22 ms·

The hypersane are among us, if only we are prepared to look

237 points by prostoalex 7y ago

Arbalest 7y ago
This article talks about sanity, but doesn't really state what it is. What it describes is essentially just alternative perspectives born out of those rejecting, or rejected by, society. This state has indeed produced profound ideas, but it has also produced even more nonsense ideas. The article makes the classical mistake of the binary: There's the mainstream, and the higher "hypersane". Unfortunately things aren't so black and white. Even black and white plus grey is only one dimension. What this article serves to inspire is pseudoscientific nonsense simply because it is alternative, by pitting all alternatives against mainstream society, without acknowledging that amongst the alternatives, there are some better than others. Unfortunately there's no good heuristic to differentiate between them, when they are already alternative and don't have all that many people researching them.
- mapcars 7y ago
  >This state has indeed produced profound ideas, but it has also produced even more nonsense ideas Can you say with 100% confidence what is profound and what is nonsense in this Universe? >The article makes the classical mistake of the binary: There's the mainstream, and the higher "hypersane". The two are extreme points so that we can see the difference, of course, there are all kinds of intermediate states as Diogen was not walking with a lamp during daylight when he was 5.
  - Arbalest 7y ago
    > Can you say with 100% confidence what is profound and what is nonsense in this Universe? Given that profundity only makes any sense at all in the context of humans, with a fair degree of confidence (100% is never possible), I believe a reasonable measure is possible. The funny thing about profundity is: It means the advancement of thinking in people. To further add to this, it means advancing society, by extension of advancing its people (Unless you can find exceptions for which humanity does not benefit from cooperation). Advancement of people can be measured, if people agree on criteria. You might even create a measure based on how many different, sometimes competing criteria it advances. One proviso to this is that it is not easy to do so immediately, we usually need to look at the results over time, as it is an empirical measure on society. Never forget, it's easy to retreat to "Well nothing is absolute, so why bother". The fact that we can create measures that have broad agreement mean we can come up with practical compromises that would essentially guarantee that ideas can never be equal. Yes that does mean that broad agreement will favour society, see the previous paragraph. Also, due to the time issue, broad agreement does change, and it should. So again, not 100% but reverting to that requirement is also not useful. The other dimension in which broad agreement is slippery is, what is the population of people you're asking. This is the edge of where ideas are forged. So even though a wider population may not get broad agreement of something, time will tell. If there's one final point which I will make which drives home that it is important to have some measure, it is embedded in this saying "We stand atop the shoulders of giants". Without measure, what giants? What ideas can we actually build upon and hope to get something that isn't random chance. >The two are extreme points so that we can see the difference, of course, there are all kinds of intermediate states as Diogen was not walking with a lamp during daylight when he was 5. I get that, as I said, the profound has come from this mode of thinking. However, the issue is the framing of the article, it posits that becoming hypersane essentially necessitates being divorced from society in it's entirety. That part is not so well supported. But what this framing does do, is make it seem like anyone who doesn't agree with society has an edge in their thinking (and being, given we seem to be focusing on individual capacity) and should therefore continue with what they are doing. My sense is that this is somewhat orthogonal to success in creating the cutting edge. Clearly accepting everything in society without question can't, but this notion that you must go through madness seems outlandish. The framing seems very good however, to pandering to the various counter-culture desires, and the article does state the author has an upcoming book on the subject.
    - dsego 7y ago
      > However, the issue is the framing of the article, it posits that becoming hypersane essentially necessitates being divorced from society in it's entirety. Yes, and it makes it clear it's necessarily so by definition. See, there is this gaussian distribution in nature. Most people are a bit insane, not much, but just enough. Of course the hypersane would be divorced from a society that believes in fairy tales, propagates myths, and is ready to kill or die for it.
- mensetmanusman 7y ago
  You can use the scientific method to dictate amongst alternatives simply by asking about levels of satisfaction, health, etc.
dang 7y ago
An R.D. Laing story happened to be discussed here the other day: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20601466 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20601466
dfeojm-zlib 7y ago
Certainly, there's too much magical thinking, but what the heck is "hypersane?" Is it an absence of conspiracy theories, foolish beliefs, and word-salad? Maybe giving too much attention to the histrionic, the unreasonable and the crazies is part of the problem.
- Arbalest 7y ago
  I realise the significance of your comment about the histrionic now. Rather than ideas, the premise and the article both focus on this ideal of the person.
- Nasrudith 7y ago
  Hypersanity isn't well defined but it implies 'saner than normal'. Now sanity has many aspects to it in how it is defined but it clearly isn't meant in a pure 'normative' sense. Viewing infections as caused by germs instead of miasma or evil spirits may be reacted to negatively but it is still sane. One way to define it would be lacking 'common madness' but even that is arguably a reference problem. There isn't a need for a word for 'not a believer in alchemy'. Defining it is a problem since practically by definition we wouldn't know that it was insane and it wouldn't be recognized as such. If you were to point out said issues there would also likely be push-back and resistance. I have noticed from being on the autistic spectrum that interviewing protocols and expectations are truly insane - like finding people more trustworthy when they fake emotional expression on demand more effectively and mimic their manners of speech seemingly authentically - when it isn't a job skill. This may be too subjective to 'truly count' and I admit to not understanding people well enough to know for sure. As mentioned earlier sanity is multifaceted with goals and how to pursue them as aspects. Barring a far worse alternative suicide isn't a rational goal but trying to pursue it with a deadly weapon makes more sense than attempting it by painting X's over your eyes.
Animats 7y ago
Interesting subject, terrible article. This wouldn't even pass on one of those sites that sells essays for students. There are people who do well under stress. Army elite units have selection programs to find such people.
- cryptonector 7y ago
  It felt like a word salad.
Arbalest 7y ago
Now that I've thought about it, I'd like to posit that the Author is not in fact talking about "Hypersanity" as a state of mind, but in fact, just people particularly dedicated to spreading their ideas. As I was reading the article, I was particularly struck by how it failed to acknowledge the threads of ideas which "normal men" may have, but never advertise particularly far. If we were to cast out the net of all the ideas that normal people have, and then also put it through some kind of heuristic to pick the best ideas, we'd end up with something far better than a "hypersane" person. Adding to my previous comment, the issue here is the heuristic for picking the best ideas doesn't exist for either normal or alternative thinking, so amongst both sets, we end up with masses of garbage.
neerajsi 7y ago
I agree that this is not a very well-written article in that the terms are not well-defined. I think the self-transforming mind is a more useful concept: https://medium.com/@NataliMorad/how-to-be-an-adult-kegans-theory-of-adult-development-d63f4311b553 https://medium.com/@NataliMorad/how-to-be-an-adult-kegans-th.... If you can understand your own motivations and see through ideology, you aren't bound by the limited possibilities of the "normal man." Of course, everyone thinks they are further along in development than they actually are. Perhaps the author actually is hypersane... or he is just confused.
caconym_ 7y ago
Reminds me of https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terror_management_theory https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terror_management_theory for some reason (not that I necessarily subscribe to either of these "theories" in any particular form).
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hyperion2010 7y ago
This seems perhaps over stated and the second half is extremely elitist in its phrasing. I think my favorite version of a character like this is Wonko the Sane from HHG who lives 'Outside the Asylum.'
motohagiography 7y ago
