Do you smoke?

[worm]

if you and/or I exist without words, then we do too

[worm]

just because you don't have the word for it, doesn't mean the 'condition' doesn't exist

[worm]

this sounds like another definition of 'we' going on here

'we' (you and I) do things independently of each other

[worm]

so in the end, they're meaningless

[worm]

normal is irrelevant

[feral chile]

Not if you want someone else to know your world. Which is exactly what psychology is about.

It's very meaningful to know that someone is disturbed and the cause of that mental pain is caused by the label they have been given rather than any actual state of being. It's also important to know what is a consequence of the label and what is a consequence of the physical condition.

[feral chile]

I was pondering this whole thing of 'me, and 'you' 'we'.

If you think of babies, they must have a continuous string of experiences, from which they start to separate out bits. At some stage they start to realise they can move their arms etc. and at some stage they learn what is part of them and what is not.

I'm presuming they do this without language. But how can they have categories/identity before they learn language?

[Purple Monkey]

Eh? I mean normal as in that that's what the world is to them. The condition of schizophrenia is the condition of normal everyday experience to someone with schizophrenia.

You can't just say that they've got schizophrenia can you. You have to be aware that there is a condition of un-schizophrenia first, which requires someone else, which in turn requires an explanation, which in turn requires labels.

[worm]

I find myself being in the unusual situation of agreeing wholeheartedly with you for once.

[worm]

"Perhaps a lunatic was simply a minority of one." - George Orwell.

[worm]

I was pondering this whole thing of 'me, and 'you' 'we'.

If you think of babies, they must have a continuous string of experiences, from which they start to separate out bits. At some stage they start to realise they can move their arms etc. and at some stage they learn what is part of them and what is not.

I'm presuming they do this without language. But how can they have categories/identity before they learn language?

Edited March 3, 2011 by worm

[worm]

I don't see how the condition is the label.

[worm]

I'm not 'labelling' it a condition, I'm just trying to use a word that we might agree on.

[feral chile]

If we don't experience, we don't know though. Our experiences are filtered by our senses. All our senses do is interpret something that's then experienced in a certain way. If there was no living being that could see, if life had developed differently, there would be no such thing as sight. Or blindness. We don't have a word (or firm concept) for the lack of something that doesn't exist to us. We can't clearly conceive of what it would be to have an additional sensory perception. Because we can only conceive, as worm rightly says, of a lack of which we are aware. So there needs to be something before there can be a lack of it.

sorry, that's garbled. I'm a bit distracted, because Wales has said Yes.

Edited March 4, 2011 by feral chile

[worm]

it doesn't matter whether I can reason it or not

it doesn't matter whether I can say it or not

it's nothing to do with whether anyone can say anything or not

Edited March 4, 2011 by worm

[Leyser]

Agree with Worm on this one. Tony, of course this is meaningless. Labels are meaningless, everything is meaningless which stems from the deconstructionist way of thinking. Black is the absence of white and vice versa, just as blindness is the absence of sight.

Your perception on blindness is flawed because of your awareness of sight. Even blind people are aware that other can see because they have been told, and therefore labels exist to classify such. When that awareness or difference is removed, individuals are unaware if they are the norm, but they assume so.

Think about if we discovered an unknown sense. You could call it a "condition" which generally labels a minority. If everyone possessed this sense it would be the norm, just as the ability to see isn't known as a "condition" per se in our society.

As Worm said a condition and a label are the same thing. In our society we often label qualities which a minority suggest as "conditions" because they are different from what the majority experiences. Whether we diagnose certain groups of qualities as schizophrenia is irrelevant. We label these qualities as conditions because we are aware of the norm, without knowledge of the differences in humans there would be no conditions. That's how the "condition is the label" as you said.

[worm]

but that's not the objective

[worm]

If I was born, and left for dead, on an island miles from anywhere, and somehow survived (brought up by the local wolves....?) so I have no knowledge of language or even that other humans exist.... whatever my condition was wouldn't be any different because I couldn't give find the words to explain it, would it?

Edited March 5, 2011 by worm

[worm]

I'm trying to go a step further, and understand it in isolation. Pigs can't fly... it's not because some can

[feral chile]

If I was born, and left for dead, on an island miles from anywhere, and somehow survived (brought up by the local wolves....?) so I have no knowledge of language or even that other humans exist.... whatever my condition was wouldn't be any different because I couldn't give find the words to explain it, would it?

And going back to what prompted me to interrupt this thread (sorry...!), lables (what is sanity? for example) can, very often, be just as much of a complication as a help.

Edited March 5, 2011 by feral chile

[feral chile]

I think the main issue I have with labels is when a person has a label. It encourages one to think that the label encompasses all that they are. And that's not so. We are many different things.

Or, as I prefer to think to avoid the trap, we do many different things.

It's the difference between being a schizophrenic and experiencing recurrent psychotic episodes. Both mean the same thing, and yet...

I feel the second description leaves out identity in a way the first assumes.

[worm]

yes..

I think I'm trying to work out the difference between perception and condition... not a condition that changes with perception, but some kind of absolute...

which possibly can't be achieved, I just feel some 'holes' in everything

Edited March 5, 2011 by worm

[feral chile]

now we're talking....

I feel fairly arrogant even tipping my toe in such topics, as I'm nowhere near as well read as I could be... but isn't there the faintest chance that Wittgenstein might not have the whole thing down...

how would he, or anyone know that you (in this situation) wouldn't somehow recognise the same tree another day?

[worm]

I feel fairly arrogant even tipping my toe in such topics, as I'm nowhere near as well read as I could be... but isn't there the faintest chance that Wittgenstein might not have the whole thing down...

how would he, or anyone know that you (in this situation) wouldn't somehow recognise the same tree another day?

Edited March 5, 2011 by worm

[feral chile]

the whole idea that language is needed to experience doesn't make sense to me. I've used music as an example before.... there's abstract art too, even not so abstract art. It taps into parts of the brain that are purely emotional. In fact, trying to describe certain emotions can pretty much nulify the experience

Edited March 5, 2011 by feral chile