8 ms·
Delusional themes may be more varied than we thought
- brudgers 1y agodirect link to paper (the numbers are on page 5) https://watermark.silverchair.com/sbae225.pdf?token=AQECAHi208BE49Ooan9kkhW_Ercy7Dm3ZL_9Cf3qfKAc485ysgAAA4owggOGBgkqhkiG9w0BBwagggN3MIIDcwIBADCCA2wGCSqGSIb3DQEHATAeBglghkgBZQMEAS4wEQQMZ_OSnLUKK68tQLPmAgEQgIIDPeNg791LHv8cAkfdcOtsq3O5M3Phq1pBL-nRGiEfe5SvdRcj4rOvkagtJmJ9K_KSk7rEyjBM9V_YHHhVClkrv3tKuwqq3mfMrE2Yul9QvRNvC23FzuheN4MwEkh2IO1M1Wx7kqJyoMTzkrzYoLp8YA8m9PEWgOfZj8LsoHWgembx405HJKnD1LpYGWdj5GS-9L-bt_SQJOjViElNQ0xEpgpvATblKcGCSA54csPGfd1dEnC6QV3oGp9n7MCa0ueukgVs4iPWglV5w00lOdYLH6CsWdAGAmVBPqCpTDGev2DFBN2H5g6SokuytapD5MwTZAGW4kwPfoECcrmo0_J48Twxbb2lJqfVoV492mcYqW8G7S1FEWi95_sUNokjqLEzLuI7cEspYzm0IGE02I5BL6PvQntE0STPhljckisjQwp6VXPXMrwHVD6Cpnqqgvj_vOahKwWUZ12T8mfrl_XbTdruwv2Zp1_4aSgSV5vccT6Li7eHe80zl2mh0f4ifJrlnqdtidG5Fcd57VUfBZdnbaueGW4Qs8OGpKdAarOwrXPg4ZT4fFFdHYuo0Muhhz2zIzUbDiy6s5Q77Kkj98-AjqWeR4ETOO3OUqouX31G9ly8oKcbmxVkORNlNy8FgCS07R7S3Sv6l5HzUKioG3K-ljeb-SQYpLXNyzSklCHgRm1wRxjG4Q7rbfo1JDZQG8Gsbi5G89bLNRG20LJZcQlEkGQJdHJEYLSGLGu1815IyN5MSXu6AWGYYHM7yixXnNqf-8I1DpE8hDWrKrwJgvAsB38wkfJNRMXs5zi47DdAlaso3d-iFThYqDRAWiETh_06KbJN5qdSU5xY0yu9huSPUfMg4XPpRYLxDyaIndNdIYo4oo50yFcHwkr8vP6s9YLWecCMyYj1e5xZzY9i4xIRh2pnzqGPeAikOWmdOBY9UQ57oeLtQcVodVQTrNweL4D-7widXuLadV7jYsh56Bz93iWA_sPfzJwiwzPBqJ25TWz6kmqn1P6c0o0rsBmQ5EGcOv9Arf8cGK_a5W4p4x8pEfS0tbG4wor58tbdhpElkqGANW_Sss4aVbx_El-9M52z7WBZoCtNyXvZhBHexcc https://watermark.silverchair.com/sbae225.pdf?token=AQECAHi2...
- codetrotter 1y ago> Your session has timed out. Please go back to the article page and click the PDF link again. Direct linking doesn’t work
- tokai 1y agoWorse than the DOI link at the end of the article, which points directly to the OA paper available at the publishers page.
- brudgers 1y agoThe link at the end of the article is how I found the link I posted. I did not break the internet by making a URL that is not a universal resource link.