The point of diminishing returns on sanity occurs sooner than almost everyone expects. Surprised nobody has yet mentioned Douglas Adams' "Wonko the Sane," who built an asylum turned inside out to house the whole world. Many comedians would qualify as this as well. I know a few people I would consider "hypersane," and you can't have too many of them around because they are immune to the various arbitrages that create need and value for everyone else. They are also very charismatic and hence, contagious. I understand traditionally the cure for hypersanity was either hemlock, or crucifixion.
- checktheorder 7y ago
  >Surprised nobody has yet mentioned Douglas Adams' "Wonko the Sane," who built an asylum turned inside out to house the whole world. Many comedians would qualify as this as well. I'm also thinking of the Terry Pratchett concept of being "knurd". On the Discworld, the opposite of being drunk isn't being sober - sober is the middle ground on the drunk/sober/knurd scale. To be knurd is to be so completely aware of everything that one can't really function in normal society.
  - codesnik 7y ago
    I only now have realised it's "drunk" spelled backwards. And probably reads the same as "nerd"
    - riffraff 7y ago
      the first time I read Terry Pratchett it was in italian, and knurd had not been translated, I suppose the translator didn't get the joke or thought it wasn't fun in italian. Took me a decade or so to finally get it when I re-encountered it in english :)
      - stronglikedan 7y ago
        Since I'm sure I'm not the only one with the desire to look that up, "drunk/knurd" is apparently "ubriaco/ocairbu" in Italian.
slowmovintarget 7y ago
Sanity is the ability to correctly perceive what is real. Hypersanity, then, is a nonsense term used to sell books.
- dmwallin 7y ago
  I would say this article is making the case that sanity is the ability to correctly perceive what society conceives as real, while hypersanity is the ability to correctly perceive things outside of societies norms.
  - dnh44 7y ago
    That leads to the idea that society and the sane people within it cannot distinguish between the insane and the hypersane.
    - djmips 7y ago
      As illustrated by a lot of angry comments by those who feel threatened by perceived criticism of their devotion to societal norms.
- H8crilA 7y ago
  The concepts of money or nations or companies are good examples of what lives between "sane" and hypersane. Those are all fictional stories, and while useful to organize humans they do not have any physical representations. Yeah I know cash, or written laws or a signed printout of the articles of incorporation are a thing. But these only matter because the story keeps being played out. How do you know test such concepts for not being real? One example test: can it be "destroyed" by someone's or some group's declaration? Just words? Yes to all the three: money when it's being forbidden and for example replaced with new money (ex: Hong Kong during Japanese invasion), nations when they stop being recognized (Poland during 17th century), corporations that are deemed monopolies and are broken up by the courts (Rockefeller's empire).
  - oldsklgdfth 7y ago
gct 7y ago
It's a canonical fact that one of The Joker's super powers is hypersanity.
- ravenstine 7y ago
  You actually bring up what I think is an interesting point. People automatically attribute virtue and goodness to the idea of sanity. The more sane someone is, the more rational and, therefore, the better decisions they will make. But what if a higher level of "sanity" leads to actions that are ultimately bad for those who are less sane? They could perceive the world exactly how it is and conclude that destroying that world is the best course of action. How does one differentiates this behavior from actual insanity? It makes sense that one could tell whether someone isn't sane, since someone who is insane probably wouldn't have an experience consistent with other people, but hypersane bad guy seems difficult to accurately assess; they might be sane overall, but be totally insane in one particular facet, or perhaps not at all.
  - gct 7y ago
    There's a book called "The Killing Star" where humanity is wiped out by an alien species because "Why take a risk?" That's a hyper rational position.
- ebcode 7y ago
  If that's seriously canon, then your reward is "citation needed."
nlh 7y ago
My interpretation of the point the author is trying to make: The 'hypersane' are those among us who have realized, for better or for worse, that the traditional things that most in a society strive for - material wealth, social status, conformity to social structures, etc. - aren't really the keys to happiness and that when you "awaken" (and become hypersane, I suppose) you realize that along with those things come stress, anxiety, the rat race, and, well, a pretty boring existence. I dig it! I expect to see a lot of folks reject this notion outright, because, well, cognitive dissonance. If you've built your life around conforming, it might be tough to hear someone suggest it's all for naught. Thoughts?
- aantix 7y ago
  Does innovation come without sacrifice, without yearning, without labor, without constraints? A sincere question. We enjoy innovation, progress, because it seemingly makes our lives more enjoyable. At least I think I do. I think I would take this life over 19th-century farmer. The point is that there appears to be a tradeoff - disparity, constraints, entice us to create solutions. And adopt a certain amount of stress in obtaining that solution. Or we accept everything as-is. Unchangable. Zero stress in striving. But no progress.
  - jotm 7y ago
    It's the opposite, once you realize that going with the flow of society/what's accepted is pointless, you can work, innovate, experiment with much less constraint. Realising and accepting death seems to work. You can then do things that will look insane and impossible to others. Sell everything and be a nomad, spend all your time building something, pursue a degree at 55+, retire to die, go build houses in Africa or something. None of that is comfortable, stable or normal, so it looks crazy to any "sane" person. But is it really? No, because utlimately you're dead, legacy or not.
- crumpets 7y ago
  >Thoughts? Don't preempt people that might disagree with you by claiming they are in cognitive dissonance.
- 7y ago
palad1n 7y ago
Is it anything like this? https://ebookoflove.com https://ebookoflove.com
yesenadam 7y ago
A Man that steps aside from the World, and hath leisure to observe it without Interest or Design, thinks all Mankind as mad as they think him. – Lord Halifax (1633-95)
Causality1 7y ago
For all that, the author does not provide a definition of hypersanity by which an individual may be judged to be or not be hypersane. His examples of hypersane individuals are questionable. Nelson Mandela ordered the torture and murder of political enemies and their families, including teenage children. Tenzin Gyatso is a deposed theocratic dictator whose subjects toiled under abject serfdom before his exile. Jane Goodall is guilty of the admittedly minor sin of being a plagiarist. It's not hard to win an argument that all of those people had a more positive effect on the world and on history than negative, and I would agree with you, but I believe it is an error to put them on a pedestal as examples of some sort of transcendental rationality.
- armitron 7y ago
  I stopped reading at Nelson Mandela. A white-washed caricature, a media construct of certain Western power structures, that entirely collapses the moment one pays even a little bit of attention at his deeds and the people he freely associated with (such as his notorious wife Winnie). Aeon having been on my shitlist for similar drivel in the past, I think I'll go ahead and completely excise it from my life.
- crawfordcomeaux 7y ago
  Who said transcendental rationality had to be something that completely aligned with sustainably contributing to life or honesty? He didn't make the word. I you don't like it, maybe propose a different one to describe people who intentionally shed the teachings from society?
AtlasBarfed 7y ago
Seems like myth dressed up as pop science. But we basically live in an insane world, and navigate it only by denialism, tunnel vision, ignorance, or distraction. If we were to actualize knowledge of the massive destruction of the natural world and the insanity of the path of capitalism, it would make someone crazy by the definition of the masses. Imagine someone screaming at the top of their lungs about the forthcoming destruction of the world and the evils of our economic structure, like some stark raving mad lunatic man of religion pounding a book. Well, sensible people will turn their head and start talking about football, traffic, money, or a tv show. Huxley was right, in the end.
- rimliu 7y ago
  We cannot destroy natural world. We can only change it. Just like cyanobacteria did. Was that event any less natural? I take an extreme(?) view that humans are a product and a part of nature, so whatever we do is still natural. It may affect other parts of the nature by a different degree, it may make out living more or less comfortable, but it is still natural.
  - djmips 7y ago
    Haha, I'm delighted to see this argument as I often provocatively bring this up in lunchtime conversation. It seems to be a rare point of view but one with which I'm sure alien Earth scientists would undeniably concur.
  - AtlasBarfed 7y ago
    Right, so there is no such thing as complex form, and you'd be juuuust fine with living in a small bubble on an airless earth. Your reductionism ad absurdum is not useful on any level of practical discussion. Why, by your nihilistic logic I can murder you and burn the body, and that's absolutely fine by your line of thinking. I'm not destroying any atoms, dear judge, all the atoms he was composed of are still there. There is no such thing as a complex form. There is no he. He was atoms, and those atoms still exist. "Disruptors" I'm sure love these arguments, because it absolves them of any latent subconscious guilt that they may have destroyed something better than what they disrupted it into.
