#281
Superabound your criticism of this book is based on a false equivalence, namely, you think Jaynes claims that ancient man was essentially schizophrenic, and you imagine a society made of modern day, barely-functioning, diagnosed schizophrenics, all homeless and terrified. the book doesn't ever describe the "bicameral mind" as being like this. but the proof of the pudding will come with the eating. buster.
#282
Actually it is the modern man who is schizophrenic, as described in "A Thousand Plateaus" by Deleuze R.R. Guattari
#283
It's hardly "outside thought" to suggest that schizophrenia isn't a condition but another quality of the human mind, even the British psychitriasts assoc. has joined in making this the central criticism of the upcoming DSM-V. That all thought is "schizophrenic" in a manner of speaking but our minds are also equipped to deal with the existence of thought by having it explain itself, that is, patterns of thought are disordered when they conflict with or interrupt reality &/or occur without explanation/consent/locus/etc.
#284
the worth of schizophrenia, hotly debated on rhizzone.net
#285
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#286
the limit of capitalist-compatible deterritorialization of the psyche as a function or whatever
#287
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#288
it's when you hear voices and such not some sort of existential merit badge.
#289

wasted posted:

it's when you hear voices and such not some sort of existential merit badge.



I actually agree with this

#290
"i hear voices" ... lol, as if theres any other way to take them in.

youre not special. thats how I receive them too... i tried to taste them, but it did not work
#291
if you imagine an individual's complete worldview and framework of understanding as being a sort of projected map or coordinate system, the general way that language/meaning/relation/society can function is through communicating things which are placeable on another person's worldview-map. you could then imagine multiple of these maps or nets, each with different origins, overlapping and each slightly different, but generally agreeing on some important points. over here is the concept of a tree, over there - the points overlap slightly less - is happiness, there's a sort of smudge of points for "blue" - each map has different ways of getting to the same points but in the end are functionally similar enough to allow a consensus reality to form and be communicated about.

by overlapping and communicating information about these concept-maps we can actually create a sort of society of meaning, a language, a bunch of shitty internet memes, etc. certain groups have more shared meanings, subgroups can exist within a larger society that have more detailed or even entirely different maps of similar concept-areas, but have enough in common with that of others' to function entirely well within that other, large, shared concept-area, which we would call a culture. in schizophrenia one's concept-map is in large parts completely removed from that of everyone else's - one experiences the world in a way that does not agree or at times directly contradicts the wider consensus reality and meaning-space. you might experience things that no one else thinks are there, or get meanings from things that no one else does. the classic thing of course is "voices in my head lol" but there is an entire spectrum of schizotypal behaviour or thought, and the lighter forms are accepted (by e.g. the british dudes swampman mentioned) as an everyday part of functional personality.

disclaimer: i don't know anything about anything.
#292

roseweird posted:

yeah, see, like, after reading that, i know way less than before



here is my dumb self's version of it:

deleuze/guattari saw clinical schizophrenics as an example of people who broke freud's oedipus complex and could not be psychoanalyzed, who lived in a state of constant disruption of the connections between words and what they were presumed to mean and thus in a state of disruption of identity. they compared this to capitalism's role as a disupter of identity at many different points and concluded that capitalism produces schizophrenia but your average consumer needs "just enough" schizophrenia to constantly disrupt the self and then identify the self with the product. the clinical schizophrenic (isolated, hears voices, etc.) is a product of capitalism but not one that functions within capitalism and in fact disrupts capitalism. Capitalism produces a bunch of other products like the regulatory state that keep capitalism working through 'reterritorialization' of the disrupted identity so almost everyone (everyone but clinical schizophrenics) is "just schizophrenic enough".

people with way more knowledge of this are here to tell you what's wrong with this version, and it's possible i don't agree with it because i don't properly understand it.

#293
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#294
"just schizophrenic enough" is also a central theme to Ernest Becker's "Denial of Death" which argues death-fear is the root of basically all human behaviour and it is only by being coerced into a light narcissistic fantasy-world in which we are immortal that humans are able to function in modern society, but that we must constantly ride this line between neurotic break (in which you believe too much in your own power) and depressive miasma (in which you fully face that you are dying).

brilliant book, everyone should read it. got me out of one of my own depressive miasmas
#295
I think I'd fear immortality more than I'd fear death.
#296
thanatophobe itt (it's me)
#297

wasted posted:

I think I'd fear immortality more than I'd fear death.

this is a cute fun thing that everyone says but it's bullshit

#298
i genuinely find the thought of death comforting while immortality and eternal return cosmology horrify me
#299
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#300
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#301
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#302

drwhat posted:

wasted posted:

I think I'd fear immortality more than I'd fear death.

this is a cute fun thing that everyone says but it's bullshit


I guess you better start on your art collection then.

roseweird posted:

it is helpful if you can imagine returning as something greater than human


worm food

#303
to get your existential merit badge you chainsmoke gauloises in front of a waif while looking discontented in a vaguely sexual manner. also you're twelve
#304
I don't dispute that the fear of death is probably the greatest anxiety. I also recognize that schizophrenia as d&g describe it is a structural condition of modernity much like kierkegaard's despair.
#305

swampman posted:

It's hardly "outside thought" to suggest that schizophrenia isn't a condition but another quality of the human mind, even the British psychitriasts assoc. has joined in making this the central criticism of the upcoming DSM-V. That all thought is "schizophrenic" in a manner of speaking but our minds are also equipped to deal with the existence of thought by having it explain itself, that is, patterns of thought are disordered when they conflict with or interrupt reality &/or occur without explanation/consent/locus/etc.


well let's not overreach here, the BPS isn't saying psychotic symptoms are just another valid psychological characteristic like temperament or mood; that's more something from like, Thomas Szasz or R. D. Liang. they're criticizing the APA for, in their view, lumping together a set of distinct behaviors and mental processes, (auditory and visual hallucinations, grossly disorganized behavior, and negative symptoms up to and including catatonia) within the neat tidy package of "schizophrenia" without much scientific backing behind it except for social convention and tradition. they're also critical of the diagnostic model generally, but not in the sense of legitimizing, say, hearing voices, but rather in saying that labeling someone who does hear voices as "schizophrenic" may not actually be that helpful especially considering the wide range of symptoms and the variability in their morbidity from client to client. that's something of an oversimplification but the point is they're still approaching this from a medical perspective, with the intent of both limiting the need for unnecessary and potentially harmful medical intervention and improving the quality of care for those who do need it.

but more directly to the things you're saying, i have to admit i'm really skeptical. i react the same way i do when people tell me we have to follow a paleolithic diet because it's what we evolved to eat, or when Foucault bases his theories on vague and probably apocryphal historical anecdotes. i find it extremely hard to believe there's actually conclusive evidence to support these claims. that said if you find it useful&meaningful&relevant i don't want to diminish that, i'm not trying to "dispel illusions" or whatever here, but it really doesn't fit into my framework for understanding the world.

Edited by Lessons ()

#306
what on earth does "isn't a condition but another quality of the human mind" mean anyway
#307
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#308
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#309
"we have never actually met a schizophrenic" - deleuze & guattari, capitalism & schizophrenia

in guattari's case at least this wasn't true tho lol
#310
deadken can you tell me what's wrong with my summary because something almost certainly is and also chew my food for me tia
#311
that summary doesnt seem too bad to me, but also they're wrong lol
#312

roseweird posted:

drwhat posted:

this is a cute fun thing that everyone says but it's bullshit

it depends on whether you mean immortality as in anne rice vampire fantasy or as in belief in the eternal soul

immortality as in literally not dying. Becker's necessary neurotic immortal fantasy would include a belief in the eternal soul. etc. he would also include goofy shit like "I will live on in my art". or really pretty much anything that isn't "i will die and end and be nothing and there's no fucking way around it." i mean it's the old God Is Dead problem of course, just taken from a more psychological perspective by building on Otto Rank

#313

drwhat posted:

"just schizophrenic enough" is also a central theme to Ernest Becker's "Denial of Death" which argues death-fear is the root of basically all human behaviour and it is only by being coerced into a light narcissistic fantasy-world in which we are immortal that humans are able to function in modern society, but that we must constantly ride this line between neurotic break (in which you believe too much in your own power) and depressive miasma (in which you fully face that you are dying).

brilliant book, everyone should read it. got me out of one of my own depressive miasmas


I used to base my philosophy on that book until I realized that one of his premises (that religion is no longer believable today) is wrong. As is the case with many books, you only need to read the first chapter of this one; the rest kind of expound on tangents like how we don't like poop because it reminds us of the body and death.

You describe it as a philosophy of riding the line between pride and despair, which I agree is the general atheistic mindset, although I would say it is less riding the line and more a frenzied oscillation between extremes. Of course the faithful philosophy is different, it allows for neither pride or despair; when you do either you sin and need to reconcile yourself with God. Rather it encourages a calm middle-ground of humility and grace.

It is not because of your own power that you succeed. Believing in your own power guarantees an inevitable fall because you, like all men, are foolish. Faith in a legacy-based pseudo-immortality is similarly unsatisfactory since it (a) is not real immortality and (b) offers no consolation in the case of misfortune, and one must live in terror of such an outcome.

His is a philosophy of rejection of God and the subsequent obsessive alternation between despair and pride, and therefore it is the philosophy of Satan.

#314

Agnus_Dei posted:

poop

#315
guys shut the hell up, schizophrenia is a biological abnormality of brain chemistry that makes people act weird. we can treat it with drugs and hopefully cure it in the future using more drugs. cheers
#316

littlegreenpills posted:

guys shut the hell up, schizophrenia is a biological abnormality of brain chemistry that makes people act weird. we can treat it with drugs and hopefully cure it in the future using more drugs. cheers



most people itt appear to agree with you

#317

littlegreenpills posted:

guys shut the hell up, schizophrenia is a biological abnormality of brain chemistry that makes people act weird. we can treat it with drugs and hopefully cure it in the future using more drugs. cheers



what are the schizophrenic biomarkers

#318
congenital weirdness
#319
capitalism is not a gene
#320
saying "capitalism causes schizophrenia" is... not all that helpful. in some sense it is a cause, but what this really means is something completely different to deleude and rettardi's point about how we're all a bit schizophrenic or adverts wouldnt make sense & similar stuff. Its bizarre