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Defining Sanity
    #9694479 -

How does one define sanity?
Most authors write about insanity, or losing their sanity, but never sanity itself.

Psychology seems to have dodged the topic by changing the description to pathology.
If pathology is simply maladaptive traits, which have adaptive counterparts, is sanity then one who receives a favorable cast in the genetic pool? Yet wait, we have nurture to contend with. Trauma that occurs in one's life can cause temporary, or permanent lose of 'sanity'. Is it merely an underlying genetic vulnerability that needed the right trigger to engage? What's the alternative to explain the different responses to trauma?

Even now when I'm attempting to look at sanity, the only way I can fathom is to look at insanity. Is insanity a basic element of human nature, making sanity nothing more than a pipe dream? Or is our definition of sanity and insanity off the mark?


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Why shouldn't the truth be stranger than fiction?
Fiction, after all, has to make sense. -- Mark Twain

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Re: Defining Sanity [Re: Kickle]
    #9694614 -

Sanity is a legal term more than anything; to technically be insane one must believe they are in fact sane. One is insane when the reality they percieve conflicts with the majority, or the consensus reality.

One could say that we all exist within our own realities and that none are exactly alike, so why judge one as sane and the other as insane? Because it becomes a problem when the person is no longer a productive citizen or is causing harm to the society. This is where insanity comes into play, and is used most frequently within the legal system.

Sanity is only relative to the consensus.


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Let's get the fuck out of here.

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Re: Defining Sanity [Re: Kickle]
    #9696325 -

Sanity is the ability and usage of reason. I don't need to understand insanity to know that.

If you're interested in the topic here's a good book: The Myth of Mental Illness.


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Re: Defining Sanity [Re: Mr. Mushrooms]
    #9696345 -

Books allready tell us what we allready know.  Insanity to me comes from the person interpretating insanity.

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Re: Defining Sanity [Re: mr.bixby]
    #9696369 -

You search truth and all the philosophical babble means nothing to one's experience.

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Re: Defining Sanity [Re: Bernackums]
    #9696461 -

Quote:
Bernackums said: to technically be insane one must believe they are in fact sane.


huh?

But yeah, "insane" is no longer a medical term. Basically when a person is completely out of touch with societal norms and is a danger to themself or others they are not sane. You have to get more specific though, like paranoid schizophrenic or whatever specific term u want to use.

I forget what judge said it reference to porn but, I know it when I see it.


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Re: Defining Sanity [Re: Kickle]
    #9696468 -

Sanity being truly a legal term, conflicts with a lot of what  it truly is.

I have seen my friends go absolutely crazy before, and I could understand exactly what they were doing when they did it. Go to a festival, you will see what I mean.

In the context of that setting, my friends were not insane, they were sane, but if you would put them in a suburban or city setting, they would be labeled insane.

It is simply a different way of perceiving the world, when you start to understand insanity in its different forms, you start to realize that no one is truly insane, people just perceive things differently. Insanity is a word slapped onto people when they murder some one, or do something harmful to another or themselves. The traditional definition being 'the state of being a danger to oneself or others'.

Now we can obscure this even further because words are just words... Does the word 'others' mean people, animals, bugs, inanimate objects? The word 'Danger' very obviously meaning physically harmful, but then there is the very psychotic side of many people that are considered legally sane that appears on occasion or even sometimes is more pervasive than their non-pyschotic side. Verbally psychotic epidsodes of paranoia coming from a mother to a child could be considered insanity from a certain point of view.

But the point of view (perception) is all that really makes something insane. We have these hunks of flesh called brains inside of us that tell us when something is wrong or right, but take that away, and everything just is.


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Love powerfully :peace::heart::peace:

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Re: Defining Sanity [Re: Kickle]
    #9696502 -

Insanity to me simply means out of place. A juxtaposition inside the social creature we call society.

In order for an organism to function, it needs all of it's cells. Human beings have 220 specialized cells. Diabetes destroys a certain cell that creates insulin for your body. No one knows why some people's body does this, but it does.

