3 ms·

This is really interesting. A proof that "not everything was thought of yet" and revolutionary ideas still wait for people whose thinking is sufficiently out of

This is really interesting. A proof that "not everything was thought of yet" and revolutionary ideas still wait for people whose thinking is sufficiently out of the box. Who would have thought that "confronting your demons" could work in such a literal way.

tantalor 2y ago
It's only revolutionary if you ignore history. As popularized in film, John Nash did this in the 1960s.
- inglor_cz 2y ago
  Ye olde question: is the crucial aspect of innovation if someone did that first, or if someone was able to break into the mainstream? If the technique wasn't used for 50 years after Nash, wasn't it like the tree that fell in the forest and nobody heard it falling? Imagine finding out that someone observed antibiotic effects of Penicilinum in the 1880s, but patients still dying of banal infections until Fleming; in that case, I would give the "revolutionary" credit to Fleming.
  - keybored 2y ago
    No, it’s not revolutionary if someone manages to find a counter-example 22 minutes after someone proclaims that it is revolutionary. It clearly hasn’t been relegated to obscurity.
    - inglor_cz 2y ago
      Revolution means pretty literally "turn something around". Which a first actual large-scale deployment of something fulfills, but isolated experiments don't. Was Falcon 9 revolutionary? For me, absolutely, because it was the first widely deployed rocket that made partial reuse economical, and thus enabled projects such as Starlink. We can call the previous small-scale experiments bold or maybe groundbreaking, but there was no revolution achieved.
      - keybored 2y ago
        EDIT: Ahead might be simply nitpicking & splitting hairs. You’re moving the goalpost. First it was a revolutionary idea. Now a revolution is after an idea has been put into practice.[1] Which is it? [1] Even “not everything was thought of yet” but it’s there “for people whose thinking is sufficiently out of the box”. Come on.
        inglor_cz 2y ago
        You are onto something. I moved the goalpost. One of the reasons might be that the conversation dragged over hours and I lost the precise context in my head, with tons of distractions coming my way.
FollowingTheDao 2y ago
I think calling them "demons" is part of the problem. I take my delusion as clues, psychic hints, a sort of over sensitivity and Cassandra like quality, that should be used by people without schizo. But I cannot tell you how many time sI was called stupid and crazy about my ideas on here yet I talk with research scientists on the regular. To me Schizo is nothing more than an intensely creative mind. Why see nothing when you can see somthing? Note that hunter gatherer genetics are linked to schizo and the idea of aa demon is a particularly Christian view of insights that do not fit the norm. More so if the ideas were coming from "pagan" people. https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/evolutionary-psychiatry/huntergatherers-mismatch-and-mental-disorder/8205CFCBE785351D4AE740F4EC95B8A7 https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/evolutionary-psychi...
- inglor_cz 2y ago
  TBH these voices might have been the original reason why "demons" got defined by the ancients as evil spirits. They often speak evil things, are unseen to the general population, but torment the sufferer ... a basic candidate for the category of "demon", especially in pre-modern times. Also, I don't think that demons are a particularly Christian phenomenon. They certainly predate Christianity and various "heathen" religions were full of them: Indo-European, Amerindian, African... But the idea of schizophrenia as a very intense mind going on empty is interesting. Only I would say that it needs some specific pathway to go down the schizophrenic route. Plenty of people with intense fantasies are normally adjusted and don't fulfill the criteria for a mental disease.
  - dsego 2y ago
    But it does look like there are some people who are tormented by mental issues and preoccupied with bizarre thoughts, occult imagery, and aggressive behaviors. And honestly, even though I've seen myself how meds work on my family member, it's so surreal to believe after seeing such manifestations, and demons would be the right term for the behaviors I've seen first hand, it also sounded like a living nightmare to the person experiencing it. The acceptance of these nonsensical ideas and going with the flow reminded me of how dreams work, but at least I'm not awake to live out the dream.
tananan 2y ago
Many people probably do this already, somewhat intuitively. If you look around, descriptions of such problems and similar advice is found in many contemplative traditions. I've heard an sermon recently that was named something like "pay no mind to the evil thoughts". Now in the tradition of that priest (mainstream/Orthodox Christianity) they overly attribute some things to demons, but you'll find similar advice elsewhere without that baggage. It is nice to see it in secular medicine as well, though.

