Simply put, what is sanity is group consensus that a person’s perspectives match reasonably close to the group shared reality. There is plenty of room for divergence in how people assign sanity - both personally and socially. Trying to define sanity is about the same as trying to define morality. Good luck with that. You might ask the question: Am I insane or merely ‘eccentric’? I don’t see sanity as a big issue as folks try to rationalize who they are and WTF is going on in the world. It only becomes a question when the words and actions of an individual are seriously out of whack with how most people are viewing the world.
For instance, I could easily say that some of the potential presidential candidates have a loose grip on sanity given the world of illusion they seem to be panderering to. Either the cheese slipped off the cracker or they are simply pimping to their audience - your choice. But that their take on the state of the state doesn’t match up with reality on the ground certainly raises the question.
I suspect that we are all sane in some ways and maybe a bit insane in others. Where is that line? Damned if I know, and after all the pysychological voo doo, I doubt that anyone else does either.
What may or may not be predicated of a thing (in this case “sanity”), one learns in grade school algebra, the first chapter on set theory, or one can study the dialogues of Plato, and even take a hint from Confucius or the Judeo-Christian Scripture–is determined by the definition of that thing. The human mind functions linguistically, when it functions. At this point in man’s history, however, he does not yet comprehend the meaning of this, nor does he yet employ the principles of language by which to measure his mental integrity, called virtue, by Plato and a few others.
The human mind uses language as a mapping process. The better it understands the principles of this “map making” the better that mind functions.
Sanity is then rated in accordance with each language the mind uses. It can be perfectly sane in arithmetic, yet completely insane when it comes to other forms of human discourse. Simply put, it can only be sane relative to those languages it can perform virtuously in. Man does not yet recognize the common principles upon which all languages are based, nor that as certain as one can be in simple arithmetic, so too in any language he comprehends well. When he does comprehend this, and its importance to human behavior, living a life of learning the different languages, such as music, arithmetic, algebra, geometry, common grammar, etc, for there are many diverse languages, will become natural to him. We are, after all, meant to spend our time in the love of our job, as mind, and thus enjoy the learning of the languages which guide our actions–those actions that maintain and promote our life.
Those who claim that sanity is attained by the vote of a group of mad monkeys, is simply one of those mad monkeys. Since in any language, the symbol table is conventional, however, how those symbols may or may not be manipulated is dependent upon what those symbols denote, what is true is independent of “gods and men.” The conventional content of any language does not make the language itself conventional, or in other words, the name does not change what is named.
When it is said, we learn by experience, it means perception determines conception, conception determines will. this trinity of tautologies was also expressed once as The Father (perception), The Son (Conception), and the Holy Spirit (Will), are One, or again, as we shall know the truth, (this string of tautologies) and the truth shall set us free. That is sanity, the virtue of the human mind.
Now, since the human mind functions linguistically, and there are a great number of languages to learn in order to do our job, what does it mean when people say they are bored and cannot think of what to do? Well, except vote on how sane they are.
No, I don’t think so. You could formulate it as having ideas at odds with the intersubjective paradigms of society - it only depends on realism if you take the (realist) view that there’s something that we are judging, rather than that it is the judgement we make of people. Foucault, who was very far from a realist, made a name for himself with his description of sanity/madness as a social construct. I haven’t read it, I hasten to say, but something along the lines of madness (as it’s currently understood) being an invention of the Enlightenment.
I don’t know how useful a definition it is to someone who believes there are devils under his skin telling him to kill, mind you. I have a couple of friends who’ve had some fairly terrifying, bewildering experiences with mental illness/madness/insanity. And a good friend of mine is hypomanic - he says it’s the best way to be mad, lots of energy and ideas all the time.
I don’t know what excessive sanity would be, but I suspect the philosophical community might be a good place to start looking
“Excessive sanity” is an interesting notion - doesn’t it suggest a difference between true sanity and false sanity? For instance, maybe conventionally sanity is mistakenly associated with self-control, but excessive self-control exposes the error in associating sanity with self-control at all. Doesn’t the mere presence of any form of self-control imply a split personality (self fighting self) anyhow?
I record my thoughts and play them back to myself. If these recordings make sense and match reality then I can state I am sane. This conclusion is derived from the procces of comparison: between mental activity and reality.
I state “B. Pitt is attractive!” or “A. Hitler was a bad person!”. Are these real?
It takes only one instance to falsify a theory and if I continue to hold a theory that has been falsified then I define myself as insane.
So what you are saying here is that because you loved your mother, that gave you and your sisters an excuse to call her names? Do you actually see respect in that? I’m not saying that you did not respect her in other ways. Instead of seeing Alzheimers for the disease it is, and understand that, you chose to trivialize your mother’s condition. We often joke at things we have no control of because we are unable to see and accept that we cannot control everything…not even ourselves.
I can almost understand this as it was her way of dealing with her mental disease, treating it and herself more lightly. But, even if you saw it as okay for you to do the same, perhaps the reality is that we have no right to undermine another’s personhood in that way? People are not simply the disease which they have…we are all human beings.
I have actually never understood this. There have been more than a few times when I heard black people refer to each other by that word, when I would ask them ‘why’ and ‘how could they’? Their reasoning was that it was okay for them but not for white people! That is a very ugly word which white people have used against blacks for the longest of times. What happens is that that word has become so engrained in a black person’s psyche - (but not all of them/those who have transcended it). Just as we all also have become unconciously defined by certain words/thoughts which we’ve grown up with until we’ve taken notice of ourselves and gone beyond them - they have become so conditioned to hearing it - that they use it in unawareness with each other, not even realizing how it perpetuates itself and bias/racism. But is that any reason for you to call your friend by that word? Is your mind simply dragged along by others’ actions?
Basketball court? Stereotyping?
