Insane Pleader?

[paigetheoracle]

Is the plea of insanity flawed, when somebody claims internal voices made them commit the crimes they did?

 

I ask because if somebody has supposed friends encouraging them to likewise commit a crime, do they get away with murder and if so should either? (Personally I don't see that in either case simple restraint and a sense of decency i.e., awareness of the end results of your actions, should stop you committing the crimes: As with all lawbreaking I believe it's a case of you biting your tongue and buckling down to work, if you want something enough, or giving up and collapsing into the despair and apathy that is crime (insanity) in the first place: Two people can come from the slums but one will work his way up in society and the other will give up and seek the easy option of stealing from others (self blame if you don't meet your objectives or blaming others).

[Eclogite]

The distinction between internal voices urging illegal acts and friends doing the same is vast.

If we succumb to the urging of friends then we are knowingly behaving in an illegal, unethical manner. There incitement is typically of no relevance.

 

In contrast, if we are motivated by those internal voices it is strongly diagnostic of a mental aberration. If this can be confirmned then the insanity plea is a valid one.

[paigetheoracle]

The distinction between internal voices urging illegal acts and friends doing the same is vast.

If we succumb to the urging of friends then we are knowingly behaving in an illegal, unethical manner. There incitement is typically of no relevance.

 

In contrast, if we are motivated by those internal voices it is strongly diagnostic of a mental aberration. If this can be confirmned then the insanity plea is a valid one.

 

Not my point or how I personally discern the situation. Both cases I see as aberrant and both unconscious acts in that it is a case of letting go of responsibility, that is conscious awareness. From observation I notice that I (and others by inference as we are all designed on the same model I personally believe) have no conscious awareness when I act as movement destroys both sensory awareness and memory of my beliefs/ observations on what is right or wrong. It is simply a question of choice - to act and face the consequences from society or suppress the urge because I do not want to face that outcome i.e. revenge by friends or family/ prison sentence or punishment by civilization. I have personal experience of this in a raging temper aimed at a particular person, that I kept in check. If unleashed I would have killed this person without a shadow of a doubt but because I held back, I suffered 20 years of migraines as a result (It killed me to some degree in order to avoid me killing him). So would I say I was sane at that time? Only just. Would I have felt just in attacking him? Yes, in my mind but in actual fact is anyone? If I'd given the plea of insanity would it have made him any less dead? I don't think so.

 

Personally I believe in the heat of the moment anyone can kill and it is us giving in to that urge that is the problem, not the justification that internal voices or external friends egged us on to do it. When it boils down to it, it is personal choice because people do kill others on their own initiative/ cognizance, so why blame others as the crime would have occurred or could have occurred without internal or external goading? Therefore logically it has to be a personal choice (like a journey) to hold on or let go.

 

As this is a science site notice how heat and cold come into the equation? Either you maintain or create form (stay cool and present) or lose it and explode in a violent rage (blow your top/ take a leave of absence). Why do we put violent hotheads in prison or confine the mentally incoherent in hospitals? To give them a chance to cool and calm down, through restraint - in a cell/padded cell or wearing handcuffs/a straight jacket).

 

You say 'Their incitement is of no relevance' - as I point out I agree but in both cases.

[DougF]

I think it was a good idea at the time but now every Tom Dick and Harry try to use it to stay out of jail. :doh:

 

Insanity Pleas & Capital Punishment: Knowing Right from Wrong

Knowing Right from Wrong

Sometimes' date=' when one person kills another, the defense offered in court is that although the accused did commit the crime, they should not be held legally culpable because they were insane. How is such a person deemed insane? Before we decide that a person is legally insane, we first have to determine what it means to be sane, much less insane.