tantalor 2y ago

It's only revolutionary if you ignore history. As popularized in film, John Nash did this in the 1960s.

inglor_cz 2y ago
Ye olde question: is the crucial aspect of innovation if someone did that first, or if someone was able to break into the mainstream? If the technique wasn't used for 50 years after Nash, wasn't it like the tree that fell in the forest and nobody heard it falling? Imagine finding out that someone observed antibiotic effects of Penicilinum in the 1880s, but patients still dying of banal infections until Fleming; in that case, I would give the "revolutionary" credit to Fleming.
- keybored 2y ago
  No, it’s not revolutionary if someone manages to find a counter-example 22 minutes after someone proclaims that it is revolutionary. It clearly hasn’t been relegated to obscurity.
  - inglor_cz 2y ago
    Revolution means pretty literally "turn something around". Which a first actual large-scale deployment of something fulfills, but isolated experiments don't. Was Falcon 9 revolutionary? For me, absolutely, because it was the first widely deployed rocket that made partial reuse economical, and thus enabled projects such as Starlink. We can call the previous small-scale experiments bold or maybe groundbreaking, but there was no revolution achieved.
    - keybored 2y ago
      EDIT: Ahead might be simply nitpicking & splitting hairs. You’re moving the goalpost. First it was a revolutionary idea. Now a revolution is after an idea has been put into practice.[1] Which is it? [1] Even “not everything was thought of yet” but it’s there “for people whose thinking is sufficiently out of the box”. Come on.
      - inglor_cz 2y ago
        You are onto something. I moved the goalpost. One of the reasons might be that the conversation dragged over hours and I lost the precise context in my head, with tons of distractions coming my way.

FollowingTheDao 2y ago

I think calling them "demons" is part of the problem. I take my delusion as clues, psychic hints, a sort of over sensitivity and Cassandra like quality, that should be used by people without schizo. But I cannot tell you how many time sI was called stupid and crazy about my ideas on here yet I talk with research scientists on the regular. To me Schizo is nothing more than an intensely creative mind. Why see nothing when you can see somthing? Note that hunter gatherer genetics are linked to schizo and the idea of aa demon is a particularly Christian view of insights that do not fit the norm. More so if the ideas were coming from "pagan" people. https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/evolutionary-psychiatry/huntergatherers-mismatch-and-mental-disorder/8205CFCBE785351D4AE740F4EC95B8A7 https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/evolutionary-psychi...

inglor_cz 2y ago
TBH these voices might have been the original reason why "demons" got defined by the ancients as evil spirits. They often speak evil things, are unseen to the general population, but torment the sufferer ... a basic candidate for the category of "demon", especially in pre-modern times. Also, I don't think that demons are a particularly Christian phenomenon. They certainly predate Christianity and various "heathen" religions were full of them: Indo-European, Amerindian, African... But the idea of schizophrenia as a very intense mind going on empty is interesting. Only I would say that it needs some specific pathway to go down the schizophrenic route. Plenty of people with intense fantasies are normally adjusted and don't fulfill the criteria for a mental disease.
- dsego 2y ago
  But it does look like there are some people who are tormented by mental issues and preoccupied with bizarre thoughts, occult imagery, and aggressive behaviors. And honestly, even though I've seen myself how meds work on my family member, it's so surreal to believe after seeing such manifestations, and demons would be the right term for the behaviors I've seen first hand, it also sounded like a living nightmare to the person experiencing it. The acceptance of these nonsensical ideas and going with the flow reminded me of how dreams work, but at least I'm not awake to live out the dream.

tananan 2y ago

Many people probably do this already, somewhat intuitively. If you look around, descriptions of such problems and similar advice is found in many contemplative traditions. I've heard an sermon recently that was named something like "pay no mind to the evil thoughts". Now in the tradition of that priest (mainstream/Orthodox Christianity) they overly attribute some things to demons, but you'll find similar advice elsewhere without that baggage. It is nice to see it in secular medicine as well, though.