[FRIAM] Turning Psychology into a Social Science

[Steve Smith]

As usual, I wasn't seeking anything near as crisp as I think you are.   
I was merely making the observation that norm-to-norm, we often smear 
one into another.   I think your "hearing voices" example is quite apt:

https://www.hearing-voices.org/

I think I agree with your implication that at best there may be a 
spectrum of "mental states" which go from "pro-social" to "anti-social" 
in any given social context.   When first I encountered the term 
"neurodiverse" I felt relieved of the need/habit/expectation to classify 
every behaviour or presentation or implied mental state as "healthy or 
unhealthy".

That does not, however, imply that mental states (or complexes of them?) 
can't also be on a range from "pro-survival" to "anti-survival" (again, 
in a given physical context).    The basis vectors of social and 
physical surely overlap...    for example, "running out in front of a 
stampeding buffalo herd and waving your arms wildly" is not particularly 
conducive to individual survival when done in isolation, however, when 
done in coordination with a tribe of spear-wielding hunters and a blind 
canyon or cliff, maybe it is *highly* pro-survival (as well as 
pro-social).  Or maybe for some it is just "anxiety relief" before 
bungee jumping was invented?

What I was trying to highlight maybe was what you more succinctly stated:

    "anything we classify as "mental illness" is hopelessly ill-defined
    and would be better defined in terms of context"

On 1/24/23 5:01 PM, glen wrote:
> I triggered when I read this and I'm not sure why. I think it's 
> because, in order to well-define some concept of "mental", you have to 
> isolate it from other things ... like "body" or environment. This 
> might even go so far as to isolate it from the biochemical processes 
> in the brain.
>
> If you refuse to isolate it, then there's no such thing as "mental", 
> except as an abstraction from body, environment, social interaction, 
> etc. That makes your inference trivial. If you accept the isolation, 
> then the mental can be independent of the social, which refutes your 
> inference [⛧].
>
> And I don't *think* it matters where you draw the isolation boundary. 
> It could be that biochemical/electric in the brain is (part of) the 
> mental, but we isolate that from the body. Or it could be that mental 
> is (in part) the brain and the body, but we isolate the organism from 
> its environment. Etc. In each case, the inference you make is either 
> trivial or refuted.
>
> Perhaps what you're actually expressing is that there is no such thing 
> as "mental"; and that anything we classify as "mental illness" is 
> hopelessly ill-defined and would be better defined in terms of 
> context. Whether that context is brain+body+environment or just 
> environment doesn't matter so much as the identifying of "mental" as a 
> fiction.
>
>
> [⛧] Refutes it in the absence of some clarifying premise that you may 
> have left out. E.g. if you added a shared values premise, say, that 
> most people don't hear voices, so it's "healthy" to not hear voices, 
> but ill to hear voices, then there can be "mental illness". If you 
> really don't have an unstated premise about mental norms or somesuch, 
> and any mental state can be just as OK as any other mental state, then 
> it refutes it by nonsense. No "mental illness" means no way to bind it 
> to the social.
>
> On 1/24/23 15:40, Steve Smith wrote:
>> I have also held the un(der)founded opinion that a great deal of what 
>> we consider to be a *mental* illness is actually a *social* illness:  
>> the cognitive dissonance experienced with one's social context can be 
>> something "wrong" with both/either the individual or their context.
>
>
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