 

The most general definition of “legal insanity” is that a person “did not know right from wrong” — not knowing that their action was wrong, they did not know it was immoral. This is, essentially, the standard contained in a variety of major formulations of valid insanity pleas:

<-->

The key to look for here is why Yates (and people like her) believed that it would serve a higher moral cause to break the law. If Yates looked at the same facts as the rest of us see and simply came to a different conclusion, it would be difficult to label her insane — we stumble across the problem of labeling all “different” people as insane. Where “insanity” comes into play is the point at which a person’s perception of reality diverges too far from actual reality. We all see things differently and arrive at different interpretations, which means that we must allow for some variety in what people believe. However, there are points at which it is legitimate to question someone’s sanity — a point at which we aren’t all looking at the same facts because someone is seeing things which aren’t really there[/Quote']

 

 

plea of insanity - definition of plea of insanity by the Free Online Dictionary, Thesaurus and Encyclopedia.

Noun 1. plea of insanity - (criminal law) a plea in which the defendant claims innocence due to mental incompetence at the time

insanity plea

criminal law - the body of law dealing with crimes and their punishment

plea - (law) a defendant's answer by a factual matter (as distinguished from a demurrer) [/Quote]

 

 

Is the Insanity Plea Allowing Criminals to Avoid Justice?

One the One Hand...

 

An insanity plea is a poor excuse for serious lawbreaking' date=' and should have no bearing on punishment. In a majority of criminal cases, especially murder trials, an insanity plea is merely a defense strategy aimed at delivering guilty defendants from the death penalty or serving time in prison.

<-->

On the Other Hand...

 

Although high profile cases have distorted the facts surrounding insanity defenses, the insanity plea is a valid legal defense. Insanity defenses involve a thorough process of psychiatric evaluation to determine the mental health of the accused. In order to gain release, a hospital or state appointed board must approve their request. Insanity pleas are not made that frequently and are usually uncontested by prosecutors. [/Quote']

I voted Mabe, I would have to take it case by case IMHO.

[CraigD]

Is the plea of insanity flawed, when somebody claims internal voices made them commit the crimes they did?

 

I ask because if somebody has supposed friends encouraging them to likewise commit a crime, do they get away with murder and if so should either?

As Eclogite notes, there is a profound difference between peer pressure and “voices in ones head”. The latter is more metaphorical than real, a characterization supported by neurological data and the opinions of people with experience in the study and treatment of people with mental disorders. One can also draw an important distinction between the two by speaking with people who experience frequent hallucination and delusional thinking: while you can avoid the urgings of friends by telling them to shut up, or physically avoiding them, quieting the voices in your head may not be as easy. Such experiences are often so persistent and incessant that they literally, to use an archaic but accurate phrase, drive one mad.

I have personal experience of this in a raging temper aimed at a particular person, that I kept in check. If unleashed I would have killed this person without a shadow of a doubt but because I held back, I suffered 20 years of migraines as a result (It killed me to some degree in order to avoid me killing him).

While controlling feeling of rage can be very stressful, and stress can contribute to physical illness, including the triggering of migraine headaches, I believe the simple cause and effect relationship between refraining from killing and having 20 years of migraines Paige suggests is supported by medical science. It’s also my experience that failing to control rage and attacking, injuring, or killing others is even more stressful than refraining, both in the immediate experience, the aftermath, and the effects of the social and legal consequences. Giving in to rage is not as satisfying as it may seem.

 

Various stress-reduction techniques, such as progressive relaxation, can be effective in reducing the frequency of or eliminating migraines. However, the best current scientific theory and evidence strongly indicates that migraine is a complex neurochemical disorder, so such techniques may not always be successful in avoiding episodes. In severe cases, therapies including preventive, abortive, and palliative drugs may be necessary.

I think it was a good idea at the time but now every Tom Dick and Harry try to use it to stay out of jail.

There are certainly many cases of defendants faking insanity to avoid criminal convictions – though in some cases, an effective deception works to their disadvantage, as the short and long term consequence of court-ordered psychiatric observation and treatment may be more severe than the jail sentence they would have received had they been honest. A fictional depiction of this can be found in the 1962 novel “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”. Although fictional, many consider it an accurate depiction of the author’s experiences as an orderly in a state-run mental hospital.