- delichon 1y ago> Delusions — fixed, false beliefs that cannot be changed by evidence — are a key symptom of many psychotic disorders Interesting that "psychotic disorders" can be replaced with "tribalism" and still be true. We can easily identify such false beliefs in other tribes but often have a blind spot for them in our own. But in terms of tribes or politics it is not clear that this is a disorder. Believing the same false things as our neighbors is often rewarded with status, wealth and mating opportunities, while failing to do so can be deadly. What converts the same tendency into psychosis can be merely the context: it's psychotic to believe false things when there is no social advantage to it and it therefore becomes unfit. But the same is true of believing true things when they conflict with a tribe's deeply held false beliefs. Like a propensity to violence, believing false things can be a deadly strategy. Or it can be the only strategy that allows a chance for survival. And you may not know which until it is too late. It would be nice to live in a world where violence and false beliefs are consistently maladaptive, but that isn't this one.
- maxerickson 1y agoIn the medical definition, "fixed" is an important aspect of it. Maybe you have interacted with people with diagnosable psychosis, but if you haven't, it can be difficult to accept how the beliefs present.
- weard_beard 1y agoI try to believe one false thing a day. Like a glass of wine. Good for the heart.
- notjoemama 1y agoYou need to read about psychosis. Meaning, the clinical term, its causes, experience, and treatment. You’re conflating it with a critique you seem to have of people’s behavior. If you knew more I don’t think you’d do that.
- jl6 1y agoBeliefs and behavior are usually only a disorder if they interfere with the normal functioning of everyday life (whatever that is). Like, maybe you believe you are a mongoose, but as long as you can still happily eat / sleep / work / socialize then it’s not disordered.
- StevenWaterman 1y agoThe paper doesn't seem to actually define their categories anywhere. Am I just missing it? Or am I meant to intuitively know the difference between "spied on / watched" and "spy / surveillance"? Edit - upon re-reading, it seems like they're just using the themes present in the underlying literature, with _extremely_ conservative merging. Which makes the headline claim, that there are 37 distinct themes, pretty pointless. Is "spied on" really a distinct theme from "surveillance"? More likely, there's just no standardised name for it.
- yosito 1y ago> terror of global catastrophe That's considered a delusion?
- jl6 1y agoIf you are so terrified that it interferes with your normal everyday personal functioning, then yes.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- PaulHoule 1y agoIt might be a wrong belief or harmful belief or unhealthy belief but it's not a psychotic belief. I should know, I'm just a little psychotic. I'm not quite sure if my belief that I can transform into a fox is psychotic or not.
- ManlyBread 1y agoIf you'd actually believe in some sort of a global catastrophe that is just on the horizon you wouldn't be wasting time arguing with people on the internet
- ferociouskite56 1y agoFrom hateful experiences, this is bullshit. In 2019 I was accused in court that "Blacks...Muslims are a delusion." I've dated both as a Muslim convert and won the case. I said my family are jealous. January 2014 mother tried to invite 2 guys on my first African American date. Both parents banned minorities from the house. Most psychiatrists make things worse. Mother claims I'm not part of the computer industry because I am poor. Despite reading about Linux hours a day since at least the year 2000.
- overu589 1y ago[flagged]
- isaacremuant 1y agoYour profile is a fun read. As long as you don't go and try and harm your mother because "she's been taken by alien visitors" you're free to believe whatever you want just like religious people believe in their own stuff.
- isaacremuant 1y agoYour profile is a fun read. As long as you don't go and try and harm your mother because "she's been taken by alien visitors" you're free to believe whatever you want just like religious people believe in their own stuff. Edit: by fun I don't mean necessarily good fiction, the typical self aggrandizing stuff you hear from religions, but it's just fun to find it in a forum like this, played straight.
- overu589 1y agoYou are exactly right. When I read of a man from California killing his kids in Mexico because they are possessed by lizard people, or mothers killing their kids because the voice of God in their mind says so, I think of this quote I cannot quite place: to be silent in the face of a tyranny of evil is to be complicit. No greater evil in this world exists than American Thought Control, thought controlled Americans, or an America thought controlled. I am quite sincere friend.
