I appreciate the solidarity. I have this ongoing suspicion of a lot of philosophy specifically because so many of the people talking about will and perception and whatnot don't consider the failure states of the human mind. Asserting "I think therefore I am" sounds very cut and dried until you encounter people who don't have any internal process that they're aware of, or people who have a persistent, hopefully delusional belief that they do not exist.
I have a hard time with philosophy bc it seems like you need to invest many years to even get to the point where you can evaluate the merit of what you're reading, but i get the impression that mental illness is a huge unknown unknown for many philosophers. They seem to have an unwarranted confidence that they're not unwittingly experiencing the same kind of cognitive aberrations as mentally ill people. But if you take a really big step back and observe that billions of people have delusional beliefs like the existence of gods and magic that are utterly resistant to interrogation or evidence, you kind of have to wonder if there are gross distortions we're all subject to that we're incapable of recognizing.
I read somewhere that very intelligent people can be more susceptible to delusion and misinterpretation because in so far as "intelligence" involves highly capable pattern recognition, that pattern recognition does not necessarily also mean that the individual can correctly evaluate the truth value of that pattern. Eg correlation vs causation. Without empirical testing and experiment there's no way to reliably establish causal relationships. So if someone was very smart, and working with an idea that is currently untestable, or even nonfalsifiable, they could very well use that intelligence to construct a delusional belief very far from reality without being aware of doing so.
Ps - had a funny idea. Guy from our universe where free will isn't really a thing gets isekai'd to a universe that works on Shonen Anime rules where just being real real dedicated to something and yelling real loud will let you violate physics and do magic and stuff.
I appreciate the solidarity. I have this ongoing suspicion of a lot of philosophy specifically because so many of the people talking about will and perception and whatnot don't consider the failure states of the human mind. Asserting "I think therefore I am" sounds very cut and dried until you encounter people who don't have any internal process that they're aware of, or people who have a persistent, hopefully delusional belief that they do not exist.
I have a hard time with philosophy bc it seems like you need to invest many years to even get to the point where you can evaluate the merit of what you're reading, but i get the impression that mental illness is a huge unknown unknown for many philosophers. They seem to have an unwarranted confidence that they're not unwittingly experiencing the same kind of cognitive aberrations as mentally ill people. But if you take a really big step back and observe that billions of people have delusional beliefs like the existence of gods and magic that are utterly resistant to interrogation or evidence, you kind of have to wonder if there are gross distortions we're all subject to that we're incapable of recognizing.
I read somewhere that very intelligent people can be more susceptible to delusion and misinterpretation because in so far as "intelligence" involves highly capable pattern recognition, that pattern recognition does not necessarily also mean that the individual can correctly evaluate the truth value of that pattern. Eg correlation vs causation. Without empirical testing and experiment there's no way to reliably establish causal relationships. So if someone was very smart, and working with an idea that is currently untestable, or even nonfalsifiable, they could very well use that intelligence to construct a delusional belief very far from reality without being aware of doing so.
Ps - had a funny idea. Guy from our universe where free will isn't really a thing gets isekai'd to a universe that works on Shonen Anime rules where just being real real dedicated to something and yelling real loud will let you violate physics and do magic and stuff.