• Mark Nyquist
    744
    You seem comfortable with information as an abstract concept even in areas of science. Abstract concepts in the absence of biological brains reduce to non existence, so that's a problem for you.

    Dictionary definitions of information reflect common usage and there are many uses. I'm suggesting that to place information in physical reality we need to examine the form in which it exists. Brain state and brain state only seems to be the best definition if you would like to study information in its physical form.
  • Benj96
    2.2k
    . I'm not completely certain what Dougals Adams thought about this, but psychiatry definitely does have an aura of evilness about it which is hard to define.introbert

    Interesting. I do think there is something not quite right about psychiatry. Consider this, we do not understand how consciousness works, how one experiences, behaves or believes what they believe.

    With that in mind how does one "treat" the subjective experience with objects (drugs)? It doesn't really have much logic behind it if we don't understand the link between the subjects experience and the object - that which is being experienced/reality (the hard problem of consciousness).

    If I stunt a mania or depression by forcing someone to not feel anything, to be numb, to be zombified and depleted of agency. Is that moral? And is it considered a cure?

    Does medicating the mentally unwell enslave them to a forced "neutrality"? It is clear from the numerous side effects of psychiatric drugs, some arguably worse then the condition they're treating, that there must be better ways of approaching one's mind.

    Furthermore the use of the word "delusional" by a psychiatrist to justify medicating is somewhat a comical irony in that the psychiatrist doesn't know what "reality" truly is to justify judging another's as delusional. That's somewhat of a god complex of the psychiatrist to take control of another's mind without understanding it. It lacks empathy. And thus feels sinister.

    I think psychology is the more prudent approach. Without an arsenal of vaguely useful drugs not fully understood in their action, the psychologist must contend with an unwell mind through discourse, conversing and offering therapy through communication. This seems much less invasive and controlling. And has been proven to have good results.

    The only time I think drug therapies are appropriate is when someone is of immediate harm to either themselves or others. In the case of actively attempting suicide or murder. Only in these cases is using a drug to blunt a person's consciousness justified to simply buy some time to allow psychologists to help them.

    But the drug must be removed from the therapy at the earliest possible moment when signs of clinical improvement are accerlating beyond the danger zone and back to the safety zone.
  • introbert
    333
    There are some interesting points in your reply. There is a lot to argue against psychiatry. It represents quite a powerful influence and is connected to medicine-law-education. It is futurist, the suffering and death of people is brushed aside as progress. It features a type of objectivity, focused on a subject, but never turns it against itself. It has a 'realist' view on reality, subjective experience of the subject is not reality, but the psychiatrist's subjective experience is real. It is communitarian moving towards fascist totalitarian in nature rather than libertarian leading to laissez faire. It has a long history of persecutions (lgtbq, women, certain ethnicities during positivism etc.) that practitioners have no dissonance about. They go hand in hand with modern hyper-industrial capitalism serving the pharmaceutical companies. Police become diagnosticians, having power to immediately medicalize deviance just by bringing a detainee to the hospital. The medicine can cause psychosis and other mental disorder, so once treated a person is trapped. They represent a modern bureaucratic nightmare for someone trapped in the system which has legal powers but is not a legalistic process so legal help is useless. It operates in a society of weak social ties and the psychiatrist-patient relationship is a new frontier in alienating social relationships. Psychiatric discursive practices can spread into common speech creating a culture that marginalizes subjective-irrational-idealist etc. thought and action. They represent an implicit draconianism of severe punishment, sometimes lethal or harmful treatment, for minor deviances. Does not believe in the inviolability of body. Is functionalist in that individual disfunction has a positive effect on their group function, but they deny sociological functionalist theories such as anomie.

    I think it is a key institution to criticize philosophically as an exercise in freedom.
  • ToothyMaw
    1.2k
    Interesting. I do think there is something not quite right about psychiatry. Consider this, we do not understand how consciousness works, how one experiences, behaves or believes what they believe.Benj96

    We understand quite a bit about the brain, actually, if not what gives rise to consciousness. We know that people, for instance, can undergo radical changes in their personality when they receive frontal lobe damage. We know that neuroplasticity allows one to form and reorganize synaptic connections in response to learning or injury. We also know what risk factors predispose one to developing schizophrenia, and that, for instance, trauma can actually have a strengthening effect (post-traumatic growth).

    We know so much about the brain and psychology, enough to diagnose illnesses that can be identified by the symptoms that manifest certain behaviors and patterns of thought or other criteria. Furthermore, using medication and therapy in tandem actually produces positive effects greater than either in isolation. Adding medication to therapy is as they call it a "force multiplier" - with a fairly high coefficient, usually.

