[MD] Psychiatry/Psychology

[skutvik at online.no]

Chris, Krimel. 

On 9 May:

[Krimel]
> > I am no fan of clinical psychology in general or the DSM in
> > particular. The DSM as I understand it is a book full of labels to
> > attach to symptoms and its purpose is mainly to allow for efficient
> > billing. But if you think that mental illness is just some cultural
> > hoax to put down "religions of one" you obviously have not met
> > anyone with a serious mental illness.

Chris: 
> That's not what I'm saying here. I'm pointing out that when diagnosing
> insanity it brings us to the core of the S/O split, resting on a
> knifes edge of it. Diagnoses are made not on knowledge that there is
> something wrong with people physically, but rather the assumption that
> there MUST be, since we have the whole idealism vs. materialism thing
> going on.

Chris enlarges the issue to mental illness in general and I agree 
also here SOM limits the choice to society or biology, the former 
the mind factor the latter the matter one. But this requires some 
basics and it starts with SOM's mind/matter paradox, namely the 
fact that stuff influences mind and mind influences (moves) 
matter. The most platitudinous examples is that alcohol makes 
you feel different and that a thought can move your limbs. What 
makes it paradoxical is that the mind/matter connection isn't 
found. 

And never will because the mind/matter distinction only exist on 
the intellectual level (SOM). Now, applying this to the mental 
illness issue we all know that if a tumor grows within a brain the 
person's mind will be affected in some harmful way, how is as 
mysterious as in the alcohol example but it can be cured 
surgically. But Krimel mentions what's called psychotic conditions 
and here the brain may be scanned and nothing abnormal found 
so here a "mental" illness is postulated; a sick mind that 
influences the body to do weird things - damage itself or others. 

Chris:
> BUT THEN. Even if someone say's that it's a combination effect that
> creates madness, well, I have still not heard a single good
> explanation as to what a thought actually is - and how thought
> patterns that no one knows where, how or if they exist  - can effect
> the tissue of the brain - if it has to???

Agree, the S/O reasoning alternates between the "O" about 
genes for insanity regardless the environment and the "S" that all 
people will be sane if treated with love and compassion in 
childhood. And then the "combines" who think that a person with 
bad genes only will develop an illness if treated badly, something 
that sounds reasonable at first glance, but is just as untenable as 
all balance acts inside SOM, all growing from its root: Is mind a 
by-product of matter or is the world a mind product. 

Chris:
> Look, illness is a human concept, and doesn't exist in nature, and
> when you say that :
 
Krimel:
> >But people who hear voices demeaning them and urging them
> >to injury themselves are seriously ill. People who are so depressed
> >that even suicide seems like futile waste of effort have something
> >medically wrong with them.
 
> I'd say that yes, we would assume so. And these people can, as you
> say, not be treated with philosophy as such - but bare with me here:
> it is a malfunctioning philosophy as the basis of science that makes
> it so much harder to treat these people, and that gives a huge amount
> of other side affects, so - with the basis of another philosophy that
> first and foremost could in a satisfying way define what madness
> actually IS, and then on that basis help develop the methods used to
> treat this Low Quality state.

Krimel has not read LILA or failed to understand it on this issue - 
as on most issues. Pirsig's idea is that mental illness is a hoax 
because there is no isolated "mind", no more than isolated 
"matter" outside the intellectual level (this again shows the 
intellect=S/O validity) Psychology and psychiatry are part of 
intellect's immune system, those who don't behave objectively - 
reasonably - are insane. To see this point we must hark back to 
the time when the social level was "leading edge" (and to cultures 
where it still is) . Hearing voices and having visions were highly 
appreciated, according to the Bible there were droves of prophets 
who prescribed their own godheads and arranged contests about 
which one was able to light fires etc.. These people  would 
guaranteed be "certified" in our times. According to Pirsig police 
is the social immune apparatus , but this must not be associated 
with the law-enforcing totally controlled by the intellect-steeped 
judicial system. In the said Biblical times there was no such, but 
people who made trouble (having heard voices that told them to 
kill)  were simply eliminated by the society. If they inflicted injury 
upon themselves they were extra holy.

I see that Chris and Krimel have continued but I'm slow. 

Bo