5 ms·
"Onset of acute schizophrenia, or a genuine mystic revelation, or is there a difference?" That's a great insight.
by Animats 2mo ago
"Onset of acute schizophrenia, or a genuine mystic revelation, or is there a difference?"
That's a great insight.
- germandiago 2mo agoA great insight? Where is the insight if there is no way to know? Objectively speaking, you end up exactly the same way you started. It is as if I said: oh, the app hangs: infinite loop or crash and frozen? It is one or the other, but never both. Yet you do not know if there is no way for further inspection.
- echelon_musk 2mo agoThe insight is not into either state but toward the relation of the states.
- wartywhoa23 2mo agoExactly, the metadata is the key to encrypted data.
- kjs3 2mo agoNot everything in real life distills to a programming analogy.
- germandiago 2mo agoMy point was about what you can or cannot know depending on how much you can inspect. It could have been anything else the example.
- wartywhoa23 2mo ago> Objectively speaking, you end up exactly the same way you started. Absolutely not. You end up feeling you're unable to explain x86_64 instruction set you just saw and understood not only to your fellow tribesmen gathered around the campfire and waiting for your trip report in a language which lacks even a remote possibility to explain that, but even to yourself. Yet, the knowledge of the fact of seeing and understanding persists.
- pingou 2mo agoCould you explain? A genuine mystic revelation would mean, in my opinion, something that cannot be explained by the laws of physics. Acute schizophrenia would mean the exact opposite. On the other hand if we broaden the meaning of mystic revelation, a "light" mystic revelation, like being in awe in front of nature for example, would have nothing to do with acute schizophrenia.
- echelon_musk 2mo ago> A genuine mystic revelation would mean, in my opinion, something that cannot be explained by the laws of physics Exactly this can happen, whilst also being labelled schizophrenia.
- pingou 2mo agoYes but it would mean that the following two are both right, if there really is no difference between a genuine mystic revelation and schizophrenia: - There exists something that cannot be explained by the law of physics - a schizophrenia label is always caused by genuine mystic revelation I wasn't under the impression that the quote meant that a genuine mystic revelation would be labelled as schizophrenia, if that was what the quote meant, that doesn't seem like a great hindsight or particularly deep observation to me.
- nathan_compton 2mo agoGive me an example.
- swat535 2mo agoIt's not possible, everything can be explained by science sooner or later. We have plenty examples of this throughout history: lunar eclipse as "omens", plague as "divine wrath", rainbow as a "sign of flood", etc. “What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence." - Christopher Hitchens
- nathan_compton 2mo ago
- Mikhail_Edoshin 2mo agoWilliam James suggested a criterion to tell these two apart.
- vintermann 2mo agoSo did Philip K. Dick, one enthusiastically embraced by a generation of skeptics: "Reality is that which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." Which was really hilarious, because for PKD, the point was that he couldn't discount his experiences. He couldn't make them go away even though he understood perfectly well that he might simply be crazy.
- graemep 2mo agoIts not new. its been a question for centuries, probably millennia.