    The only time I think drug therapies are appropriate is when someone is of immediate harm to either themselves or others. In the case of actively attempting suicide or murder. Only in these cases is using a drug to blunt a person's consciousness justified to simply buy some time to allow psychologists to help them.Benj96

    I cannot disagree more. Taking medications such as antipsychotics, although less than ideal, help establish some stability that lends itself to life-changing therapy. But that therapy can often only be accomplished across a relatively long timeline, and one may need the medication that whole time before they are in a good enough headspace not to take it.

    It can take tremendous therapy to make a person with schizophrenia understand they are schizophrenic and can only be done with meds usually. If you want people to not have to deal with taking antipsychotics for their whole life, you should be in favor of them taking them until they are stable enough not to ruin their life/hurt themselves/hurt others/break laws, etc., which goes beyond just taking them until one is not of immediate danger to themselves or others.

    Furthermore the use of the word "delusional" by a psychiatrist to justify medicating is somewhat a comical irony in that the psychiatrist doesn't know what "reality" truly is to justify judging another's as delusional.Benj96

    If I said that aliens are coming to earth to steal our gold reserves to create conductors for their spaceships as they go on an unstoppable galactic conquest to snatch all sentient species' cannabis, would you say: "I don't know if I can say that your reality is any less valid than mine?"

    I think psychology is the more prudent approach. Without an arsenal of vaguely useful drugs not fully understood in their action, the psychologist must contend with an unwell mind through discourse, conversing and offering therapy through communication. This seems much less invasive and controlling. And has been proven to have good results.Benj96

    And medication has been proven to have good results. But I agree - if one can avoid taking medication one should. But many people really need to.
  • Benj96
    2.2k
    precisely introbert. You're on the right track! Such an articulate and comprehensive discourse you present here. Knowing what you do about the failings of psychiatry to address that which they have the intention to resolve, what would you offer as your solution?

    It does seem like a case of "the road to hell is paved with good intentions". I think psychiatry tries to do something good but is misguided in carrying out that intention. My advice... If you are medically inclined don't become a psychiatrist haha. And if you're legally or politically inclined and see a glaring error... It would be apt to campaign for a better way forward, or at the very least notify those of relevant authority as to your concerns. That would be most noble path. But that's just my opinion. I'm more curious to know yours.
  • Benj96
    2.2k
    It can take tremendous therapy to make a person with schizophrenia understand they are schizophrenic and can only be done with meds usually. If you want people to not have to deal with taking antipsychotics for their whole life, you should be in favor of them taking them until they are stable enough not to ruin their life/hurt themselves/hurt others/break laws, etc., which goes beyond just taking them until one is not of immediate danger to themselves or others.ToothyMaw

    Perhaps you're are right, I'm willing to concede that I'm a little "cut and dry" on the subject. But it is nice to see there is commonality between us in that we both believe if someone is a harm to themselves or others only then can we intervene with forceful medicating. The time span is what seems to differ here. Which I shall not comment on further as you have good reason of your own.

    If I said that aliens are coming to earth to steal our gold reserves to create conductors for their spaceships as they go on an unstoppable galactic conquest to snatch all sentient species' cannabis, would you say: "I don't know if I can say that your reality is any less valid than mine?"ToothyMaw

    Of course I would think it implausible in a "literal" sense based on our collective understanding of the current state of affairs.

    However at the root of their belief - the sensation that "something alien/something unfamiliar" is coming or occurring in which our values (precious gold reserves) are being eroded (stolen) to do something sinister (theft - in this case cannabis) seems to be plausible.

    It can be reduced to a fundamental feeling that there is an "unrecognised threat that has the potential to corrode our values to commit crimes against us". This is much more logical at a base level but is only considered when we overlook the absurdity of the literal description in pursuit of the underlying fear/anguish. One that is quite reasonable in its own right.

    I think then, that schizophrenics articulate genuine humans concerns that we all frequently suspect, but are unable to use sensible means to describe them. Their imagination runs wild with descriptors. But what they are describing is still comprehensible. We just lack the compassion to trust they have some logic deeply engrained in their superficial absurdities.

    The question is then why has their brain failed to use useful language to describe their anguish? It appears as though their innate language model has departed from their limbic system (emotions/instinctual threat perception).