That told me nothing. But you might just start with an apology. But of course, you would have to “see” in order to move.
Well, skipping over the classic bell-curve, ‘the majority is always sane’ answer, I’d guess sanity would be that which results in behaviour that either positively effects or at least does no harm to the individual in question, in response to external conditions. For positive read - increases happiness/likelihood of survival.
Actually, this is entirely possible. I had schizophrenic friend who took absolutely no exception to his condition. In fact, he found the voices and hallucinations comforting inasmuch as they were forms of constant companionship. He wasn’t horribly misguided as to what was/wasn’t real either as his hallucinations were quite familiar to him. In other words, they weren’t random, off-the-wall, LSD type episodes – rather, he would see a familiar person/figure and hear the same voice[s]. I think he essentially just came to know them as one might any other acquaintance. He certainly wasn’t unhappy with himself, and even claimed to often be more comfortable when he was in a withdrawn hallucinatory state than in, say, simple social situations.
I’m not quite sure where you are going with this, Tab, except to say that of course, even the insane have moments of sanity. Your question is sort of like a riddle to me.
And then again, we all have our own perspectives on what is sane or insane.
An insane person, in a lucid moment, might see a child drowning and respond by running into the ocean to save him…whereas one who is ‘supposedly’ sane, might not do that.
But to get back to the riddle - what does come to me is the question of awareness and belief. In an attempt to do what is felt and believed to be the right thing, an insane person may, in actuality, be doing more harm or the utmost harm, than good. Hitler comes to mind here. At the very least, he was a meglomaniac, but to believe in what he was doing was for the good, he had to be insane, at least in some respects.
Even sane people at times do more harm than good when they act without awareness and do not see the whole picture.
Also people who do fine in other cultures, with whatever the native metaphysical beliefs, categories, etc., would like be diagnosed as mentally ill if they were open about their beliefs in a meeting with a Western psychiatrist in a Western setting.
I think maybe Tab is thinking that his definition only applies to the well-being of the individual, while he left out the well-being of others. Add that, and I’m personally happy with that definition of sanity. I think it’s a useful one, and ultimately the only one that matters.
Anyway, another thought occurred to me here. Perhaps one could be looked on as being ‘insane’, where, if acting and continuing to act along the lines you gave, the other person is simply not willing to ‘look at’ and accept what we have to offer or are showing him/her. Of course, all things in due time - there is the holding onto possibilities out of caring, to show awareness, but at some point there has to be the letting go of - the walking away. If one still continues to try and try, without any result, well - one might be seen as being at least a bit insane. It just isn’t such an easy thing to determine the right moment to detach…but I think something speaks within and we need to listen to that.
But I don’t know if that is what you are referring to…but it’s still a valid perspective.
I think sanity is a precice combination of trusting one’s senses and trusting one’s reason. Or, sanity is having accurate readings and functioning software.
Mostly, it works on a scale.
A guy can think that he is living in the Matrix, trully believe this, even kill people on the side that he is convinced are Agents, and live a perfectly normal and happy life.
The majority is sane, women are sane while on their periods, men who are feminists are sane, atheists and jews are sane, shallow people are sane, stupid people are sane, children are sane, criminals are sane after they finish serving time, crazy people in the mental ward are sane when they take their medication and agree with psychiatry, psychiatry is sane, psychiatrists are sane, the military industrial complex is sane, bombing countries for no apparent reason is sane, hating nazis is sane, equality is sane, agreement is sane, agreeing to disagree is also sane, watching lots of television is sane, playing lots of video games is sane, voting is sane, eating macdonalds everyday is sane, consuming stuff you really don’t need is sane, listening to pop music is sane, following trends is sane, being shallow is sane, never questioning anything is sane, bowing and kneeling to the central government is sane, automatically trusting the government is sane, never reading a history book is sane.
I might have missed a few thousand.
Fuck no, are you joking???
Sanity doesn’t mesh with realism, because what is sane is what the majority agrees on.
If the majority agrees that God exists, then God exists. This may seem like a common logical fallacy, appealing to the masses, but that does not stop people from defining sanity to just this standard alone. Appealing to the masses is sanity. It’s normal. It’s the DEFINITION of normalcy and sanity.
When everybody agrees and the fear of Hell prevents anyone from doubting, yes, sanity becomes reinforced by the majority.
You see those nazi soldiers killing jews over there? The majority are doing it! Therefore, it’s perfectly legitimate and sane.
How dare you call my sanity “sloppy”!
I just gave you a perfectly “sane” definition of sanity.
I think this question can only be answered abstractly, which, in the end, given that it depends on realism, is ironic at least if not contradictory. Sanity generally is not being insane, which means one has ideas about reality that interfere with one’s daily functioning to a severe degree. One no longer takes care of hygiene and/or one’s job a/o social relations. If one has ideas of reality that contradict consensus ideas, even radically, but one showers, shaves, does one’s job, one will not officially be considered insane. You can even be a complete misanthrope, though poor social relations will get pulled into a diagnosis if you have problems in other areas.
Note: this definition says nothing about what real ideas one must have. One need not be a materialist, for example. One can have pretty much any religious base and any philosophical and spiritual ideas about ‘what is going on’ or at the other end be an utter materialist, atheist
as long as one is functioning well. Beliefs along cannot get one considered, officially, insane.
I guess I have convinced myself, no. That one could have a complete constructivist notion of sanity and insanity.
yes, one could see it in terms of consensus vs. contra-consensus ideas coupled with functioning/non-functioning.
I don’t think it can take an adjective like that, especially such an extreme one. I don’t think it is an indicator of a middle ground. Sanity is actually a negative term. It indicates a lack of a certain set of states.
It just isn’t such an easy thing to determine the right moment to detach…but I think something speaks within and we need to listen to that.