Now look at society as an organism, which in many ways it is; the social entity. If there are people (cells) that are insane within that society, they hinder the progress that the society is ultimately going to make. Thus, they are out of place in that society, not necisarily useless. If you put some people deemed 'insane' in the right place, I'm sure they would seem completely normal. They are simply on another wavelength than the people considered 'insane' are.

Simply because we are like the rest of people in our culture we get the label of 'sane'


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Anyone need a glass pipe? : http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100002435158931

Love powerfully :peace::heart::peace:

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Re: Defining Sanity [Re: Drewwyann]
    #9696505 -

The Brain is mor than hunks of flesh.  The understanding of one's connection to another, on a small level, then one's connection to others on a large, world, nation to nation level, and the ignorance of remaining in a small connection to it, is insantity ot me.  The worlds systems are failing, the connection not to the others but even to, and and, is a gift that resides with those willing to explore it.  It's easy to go to a doctor and have them give you a prescription, it's harder to explore psychadelic experiences and, in my experience, connect with the earth and the larger issues at stake.

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Re: Defining Sanity [Re: Drewwyann]
    #9696508 -

Quote:
One is insane when the reality they percieve conflicts with the majority, or the consensus reality.


Quote:
We have these hunks of flesh called brains inside of us that tell us when something is wrong or right, but take that away, and everything just is.


Is the illogical concept of grace insane?
Quote:
grace n. -- freely given, unmerited favor


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Re: Defining Sanity [Re: durian_2008]
    #9696525 -

Grace? As in the thing that seems to be a theme in all of nature (except for the walrus)?


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Anyone need a glass pipe? : http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100002435158931

Love powerfully :peace::heart::peace:

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Re: Defining Sanity [Re: Drewwyann]
    #9696601 -

Drewwyann said:
Grace? As in the thing that seems to be a theme in all of nature (except for the walrus)?


Nature is quite the opposite of graceful, if you define grace as unmerited favor.

Observational science is based on cause and effect, in which nothing can be unmerited.

So, is the concept of unmerited favor insane?

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Re: Defining Sanity [Re: durian_2008]
    #9696888 -

Unmerited favor? Everything has a personal choice that goes a long with it that in the end is selfish no matter how nice it may be. Personally, I am unsure that such a thing exists, but yes, I suppose that would be considered insane.

You are referring to is a moth would suddenly end its own life in order to save the life of another organism?

Taking a bullet in the heart for some one I would imagine would be considered an unmerited favor but at the same time, a person would only do this if they value some one else's life over their own. If they let that person get shot rather than themselves, they would not be able to live with themselves for doing so, or some other strong selfish but outwardly selfless motive that drove them to take the bullet in the first place.

You are talking about some one taking a bullet for some one just the the hell of it? For no reason whatsoever? I should suppose that doing anything for no reason whatsoever would be classified as insane really.

Unmerited favor would be called insane I should suppose. Unmerited, you mean no selfish motives whatsoever, yes?


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Anyone need a glass pipe? : http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100002435158931

Love powerfully :peace::heart::peace:

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Re: Defining Sanity [Re: Drewwyann]
    #9696975 -

Definitions can always be twisted around so the intent is obscured.


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Re: Defining Sanity [Re: learningtofly]
    #9697091 -

learningtofly said:
Quote:
Bernackums said: to technically be insane one must believe they are in fact sane.


huh?


Someone who thinks they are insane is not insane.


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Let's get the fuck out of here.

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Re: Defining Sanity [Re: Drewwyann]
    #9697204 -

Drewwyann said:
Unmerited favor? Everything has a personal choice that goes a long with it that in the end is selfish no matter how nice it may be. Personally, I am unsure that such a thing exists, but yes, I suppose that would be considered insane.

You are referring to is a moth would suddenly end its own life in order to save the life of another organism?