 

Although bogus insanity defenses may be common, but are, I think, more indicative of failings in state justice systems than either the legitimacy of the legal or psychiatric concept of insanity – which is what I believe DougF means in opining “it was a good idea at the time”. Though improvement is called for, care must be taken that improvements are rooted as much as possible in objective science, not emotional reaction. My experience with prisons and mental hospitals leads me to the anecdotal conclusion that there are far more people in prison who should be in mental hospitals than people in mental hospitals who should be in prison.

[paigetheoracle]

 

Insanity Pleas & Capital Punishment: Knowing Right from Wrong

 

I find this an interesting quote (a fresh way of looking at things) because it is really saying the person is mentally innocent, like a child: Not that they didn't physically commit the act but that that they were not aware of its repurcussions/ consequences. As a judge (which I'm not) I couldn't hang somebody like that unless it wasn't a one off affair because they would still be a danger to the public as much as violent thugs and that is how we should look at it - Does this person need to be incarcerated for public safety reasons?

[DougF]

CraigD

My experience with prisons and mental hospitals leads me to the anecdotal conclusion that there are far more people in prison who should be in mental hospitals than people in mental hospitals who should be in prison.[/Quote]

Yes I agree with you some times it very hard to tell who's insane and who's not or whether to put them in a mental hospitals in prison.

There are certainly many cases of defendants faking insanity to avoid criminal convictions [/Quote]

But i do have to say that there are not as many now as lets say twenty tears ago, the court have been cracking down on defendants faking insanity to avoid criminal convictions.

[paigetheoracle]

As Eclogite notes, there is a profound difference between peer pressure and “voices in ones head”. The latter is more metaphorical than real, a characterization supported by neurological data and the opinions of people with experience in the study and treatment of people with mental disorders. One can also draw an important distinction between the two by speaking with people who experience frequent hallucination and delusional thinking: while you can avoid the urgings of friends by telling them to shut up, or physically avoiding them, quieting the voices in your head may not be as easy. Such experiences are often so persistent and incessant that they literally, to use an archaic but accurate phrase, drive one mad.While controlling feeling of rage can be very stressful, and stress can contribute to physical illness, including the triggering of migraine headaches, I believe the simple cause and effect relationship between refraining from killing and having 20 years of migraines Paige suggests is supported by medical science. It’s also my experience that failing to control rage and attacking, injuring, or killing others is even more stressful than refraining, both in the immediate experience, the aftermath, and the effects of the social and legal consequences. Giving in to rage is not as satisfying as it may seem.

 

Various stress-reduction techniques, such as progressive relaxation, can be effective in reducing the frequency of or eliminating migraines. However, the best current scientific theory and evidence strongly indicates that migraine is a complex neurochemical disorder, so such techniques may not always be successful in avoiding episodes. In severe cases, therapies including preventive, abortive, and palliative drugs may be necessary.

 

With regards to my migraines - I'm glad medical science backs up my opinion and yes, I too believe the end results of what I could have done to someone else would have lived with me for the rest of my life but I can't say I'm too happy with a 20 year sentence of migraines either, to be honest! As for drugs and other treatments - I've found that they are short term at best (Tolerance means the need to constantly change treatment for anything to be effective and personally I found that it was like dealing with a runaway horse - eventually it will run out of steam anyway and come to a stop, unless you or life continue to stoke the fires every so often: I used to just get angry, pre-migraine days and thankfully am getting back to that - loud and noisy invective but without the 3 days in bed and vomiting, thankfully).

 

As for the insane not having a break from their internal peer pressure? Not being in that situation I can't comment but I doubt for anyone it's 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, month after month, year after year (Even I got a break from my migraines). On top of this if it is persistent, is it because you're fighting it rather than treating it like it doesn't exist or has no power over you (What you resist, persists as a problem, to paraphrase a mentor of my wifes). Please disavow me of this illusion (view) if you have personal knowledge of someone in this condition or are in it yourself: By the way there are cases of people having voices in their head who turn them into their muses or therapists (I wish I could quote someone on this I corresponded with but if you look up the subject on the net, I'm sure you'll come across this viewpoint or research).

