[FRIAM] differential diagnosis of psychopathic vs spiritual experiences

[glen]

Right. Sorry if I implied otherwise. I later argued in another context that I thought your recognition that it was possible you could experience a Momentary Lapse of Empathy, and a self-aware recognition of such, is an indicator that you were *not* well-identified as someone diagnosable with any of the myriad disorders for which (lack of) empathy is a marker. Diagnosability always, as far as I can tell, requires debilitation. And, again in my limited understanding, anyone who registers a trait in themselves is on "this side" of that trait. I.e. those who don't recognize their traits need outside help to do so. You can't self-manage something you don't know you have.

One thing that irritates me about the self-diagnosed or identifies-as is they often don't admit that people change [⛧]. It's a popular trope to suggest that people don't change. But obviously, they do, from deep biochemical changes to shallow behavioral changes, all through the arcs of ontogeny. Narrativity, this sickness we exhibit in writing memoirs and such, is blatant apophenia, finding patterns that are NOT true, justified, belief (aka knowledge). This is why it's so difficult for me to read autobiographies (unlike allobiographies, which I enjoy). Some few people are capable of writing their own memoir without retrospectively, coercively, imputing narrative, but *very* few. Autobiographies, almost by definition, have unreliable narrators.

⛧ And this is reflected in modern society. Once you're diagnosed, that diagnosis haunts the remainder of your life. We think psychopathology is incurable. It's a spiritual commitment, a religious Scientism. Imagine if my primary care provider said to me "Well, when you were six, you got infected by a flu virus... so obviously you've still got the flu." Is psychology medicine? I doubt it. [cf https://www.thelancet.com/journals/eclinm/article/PIIS2589-5370(23)00471-6/fulltext]

On 8/9/24 19:22, Prof David West wrote:
> very, very, minor point. I did not identify as anything at age six. I recognized a 'difference' from others that later in life, when I was introduced to the terms, retrospectively connected to that 'difference'.
> 
> But my main point, which I realize I did not make, was the connection between psychopathology, tripping, and meditation altered states.
> 
> Just returned from Vegas and seeing Dead and Company at the Sphere. The venue is fantastic, the dome in Santa Fe on steroids. Some amazing potential there.
> 
> davew
> 
> 
> On Tue, Aug 6, 2024, at 9:30 AM, glen wrote:
>> I'm in an ongoing argument with some of my salon goers about identity.
>> People seem to straddle its multiple meanings for rhetorical (or
>> confirmation biasing) purposes, fluidly switching one context/meaning
>> for another so often and so fluidly as to prevent me from understanding
>> whatever it is they're saying (or trying to avoid saying).
>>
>> Introspection is rife with such problems, including a six year old
>> coming to some self-identification/registration as a member of some
>> crisp class/category. The most recent Bad Faith rhetoric about identity
>> had to do with "neurodivergent". There seems to be a trend amongst "the
>> kids these days" to identify as autistic or ADHD. I mean, I was clearly
>> "different" when I was a kid. We had identities like "head" (kid who
>> does lots of drugs), "jock" (kids who spent lots of time in organized
>> athletics), "brain" (kids who spent time doing chess, math, ...), etc.
>> There was also a name for the [metal|wood|…] shop kids. But I've
>> forgotten it.
>>
>> Some of us were diagnosed with various labels including some words
>> we're not supposed to say anymore. Many of my friends had such
>> conditions. But none of us *identified* as those diagnoses. The
>> diagnoses seemed almost orthogonal to the identities/tribes. (I
>> happened to be a member of the heads, jocks, brains, and "band nerd"
>> tribes; that multi-tribe crossover was part of what made me feel
>> "different".) And each group had its share of the same diagnoses.
>>
>> It seems to me that our tech-associated, individualistic, isolation has
>> driven "the kids" to over-emphasize their diagnoses, to adopt them as
>> identities/tribes, identifying from the inside->out; whereas we (can't
>> speak for anyone else, really) mostly identified from the outside->in.
>> We were sorted by society. The kids these days seem more self-sorted.
>> On the one hand, that could feel like increased liberty and free
>> association. But on the other hand, it's like everyone is a
>> home-schooled weirdo these days and nobody knows how to, for example,
>> bite their tongue or avoid picking their nose in public.
>>
>> Not everybody needs to be a Hunter S Thompson, "neurodivergent", or
>> whatever. Some of us should be allowed to identify as "normal".
>> Introspection is a sickness.
>>
>> On 8/5/24 17:01, steve smith wrote:
>>> I jumped straight to the Artistic meaning of /frottage/ as coined originally by Max Ernst and while not as an act of psychopathy, it does have strong implications for the psychological/subconscious implications in this context?
>>>
>>> In any case, I find it a compelling opening line of the /call me Ishmael/ caliber.
>>>
>>> On 8/5/24 10:04 AM, Prof David West wrote:
>>>> This is very interesting, and timely. I am completing an autobiography/essay/monograph for which this will be quite relevant. The opening lines of the work:
>>>>
>>>> /"An act of frottage triggered the self-recognition that I was a psychopath. I did not, of course, know either term or their meanings./
>>>> /
>>>> /
>>>> /I was six." /
>>>>
>>>> davew
>>>>
>>>> On Thu, Aug 1, 2024, at 11:03 AM, glen wrote:
>>>>> Progress or Pathology? Differential Diagnosis and Intervention Criteria
>>>>> for Meditation-Related Challenges: Perspectives From Buddhist
>>>>> Meditation Teachers and Practitioners
>>>>> https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7403193/
>>>>>
>>>>> Based on our conversation attempting to identify behavioral markers for
>>>>> consciousness, I thought this paper might give some insight into Dave's
>>>>> straddling of mystical and materialistic descriptions of experiences he
>>>>> marks as conscious. In the paper, they lay out 11 levers for making the
>>>>> distinction:
>>>>>
>>>>> • Circumstances of Onset
>>>>> • Control
>>>>> • Critical Attitude
>>>>> • Cultural Compatibility
>>>>> • Distress
>>>>> • Duration
>>>>> • Functional Impairment
>>>>> • Health History or Condition
>>>>> • Impact
>>>>> • Phenomenological Qualities
>>>>> • Teachers’ Skills or Resources
>>>>>
>>>>>    From my perspective that consciousness is a kind of fusion function,
>>>>> Control, Critical Attitude, Distress, and Functional Impairment are
>>>>> primary and the rest are secondary. The ability to (change one's) focus
>>>>> of attention is a hallmark of consciousness, and those 4 levers
>>>>> direclty target one's ability to focus. Duration may well be secondary
>>>>> and the rest tertiary, I guess. Because there's something like a
>>>>> half-life of controllability. If, say, you're a conspiracy theorist,
>>>>> and you *entertain*, say, flat earth for long enough, maybe you'll lack
>>>>> the ability to re-focus and don a critical attitude. Similarly, if you
>>>>> embed into, say, procedural programming long enough, maybe you'll lose
>>>>> the ability to re-focus and think functionally ... a kind of Functional
>>>>> Impairment (sorry for the polysemy of "functional", there).
>>>>>
>>


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