simonsays2 7y ago
Umscientific jib-jab. Throw this away. Reject it. Get back to empiricism.
js8 7y ago
Not sure I would call it hypersanity (as people said, it is a bit self-congratulatory), but I think it is closely related to the "Jester" archetype, which I kinda like (and hacker - probably Wizard in terms of archetypes - mentality is close to it). The Jester is a free thinker, who ultimately doesn't want to be encumbered by thinking about how his own thoughts or observations affect other people. In order to do that, he makes an implicit deal with the society. He rejects power or authority, and therefore, he is not going to be a threat for powers at be, whoever that is. This can be made clear by, for example, wearing a funny costume all the time, therefore the image. In exchange for this postulated harmlessness, the Jester gains access to information and also ability to speak freely with powers at be. Of course the latter is also limited, his free speech cannot be used to undermine the authority, because then he would actually had a real power. Therefore, Jester often uses non-serious, funny manner of speaking about things. Being laughed at by the unprivileged (while making witty and true observations) is a part of his strategy. It is also beneficial for the powerful (and sometimes part of the deal, in fact origin of the term "court jester"), because they get to pick his brain while not being threatened by him or his motives. Some examples of Jesters in our society: John Oliver, John Stewart, Richard Feynman. But they are at every place (in programming, the most obvious celebrity examples are Erik Meijer and Steve Yegge). Look around, I am sure you will find people who are deliberate in attempt not to look too seriously, and you will probably have a Jester on your hands. Some Jesters still decide to actually get power, but it is very risky, because the whole freethinking schtick relies on general belief that the Jester is harmless. (There is also an occasional literary trope where a Jester temporarily and discreetly uses his privilege to influence the world as a force of good.) These are, strictly speaking, not true to the archetype, they just mimic it, so let's call them "Mimes". A good example is Boris Johnson, who is consistently trying to look harmless, but in actuality is interested in power.
cbanek 7y ago
I feel like there are a lot more layers to this that aren't discussed. I think it's a lot like enlightenment, in that there are sometimes considered different levels. Some can be comforting (money isn't everything), and some very sane thoughts are very disturbing (is humanity's nature to destroy itself?) It seems like one of the SV buzz phrases is "fake it till you make it"/"be insanely optimistic and project that excitement". And that rarely comes from a place of sanity, but it can still work too. Being sane and self-aware can be great, but I think it's overrated in terms of creating happiness.
ggm 7y ago
aeon web write ups feel like an attempt to be super-informative which just .. misses. They always seem to riff on things making a HUGE DEAL about THIS ONE THING which the authors feel WE ALL MISSED and I feel like I am watching a 1960s movie of stoned people.. grooving on the pattern the coffee cup makes on their hand, man.. its all one hole man.. one hole, the hole is not the cup, the hole is .. the HANDLE.. is it just me? Am I really too "thick" for what aeon is trying to say? I hate this. I hate being critical of people doing long reads, but I think of the family of long reads, Aeon is about the worst example. Jarrod Lanier. Jarod Diamond. Ray Kurzeweil. Rent-a-quote new-age theorists trying to be a psychopomp for the modern age, or philosophers but as self-taught, auto-didact philosophers they didn't learn how to do it very well.. And it shows. The two line take-away is: care less about material things. Gee.. nobody said that before, 2000+ years ago. Did they? (I should speak. I can't write for toffee either, but the point is I don't put it out there on Aeon)
- orwin 7y ago
  Well, if someone is taking Jung and Freud seriously, not really understanding him/her should be an average reaction. Not paying attention should be the hypersane (or, you know, rational and mysentropic) reaction, and believing the writing the insane/irrationnal reaction. That said Jung made some philosophical points, so you can't reject everything he wrote. But it's not enough to take him seriously.
- Erlich_Bachman 7y ago
  > The two line take-away is: care less about material things. Gee.. nobody said that before, 2000+ years ago. Did they? Yes, seriously, how is this news? Every single spiritual teacher, every religion, even every motivational coach will tell you this in the first hours of their teachings. How is this new? Yes, it takes time to integrate it, it is not enough to just read about but what the article is going to integrate it for me? It is just more reading. There are thousands of readily available sources for this "profound truth", it is literally everywhere.
  - chousuke 7y ago
    "Everyone says so" is not sufficient justification to accept something as true. It does indicate that there may be something to be investigated, but I personally can't even begin to believe stuff like this on someone's word alone. Even if it's everyone on Earth but me. It might be that it's beneficial to "care less about material things", but what does that even mean? I can't just randomly decide how much I care and don't care about something, so what can be done to actually effect that change? What is the mechanism by which it improves my life?
ganzuul 7y ago
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depressive_realism https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depressive_realism
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ciconia 7y ago
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." - Krishnamurti
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dgudkov 7y ago
Feeling hypersane and being hypersane is not the same thing. I guess drug users can tell more about this.
soufron 7y ago
This strikes me as a concept designed to cater to those willing to place themselves above the fray. As in "I am not crazy or asocial, I am only being hypersane". In other words, it's just another way to rationalize the lack of empathy and the will to diss any efforts to correct it.
mikorym 7y ago
Jane Goodall has created quite a bunch of problems for Africans and I certainly won't class her as "hypersane".
Udo 7y ago
This concept seems unhelpfully reductive and transparently targeted at people who feel a need for self-congratulation on account of being alienated by the "normal" people, although alienation is paradoxically also portrayed as one of the markers of being painfully ordinary. "Many ‘normal’ people suffer from not being hypersane: they have a restricted worldview, confused priorities, and are wracked by stress, anxiety and self-deception. [...] In contrast, hypersane people are calm, contained and constructive. It is not just that the ‘sane’ are irrational but that they lack scope and range, [...]" All of these things are orthogonal traits and can occur in an individual in any combination. For example, I would categorize myself as having a moderately open worldview, mostly straight priorities, not wracked by stress and anxiety, moderate to severe self-deception, calm, contained, and mostly constructive. So which one am I? A barely conscious pleb or an advanced rational intelligence? It seems to me these kinds of characterizations are really the product of people trying to build a framework that appreciates their (subjectively underappreciated) positive traits. It's obviously not wrong to celebrate those traits, especially when confronted with their opposites so publicly on a daily basis, but the problem arises when we're trying to bundle those traits up under a buzzword package name. People are very diverse, and their traits and behaviors develop over time. I allege that it is more helpful to look at the positively connotated traits mentioned here in isolation, and work on improving aspects of ourselves in a targeted manner, as opposed to subscribing to a blanket identity (in this case hypersanity, which is ultimately meaningless). There needs to be less emphasis on "what identity am I innately" and more emphasis on "what properties do I like about myself and which ones do I want to improve". The difference here is not only one of nuance and constructiveness, but also one of fundamental outlook.
- djmips 7y ago
  I'm not agreeing or disagreeing but I feel like you should read some of the books mentioned above and ponder a little more because I feel like you missed something.
  - Udo 7y ago
    That's a very generic dismissal. Are you saying that I can't contribute to the discussion because I'm ill-informed or because I failed to grasp the significance of the concept? Could you be more specific about what it is that I'm missing?
tudorizer 7y ago
Interesting concept. Sounds more like an astute sense of critical thinking. Would a machine (i.e. AI) with vast knowledge, driven solely by cold facts and results be considered hypersane?
dynamite-ready 7y ago
Might be a bit of a tangent, but I was looking at the names referenced to support the article. Temple Grandin, Jung, Jane Goodall, etc... While I have my doubts about the validity of MBTI testing, I Googled the names, and each of those people appear to tend towards *NFJ types (most likely INFJ). Not sure if that means anything, just thought it was a fun observation.
tempguy9999 7y ago