[Eclogite]

Paige, you appear unwilling to accept the basic concept of the unbalanced mind, or at least one so unbalanced it is incapable of reasoned and reasonable judgement. Given that position all your conclusions flow naturally from it.

 

I just think your position is flawed.:hihi:

[CraigD]

As for the insane not having a break from their internal peer pressure? Not being in that situation I can't comment but I doubt for anyone it's 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, month after month, year after year (Even I got a break from my migraines). On top of this if it is persistent, is it because you're fighting it rather than treating it like it doesn't exist or has no power over you (What you resist, persists as a problem, to paraphrase a mentor of my wifes).

Based on first hand experience and the literature, I agree that hallucination and delusional thinking is usually episodic. The distinction I was trying to stress, however, is that, unlike peer pressure, which one can change by changing ones peers, one cannot simply chose to “stop being crazy”. Counsel that is effective for someone not suffering from severe mental illness, such as that you ascribe to your wife’s mentor, is often not effective for someone who is.

 

I think Mark Vonnegut put it well in his 1975 memoir, “The Eden Express”, with the line "Realizing I was crazy didn't make the crazy stuff stop happening". I highly recommend this book for anyone wishing to gain a better understanding of mental illness.

Please disavow me of this illusion (view) if you have personal knowledge of someone in this condition or are in it yourself

Although I’m not a clinician, I work with clinicians, and have a lot of second-hand knowledge of people suffering from a range of mental illness from them. I’ve had a lot of contact with such people while caring for the houseless, many of whom are mentally ill. Your view is not consistent with my experience.

By the way there are cases of people having voices in their head who turn them into their muses or therapists (I wish I could quote someone on this I corresponded with but if you look up the subject on the net, I'm sure you'll come across this viewpoint or research).

With the very rare exception of a mentally ill person who is at the same time a successful writer or similar creative professional, I don’t believe a “muse”, “guide”, or other imagined companion is much similar to the hallucination, compulsion, and fixations some mentally ill people experience.

 

The objective neuroscience of mental illness is not yet well developed, but studies of severely mentally ill people using brain imaging techniques such as PET and MRI indicate that their experiences are due to profoundly different neural events than those experienced in normal conversation, or while imagining a conversation with a muse.

 

It’s important also, I think, to clear up the possible misconception that hallucinated or delusional “voices in your head” are just like hearing ordinary speech. Not all delusional thinking is described by people suffering from it as voices (a symptom usually ascribed to Schizophrenia) – as or more often, it’s described as an irrational need to engage in specific behavior, often with a strong feeling that if it is not, something bad will happen (a symptom usually ascribed to OCD). I’ve had a person describe his pathological behavior as similar to watching a movie in their head, then knowing they must act out the just-watched scene.

 

Mental illness is varied and difficult to precisely quantify and define. People with one principle diagnosis, such as schizophrenia, typically exhibit symptoms of others, such as OCD, and vice-versa. It’s my hope that improvements in objective, scientific neuroscience, particularly functional brain imaging, will eventually explain and lead to very effective treatments for mental illness, but at present, psychiatry remains science-informed art.

[paigetheoracle]

Paige, you appear unwilling to accept the basic concept of the unbalanced mind, or at least one so unbalanced it is incapable of reasoned and reasonable judgement. Given that position all your conclusions flow naturally from it.

 

I just think your position is flawed.:confused:

 

Sorry but you're wrong. What I'm trying to say is that you can't reason with an unreasonable man but some people considered sane take this stance as well. Not only that but what I was trying to get across is that 'anybody' in a state of action is simply 'not' in a 'thinking' state.

 

Don't give up on the argument as a lot of the time I think it's a question of semantics - for instance what would you define as insane? Could it be that we are arguing at cross purposes?