    This is a more useful paradigm then simply determining that they're speaking total gibberish. This is about empathy, deeper investigation and patience/tolerance of the doctor.
  • introbert
    333
    what would you offer as your solution?Benj96

    Make it a completely legal process at every step. No detainment or forced treatment unless the person commits a serious criminal act, especially not at the speculation of potential harm. The view on reality should be that subjective experience is reality: the reality is the person is hearing voices and the reality is the psychiatric interpretation; the reality is the patient thinks he is God. There are a number of reasons for this, but the main reason from a philosophical standpoint, is it is not a good precedent to set that there is a standard of objectivity for the subjectivity of the underdog in a conflict while the favorite has different rules where his subjectivity is real (subjectivism). This is a philosophical challenge. There's more obviously, but I am interested particularly in why psychiatry takes such a powerful advantage against vulnerable and sick people. I think if it wasn't so keen on infringing people's liberties, people would be much more well behaved in dealing with them. I guess there are no lessons to learn from history about people's desire for liberty and their violent defense of it, and it is merely convenient that taking it away escalates and empowers them to force treatment.
  • Mark Nyquist
    744
    Do you see any other medical profession receiving so much negative feedback from the patients they treat as psychiatry. Burning down the asylum, assault, murder, suicide, vandalism, rule breaking, commandeering of resources, grandstanding...putting their medications in the morning oatmeal. And this is what the public hears about... probably just the tip of the iceberg.

    Given the history of this profession why would peer review mean anything and why should they be trusted. So what causes psychosis? Put your cards on the table. Chemical imbalance? Genetics? Combinations or subtle mechanisms seem to show up a lot lately. So much has been debunked.
  • unenlightened
    8.8k


    You chaps don't have to entirely invent a new frame for psychology alone. There has always been resistance to the reductive, chemical/mechanical medical model, and there are alternatives out there.

    The social model:
    Illusion and Reality: The Meaning of Anxiety (1984) showed how an increasingly competitive, unequal society spawns chronic insecurity. The book challenged the notion that anxiety and depression amount to a mental illness denoting that something is wrong with the individual sufferer. For the most part distress and anxiety represent an entirely rational response to the sufferer’s situation. The role of the therapist is therefore not in ‘curing’ the individual, but rather to negotiate demystification and to provide insight into the effects of the problems in the sufferer’s world, based on the sufferer and the therapist’s shared subjective understanding.
    https://www.mentalhealthforum.net/forum/threads/david-smail-1938-2014-pioneer-of-the-social-materialist-analysis-of-psychological-distress.130996/

    It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society. — J. Krishnamurti

    [url=http://]Thomas Szasz[/url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Szasz has the best critique of the socio-political position of psychiatry, and takes @introbert's position about coercion.

    There is also a development that is something of a synthesis of psychiatry and anti-psychiatry in Trauma Theory. My old thread has some interesting links you might like to pursue.


    I forgot to mention also, the Open Dialogue approach.
  • Alkis Piskas
    2.1k
    I found it humorous that in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy the evil antagonists were the Psychiatristsintrobert
    Maybe you won't find don't find it humorous, if you consider the reason for that. Psychiatrists appear as enemies of humanity in other novels too.
    Indeed, Douglas Adams's novel was a masteripiece, maybe the funniest novel I have ever read, but a lot of novels and films that picture psychiatrists and psychiatry as enemies of the world, as e.g. "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest", "The Silence of the Lambs", "Battlefield Earth". And of course, dozens of books written against psychiatry. There's no other medical field or profession that has been so much accused for human abuse as psychiatry.

    Psychiatric abuse: 195 million results in Google

    Anti-psychiatry - 217.000.000 results in Google

    Psychiatrists are behind every massive human abuse. Psychiatry during the Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union (from the Stalinic period and after) are the two most characteristic examples. Until these days, patients are abused in a most horrible way by psychiatry. And they don't damage people with ETC, lobotomy and other horrible procedures, they do it with drugs, damaging people's lives, based on DSM, psychiatry's bible, listing over 300 mental disorders, most of them actually imaginary (nonexistent), based on which and a psychiatrist's opinion unconstitutional coercive retention takes place.

    ect-documentary-trailer_2min_en.jpg
  • Tom Storm
    8.4k
    There's no other medical field or profession that has been so much accused for human abuse as psychiatry.Alkis Piskas