I read Lang's bird of paradise when I was a kid and was thoroughly wowed by the fact it was so deep I couldn't understand it. When I grew up I realised long obscure words used to conceal self-indulgent ramblings wasn't a sign of anything good. I can't find an extract of meat of the book, can anyone else? As someone who also has had, and likely always will have mental health problems, anyone who glorifies that which is fundamentally an illness deserves a good kicking. It's miserable, destructive, isolating and no less a disease than, say, cancer.
- chousuke 7y ago
  I believe that for some philosophical insight to be truly profound, you need to be able to state it in a manner that is completely unambiguous. It is easy to make yourself sound smart by allowing the listener to "fill in the gaps" with their own interpretation, but it doesn't really contribute anything meaningful.
  - ta1234567890 7y ago
    Language does not allow for complete unambiguity. Any sort of communication requires context (eg. agreeing on a similar meaning to the words we write/speak). Any difference in context will derive in differences in meaning. We can never not "fill in the gaps". Listening or reading are exercises in translation and interpretation of meaning, which implies always having to fill in the gaps.
mapcars 7y ago
>But what if there were another route to hypersanity Em, there are many, including Zen, Yoga, and Mysticism.
- qwerty456127 7y ago
  These do not help everybody. For many people (including many of those who practice it and even those who "believe in" spirituality) yoga is nothing but a kind of physical exercise. As for mysticism - trying to practice it seems more prone to make you insane than hypersane, it's not for everybody. As for Zen - many people will probably just fail to get it, get bored and give up trying at some point.
mapcars 7y ago
There is Alan Watts video on the topic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4wa0tSBdOU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4wa0tSBdOU
fjfaase 7y ago
When I think about hypersane people, what come to my mind are: Josha Bach, Frans de Waal, Thomas Ligotti (The Conspiracy Against the Human Race), and, a non-human, fictional character: Mr. Spock.
gnode 7y ago
There are two main elements to sanity: having a rational and sound interpretation of reality, and acting in a way which rationally benefit's ones interests. I think hypersanity would constitute not only a hyper-rational worldview, and to reconcile common cognitive dissonance, but also the ability to integrate that awareness into better self-preserving behaviour (to improve ones safety or efficacy), rather than to respond with depression, terror, self-ostracism, etc.
Luff 7y ago
Hypersane sounds a little smug, but it feels close to something. Like, there seems to be a difference between how smart a person is, and being [effective? rational? non-reactive? introspective?]. It feels like there's a spectrum of to which extent people are programmed by, and are reacting to, their environment. A spectrum that might be separate from how smart they are. Give them a text-book or an IQ-test and they'll do great, give them the news and they'll ineffectually berate and hate each-other, and so on. So while a sane person might have a common social programming, an insane persons programming would be corrupted/deviant. And a "hypersane" person would be someone who is more able to see their own (and others) programming, and to a greater extent be able to opt-out of some of it? Maybe there are better words for it.
- sifar 7y ago
  May be the Unsane ? :). Seriously, there is already a name for it. "The name that can be named is not the eternal name."
pcstl 7y ago
Based on this article, there is absolutely no way to distinguish "Hypersanity" from just plain old insanity. Rationality is systematized winning. Unless your actions are benefitting yourself in some significant way, you cannot be considered rational. However, you cannot determine a person's inner drivers from the outside. Therefore, you cannot tell, based purely on their actions, whether they are winning (where winning is defined purely based on the individual's value system). Therefore, it is impossible to tell if an individual is "hypersane" or insane. The whole concept is meaningless and sounds like something people would think is "very deep" while stoned.
- ltbarcly3 7y ago
  > Based on this article, there is absolutely no way to distinguish "Hypersanity" from just plain old insanity. I don't see it this way at all. Plain old insanity can manifest as typical (or atypical) behavior combined with absurd, easily disprovable beliefs. Hypersanity as described leads to atypical behavior and worldview via a reasoned dismissal of widely accepted values, but nothing wrong on it's face or disprovable. For example, insanity is believing you are covered with spiders when you are not, hypersanity would be not feeling the need to disturb a harmless spider that is sitting on your nose. > Rationality is systematized winning. Unless your actions are benefitting yourself in some significant way, you cannot be considered rational. Now I see why you can't distinguish between insanity and hypersanity, you are conflating epistemology and ethics, and they just aren't the same thing. A 'true belief' is one which enables you to achieve some goal, but whether that goal is 'good' or desirable can only be determined when evaluated via some kind of ethical framework. For example, if I decide that the most important thing is to make sure the Canadian flag never touches the ground I will have a very different concept of what 'winning' is compared to someone who's goal is to make as much money as possible, and both of us will have a different concept of winning compared to someone who thinks the most important thing is to teach others that their widely held assumptions are not true or important, such as Diogenes.
  - pcstl 7y ago
    The article mentions "conversing with beings which cannot be perceived by anyone but the person themselves" as a canonical example of hypersanity. I find that pretty comparable to "believing you are covered with spiders when you are not". >you are conflating epistemology and ethics The interpretation that the idea of hypersanity refers only to ethics is due to you and you alone, as the article states nothing to that end, so please do not make claims about my thought process that amount to "you are wrong because you did not arrive at the same conclusion as me". It is not only disingenuous, but also arrogant and short-sighted.
teilo 7y ago
This is a meaningless article. Define hypersanity or shut up. Don't tell me what hypersane people do. Tell me what it is or else the word is an entirely subjective and therefore useless distinction. You can select any arbitrary set of behaviors and pin a label on it. That doesn't make the label meaningful or useful.
vinceguidry 7y ago
One of my hobbies is comparing and contrasting apparent synonyms and trying to discern the contours of thought through language usage. This made me want to muddle around in the middle ground between rational and sane. Immediately at hand we have the 'human being' use case; when do we call humans 'rational' and when do we call them 'sane'? Similarly we can ask what sorts of non-human things do we call sane and which do we call rational. Rationality in humans appears to be quite temporal, while sanity moves much more slowly. A person can be rational one second and irrational the next, then 'get over it' thereby becoming rational again. Whereas generally we speak of sanity 'slowly slipping away'. The outcomes generated also seem to have an effect on which words we use. When the outcomes behind events seem outsized relative to proceedings, we might call the whole thing 'insane'. Whereas 'irrational' seems to refer more to smaller-scoped outcomes, the operative aspect simply being that they're intransigent to ordinary reasoning. As such, 'hypersane' seems to be a similar quality of sanity, and on a continuum you might put 'insane' at the far left, followed by 'irrational' then 'rational', then perhaps 'hyper-rational', followed by 'hypersane'. What does this leave out? Could someone be hypersane and irrational at the same time? I don't think that's the intended understanding of the hypersane concept. In fact, I would venture a definition of hypersane to be someone whose 'irrationalities' are actually expressions of a more universal rationality. When Diogenes did seemingly irrational things, he was really picking up on broader social themes and dynamics and acting in ways that would confound and amaze rather than merely annoy and hinder. Diogenes' self-expressions might be more or less rational at any given time, but that he had a finger on the pulse of ancient Greek culture is undeniable, so he's eminently distinguishable from a 'mere' madman. Whereas someone who is insane's irrational expressions are expressions of individual rationality, hopelessly entangled with the individual's own personal foibles. So what is sanity, if rationalism captures the idea of 'self-expression being intelligible to others'? Even a madman is going to have prescient moments, perhaps they abound in them, as far from the mainstream they are. Perhaps it's the 'capacity of output' that makes up the difference. Terry A. Davis' life, may he rest in peace, was made infinitely better by his masters-level education and programming skills. They gave him a form of agency and ability to fascinate and participate in society that the guy in the red outfit that I pass by frequently on my way to and from work doesn't seem to have.
the-peter 7y ago
"It's not really a measure of mental health to be well-adjusted in a society that's very sick." -The OA