[paigetheoracle]

Based on first hand experience and the literature, I agree that hallucination and delusional thinking is usually episodic. The distinction I was trying to stress, however, is that, unlike peer pressure, which one can change by changing ones peers, one cannot simply chose to “stop being crazy”. Counsel that is effective for someone not suffering from severe mental illness, such as that you ascribe to your wife’s mentor, is often not effective for someone who is.

 

I think Mark Vonnegut put it well in his 1975 memoir, “The Eden Express”, with the line "Realizing I was crazy didn't make the crazy stuff stop happening". I highly recommend this book for anyone wishing to gain a better understanding of mental illness.Although I’m not a clinician, I work with clinicians, and have a lot of second-hand knowledge of people suffering from a range of mental illness from them. I’ve had a lot of contact with such people while caring for the houseless, many of whom are mentally ill. Your view is not consistent with my experience.With the very rare exception of a mentally ill person who is at the same time a successful writer or similar creative professional, I don’t believe a “muse”, “guide”, or other imagined companion is much similar to the hallucination, compulsion, and fixations some mentally ill people experience.

 

The objective neuroscience of mental illness is not yet well developed, but studies of severely mentally ill people using brain imaging techniques such as PET and MRI indicate that their experiences are due to profoundly different neural events than those experienced in normal conversation, or while imagining a conversation with a muse.

 

It’s important also, I think, to clear up the possible misconception that hallucinated or delusional “voices in your head” are just like hearing ordinary speech. Not all delusional thinking is described by people suffering from it as voices (a symptom usually ascribed to Schizophrenia) – as or more often, it’s described as an irrational need to engage in specific behavior, often with a strong feeling that if it is not, something bad will happen (a symptom usually ascribed to OCD). I’ve had a person describe his pathological behavior as similar to watching a movie in their head, then knowing they must act out the just-watched scene.

 

Mental illness is varied and difficult to precisely quantify and define. People with one principle diagnosis, such as schizophrenia, typically exhibit symptoms of others, such as OCD, and vice-versa. It’s my hope that improvements in objective, scientific neuroscience, particularly functional brain imaging, will eventually explain and lead to very effective treatments for mental illness, but at present, psychiatry remains science-informed art.

 

Yes, realizing you are crazy doesn't stop you being or acting crazy but it is a start. It's like waking up at the wheel of a car and realizing you're going to crash if you don't control the steering. Action changes the situation (gaining self-control) but just saying you are 'something' doesn't stop you being it.

 

Imagining a muse? You did not see the documentary 'Hearing Voices' or discuss this with some of the participants who were clinically insane and recovered their faculties. Where someone is now is not where they necessarily where in the past. As for it being different from mediums and their guides - yes, again it is different but again it is as the program stressed (I emailed two of the people involved, an academic and a Jesuit preist and they had some intertesting ideas on the subject which didn't really conflict with my view either but added different perspectives). What I would say is that the mentally ill are in a different state to us and whether you call it voices,demons, guides or thoughts etc. this is obvious and not disputed by me - and in fact is part at least of what I'm saying.

 

As for the compulsion element and feeling forced to act on it - this I would consider 'addiction'. Gambling, drinking, even shopping come under this general heading but OCD can be more distressing and dangerous to others or yourself, if acted upon.

 

What I'm trying to do is break down the barriers (prejudices) which lead to the reaction, that this is something separate and that nothing can be done about it. Really what I'm about to say should be in the new(ish) Linguistics section because as someone said (sorry can't remember who as their name meant nothing to me) 'Philosophy is about defining things'. In other words I personally believe a lot of people get into arguments about semantics when it's really a failure to equate terms that exist in one field that stretch across to have a similar or the same meaning in another one. Are there diffences? Yes and depending on your objective, you should point out differences to further define situations but as I say sometimes it can be counterproductive.