- miros_love 1y agoHas anyone looked at similar studies from, say, five years ago? I worry that half of what was labeled “delusional” back then is now a widely accepted opinion. Feels like we're one step away from a follow-up paper titled "We regret to inform you: The paranoid were just early." Not saying everything turns out to be true - just that social consensus tends to shift a lot faster than clinical definitions.
- tokai 1y agoThe clinical definition of delusion includes social consensus. From DSM-5: "Delusions are deemed bizarre if they are clearly implausible and not understandable to same-culture peers and do not derive from ordinary life experiences. […] The distinction between a delusion and a strongly held idea is sometimes difficult to make and depends in part on the degree of conviction with which the belief is held despite clear or reasonable contradictory evidence regarding its veracity."
- Animats 1y agoThat's an escape hatch for religion.
- jl6 1y agoI always wondered if there was a clinical basis for that escape hatch or if the drafting committee felt it was just too contentious to go there.
- Animats 1y agoProbably the latter. Homosexuality was removed from the DSM as a diagnosis in 1973, by a vote of 5,854 to 3,810. Gender identity disorder was removed from the DSM in 2017.
- dreamlayers 1y agoIt seems like there is a continuum between being oblivious and delusional. You need to notice things, recognize their meaning, make connections and then make conclusions. Being oblivious can mean missing important signs and making bad choices due to not realizing what is happening. Being delusional can mean jumping to conclusions by "connecting the dots" in one particular way that leads to one conclusion even though that may not be the truth. A sane perspective would mean evaluating different hypotheses to come to a reasonable conclusion. Someone who is paranoid may be right about some things much earlier than others, but they may also be wrong about many other things.
- alganet 1y agoIf no one told me about this being about schizophrenia, I would interpret Figure 3 as a categorization of american movies and series.
- caseyy 1y agoOr maybe the internet. People love to dramatize these things.
- alganet 1y agoI took the most obvious cultural displacement industry as an example of the correlation between tropes, personas and delusions. Of course the internet is another one of those. Whether is it the cause or not, it is impossible to say, at least in the way the paper studies it ("meta-analysis,", another way of saying "loose correlation"). People love it? I don't know. Maybe it's like an addiction instead of a real desire for it. Have you ever been in a culture without those elements to know what is like? Anyway. Talking seriously now, schizophrenia is a big elephant in the world's room. Lots of correlations, no clear cause. The more you look into it, the more the cause seems to be inexistent. Given its current symptoms-based definition, with very low effort, anyone could be classified as schizophrenic. Just one push to disrupt "normal everyday functioning behavior" and even the most sane person could end up in the schizo bucket.
- Animats 1y agoThe standard DSM-5 delusions are are "bizarre, jealousy, erotomanic, grandiose, control, reference, persecutory, somatic, thought broadcasting, and insertion". Those covers a sizable fraction of Hollywood film plots. That says something important about something.
- yatopifo 1y agoWhat on earth is going on in the comment section? Do diagnosis articles always attract “examples”?
- caseyy 1y agoThe "terror of global catastrophe" is what doomscroller media constantly hammers onto its readers. And once someone has "bought in", it's impossible to reason with them. They'll just forever spread anxiety around them. What's interesting is how it happens. Take someone who is mentally stable and subject them to a terminally online lifestyle for a year or two. They will have tons of anxiety about all sorts of things, not the least of which will be that the world is doomed (with no hope), that our societies and way of life are in the "late stage" and moments from collapse, and so on. And it's a bit of a tragedy. If we took only the energy that people spend evangelizing those doom beliefs and put that energy into productive efforts, that alone could probably prevent whatever disaster is being evangelized. But maybe that'd not be good for engagement on social media or something.
- ARandomerDude 1y agoFed
- awanderingmind 1y agoGood insight, thanks. I've been struggling with existential dread related to https://ai-2027.com/ https://ai-2027.com/ - trying to refute the arguments is exhausting, I should probably just ignore it and get on with my life.