237 points by prostoalex 7y ago

This article talks about sanity, but doesn't really state what it is. What it describes is essentially just alternative perspectives born out of those rejecting, or rejected by, society. This state has indeed produced profound ideas, but it has also produced even more nonsense ideas. The article makes the classical mistake of the binary: There's the mainstream, and the higher "hypersane". Unfortunately things aren't so black and white. Even black and white plus grey is only one dimension. What this article serves to inspire is pseudoscientific nonsense simply because it is alternative, by pitting all alternatives against mainstream society, without acknowledging that amongst the alternatives, there are some better than others. Unfortunately there's no good heuristic to differentiate between them, when they are already alternative and don't have all that many people researching them.

mapcars 7y ago
>This state has indeed produced profound ideas, but it has also produced even more nonsense ideas Can you say with 100% confidence what is profound and what is nonsense in this Universe? >The article makes the classical mistake of the binary: There's the mainstream, and the higher "hypersane". The two are extreme points so that we can see the difference, of course, there are all kinds of intermediate states as Diogen was not walking with a lamp during daylight when he was 5.
- Arbalest 7y ago
  > Can you say with 100% confidence what is profound and what is nonsense in this Universe? Given that profundity only makes any sense at all in the context of humans, with a fair degree of confidence (100% is never possible), I believe a reasonable measure is possible. The funny thing about profundity is: It means the advancement of thinking in people. To further add to this, it means advancing society, by extension of advancing its people (Unless you can find exceptions for which humanity does not benefit from cooperation). Advancement of people can be measured, if people agree on criteria. You might even create a measure based on how many different, sometimes competing criteria it advances. One proviso to this is that it is not easy to do so immediately, we usually need to look at the results over time, as it is an empirical measure on society. Never forget, it's easy to retreat to "Well nothing is absolute, so why bother". The fact that we can create measures that have broad agreement mean we can come up with practical compromises that would essentially guarantee that ideas can never be equal. Yes that does mean that broad agreement will favour society, see the previous paragraph. Also, due to the time issue, broad agreement does change, and it should. So again, not 100% but reverting to that requirement is also not useful. The other dimension in which broad agreement is slippery is, what is the population of people you're asking. This is the edge of where ideas are forged. So even though a wider population may not get broad agreement of something, time will tell. If there's one final point which I will make which drives home that it is important to have some measure, it is embedded in this saying "We stand atop the shoulders of giants". Without measure, what giants? What ideas can we actually build upon and hope to get something that isn't random chance. >The two are extreme points so that we can see the difference, of course, there are all kinds of intermediate states as Diogen was not walking with a lamp during daylight when he was 5. I get that, as I said, the profound has come from this mode of thinking. However, the issue is the framing of the article, it posits that becoming hypersane essentially necessitates being divorced from society in it's entirety. That part is not so well supported. But what this framing does do, is make it seem like anyone who doesn't agree with society has an edge in their thinking (and being, given we seem to be focusing on individual capacity) and should therefore continue with what they are doing. My sense is that this is somewhat orthogonal to success in creating the cutting edge. Clearly accepting everything in society without question can't, but this notion that you must go through madness seems outlandish. The framing seems very good however, to pandering to the various counter-culture desires, and the article does state the author has an upcoming book on the subject.
  - dsego 7y ago
    > However, the issue is the framing of the article, it posits that becoming hypersane essentially necessitates being divorced from society in it's entirety. Yes, and it makes it clear it's necessarily so by definition. See, there is this gaussian distribution in nature. Most people are a bit insane, not much, but just enough. Of course the hypersane would be divorced from a society that believes in fairy tales, propagates myths, and is ready to kill or die for it.
mensetmanusman 7y ago
You can use the scientific method to dictate amongst alternatives simply by asking about levels of satisfaction, health, etc.

dang 7y ago

An R.D. Laing story happened to be discussed here the other day: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20601466 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20601466

dfeojm-zlib 7y ago

Certainly, there's too much magical thinking, but what the heck is "hypersane?" Is it an absence of conspiracy theories, foolish beliefs, and word-salad? Maybe giving too much attention to the histrionic, the unreasonable and the crazies is part of the problem.

Arbalest 7y ago
I realise the significance of your comment about the histrionic now. Rather than ideas, the premise and the article both focus on this ideal of the person.
Nasrudith 7y ago
Hypersanity isn't well defined but it implies 'saner than normal'. Now sanity has many aspects to it in how it is defined but it clearly isn't meant in a pure 'normative' sense. Viewing infections as caused by germs instead of miasma or evil spirits may be reacted to negatively but it is still sane. One way to define it would be lacking 'common madness' but even that is arguably a reference problem. There isn't a need for a word for 'not a believer in alchemy'. Defining it is a problem since practically by definition we wouldn't know that it was insane and it wouldn't be recognized as such. If you were to point out said issues there would also likely be push-back and resistance. I have noticed from being on the autistic spectrum that interviewing protocols and expectations are truly insane - like finding people more trustworthy when they fake emotional expression on demand more effectively and mimic their manners of speech seemingly authentically - when it isn't a job skill. This may be too subjective to 'truly count' and I admit to not understanding people well enough to know for sure. As mentioned earlier sanity is multifaceted with goals and how to pursue them as aspects. Barring a far worse alternative suicide isn't a rational goal but trying to pursue it with a deadly weapon makes more sense than attempting it by painting X's over your eyes.

Animats 7y ago

Interesting subject, terrible article. This wouldn't even pass on one of those sites that sells essays for students. There are people who do well under stress. Army elite units have selection programs to find such people.

cryptonector 7y ago
It felt like a word salad.

Arbalest 7y ago

Now that I've thought about it, I'd like to posit that the Author is not in fact talking about "Hypersanity" as a state of mind, but in fact, just people particularly dedicated to spreading their ideas. As I was reading the article, I was particularly struck by how it failed to acknowledge the threads of ideas which "normal men" may have, but never advertise particularly far. If we were to cast out the net of all the ideas that normal people have, and then also put it through some kind of heuristic to pick the best ideas, we'd end up with something far better than a "hypersane" person. Adding to my previous comment, the issue here is the heuristic for picking the best ideas doesn't exist for either normal or alternative thinking, so amongst both sets, we end up with masses of garbage.

neerajsi 7y ago

I agree that this is not a very well-written article in that the terms are not well-defined. I think the self-transforming mind is a more useful concept: https://medium.com/@NataliMorad/how-to-be-an-adult-kegans-theory-of-adult-development-d63f4311b553 https://medium.com/@NataliMorad/how-to-be-an-adult-kegans-th.... If you can understand your own motivations and see through ideology, you aren't bound by the limited possibilities of the "normal man." Of course, everyone thinks they are further along in development than they actually are. Perhaps the author actually is hypersane... or he is just confused.

caconym_ 7y ago

Reminds me of https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terror_management_theory https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terror_management_theory for some reason (not that I necessarily subscribe to either of these "theories" in any particular form).