    Priests spring to mind. How do you feel about Catholic priests who are also psychiatrists?
  • ToothyMaw
    1.2k
    Make it a completely legal process at every step. No detainment or forced treatment unless the person commits a serious criminal act, especially not at the speculation of potential harm. The view on reality should be that subjective experience is reality: the reality is the person is hearing voices and the reality is the psychiatric interpretation; the reality is the patient thinks he is God. There are a number of reasons for this, but the main reason from a philosophical standpoint, is it is not a good precedent to set that there is a standard of objectivity for the subjectivity of the underdog in a conflict while the favorite has different rules where his subjectivity is real (subjectivism). This is a philosophical challenge. There's more obviously, but I am interested particularly in why psychiatry takes such a powerful advantage against vulnerable and sick people. I think if it wasn't so keen on infringing people's liberties, people would be much more well behaved in dealing with them. I guess there are no lessons to learn from history about people's desire for liberty and their violent defense of it, and it is merely convenient that taking it away escalates and empowers them to force treatment.introbert

    You actually think we shouldn't try to get people who hear voices and think they are God to understand that their beliefs, and the voices they hear, aren't rooted in reality? We should just encourage people to listen to whatever instructions their voices give them, if they give instructions? Why wait until a serious criminal act has been committed to detain someone who might be obviously mentally ill and dangerous to themselves or others? Why not nip it in the bud before people or property might get hurt or damaged?

    Does a comparatively small evil of taking away a measure of freedom really outweigh the good of helping someone get healthy? What if you were an unmedicated person with schizophrenia? Would you rather pull a butter knife on an officer and get shot or get talked down and taken to a hospital where you might be medicated for your own good, even if it is against your will?

    The collective idiocy in this thread is astounding. The only person who put forth anything valid was Unenlightened, and even then, the theories in that post are far from mainstream.

    edit: Benj made a good attempt at contributing too, sorry for the reductive comment
  • ToothyMaw
    1.2k
    However at the root of their belief - the sensation that "something alien/something unfamiliar" is coming or occurring in which our values (precious gold reserves) are being eroded (stolen) to do something sinister (theft - in this case cannabis) seems to be plausible.Benj96

    Yes, I can come up with those for days. I suppose you are right insofar as the logic and reasoning is somewhat valid, even if, taken literally, it is nonsense.

    I think then, that schizophrenics articulate genuine humans concerns that we all frequently suspect, but are unable to use sensible means to describe them. Their imagination runs wild with descriptors. But what they are describing is still comprehensible. We just lack the compassion to trust they have some logic deeply engrained in their superficial absurdities.Benj96

    Right. You don't seem to be talking about psychiatry so much as the way we treat the mentally ill, or how they are misunderstood.

    The question is then why has their brain failed to use useful language to describe their anguish? It appears as though their innate language model has departed from their limbic system (emotions/instinctual threat perception).Benj96

    This sounds like it might actually be true. Never put that much thought into it myself.

    Have you studied psychology/neuroscience at all? Or is this conjecture?
  • introbert
    333
    That's not the point I'm making. I'm not saying they should be encouraged to have the belief or that they absolutely shouldn't be treated with medication. The point is to acknowledge the indirect reality of the mind in both the subject and the psychiatrist. It is reality. The broader argument is that there should not be two standards of reality when the psychiatrist's view is not infallible. Both the patient and the psychiatrist suffer from errors in perception. Psychiatry has been riddled with false beliefs throughout its history, not including false ideas about their patients.

    Regarding your other opinions about nipping it in the bud, and lesser of two evils: that's the status quo. It is not hard to defend the status quo or normality and call those who oppose it idiots or mad. The exercise of criticizing psychiatry is to put yourself in direct opposition to the norm, psychiatry being The Norm, and seeing this tyranny of normality, to subject it to scrutiny and analysis of its madness. You have no problem nipping in the bud or advocating the lesser evil of something that you only fear will happen. But acting out of fear is more irrational and dangerous than those you fear.
  • Alkis Piskas
    2.1k
    Priests spring to mind. How do you feel about Catholic priests who are also psychiatrists?Tom Storm
    I feel very bad! It's awful! In my country, Orthodox priests also are asent to Germany to become to study psychology. I have not heard anything about psychiatry. But even the need to study psychology shows the failure of the Church to handle the spiritual needs and problems of their parishioners and in general to give useful advice to anyone in need.

    Religion should not look necessarily like that. E.g. Buddhism doesn't.
  • Alkis Piskas
    2.1k
    We have an extremely rude person here, @ToothyMaw, who is either a psychiatrist himself, of the kind I mentioned, or a fanatic pro psychiatrist. A perfect example of what I was talking about.
    Of course, I expected reactions from some people, but not such as that! Despicable.