Taking a bullet in the heart for some one I would imagine would be considered an unmerited favor but at the same time, a person would only do this if they value some one else's life over their own. If they let that person get shot rather than themselves, they would not be able to live with themselves for doing so, or some other strong selfish but outwardly selfless motive that drove them to take the bullet in the first place.

You are talking about some one taking a bullet for some one just the the hell of it? For no reason whatsoever? I should suppose that doing anything for no reason whatsoever would be classified as insane really.

Unmerited favor would be called insane I should suppose. Unmerited, you mean no selfish motives whatsoever, yes?





Ah I think you're using the wrong favor. There is favor in the sense you're using it, then there is another favor like....I favor eating pizza over eating grass. Easy mistake to make.

Does equating grace with unmerited favor make more sense now?

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Re: Defining Sanity [Re: Bernackums]
    #9698157 -

Bernackums said:
learningtofly said:
Quote:
Bernackums said: to technically be insane one must believe they are in fact sane.


huh?


Someone who thinks they are insane is not insane.


In my understanding it means they are able to relate to a comparative state, to acknowledge the "abnormality" of the "insane" consciousness.

So therefore the existence of another train of consciousness to identify the other (self identified anomaly) may indicate that one is not truly "insane" (by definition of established common agreement of sane.)


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Goodbye Shroomery.

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Re: Defining Sanity [Re: Bernackums]
    #9698185 -

Bernackums said:
learningtofly said:
Quote:
Bernackums said: to technically be insane one must believe they are in fact sane.


huh?


Someone who thinks they are insane is not insane.


oh i thought you meant in general, I don't think im crazy :shrug:

What about a paranoid schizophrenic who knows he or she is mentally ill?


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Edited by learningtofly (01/29/09 01:05 AM)

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Re: Defining Sanity [Re: learningtofly]
    #9698501 -

This thread reminds me of a quote from 12 Monkeys:

L.J. Washington: I don't really come from outer space.

Jeffrey Goines: Oh. L. J. Washington. He doesn't really come from outer space.

L.J. Washington: Don't mock me my friend. It's a condition of mental divergence. I find myself on the planet Ogo, part of an intellectual elite, preparing to subjugate the barbarian hordes on Pluto. But even though this is a totally convincing reality for me in every way, nevertheless Ogo is actually a construct of my psyche. I am mentally divergent, in that I am escaping certain unnamed realities that plague my life here. When I stop going there, I will be well. Are you also divergent, friend?

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Re: Defining Sanity [Re: Kickle]
    #9698564 -

from my understanding of the way the brain works in support of the phenomena we call mind and consciousness,
sanity means health.
it means that the parts work together and no part is broken.

when the parts work together, shifting mental states will occur in which events that are "non-normative" will take place as well as normative, mundane and spectacular.
memory will function to bring back associative content, and memory formation will occur permitting experience to become retrievable.

insane or unhealthy mind or consciousness, may have a root cause in an unhealthy brain, if mental states (layeredness/dreaminess/emotional resonance)become locked or do not shift through the day and night cycle, or if memory will not produce any clear associations or if memory will not be formed during ongoing experiencing.

unhealthy mind or consciousness may also have root causes in habits that prevent the healthy brain from shifting mental states or using memory or making memories from life. This includes habits of extreme avoidance and addictions; habits of traumatic experience like role revenge of the abused child when finally adult.

in seeking health for consciousness, one cannot depend on there being a physiological root cause, so the process of healing requires relaxing the habits, and revisiting memory formation, and recall, and exercising mental states to keep them supple.

a huge error in psychology is the disrespect assigned to mental state shifts, such as the emphasis on being "in control" v.s. "emotional" - the term "instability" reflects this.

suppleness of mind and instability are not always distinguishable, so a key to mental health or sanity, can appear as a symptom of insanity, and the poetry of dreams can be converted to the curses of diagnosis.

in this way we live in a mad world. we have to get used to it.


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:brainfart: _ :finger:

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