“I’m in the habit of talking about my original’s experiences as though they’re mine, because I experience them as though they were” appears to be a form of delusion to me. If somebody went around pretending to be Napoleon (answering to the name Napoleon, talking about having done the things Napoleon did, etc) and answered all questions as if they were Napoleon but, when challenged, reassured you that of course they’re not Napoleon, they just have the habit of talking as if they are Napoleon because they experience life as Napoleon would, would you consider them delusional? Or does anything go as long as they’re content?
To be honest, I’m not really sure what you mean by the experience of memory. Mental imagery?
It has nothing to do with being content. If someone believes they are Napoleon, I consider them deluded, whether they are content or not. Conversely, if they don’t believe they are Napoleon, I don’t consider them deluded, whether they are content or not.
In the example you give, I would probably suspect the person of lying to me.
More generally: before I call something a delusion, I require that someone actually believe it’s true.
I’m not really sure what you mean by the experience of memory.
At this moment, you and I both know that I wrote this comment… we both have knowledge of what I did. In addition to that, I can remember writing it, and you can’t. I can have the experience of that memory; you can’t. The experience of memory isn’t the same thing as the knowledge of what I did.
Though on further consideration, I suppose I could summarize our whole discussion as about whether I am content or not… the noun, that is, not the adjective. I mostly consider myself to be content, and would be perfectly content to choose distribution networks for that content based on their functional properties.
“I’m in the habit of talking about my original’s experiences as though they’re mine, because I experience them as though they were” appears to be a form of delusion to me. If somebody went around pretending to be Napoleon (answering to the name Napoleon, talking about having done the things Napoleon did, etc) and answered all questions as if they were Napoleon but, when challenged, reassured you that of course they’re not Napoleon, they just have the habit of talking as if they are Napoleon because they experience life as Napoleon would, would you consider them delusional? Or does anything go as long as they’re content?
To be honest, I’m not really sure what you mean by the experience of memory. Mental imagery?
It has nothing to do with being content. If someone believes they are Napoleon, I consider them deluded, whether they are content or not.
Conversely, if they don’t believe they are Napoleon, I don’t consider them deluded, whether they are content or not. In the example you give, I would probably suspect the person of lying to me.
More generally: before I call something a delusion, I require that someone actually believe it’s true.
At this moment, you and I both know that I wrote this comment… we both have knowledge of what I did.
In addition to that, I can remember writing it, and you can’t. I can have the experience of that memory; you can’t.
The experience of memory isn’t the same thing as the knowledge of what I did.
Though on further consideration, I suppose I could summarize our whole discussion as about whether I am content or not… the noun, that is, not the adjective. I mostly consider myself to be content, and would be perfectly content to choose distribution networks for that content based on their functional properties.