Open thread to discuss psychiatry, psychology, Thomas Szasz's ideas, "mental illness", etc. (Szasz book links.)
Open thread to discuss psychiatry, psychology, Thomas Szasz's ideas, "mental illness", etc. (Szasz book links.)
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(Due to multi-year, sustained harassment from David Deutsch and his fans, commenting here requires an account. Accounts are not publicly available. Discussion info.)
Messages (8)
> If you hallucinate and hear sounds in your head, is that due to bad ideas? Or the way your brain is wired?
That could have either cause. And your behavior in response is your choice.
> And why brain, which is a biological organism like heart and kidney, can't cause a problem that can be called a disease? It seems to me that the fact that we can't diagnose mental diseases the way we diagnose other organs, due to its complexity, makes you to believe we can't have mental disorders. Imagine you had diabetes, and for some reason science couldn't yet see what's going on, but certainly we got all the diagnoses that a diabetic person has. Wouldn't be absurd to not call that a disease?
The way schizophrenics are "diagnosed" is not because there is evidence of a disease like diabetes. It's according to whose behavior is offensive to someone with power. Psychiatry is a tool for social control which has been granted special powers to go around the legal system (e.g. psychiatrists routinely imprison people without them receiving a trial first).
Twitter DMs with Andrew Adams
**Andrew Adams**
Lol I really hate the conversations that you wait until other person responds. I like to engage with the person I'm talking.
If this is so hard we can move there fine.
Let me know
🇺🇸Elliot Temple🤔
i would prefer the blog. i will talk here if you're unwilling and you give me permission to quote anything here.
**Andrew Adams**
You can quote anything you want.
So let's see. You believe brain is a biological organ right? No souls and superstitious there, correct?
🇺🇸Elliot Temple🤔
yes
**Andrew Adams**
And a biological thing can get fucked up, as we are seeing with all the other things. RIght?
🇺🇸Elliot Temple🤔
the mind is software and the details of the brain are irrelevant to the mind in the same way that you can run the same software on different PCs.
yes brain damage is a thing, just like e.g. a ram stick going bad.
**Andrew Adams**
Okay this is where I think you're wrong, with all due respect. I'll explain. The software is there because of the way the brain is wired. It's not something separate built on top of those neurons. Your behavior is due to the wiring. That's why if the wiring gets screwed up, you have no way to upgrade the software. Those two are not independent.
It's like saying to a diabetic, person: man stop it with the insulin thing. It's getting really annoying.
🇺🇸Elliot Temple🤔
How did you find me? Have you read David Deutsch?
The previous comment has a partial discussion. The full discussion is now at:
http://curi.us/2048-mental-illness-discussion-with-andrew-adams
https://www.cchr.org/take-action/stop-ect-damage.html
> OPPOSE THE FDA’S PROPOSED RULING ON ECT
> Speak out to prevent the FDA from lowering the risk classification of the electroconvulsive treatment (ECT) machine from Class III, high risk, to Class II, moderate risk. The lowered classification would place ECT machines in the same category as motorized wheelchairs and condoms, obviating the premarket approval process of clinical trials and regulatory review. You can also urge the ban of the ECT device altogether.
jfc
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/freud-fluoxetine/201911/szasz-schizophrenia-and-civil-commitment
This article alleges Szasz was more friendly to standard psychiatry than commonly believed. It has a quote from a video taped interview. Looks potentially concerning but I haven't investigated much yet.
The article's author is lying:
https://conjecturesandrefutations.com/2020/02/03/ruffalo-on-szasz-and-civil-commitment/
https://conjecturesandrefutations.com/2020/10/24/hallucinations/
One of the things I'd ask for is *documentation of a real world example*. Has this breathing tube thing ever:
- happened
- been *documented* in writing in a reasonably complete, organized way
- documentation should include the primary events as well as secondary events (relevant prior context + what people, particularly the patient, said and did about the events afterwards)
- preferably the documentation includes video in addition to text
?
That will let you point out some relevant actual factors instead of making up potential things that could be going on. The huge ambiguity of underspecified, imaginary examples is problematic. I think a more concrete discussion would work better (also a discussion with someone who actually wants to discuss and truth seek would work way better).
I previously tried asking Joseph Agassi for documentation, regarding paranoia, but was unable to get him to understand what I was asking for. He kept referring to case studies or case reports or evidence or something like that which allegedly show paranoid behavior, so I asked where I could find the ones he's talking about and review records of the relevant observations myself. Where can I read documentation of any person ever doing anything paranoid? Please provide the evidence you keep using as a premise so I can check it myself! But I never got him to provide any evidence or documentation and he never seemed to conceptually understand what I wanted.
I don't recall asking Golding for this in our conversations about psychiatry at *Setting the World to Rights* which I'd estimate offhand were around 2007.