of the
population.  I'll bet there are far, far fewer than 3 million cases of
schizophrenia known in the USA.

Does that make YOU a bit paranoid about the people around you?

I am not sure that any criterion really matters here except the one that
says that we all have to live together, and that blowing people up is to
say the least incompatible with that.  Whether a person fits a DSM
diagnostic category is of little interest, especially given the fact that
psychology and psychiatry has no weapons in their arsenal to change these
people, or at least the ones with the religious aspect.  Certainly some who
confess delusions can get antipsychotic drugs and these can help.  Maybe
there are some clinical studies out there which studied the effect of
antipsychotics  on religious superstitions and delusions.  I dunno.  But
that might be VERY interesting.

bill w

On Sat, Aug 4, 2018 at 1:48 PM, Stathis Papaioannou <stathisp at gmail.com>
wrote:

>
>
> On Sun, 5 Aug 2018 at 3:36 am, William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Interestingly, part of the definition of a delusion in psychiatry (e.g.
>> in the DSM) is that the belief is not held by people from the same culture.
>> If this  criterion were not included then religious beliefs and other
>> beliefs held in the absence of evidence would be classed as delusional.
>> --
>> Stathis Papaioannou
>> *Which just goes to show you that you should not let psychiatrists be in
>> charge of anything important (especially things like involuntary
>> incarceration).  Do you know how things get into and out of (like
>> homosexuality) the DSM?  Voted on at conventions - by some who are lit up
>> like a supernova.  Realize that the DSM is a political and cultural thing,
>> not a scientific categorization.  For the worst case of this, look at
>> Russia and China and see who they regard as abnormal.*
>>
>
> Syndromes and diagnoses in psychiatry change all the time, but symptoms
> are consistent across time and across cultures, and can generally be
> recognised by laypeople. So a problem arises if someone comes up with a
> clearly crazy belief but it seems objectively no more crazy than many
> widely held religious beliefs: what is it that distinguishes the two types
> of belief? It is telling that a special exception needs to be made for
> religion, and the basic difference is that if you come up with the belief
> on your own you are delusional, while if you received the same belief from
> your parents you are not.
>
> A further criterion distinguishing religious belief from delusion is that
> in the case of delusion the belief leads to dysfunction within the society
> where the delusional personal lives; but how is this criterion to be
> applied when, for example, people blow themselves up to honour their god?
>
>> --
> Stathis Papaioannou
>
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