I know how non-crazy I am. I know exactly the extent to which I’ve considered illness affecting my thoughts as a possible explanation.
Maybe I’m lacking context, but I’m not sure why you bring this up. Has anyone here described religious beliefs as being characteristically caused by mental illness? I’d be concerned if they had, since such a statement would be (a) incorrect and (b) stigmatizing.
Has anyone here described religious beliefs as being characteristically caused by mental illness? I’d be concerned if they had, since such a statement would be (a) incorrect and (b) stigmatizing.
In this post, Eliezer characterized John C. Wright’s conversion to Catholicism as the result of a temporal lobe epileptic fit and said that at least some (not sure if he meant all) religious experiences were “brain malfunctions.”
The relevant category is probably not explanations for religious beliefs, but rather explanations of experiences such as AK has reported of what, for lack of a better term, I will call extrasensory perception. Most of the people I know who have religious beliefs don’t report extrasensory perception, and most of the people I know who report extrasensory perception don’t have religious beliefs. (Though of the people I know who do both, a reasonable number ascribe a causal relationship between them. The direction varies.)
But, mental illness is not required to experience strong, odd feelings or even to “hear voices”. Fully-functional human brains can easily generate such things.
Religious experience isn’t usually pathologized in the mainstream (academically or by laypeople) unless it makes up part of a larger pattern of experience that’s disruptive to normal life, but that doesn’t say much one way or another about LW’s attitude toward it.
My experience with LW’s attitude has been similar, though owing to a different reason. Religion generally seems to be treated here as the result of cognitive bias, same as any number of other poorly setup beliefs.
Though LW does tend to use the word “insane” in a way that includes any kind of irrational cognition, I so far have interpreted that to mostly be slang, not meant to literally imply that all irrational cognition is mental illness (although the symptoms of many mental illnesses can be seen as a subset of irrational cognition).
Though LW does tend to use the word “insane” in a way that includes any kind of irrational cognition, I so far have interpreted that to mostly be slang, not meant to literally imply mental illness (although the symptoms of many mental illnesses can be seen as a subset of irrational cognition).
Not having certain irrational biases can be said to be a subset of mental illness.
How so? I can only think of Straw Vulcan examples.
A subset of those diagnosed or diagnosable with high functioning autism and a subset of the features that constitute that label fit this category. Being rational is not normal.
(Or, by “can be said”, do you mean to imply that you disagree with the statement?)
I don’t affiliate myself with the DSM, nor does it always representative of an optimal way of carving reality. In this case I didn’t want to specify one way or the other.
Maybe I’m lacking context, but I’m not sure why you bring this up. Has anyone here described religious beliefs as being characteristically caused by mental illness? I’d be concerned if they had, since such a statement would be (a) incorrect and (b) stigmatizing.
In this post, Eliezer characterized John C. Wright’s conversion to Catholicism as the result of a temporal lobe epileptic fit and said that at least some (not sure if he meant all) religious experiences were “brain malfunctions.”
Interesting that this post has been downvoted. Care to explain? It seems to me that I am straightforwardly answering a question.
The relevant category is probably not explanations for religious beliefs, but rather explanations of experiences such as AK has reported of what, for lack of a better term, I will call extrasensory perception. Most of the people I know who have religious beliefs don’t report extrasensory perception, and most of the people I know who report extrasensory perception don’t have religious beliefs. (Though of the people I know who do both, a reasonable number ascribe a causal relationship between them. The direction varies.)
You are. That’s the main alternate explanation I can think of.
But, mental illness is not required to experience strong, odd feelings or even to “hear voices”. Fully-functional human brains can easily generate such things.
Religious experience isn’t usually pathologized in the mainstream (academically or by laypeople) unless it makes up part of a larger pattern of experience that’s disruptive to normal life, but that doesn’t say much one way or another about LW’s attitude toward it.
My experience with LW’s attitude has been similar, though owing to a different reason. Religion generally seems to be treated here as the result of cognitive bias, same as any number of other poorly setup beliefs.
Though LW does tend to use the word “insane” in a way that includes any kind of irrational cognition, I so far have interpreted that to mostly be slang, not meant to literally imply that all irrational cognition is mental illness (although the symptoms of many mental illnesses can be seen as a subset of irrational cognition).
Not having certain irrational biases can be said to be a subset of mental illness.
How so? I can only think of Straw Vulcan examples. (Or, by “can be said”, do you mean to imply that you disagree with the statement?)
A subset of those diagnosed or diagnosable with high functioning autism and a subset of the features that constitute that label fit this category. Being rational is not normal.
I don’t affiliate myself with the DSM, nor does it always representative of an optimal way of carving reality. In this case I didn’t want to specify one way or the other.
Things like more accurate self-evaluations by depressed people.