[FRIAM] The root of personality disorders
Robert J. Cordingley
robert at cirrillian.com
Thu Jan 19 10:34:32 EST 2017
Aren't you now talking about different reasoning models/tasks:
Classification
Diagnosis
Hypothetical Reasoning
Bayesian
Fuzzy logic
etc.
On the other hand I've always felt the medical community named too many
diseases and conditions after their symptoms usually in a hi-falutin
format rather than an actual cause, e.g. abdominal aortic aneurysm or
after the person identifying it, e.g. Alois Alzheimer. Which get's back
to Glen's circularity.
Robert C
On 1/19/17 7:14 AM, Frank Wimberly wrote:
> Point taken, Eric. That is more realistic. I was making the point
> that even for non-psychiatric problems the symptoms (partly) define
> the disease. There are tests like biopsies and cultures of organisms
> that confirm the diagnoses of those diagnoses. Some psychiatric
> disorders can be confirmed by biopsy (e.g. Alzheimer's) but they are
> often done posthumously.
>
> In my mother-in-law's case they said they thought she had pneumonia.
> I don't remember the details but I know that they tried to drain her
> chest but couldn't even insert a tube. Four weeks after the first
> symptom she died. Of course they had changed the diagnosis early on.
> Northwestern Memorial Hospital, 1984.
>
> Nick will, I hope, explain the paper at Friam.
>
> Frank
>
> Frank Wimberly
> Phone (505) 670-9918
>
> On Jan 19, 2017 6:48 AM, "Eric Charles"
> <eric.phillip.charles at gmail.com
> <mailto:eric.phillip.charles at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
> But Frank.... doesn't it normally go a bit more like this:
>
> Why is my husband unable to breathe and coughs all the time?
>
> I hypothesize that he has pneumonia - a chest x-ray is a cheap and
> fairly reliable test of that hypothesis.
>
> Then let's do a chest x-ray!
>
> Well ma'am, the x-ray shows white lumps, supporting
> the hypothesis. Pneumonia is often caused by a bacterial
> infection, and because you say he didn't have a cold previously, I
> think that is the case here. We can test that hypothesis with the
> administration of certain antibiotics.
>
> Then let's get those antibiotics!
>
> Well ma'am, I see that after taking the antibiotics, the white
> lumps, difficulty breathing, and coughs resolved. Based on that, I
> feel confident that my hypothesis was correct, and that your
> husband's pneumonia is now cured.
>
> Wait a minute. How do you know he had pneumonia?
>
> I don't really. But the antibiotics seem to have helped, and
> that leads me both to have confidence in my original hypothesis
> and, ironically, to not really care that much about the
> hypothesis. All that really matters is that your husband is
> better, and that I am likely to give antibiotics again if I meet
> someone that presents in the same manner.
>
> Oh.
>
> P.S. See also Nick's paper, for quite different issues. Nick is
> interested fundamental issues regarding what gets to count as an
> explanation. But note that the discussion above any causality is
> quite different than in the prior anecdotes. In this case,
> taking-an-xray explains why we are looking at images of white
> lumps, and taking-antibiotics explains why the symptoms resolved.
> It matters not a bit if the entity referred to as pneumonia is
> "real", if it is mere "symptomology" or a viable "causal" agent
> responsible for the original difficulties, etc. Not that those are
> not interesting questions, just that they are (potentially)
> irrelevant to this particular interaction.
>
>
>
> -----------
> Eric P. Charles, Ph.D.
> Supervisory Survey Statistician
> U.S. Marine Corps
>
> On Wed, Jan 18, 2017 at 8:17 PM, Frank Wimberly
> <wimberly3 at gmail.com <mailto:wimberly3 at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
> Why is my husband unable to breathe and coughs all the time?
> And what is this large white area on his chest x-ray?
>
> He has lung cancer.
>
> How do you know?
>
> Because he has difficulty breathing, he coughs constantly, and
> he has a positive chest x-ray.
>
> Frank C. Wimberly
> 140 Calle Ojo Feliz
> Santa Fe, NM 87505
>
> wimberly3 at gmail.com <mailto:wimberly3 at gmail.com>
> wimberly at cal.berkeley.edu <mailto:wimberly at cal.berkeley.edu>
> Phone: (505) 995-8715 <tel:%28505%29%20995-8715> Cell:
> (505) 670-9918 <tel:%28505%29%20670-9918>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Friam [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com
> <mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com>] On Behalf Of glen ?
> Sent: Wednesday, January 18, 2017 5:32 PM
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] The root of personality disorders
>
>
> I found this opinion refreshing:
>
> Narcissistic Personality Disorder and the President-Elect
>
> http://behaviorismandmentalhealth.com/2017/01/16/narcissistic-personality-disorder-and-the-president-elect/
> <http://behaviorismandmentalhealth.com/2017/01/16/narcissistic-personality-disorder-and-the-president-elect/>
>
> I particularly liked the (strawman) circularity caricatured by
> conflating phenomenology with ontology:
>
> > Wife: Why is my husband so self-important; why does he have
> such a sense of entitlement?
> > Psychiatrist: Because he has an illness called narcissistic
> personality disorder.
> > Wife: How do you know he has this illness?
> > Psychiatrist: Because he is so self-important and has such a
> sense of entitlement.
>
> But, personally, seeing [gag] Trump as the epitome of
> everything that's wrong with our culture, I can sympathize
> with the idea of using whatever tool we might have available
> to _demonstrate_ to others how thoroughly unable the man is to
> fill the role of President. But we should be careful not to
> abandon our own principles in the process.
>
> --
> ☣ glen
>
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