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hyperion2010 7y ago

This seems perhaps over stated and the second half is extremely elitist in its phrasing. I think my favorite version of a character like this is Wonko the Sane from HHG who lives 'Outside the Asylum.'

motohagiography 7y ago

The point of diminishing returns on sanity occurs sooner than almost everyone expects. Surprised nobody has yet mentioned Douglas Adams' "Wonko the Sane," who built an asylum turned inside out to house the whole world. Many comedians would qualify as this as well. I know a few people I would consider "hypersane," and you can't have too many of them around because they are immune to the various arbitrages that create need and value for everyone else. They are also very charismatic and hence, contagious. I understand traditionally the cure for hypersanity was either hemlock, or crucifixion.

checktheorder 7y ago
>Surprised nobody has yet mentioned Douglas Adams' "Wonko the Sane," who built an asylum turned inside out to house the whole world. Many comedians would qualify as this as well. I'm also thinking of the Terry Pratchett concept of being "knurd". On the Discworld, the opposite of being drunk isn't being sober - sober is the middle ground on the drunk/sober/knurd scale. To be knurd is to be so completely aware of everything that one can't really function in normal society.
- codesnik 7y ago
  I only now have realised it's "drunk" spelled backwards. And probably reads the same as "nerd"
  - riffraff 7y ago
    the first time I read Terry Pratchett it was in italian, and knurd had not been translated, I suppose the translator didn't get the joke or thought it wasn't fun in italian. Took me a decade or so to finally get it when I re-encountered it in english :)
    - stronglikedan 7y ago
      Since I'm sure I'm not the only one with the desire to look that up, "drunk/knurd" is apparently "ubriaco/ocairbu" in Italian.

slowmovintarget 7y ago

Sanity is the ability to correctly perceive what is real. Hypersanity, then, is a nonsense term used to sell books.

dmwallin 7y ago
I would say this article is making the case that sanity is the ability to correctly perceive what society conceives as real, while hypersanity is the ability to correctly perceive things outside of societies norms.
- dnh44 7y ago
  That leads to the idea that society and the sane people within it cannot distinguish between the insane and the hypersane.
  - djmips 7y ago
    As illustrated by a lot of angry comments by those who feel threatened by perceived criticism of their devotion to societal norms.
H8crilA 7y ago
The concepts of money or nations or companies are good examples of what lives between "sane" and hypersane. Those are all fictional stories, and while useful to organize humans they do not have any physical representations. Yeah I know cash, or written laws or a signed printout of the articles of incorporation are a thing. But these only matter because the story keeps being played out. How do you know test such concepts for not being real? One example test: can it be "destroyed" by someone's or some group's declaration? Just words? Yes to all the three: money when it's being forbidden and for example replaced with new money (ex: Hong Kong during Japanese invasion), nations when they stop being recognized (Poland during 17th century), corporations that are deemed monopolies and are broken up by the courts (Rockefeller's empire).
- oldsklgdfth 7y ago

gct 7y ago

It's a canonical fact that one of The Joker's super powers is hypersanity.

ravenstine 7y ago
You actually bring up what I think is an interesting point. People automatically attribute virtue and goodness to the idea of sanity. The more sane someone is, the more rational and, therefore, the better decisions they will make. But what if a higher level of "sanity" leads to actions that are ultimately bad for those who are less sane? They could perceive the world exactly how it is and conclude that destroying that world is the best course of action. How does one differentiates this behavior from actual insanity? It makes sense that one could tell whether someone isn't sane, since someone who is insane probably wouldn't have an experience consistent with other people, but hypersane bad guy seems difficult to accurately assess; they might be sane overall, but be totally insane in one particular facet, or perhaps not at all.
- gct 7y ago
  There's a book called "The Killing Star" where humanity is wiped out by an alien species because "Why take a risk?" That's a hyper rational position.
ebcode 7y ago
If that's seriously canon, then your reward is "citation needed."

nlh 7y ago

My interpretation of the point the author is trying to make: The 'hypersane' are those among us who have realized, for better or for worse, that the traditional things that most in a society strive for - material wealth, social status, conformity to social structures, etc. - aren't really the keys to happiness and that when you "awaken" (and become hypersane, I suppose) you realize that along with those things come stress, anxiety, the rat race, and, well, a pretty boring existence. I dig it! I expect to see a lot of folks reject this notion outright, because, well, cognitive dissonance. If you've built your life around conforming, it might be tough to hear someone suggest it's all for naught. Thoughts?

aantix 7y ago
Does innovation come without sacrifice, without yearning, without labor, without constraints? A sincere question. We enjoy innovation, progress, because it seemingly makes our lives more enjoyable. At least I think I do. I think I would take this life over 19th-century farmer. The point is that there appears to be a tradeoff - disparity, constraints, entice us to create solutions. And adopt a certain amount of stress in obtaining that solution. Or we accept everything as-is. Unchangable. Zero stress in striving. But no progress.
- jotm 7y ago
  It's the opposite, once you realize that going with the flow of society/what's accepted is pointless, you can work, innovate, experiment with much less constraint. Realising and accepting death seems to work. You can then do things that will look insane and impossible to others. Sell everything and be a nomad, spend all your time building something, pursue a degree at 55+, retire to die, go build houses in Africa or something. None of that is comfortable, stable or normal, so it looks crazy to any "sane" person. But is it really? No, because utlimately you're dead, legacy or not.
crumpets 7y ago
>Thoughts? Don't preempt people that might disagree with you by claiming they are in cognitive dissonance.
7y ago

palad1n 7y ago

Is it anything like this? https://ebookoflove.com https://ebookoflove.com

yesenadam 7y ago

A Man that steps aside from the World, and hath leisure to observe it without Interest or Design, thinks all Mankind as mad as they think him. – Lord Halifax (1633-95)

Causality1 7y ago

For all that, the author does not provide a definition of hypersanity by which an individual may be judged to be or not be hypersane. His examples of hypersane individuals are questionable. Nelson Mandela ordered the torture and murder of political enemies and their families, including teenage children. Tenzin Gyatso is a deposed theocratic dictator whose subjects toiled under abject serfdom before his exile. Jane Goodall is guilty of the admittedly minor sin of being a plagiarist. It's not hard to win an argument that all of those people had a more positive effect on the world and on history than negative, and I would agree with you, but I believe it is an error to put them on a pedestal as examples of some sort of transcendental rationality.

armitron 7y ago
I stopped reading at Nelson Mandela. A white-washed caricature, a media construct of certain Western power structures, that entirely collapses the moment one pays even a little bit of attention at his deeds and the people he freely associated with (such as his notorious wife Winnie). Aeon having been on my shitlist for similar drivel in the past, I think I'll go ahead and completely excise it from my life.
crawfordcomeaux 7y ago
Who said transcendental rationality had to be something that completely aligned with sustainably contributing to life or honesty? He didn't make the word. I you don't like it, maybe propose a different one to describe people who intentionally shed the teachings from society?

AtlasBarfed 7y ago

Seems like myth dressed up as pop science. But we basically live in an insane world, and navigate it only by denialism, tunnel vision, ignorance, or distraction. If we were to actualize knowledge of the massive destruction of the natural world and the insanity of the path of capitalism, it would make someone crazy by the definition of the masses. Imagine someone screaming at the top of their lungs about the forthcoming destruction of the world and the evils of our economic structure, like some stark raving mad lunatic man of religion pounding a book. Well, sensible people will turn their head and start talking about football, traffic, money, or a tv show. Huxley was right, in the end.

rimliu 7y ago
We cannot destroy natural world. We can only change it. Just like cyanobacteria did. Was that event any less natural? I take an extreme(?) view that humans are a product and a part of nature, so whatever we do is still natural. It may affect other parts of the nature by a different degree, it may make out living more or less comfortable, but it is still natural.
- djmips 7y ago
  Haha, I'm delighted to see this argument as I often provocatively bring this up in lunchtime conversation. It seems to be a rare point of view but one with which I'm sure alien Earth scientists would undeniably concur.
- AtlasBarfed 7y ago
  Right, so there is no such thing as complex form, and you'd be juuuust fine with living in a small bubble on an airless earth. Your reductionism ad absurdum is not useful on any level of practical discussion. Why, by your nihilistic logic I can murder you and burn the body, and that's absolutely fine by your line of thinking. I'm not destroying any atoms, dear judge, all the atoms he was composed of are still there. There is no such thing as a complex form. There is no he. He was atoms, and those atoms still exist. "Disruptors" I'm sure love these arguments, because it absolves them of any latent subconscious guilt that they may have destroyed something better than what they disrupted it into.

