3 ms·

So following your response here and your original comment directly comparing ChatGPT to a human with schizophrenia: are schizophrenics non-people? According to

So following your response here and your original comment directly comparing ChatGPT to a human with schizophrenia: are schizophrenics non-people? According to you, the bot "literally comes across like a schizophrenic off their meds". I'm confused. Also, the original article talks a lot about how we can be convinced by actors that they are indeed a totally different person. You might say that actors can change their personality at will to suit their role. Are actors non-people?

lisper 4y ago
> are schizophrenics non-people? Schizophrenics are multiple people inhabiting one body. The pithiest way I know of describing it is a line from a Pink Floyd song: "There's someone in my head but it's not me." > Are actors non-people? I don't know many actors so I can't really say. I like to think that underneath the pretense there is a "real person" but I don't actually know. I have heard tell of method actors who get so deeply into their roles that they are actually able to extinguish any real person who might interfere with their work. But this is far, far outside my area of expertise.
- drdec 4y ago
  FYI, the condition you are referring to is called multiple personality disorder and is distinct from schizophrenia.
  - lisper 4y ago
    No, multiple personality is different. Schizophrenia is distinct from MPD, but both are characterized by having multiple persons resident in one brain, it just manifest differently. In MPD the multiple persons swap in and out, whereas in schizophrenia there is one person who is definitely the real resident while the others are intruders. Schizophrenics really do hear voices, and those voices are "someone else". With MPD you have multiple coherent personalities manifesting themselves at different times. With schizophrenia you have one personality slowly being driven crazy by not being able to make the voices shut up. (Source: I am not a mental health professional, but I did spend some time interviewing and hanging out with schizophrenics, both under treatment and not, as part of a documentary film I made about homeless people about 15 years ago. https://graceofgodmovie.com/ https://graceofgodmovie.com/ )
    - drdec 4y ago
      Thanks for sharing your experience. My understanding is that the hallucinations experienced by schizophrenics do not rise to the level of being a "personality". Yes, for the person experiencing the hallucination, the source appears to be an "other". But the other in this case is usually single-minded and not a fully-formed personality. OTOH, I certainly do not discount the possibility that for some schizophrenics this is not the case. Rereading your comment again just now I think we agree more than we disagree and this probably comes down to semantics. : - ) https://www.livescience.com/55379-schizophrenia-multiple-personalities.html https://www.livescience.com/55379-schizophrenia-multiple-per...
      - lisper 4y ago
        > the other in this case is usually single-minded and not a fully-formed personality That's a fair point. I think some of my subjects reported being able to have conversations with the other, but this was a long time ago so I could be mis-remembering. But I still have the interview recordings if anyone really wants to dig into this.

lisper 4y ago

> are schizophrenics non-people? Schizophrenics are multiple people inhabiting one body. The pithiest way I know of describing it is a line from a Pink Floyd song: "There's someone in my head but it's not me." > Are actors non-people? I don't know many actors so I can't really say. I like to think that underneath the pretense there is a "real person" but I don't actually know. I have heard tell of method actors who get so deeply into their roles that they are actually able to extinguish any real person who might interfere with their work. But this is far, far outside my area of expertise.

drdec 4y ago
FYI, the condition you are referring to is called multiple personality disorder and is distinct from schizophrenia.
- lisper 4y ago
  No, multiple personality is different. Schizophrenia is distinct from MPD, but both are characterized by having multiple persons resident in one brain, it just manifest differently. In MPD the multiple persons swap in and out, whereas in schizophrenia there is one person who is definitely the real resident while the others are intruders. Schizophrenics really do hear voices, and those voices are "someone else". With MPD you have multiple coherent personalities manifesting themselves at different times. With schizophrenia you have one personality slowly being driven crazy by not being able to make the voices shut up. (Source: I am not a mental health professional, but I did spend some time interviewing and hanging out with schizophrenics, both under treatment and not, as part of a documentary film I made about homeless people about 15 years ago. https://graceofgodmovie.com/ https://graceofgodmovie.com/ )
  - drdec 4y ago
    Thanks for sharing your experience. My understanding is that the hallucinations experienced by schizophrenics do not rise to the level of being a "personality". Yes, for the person experiencing the hallucination, the source appears to be an "other". But the other in this case is usually single-minded and not a fully-formed personality. OTOH, I certainly do not discount the possibility that for some schizophrenics this is not the case. Rereading your comment again just now I think we agree more than we disagree and this probably comes down to semantics. : - ) https://www.livescience.com/55379-schizophrenia-multiple-personalities.html https://www.livescience.com/55379-schizophrenia-multiple-per...
    - lisper 4y ago
      > the other in this case is usually single-minded and not a fully-formed personality That's a fair point. I think some of my subjects reported being able to have conversations with the other, but this was a long time ago so I could be mis-remembering. But I still have the interview recordings if anyone really wants to dig into this.