    Here's what I just read from this person, which I reproduce (copy-paste) below, before it is deleted or edited:
    "Holy shit you need some help there, bro. Most mental disorders in the DSM are fake? Psychiatrists are behind every massive human rights abuse? And that fucking picture - do you even know that they put you out for ECT (not ETC)? Are antipsychotics truly equivalent to lobotomies in your mind?
    Shut down this fucking thread, please. I mean goddamn.
    edit: I mean I'm laughing, but holy shit"

    (Re: https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/750911)
  • Benj96
    2.2k
    Have you studied psychology/neuroscience at all? Or is this conjecture?ToothyMaw

    Fifth year medical student. Neurology and psychology are an active interest of mine in my studies.
  • Tom Storm
    8.4k
    Religion should not look necessarily like that. E.g. Buddhism doesn't.Alkis Piskas

    Plenty of psychiatrists, psychologists and psychotherapists draw from Buddhism or are Buddhists. Buddhist psychiatrist Mark Epstein springs to mind.
  • ToothyMaw
    1.2k
    We have an extremely rude person here, ToothyMaw, who is either a psychiatrist himself, of the kind I mentioned, or a fanatic pro psychiatrist. A perfect example of what I was talking about.
    Of course, I expected reactions from some people, but not such as that! Despicable.

    Here's what I just read from this person, which I reproduce (copy-paste) below, before it is deleted or edited:
    Alkis Piskas

    Lmao, why on earth would I delete that? Go ahead and post it on a billboard with my real-life name.
  • Alkis Piskas
    2.1k
    Plenty of psychiatrists, psychologists and psychotherapists draw from Buddhism or are Buddhists. Buddhist psychiatrist Mark Epstein springs to mind.Tom Storm
    Of course there are. All kinds of proffessions contain Buddhists in their ranks. But I don't think that a Buddhist psychiatrist will be of the kind I mentioned, although this is not impossible. We are talking about "numbers", not individual cases. And I talked mainly about massive human abuse. And of course, for godssake, I didn't say that all or even most psychiatrists, of any religion or no religion, are of the kind I mentioned. I believe they are the minority. But enough big to produce human damage. And, I emphasize, more than any other medical --or, in fact, any other-- profession, in general.

    But, anyway, I brought up Buddhism in the context of religion, not psychiatry.
  • Tom Storm
    8.4k
    But I don't think that a Buddhist psychiatrist will be of the kind I mentioned, although this is not impossible. We are talking about "numbers", not individual cases. And I talked mainly about massive human abuse. And of course, for godssake, I didn't say that all or even most psychiatrists, of any religion or no religion, are of the kind I mentioned. I believe they are the minority.Alkis Piskas

    Thanks for the clarification.
  • introbert
    333
    In my view the philosophical consideration of disordered perception on the subject's end and institutionally affirmed perception on the psychiatrist or police's end creates the most important discrepancy. The existence of abnormal psychology is not an anomalous feature of human perception. It is merely an extreme example of the detachment possessed by all of us from truth. It is the verified perspective of science that people perceive an indirect reality that is not an exact representation of the world as it is. To ignore this discrepancy and create the divide between subjectivities that exists today, creates an institutional realism of collective agreement and an individual irrational subjectivity for anyone not solid or integral with those institutions. In practice this divide would not only be disempowering to the mad but anyone expressing a perceived irrationality against this establishment. This is just one key reason for exercising a critical mode of argument against this tyranny. An obvious target is the history of misperception found in the practice, but also the slavish reliance of the adherents to approved ways of thought such as legal objectivity, rather than the alternative of individual subjectivity.
  • Mark Nyquist
    744
    Your use of the term 'disordered perception' reminded me of something involving racing thoughts. If someone thinks they are being sent coded messages they will be hypersensitive to physical stimulus and use an expanded set of algorithms to decode inputs. Since some false information is likely to get through, the ability to fact check in real time may be overwhelmed. Obviously an information mechanics failure and not a biological failure.
    A psychiatrist would have no problem prescribing a medication based on the presented racing thoughts and false beliefs and would never understand the problem as mental content driven.
  • unenlightened
    8.8k
    You actually think we shouldn't try to get people who hear voices and think they are God to understand that their beliefs, and the voices they hear, aren't rooted in reality? We should just encourage people to listen to whatever instructions their voices give them, if they give instructions?ToothyMaw

    Your question is rhetorical and rather slanted, but here is a real alternative approach, not antagonistic to drugs where they can be helpful, that does not seek to impose a particular understanding of reality. Open dialogue is an established approach to mental health that has good results dealing with difficult cases.