simonsays2 7y ago

Umscientific jib-jab. Throw this away. Reject it. Get back to empiricism.

js8 7y ago

Not sure I would call it hypersanity (as people said, it is a bit self-congratulatory), but I think it is closely related to the "Jester" archetype, which I kinda like (and hacker - probably Wizard in terms of archetypes - mentality is close to it). The Jester is a free thinker, who ultimately doesn't want to be encumbered by thinking about how his own thoughts or observations affect other people. In order to do that, he makes an implicit deal with the society. He rejects power or authority, and therefore, he is not going to be a threat for powers at be, whoever that is. This can be made clear by, for example, wearing a funny costume all the time, therefore the image. In exchange for this postulated harmlessness, the Jester gains access to information and also ability to speak freely with powers at be. Of course the latter is also limited, his free speech cannot be used to undermine the authority, because then he would actually had a real power. Therefore, Jester often uses non-serious, funny manner of speaking about things. Being laughed at by the unprivileged (while making witty and true observations) is a part of his strategy. It is also beneficial for the powerful (and sometimes part of the deal, in fact origin of the term "court jester"), because they get to pick his brain while not being threatened by him or his motives. Some examples of Jesters in our society: John Oliver, John Stewart, Richard Feynman. But they are at every place (in programming, the most obvious celebrity examples are Erik Meijer and Steve Yegge). Look around, I am sure you will find people who are deliberate in attempt not to look too seriously, and you will probably have a Jester on your hands. Some Jesters still decide to actually get power, but it is very risky, because the whole freethinking schtick relies on general belief that the Jester is harmless. (There is also an occasional literary trope where a Jester temporarily and discreetly uses his privilege to influence the world as a force of good.) These are, strictly speaking, not true to the archetype, they just mimic it, so let's call them "Mimes". A good example is Boris Johnson, who is consistently trying to look harmless, but in actuality is interested in power.

cbanek 7y ago

I feel like there are a lot more layers to this that aren't discussed. I think it's a lot like enlightenment, in that there are sometimes considered different levels. Some can be comforting (money isn't everything), and some very sane thoughts are very disturbing (is humanity's nature to destroy itself?) It seems like one of the SV buzz phrases is "fake it till you make it"/"be insanely optimistic and project that excitement". And that rarely comes from a place of sanity, but it can still work too. Being sane and self-aware can be great, but I think it's overrated in terms of creating happiness.

ggm 7y ago

aeon web write ups feel like an attempt to be super-informative which just .. misses. They always seem to riff on things making a HUGE DEAL about THIS ONE THING which the authors feel WE ALL MISSED and I feel like I am watching a 1960s movie of stoned people.. grooving on the pattern the coffee cup makes on their hand, man.. its all one hole man.. one hole, the hole is not the cup, the hole is .. the HANDLE.. is it just me? Am I really too "thick" for what aeon is trying to say? I hate this. I hate being critical of people doing long reads, but I think of the family of long reads, Aeon is about the worst example. Jarrod Lanier. Jarod Diamond. Ray Kurzeweil. Rent-a-quote new-age theorists trying to be a psychopomp for the modern age, or philosophers but as self-taught, auto-didact philosophers they didn't learn how to do it very well.. And it shows. The two line take-away is: care less about material things. Gee.. nobody said that before, 2000+ years ago. Did they? (I should speak. I can't write for toffee either, but the point is I don't put it out there on Aeon)

orwin 7y ago
Well, if someone is taking Jung and Freud seriously, not really understanding him/her should be an average reaction. Not paying attention should be the hypersane (or, you know, rational and mysentropic) reaction, and believing the writing the insane/irrationnal reaction. That said Jung made some philosophical points, so you can't reject everything he wrote. But it's not enough to take him seriously.
Erlich_Bachman 7y ago
> The two line take-away is: care less about material things. Gee.. nobody said that before, 2000+ years ago. Did they? Yes, seriously, how is this news? Every single spiritual teacher, every religion, even every motivational coach will tell you this in the first hours of their teachings. How is this new? Yes, it takes time to integrate it, it is not enough to just read about but what the article is going to integrate it for me? It is just more reading. There are thousands of readily available sources for this "profound truth", it is literally everywhere.
- chousuke 7y ago
  "Everyone says so" is not sufficient justification to accept something as true. It does indicate that there may be something to be investigated, but I personally can't even begin to believe stuff like this on someone's word alone. Even if it's everyone on Earth but me. It might be that it's beneficial to "care less about material things", but what does that even mean? I can't just randomly decide how much I care and don't care about something, so what can be done to actually effect that change? What is the mechanism by which it improves my life?

ganzuul 7y ago

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depressive_realism https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depressive_realism

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ciconia 7y ago

"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." - Krishnamurti

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dgudkov 7y ago

Feeling hypersane and being hypersane is not the same thing. I guess drug users can tell more about this.

soufron 7y ago

This strikes me as a concept designed to cater to those willing to place themselves above the fray. As in "I am not crazy or asocial, I am only being hypersane". In other words, it's just another way to rationalize the lack of empathy and the will to diss any efforts to correct it.

mikorym 7y ago

Jane Goodall has created quite a bunch of problems for Africans and I certainly won't class her as "hypersane".

Udo 7y ago

This concept seems unhelpfully reductive and transparently targeted at people who feel a need for self-congratulation on account of being alienated by the "normal" people, although alienation is paradoxically also portrayed as one of the markers of being painfully ordinary. "Many ‘normal’ people suffer from not being hypersane: they have a restricted worldview, confused priorities, and are wracked by stress, anxiety and self-deception. [...] In contrast, hypersane people are calm, contained and constructive. It is not just that the ‘sane’ are irrational but that they lack scope and range, [...]" All of these things are orthogonal traits and can occur in an individual in any combination. For example, I would categorize myself as having a moderately open worldview, mostly straight priorities, not wracked by stress and anxiety, moderate to severe self-deception, calm, contained, and mostly constructive. So which one am I? A barely conscious pleb or an advanced rational intelligence? It seems to me these kinds of characterizations are really the product of people trying to build a framework that appreciates their (subjectively underappreciated) positive traits. It's obviously not wrong to celebrate those traits, especially when confronted with their opposites so publicly on a daily basis, but the problem arises when we're trying to bundle those traits up under a buzzword package name. People are very diverse, and their traits and behaviors develop over time. I allege that it is more helpful to look at the positively connotated traits mentioned here in isolation, and work on improving aspects of ourselves in a targeted manner, as opposed to subscribing to a blanket identity (in this case hypersanity, which is ultimately meaningless). There needs to be less emphasis on "what identity am I innately" and more emphasis on "what properties do I like about myself and which ones do I want to improve". The difference here is not only one of nuance and constructiveness, but also one of fundamental outlook.

djmips 7y ago
I'm not agreeing or disagreeing but I feel like you should read some of the books mentioned above and ponder a little more because I feel like you missed something.
- Udo 7y ago
  That's a very generic dismissal. Are you saying that I can't contribute to the discussion because I'm ill-informed or because I failed to grasp the significance of the concept? Could you be more specific about what it is that I'm missing?

tudorizer 7y ago

Interesting concept. Sounds more like an astute sense of critical thinking. Would a machine (i.e. AI) with vast knowledge, driven solely by cold facts and results be considered hypersane?

dynamite-ready 7y ago

Might be a bit of a tangent, but I was looking at the names referenced to support the article. Temple Grandin, Jung, Jane Goodall, etc... While I have my doubts about the validity of MBTI testing, I Googled the names, and each of those people appear to tend towards *NFJ types (most likely INFJ). Not sure if that means anything, just thought it was a fun observation.