For example I'm trying to point out that the physical acts of the insane and supposed sane, result in the same thing, no matter what the motive or reasoning behind it (a murder victim is a murder victim - they're dead and why anybody did it isn't going to make any difference to that plain, simple fact).

 

I would call the mentally ill as people with a dispersed mental attitude - not really here (focused on the real world). On a personal note, I've been out with 2 women who were considered mentally ill - both being given the title Schizophrenic, although one argued with that diagnosis. I also believe that I probably have Aspergers Syndrome - one of the autistic spectrum disorders and have been thought of in the past as very odd and probably am (I have OCD of a mildish type - pick up yellow balls fired out of pop guns amongst other things and stick them in containers, to send to others as presents, plus suffer from hypergraphia - can't stop writing, hence visits to sites like this and numerous notepads full of my scribblings, amongst other things).

 

I presume you're a scientist of some type? I am not but I find the idea of Quantum Mechanics interesting because it makes both dreams and insanity seem less unreasonable (Some people define reasonable as doing things their way - others as being in control of your faculties. If you define it simply as having a purpose, which is analogous to it (synonym as opposed to antonym) then everybody, including the insane has a motive behind what they do, however wrong it appears to you in action or thought: We need a clear cut definition for everything, to stop personal beliefs getting in the way of objective data or facts (Not what you believe and I don't but that which is so all encompassing, that we all agree on what it means and its significance).:confused:

[paigetheoracle]

Reality depends where you are when you view it. It can appear totally different, from a different angle.

 

Insanity is an altered state of being and we are a different person from our sane or balanced self. To be more accurate I'd say we're a different 'type' of person - wild and wanton as opposed to civilized and controlled (Doers/ reactionaires as opposed to thinkers (cool, calm, collected minds). It's like the inane comments that mediums blurt out, from 'the other side' or Churchills dream message that he thought had great importance and significance when asleep but when repeating it aloud to himself when wide awake, seemed banal beyond belief.

 

War is attrition, peace accumulation. What this means is that in conflict situations all our resources are depleted - mental, physical, emotional (spirit/ energy). In such conditions communication naturally breaks down into very simple, savage language and even eventually into total discordant sound because lack of rest (peace) means nothing can get built - we can't even put two thoughts together, in other words and if you're lucky you can throw up the occasional word as the semblance of communication (severe depression - total retreat from the world by the broken of spirit). Mania is seeing/making connections ordinary (balanced) people don't i.e. too pedestrian (plodding/ logical) to make enormous leaps of thought or creativity. This is genius, when these ideas can still be communicated to others and madness when they can't (delusions/ hallucinations). Sanity is a shared reality and insanity personal reality that the world in general has no links with (Doesn't believe to be true or senses as existing)

 

This whole thread is about the question, not so much what is sanity but what is reality, which I believe are strongly related. What you 'believe' (concept) is not the same thing as 'describing' what is happening to you, necessarily (actual symptoms). Communication is the problem. 'Aliens are beaming thoughts into my head' is someone's attempt to describe what is happening to them, in words that they hope will make sense to someone -what this society, calls delusional thinking, when in fact it may just be inappropriate wording. Don't take anything at face value (label and forget). What somebody says is happening to them may not be literal truth but using the only concepts they have, to try to describe it (Even they may not believe it but more accurate terminology may not be available to their fractured minds / level of education.

 

If you went to the doctor and said 'Something funny is going on between my ears' it might lead to a different reaction, from believing it's an aural difficulty to something needing brain surgery (Radio signals have been documented being picked up by peoples teeth and inanimate objects as well as radios: See Fortean Times back issues). Brain research (Penfield?) has also discovered that the areas of mind stimulated by actual events are also turned on when re-enacted in the mind. The current 'interpretation' is that this indicates that the mind 'creates' external reality. Personally I find this a wild (insane) assumption. Internal memory may duplicate external reality like a photocopy does but that doesn't mean it actually 'creates' external reality in 3-D. I await proof of this, not reasoning.

[Zythryn]

An important thing to remember is the clinical definition of insane is nothing like the legal definition.

