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Aswad -> RE: Does being a "True Believer" also mean you're a "nut-case"? (7/29/2011 6:13:34 PM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: GotSteel
So sure nobody has a perfectly accurate concept of reality and I don't have anything better than a subjective opinion for where the line between sane and nutjob is but I will say that by the time someone is hunting vampires with stakes, yeah they are a nutjob.
There is no way to map internal perception to objective external reality, for the simple reason that only what exists outside a system can observe the system objectively and in its entirety. Eventually, MMORPGs will get to the point where a neural direct interconnection will make it impossible to even tell whether or not one is logged in, except we will know as long as we don't forget. Observable internal consistency is a given, as the whole thing would be governed by a computer program, after all. Scientific method would allow you to formulate models of the way the "inside" worked.
From conventional human experience, of course, we would say that literal vampires don't exist. Yet, some time ago, people believed in not only vampires, but witches, faeries and a mililion other things we no longer do. Back then, you would be considered a nutjob for claiming they don't exist, or for claiming that the world is round. And it would be perfectly rational to be a witchhunter or the like.
Now, a different perception prevails, making a different frame of reference into the common case.
But rationality is how you act in a given frame of reference, not an assertion as to whether yours maps to external reality, assuming there even is such a thing as an external reality (cf. limitations of perception). Delusions are the term we use to describe two distinct problems, and clinically only when they are problems. The first is when there is a disconnect between the perceptions of one individual and what is considered normative for the society they were raised in, or the society they live in, but the perceptions are either purely subjective or changeable by exposure to evidence. This is the less serious forrm. The second is when the perceptions are not subjective and also not changeable by exposure to evidence. That is the more serious form, and you will often find evasions, agile construction of supporting arguments with the same problematic telltales, and frequently aggression in response to challenges (a result of cognitive dissonance when these "necessary" delusions- usually having some functional origin or playing a functional role in preventing negative responses to what has been done acting with them as a frame of reference- threaten to collapse).
Distinguishing between the absence of rationality and the presence of delusion is critical.
Especially when delusions are a potential consequence of exposure to ideas that are becoming dangerously prevalent in our world. Ideas like those Anders B. Breivik immersed himself in, and tried to propagate. Ideas like those the Glenn Beck fosters every day. And many others with him, around the world. Now. Before. In the future.
If we do not learn this lesson, we will repeat history forever.
Until we bring history itself to an end with our actions.
Health,
al-Aswad.
Edit: Not edited or proofread, on account of PC restarting for scheduled maintenance.
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