Mind's Eye Re: Delusions

One can think about delusions in terms of science and religion.  It is easy at the level of gross delusions in the following to see the delusion.

How can we square people's apparent strong conviction in the content of the delusion with their failure to act on it? One hypothesis is that the content of the delusion is not genuinely believed. Another hypothesis is that the content of the delusion is genuinely believed but not converted into action, because the person fails to acquire or maintain the motivation to act (this would be consistent with negative symptoms of schizophrenia).  One might think here how peaceful religions are involved in wars.

One should not be too impressed by 'behavioural inertia' in people with delusions, as there are many examples of people acting on their delusions. Affected by perceptual delusional bicephaly, the delusion that one has two heads, a man who believed that the second head belonged to his wife's gynaecologist attempted to attack it with an axe. When the attack failed he attempted it to shoot it down – as a consequence he was hospitalized with gunshot wounds. Cases of Cotard delusion have been reported where people stop eating and bathing themselves as a consequence of believing that they are dead.  We are prepared to be on the same page regarding a religion of peace and mutual respect, yet the world goes on otherwise, our actions clearly inadequate.

Both science and religion make the other side delusional, refusing to admit each other's evidence.  The key delusion, for me, is believing we really get into reviewing the evidence at all.  I would recommend delusional bicephaly to cops and social workers believing thirteen year old kids choose a prostitute lifestyle and hand them an axe.  This is not the real delusion though.  I think it concerns our inability to see much wider evidence of what is going on.  This is a delusion about what argument is.

On Saturday, February 7, 2015 at 6:14:00 PM UTC, archytas wrote:

Delusions have interested me over the years because I don't fit well with society.  I don't really want to as I see it is delusional to fit in to delusions.  Watching other people eat, a current internet fixation some people are making money from, seems chronically delusional to me.  Jenkins should be working harder to sequester any such cash to ArchJenko Offworld.  Sadly, the boy is not gross enough chomping through burgers and prawns whilst swilling craft ale.  The competition has vile, loud, gawky teenagers slobbering through vast plates of Klingon gark pasta.  Only the wassup conversation and machine musak has more intellectual content than the Jenko offerings.  We need to understand the delusion in which people pay good money for this rather obviously tasteless fodder.  Satisfying delusions is they key to economic success.

The content of a delusion can be mundane, and does not even need to be false: one can have the delusion that one's spouse is unfaithful or that one's neighbour is a terrorist, and these may turn out to be true beliefs. In such as the Cotard delusion, in which the delusionist thinks she is dead, the content of a delusion can be bizarre. In mirrored self misidentification the person in the mirror is not one's reflection but a stranger, and the Capgras delusion is the delusion that the spouse or a relative has been replaced by an impostor. All types of delusions are rigid to some extent, not easily given up because they tend to resist counterevidence. All delusions are reported sincerely and with conviction, although the behaviour of people with delusions is not always perfectly consistent with the content of their delusions. People who have delusions of persecution and believe that they are followed by malevolent others live in a state of great anxiety and can give up their jobs and move cities as a result. Other delusions do not significantly impact on people's behaviour: hospital patients may say that the nurses are trying to poison them, but do not stop eating their meals.

The world has many more delusions than we find in 'mad people'.  Should we exploit them as in 'ArchJenko' or try sanity?  How are delusions maintained, as in creationism, democracy, free trade, markets, the wars on drugs, terrorism and amongst cops, social workers and politicians taking money for protecting children while thousands go unprotected?

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