As quoted earlier, the legal definition is that the defendant does not realize the consequences of his actions are good or bad (roughly paraphrased).

I do believe there is a place for the insanity plea, but you have to prove the above, not just that the person suffers a mental illness.

Paige, in the example above regarding someone who wakes up finding their car headed for a crash. I think legal insanity is someone who doesn't wake up before the crash (temporary insanity) OR someone who sees the crash comming, but doesn't realize the consequences, so they plow right into the tree.

I do agree many defendents try to take advantage of the plea of insanity and that many try to stretch the legal definition, or that some jurys have trouble with the distinction between legal and clinical definitions.

[paigetheoracle]

An important thing to remember is the clinical definition of insane is nothing like the legal definition.

As quoted earlier, the legal definition is that the defendant does not realize the consequences of his actions are good or bad (roughly paraphrased).

I do believe there is a place for the insanity plea, but you have to prove the above, not just that the person suffers a mental illness.

Paige, in the example above regarding someone who wakes up finding their car headed for a crash. I think legal insanity is someone who doesn't wake up before the crash (temporary insanity) OR someone who sees the crash comming, but doesn't realize the consequences, so they plow right into the tree.

I do agree many defendents try to take advantage of the plea of insanity and that many try to stretch the legal definition, or that some jurys have trouble with the distinction between legal and clinical definitions.

 

Very interesting points. I think we all think at times that we've got our arguments down pat but that is because we haven't gone further down the road and seen beyond them to a new vista. It's like they say about eternity - there's no-end to where it will take you: Talking of children, we hate the new because it runs our prejudices ragged, when we want to tie them down and hold certainty in one place (Life unfortunately doesn't work like that - hence insurances shortcomings).

[Tarantism]

as far as my own internal schizo voice...usually pretty mellow. except for once, last time he came about...scared the hack out of me! luckily, said voice subsided when i started to clear my mind a bit, if you catch my meaning.

 

i think that folks who plea insantiy are looking for a way to escape their responsibility for whatever crime they commitied. however...i doubt they think it through too thuroughly, because spending life in a mental hospital CAN NOT be fun.

[paigetheoracle]

There's another point I'd like to make about hearing voices and that is before mobile phones, we'd know somebody was mentally ill or away with the fairies because they'd be talking to or shouting at the empty air. When eventually technology has advanced so that no phone is visible at all, how will we be sure the person shouting angrily into the air is conversing with a corporeal being and not one in their brain? (If it gets so small, it becomes just an implant in the head that responds to brainwaves, could we claim that was electronic telepathy?).

 

Please also refer back to my earlier post about people picking up radio waves - could the brains of those we consider insane just lack a filter mechanism to cut out 'messages beamed from Mars?' Perhaps if we studied these conditions more thoroughly, we might learn more about their mechanisms as Marius Romm ('Hearing Voices' documentary on Channel Four in the UK) is doing in Holland rather than just trying to destroy or subdue the brain because society can't deal with and doesn't like these side effects of madness, through drugs, lobotomy (thankfully on the way out if not totally gone already), leucotomy and ECT.

 

I personally believe that we think things are insane when we don't understand them and think they are, when w can see the reasoning behind them (It is this that converts us from pro to anti something and the reverse - see The Stockholm Effect for how this works in kidnap situations: Shared or 'consensus' reality). Our beliefs can be dangerous, when we act on them - not because they are necessarily wrong or right but because we act as though we had the moral right to interfere in the fate of the world. To act or not to act, that is the question? The more you think things through in depth, the more informed your decision - neither the criminal mind or insane one does - both are more reactionary, which is why society incarcerates them to preserve peace within it.

 

Intelligence is restraint. It is about knowing yourself. If like me you've got a few years experience under your belt, you already know that the person you were in your youth bears little resemblance to the person you are now (things you did then, you shudder at the thought of now). Again this ties in with what I was saying about altered states of consciousness and madness.