    Well, the main idea is to listen carefully to each participant in the conversation, accepting their comments without exceptions or conditions. Within this unconditional respect for their voices, people start to listen to themselves. They learn more about their own story. This is why, in the dialogical approach, we do not look to find some right story, or some right commentary on the story of the person in crisis. Really, what is most important is the response in the here-and-now while speaking about the important issues of one’s life. The most difficult and most important experiences most often do not have any words, such that it would be possible to have an explicit narrative about it. They emerge in being moved, e.g. in an emotional reaction, by the things being told. This is the most important moment for a dialogical practitioner.
    {snip}
    In my mind, a much more effective way is to think about ‘psychotic’ behaviour as an embodied psychological response to extreme stress. ‘Psychotic’ experiences are one form of defence that the embodied mind uses to protect itself against a total disaster. They are not pathological, nor signs of an illness, but necessary survival strategies that everyone of us may need in an extreme situation. The extreme situation may be something that is occurring in the present, or it may be drawing on earlier experiences in a person’s life. In hallucinations, the person is most probably speaking about real incidents that have happened, but which they do not yet have any other words, other than ‘psychotic’ ones, to express it with.
    — Jaakko Seikkula
    https://www.madintheuk.com/2022/10/interview-with-jaakko-seikkula-creator-of-the-open-dialogue-approach/

    For a better general overview of the method: https://imhcn.org/bibliography/recent-innovations-and-good-practices/open-dialogue/

    From the above:
    In the 1980s psychiatric services in Western Lapland had one of the worst incidences of ‘schizophrenia’. Now they have the best documented outcomes in the Western World. For example, around 75% of those experiencing psychosis have returned to work or study within 2 years and only around 20% are still taking antipsychotic medication at 2 year follow-up.

    Open Dialogue is not an alternative to standard psychiatric services, it is the psychiatric service in Western Lapland. It is a comprehensive approach with well-integrated inpatient and outpatient services.
  • Mark Nyquist
    744
    If you don't know what causes psychosis or schizophrenia then how should you interpret recovery rates.

    Since a person can show symptoms based entirely on mental content there is the district possibility their condition has no biological dysfunction whatsoever. And treating a nonbiological condition as a biological condition could complicate the interpretation of study results. It could be an entirely different treatment method would be better still.

    An example would be mass conspiracy theories such as Dominion voting machines being rigged. You wouldn't claim this population has anything universal in their biology causing that belief.

    It's very unfortunate that the professions treating these conditions lack a working knowledge of the mechanics of information.
  • introbert
    333
    re: mental content: Yes,that is a specific area of mystery. There are several general areas including workings of the brain, the experience of the subject, how the subject would proceed without treatment, the place of mental disorder in grand schemes such as evolution or dialectical social process etc., the history of madness including history of psychiatry and other treatment of madness, the functional manifestations of disorder's analogs in society, the cultural effect of psychiatric practices, and more. All of these areas are where a psychiatrist acts with possibly severe detachment from reality, and serve to illustrate that the use of the term reality in psychiatry posits a certain narrow view of reality that I believe is based on power.
  • Mark Nyquist
    744
    This power dynamic comes into play because the patient has an inate sense that his treatment/forced medication are inappropriate for his conditions often claiming their brains feel normal. And the doctors see a patient acting irrationally and a danger to themselves or others and follow their training and force medication. As of current practice, neither knows the true cause and a downward spiraling relation develops.

    As for 'Information Mechanics' as a psychosis research subject at universities, they won't study it because it won't be funded by the pharmaceutical companies.
  • Mark Nyquist
    744
    NetLogo has a virus on a network model that is analogous to false information in psychosis if anyone likes simulations.

    These types of computer simulations can help anyone visualize the progression of psychosis..
  • Mark Nyquist
    744
    Has anyone here noticed that
    Information Mechanics:
    Where information = brain state =
    [ the physical brain, ( mental content ) ],
    this being an irreducible unit where the parenthesis show a relation of dependence on the physical brain...completely resolves the question of monism or dualism in philosophy?
    Yes it does. Mental content cannot exist absent the physical brain and any definition of information being an abstract concept cannot physically exist and must be corrected to include the physical brain. This being the state of things, the professions of psychology, psychiatry, and certainly philosophy should be judged incompetent as the question is in their domain and they have failed to answer it.
  • Mark Nyquist
    744
    Of course sometimes drugs or alcohol are involved and, of course again, the conclusion is the psychiatric profession is completely incompetent.
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