tempguy9999 7y ago

I read Lang's bird of paradise when I was a kid and was thoroughly wowed by the fact it was so deep I couldn't understand it. When I grew up I realised long obscure words used to conceal self-indulgent ramblings wasn't a sign of anything good. I can't find an extract of meat of the book, can anyone else? As someone who also has had, and likely always will have mental health problems, anyone who glorifies that which is fundamentally an illness deserves a good kicking. It's miserable, destructive, isolating and no less a disease than, say, cancer.

chousuke 7y ago
I believe that for some philosophical insight to be truly profound, you need to be able to state it in a manner that is completely unambiguous. It is easy to make yourself sound smart by allowing the listener to "fill in the gaps" with their own interpretation, but it doesn't really contribute anything meaningful.
- ta1234567890 7y ago
  Language does not allow for complete unambiguity. Any sort of communication requires context (eg. agreeing on a similar meaning to the words we write/speak). Any difference in context will derive in differences in meaning. We can never not "fill in the gaps". Listening or reading are exercises in translation and interpretation of meaning, which implies always having to fill in the gaps.

mapcars 7y ago

>But what if there were another route to hypersanity Em, there are many, including Zen, Yoga, and Mysticism.

qwerty456127 7y ago
These do not help everybody. For many people (including many of those who practice it and even those who "believe in" spirituality) yoga is nothing but a kind of physical exercise. As for mysticism - trying to practice it seems more prone to make you insane than hypersane, it's not for everybody. As for Zen - many people will probably just fail to get it, get bored and give up trying at some point.

mapcars 7y ago

There is Alan Watts video on the topic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4wa0tSBdOU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4wa0tSBdOU

fjfaase 7y ago

When I think about hypersane people, what come to my mind are: Josha Bach, Frans de Waal, Thomas Ligotti (The Conspiracy Against the Human Race), and, a non-human, fictional character: Mr. Spock.

gnode 7y ago

There are two main elements to sanity: having a rational and sound interpretation of reality, and acting in a way which rationally benefit's ones interests. I think hypersanity would constitute not only a hyper-rational worldview, and to reconcile common cognitive dissonance, but also the ability to integrate that awareness into better self-preserving behaviour (to improve ones safety or efficacy), rather than to respond with depression, terror, self-ostracism, etc.

Luff 7y ago

Hypersane sounds a little smug, but it feels close to something. Like, there seems to be a difference between how smart a person is, and being [effective? rational? non-reactive? introspective?]. It feels like there's a spectrum of to which extent people are programmed by, and are reacting to, their environment. A spectrum that might be separate from how smart they are. Give them a text-book or an IQ-test and they'll do great, give them the news and they'll ineffectually berate and hate each-other, and so on. So while a sane person might have a common social programming, an insane persons programming would be corrupted/deviant. And a "hypersane" person would be someone who is more able to see their own (and others) programming, and to a greater extent be able to opt-out of some of it? Maybe there are better words for it.

sifar 7y ago
May be the Unsane ? :). Seriously, there is already a name for it. "The name that can be named is not the eternal name."

pcstl 7y ago

Based on this article, there is absolutely no way to distinguish "Hypersanity" from just plain old insanity. Rationality is systematized winning. Unless your actions are benefitting yourself in some significant way, you cannot be considered rational. However, you cannot determine a person's inner drivers from the outside. Therefore, you cannot tell, based purely on their actions, whether they are winning (where winning is defined purely based on the individual's value system). Therefore, it is impossible to tell if an individual is "hypersane" or insane. The whole concept is meaningless and sounds like something people would think is "very deep" while stoned.

ltbarcly3 7y ago
> Based on this article, there is absolutely no way to distinguish "Hypersanity" from just plain old insanity. I don't see it this way at all. Plain old insanity can manifest as typical (or atypical) behavior combined with absurd, easily disprovable beliefs. Hypersanity as described leads to atypical behavior and worldview via a reasoned dismissal of widely accepted values, but nothing wrong on it's face or disprovable. For example, insanity is believing you are covered with spiders when you are not, hypersanity would be not feeling the need to disturb a harmless spider that is sitting on your nose. > Rationality is systematized winning. Unless your actions are benefitting yourself in some significant way, you cannot be considered rational. Now I see why you can't distinguish between insanity and hypersanity, you are conflating epistemology and ethics, and they just aren't the same thing. A 'true belief' is one which enables you to achieve some goal, but whether that goal is 'good' or desirable can only be determined when evaluated via some kind of ethical framework. For example, if I decide that the most important thing is to make sure the Canadian flag never touches the ground I will have a very different concept of what 'winning' is compared to someone who's goal is to make as much money as possible, and both of us will have a different concept of winning compared to someone who thinks the most important thing is to teach others that their widely held assumptions are not true or important, such as Diogenes.
- pcstl 7y ago
  The article mentions "conversing with beings which cannot be perceived by anyone but the person themselves" as a canonical example of hypersanity. I find that pretty comparable to "believing you are covered with spiders when you are not". >you are conflating epistemology and ethics The interpretation that the idea of hypersanity refers only to ethics is due to you and you alone, as the article states nothing to that end, so please do not make claims about my thought process that amount to "you are wrong because you did not arrive at the same conclusion as me". It is not only disingenuous, but also arrogant and short-sighted.

teilo 7y ago

This is a meaningless article. Define hypersanity or shut up. Don't tell me what hypersane people do. Tell me what it is or else the word is an entirely subjective and therefore useless distinction. You can select any arbitrary set of behaviors and pin a label on it. That doesn't make the label meaningful or useful.

vinceguidry 7y ago

One of my hobbies is comparing and contrasting apparent synonyms and trying to discern the contours of thought through language usage. This made me want to muddle around in the middle ground between rational and sane. Immediately at hand we have the 'human being' use case; when do we call humans 'rational' and when do we call them 'sane'? Similarly we can ask what sorts of non-human things do we call sane and which do we call rational. Rationality in humans appears to be quite temporal, while sanity moves much more slowly. A person can be rational one second and irrational the next, then 'get over it' thereby becoming rational again. Whereas generally we speak of sanity 'slowly slipping away'. The outcomes generated also seem to have an effect on which words we use. When the outcomes behind events seem outsized relative to proceedings, we might call the whole thing 'insane'. Whereas 'irrational' seems to refer more to smaller-scoped outcomes, the operative aspect simply being that they're intransigent to ordinary reasoning. As such, 'hypersane' seems to be a similar quality of sanity, and on a continuum you might put 'insane' at the far left, followed by 'irrational' then 'rational', then perhaps 'hyper-rational', followed by 'hypersane'. What does this leave out? Could someone be hypersane and irrational at the same time? I don't think that's the intended understanding of the hypersane concept. In fact, I would venture a definition of hypersane to be someone whose 'irrationalities' are actually expressions of a more universal rationality. When Diogenes did seemingly irrational things, he was really picking up on broader social themes and dynamics and acting in ways that would confound and amaze rather than merely annoy and hinder. Diogenes' self-expressions might be more or less rational at any given time, but that he had a finger on the pulse of ancient Greek culture is undeniable, so he's eminently distinguishable from a 'mere' madman. Whereas someone who is insane's irrational expressions are expressions of individual rationality, hopelessly entangled with the individual's own personal foibles. So what is sanity, if rationalism captures the idea of 'self-expression being intelligible to others'? Even a madman is going to have prescient moments, perhaps they abound in them, as far from the mainstream they are. Perhaps it's the 'capacity of output' that makes up the difference. Terry A. Davis' life, may he rest in peace, was made infinitely better by his masters-level education and programming skills. They gave him a form of agency and ability to fascinate and participate in society that the guy in the red outfit that I pass by frequently on my way to and from work doesn't seem to have.

the-peter 7y ago

"It's not really a measure of mental health to be well-adjusted in a society that's very sick." -The OA