- kelseyfrog 1y agoFears about AI misalignment look like a modern, secular Pascal's Wager. It's hedge against a low-probability, infinite-cost outcome. The Rationalist version builds a matrix where one cell is -inf, and from that, derives an imperative to act, regardless of how speculative the premise is. However, once you admit infinite utilities and epistemic humility about probabilities, you can justify literally anything. The same construction could obligate you to worship simulation overlords, or to develop interstellar missile defense in case of hostile alien AIs. That's not a rational risk model, it's theological reasoning dressed up in Bayesian costume. This stuff operates on the boundary of plausibility, the intelligent paranoid mind generates scenarios that can't be conclusively ruled out but also can't be grounded in anything falsifiable. That's not where productive engineering lives. The escape hatch here is the same one we used for Pascal's Wager: you reject the premise. You don't hand the keys of your threat model over to speculative infinities. You work on problems you can see, measure, and influence. You don't respond to every "what if?" with a fire drill. Recognizing that this is a failure mode in human cognition is enough to avoid it. Yes, there are real risks with AI: bias, misuse, surveillance capitalism, economic displacement. These are all tractable, all human-driven. But the misalignment discourse? It's less a bet against an existential outcome and more a projection of philosophical anxieties onto a technical domain. And once you frame it that way, it's clear: this isn't engineering. Folks doing this are playing metaphysics in front of a terminal emulator.
- crdrost 1y agoThis is the list they compiled, with a little hash if it was in the DSM-V before this study: • Persecutory/paranoid # • Reference # • Family/relatives • Grandiose # • Passivity • Schneiderian • Neighbours/friends/associates • Spied on/watched • Paranormal • Sexual • Poisoning • Religious • Control # • Mindreading • Special powers/skills • Infidelty • Bizarre # • Perception • Thought broadcast # • Somatic # • Police/secret agent/army • Religious leader/God/Prophet/Saint • Thought insertion # • Jealousy # • Guilt/sin • Made affect • Hypochondriacal • Fantastic delusional memories • Thought withdrawal • Erotomanic heterosexual # • Possession • Primary • Catastrophe/world catastrophe • Poverty • Nihilistic/negation • Spy/surveillance • Made impulse The authors’ primary goal appears to not have been to shed light on the diversity of delusional experience, but to indicate some evidence that it is culturally sensitive, so right after this chart, we get into the discussion section and it discusses how in East Asia you can find slightly more delusions of jealousy, in Eastern Europe you can find slightly more delusions of guilt/sin, in their dataset. Reinterpreting it as this press release does, as a survey of the variety of delusional experience, makes for some interesting food for thought, but a lot of the categories identified kind of are just who are you being paranoid about, and what do you think they are doing. So you might have thought that people are afraid of strangers, this data set points to them being more delusional about family members, or thinking strangers are government spies, it's perhaps surprisingly not a stranger as a stranger that is terrifying? (Compare e.g. with the widespread worry among parents that a stranger might abduct their child.) The passivity delusion (“I’m not in control of my body, someone else takes over”) and Schneiderian delusion (which I think is “someone is narrating my life in a Stanley Parable-esque way”?) seem like solid omissions on the DSM-V's part, but after that I feel like I am scrolling down to hypochondriacal and “Fantastic delusional memories” (which is presumably something like “I actually went to Narnia when I was a kid, it's a real place”?) before I see things that genuinely strike me as, I didn't realize some folks have those delusions in their schizophrenia or whatever.
- dreamlayers 1y agoThis is a good article, but I dislike how the start defines delusions as "fixed, false beliefs that cannot be changed by evidence". Many delusions seem wrong to others without any solid evidence that can conclusively prove that they're wrong. For example, if someone says they're the second coming of Jesus, or if someone believes the CIA has mind control satellites, that seems obviously ridiculous, but you cannot disprove that.