What does being crazy really look like?

In making decisions about who to engage in discussion one is often drawn to posts which are the most obviously wrong. This is where it feels there is the most bang for the buck, that a simple explanation of no more than a few sentences and taking less than five minutes will remedy obvious error.But after a few exchanges one discovers that it isn't so simple, and it might take days or even weeks before one throws up one's hands and declares, perhaps just to oneself or perhaps publicly, "This guy is crazy, there's no reasoning with him, I give up."I believe that craziness is darn hard to recognize. Unlike the obvious craziness of characters from books and movies, an individual's craziness is so completely woven in to the fabric of reality that it seems that one is just experiencing a disagreement rather than interacting with insanity.I'm convinced that some of the craziness we see here is dementia, an inability to keep facts in mind or put them together into consistent narratives, but the rest of the craziness is genuine and very difficult to conclusively diagnose as true insanity, albeit often of a very mild and harmless sort.Some might remember John Davison, and I think he's a good example of true insanity. Many of us engaged in discussion with him for months and even years. As his condition worsened he was eventually banned from the several boards where he participated, including here.And of course we're all familiar with Dennis Markuze aka David Mabus, who is so genuinely crazy that it is recognizable by reading just a single post. But this kind of obvious craziness is the exception.Is there a way to detect craziness early so as to avoid wasting all the time? Or is engaging the craziness profitable in that it brings many rational responses that couch the issues in terms that match reality?--Percy

I do not think so. It is kind of like talking to a wingnutrepublican. You know the ones, where facts just do not matter and everything else is a conspiracy.I end up extracting myself from the conversation by saying, " Ummmm..yeah.......ummm-hmmm.....oh look at the time, gotta go Glenn Beck is coming on!"

While the person you are talking to may be crazy, you must remember that a lot of these online discussions and debates take place for the lurkers as well. All the eventual craziness is generally easy to see while reading through the thread and so a lurker will be more drawn, on average, to more coherent argument.We need to remember that at all times on this board, and many others, there are only a handful of registered members reading through threads, while the majority of traffic is by individuals who have not registered but want to read the arguments.If we are to leave the crazies alone then to some lurkers it may seem that their arguments have weight, which should definitely be avoided. While educating those who we argue with is the primary reason for debating on these boards (at least for me), we cannot forget the effect of allowing these arguments to stand unrebutted...for they may lead to the ignorance of others whom we should strive to educate.

The only thing that tips me off immediately is when a poster has his own specialized vocabulary that he doesn't bother to define before employing it. In that case either schizophrenia or fairly acute autism has led him to forget that we don't know what he's talking about when he uses the phrases that he makes up.Otherwise, no, we don't know from the get-go. An idea may be unusual, but it cannot be mad in itself. To find out whether the person maintaining the idea is mad, we need to know how he reacts to contrary arguments.Even then, their failure may not be down to insanity as such. It may be down to gormless stupidity. Even then, it may not be stupidity as such, just a specific disability. For example, I think that our poster Faith is not actually insane when she talks about geology, I think she suffers from a disability similar to dyslexia which we might call dysphysica: she has no ability to think about physical things actually happening.

What does craziness look like?Well, we known what delusion looks like -- people that believe things in spite of contrary evidence.We've also seen what looks like paranoia, and curious strains of seemingly institutionalized paranoia, behavior that affects how people interact with other people.I also debated with a flat-earther on another forum. Hans was convinced that the earth was flat and no amount of evidence from space would convince him otherwise.Enjoy

crazy often LOOKS Like this !!

I think "crazy" is a term used too frequently.For example, I don't think ICANT is crazy. I think he's hopelessly wrong and stubborn in a way that means I don't think I'd be able to convince him that the sky is blue...and while, technically, refusing to change a false belief is a form of "delusion," I don't think he's honestly delusional as the word typically implies.We've seen the mentally ill here. Certainly the sort of word-salad and obsessive nonsense with paranoid delusions that Mabus is so fond of demonstrates that.But by and large, I think many of those we call "crazy" are simply firmly convinced that their beliefs are accurate. They might be wrong...but if we define "crazy" to include everyone who holds a false belief after being shown invalidating evidence, we'll wind up labeling so many people "crazy" that the term will lose any and all useful meaning.Not everyone understands what "evidence" really means. Most people, even. Most people don't understand what "proof" is. Most people are not accustomed or even particularly interested in critically examining their own beliefs. Most people, when entering an argument or debate, are not interested in changing their own minds...they're interested in changing someone else's. Arguments are not listened to as legitimate criticisms of a potentially false belief (granted, many or most arguments are logical fallacies or based upon blatantly false premises), but are simply analyzed for attack. In other words, people tend to argue at each other, and very few ever pause to actually consider the arguments against their own beliefs, and whether they actually have merit.There is a form of madness in this, but it's a madness common to all of us. We're human beings - hardly the rational actors we so often perceive ourselves to be. I try not to think too poorly of those who hold what I think are irrational beliefs...because I know that I have, and do, and will in the future hold irrational beliefs myself, even as I try to relieve myself of them.

Honored Admin and Worthy EvCers:I think I might have to declare myself crazy if I attempted to give an opinion on the subject of this thread knowing the sort of reception I'd get -- and will get anyway even if I don't, but oh well. Of course I could at least say that if the denizens of EvC were to spend much time in certain other web environments you would find most of YOU defined as crazy. But you probably know that.But the reason I'm writing this is to suggest that someone here, Dr. A perhaps, or perhaps a committee chosen by vote (or at least a Thread), not including any creationists or conservatives or other dubious types of course, should devise a TEST to determine exactly who has the characteristics you all agree on as "crazy" -- OR dysphysic or however Dr. A put that, or whatever other qualities impinge on the subject matter -- and then let us all take that test. Make a good list of those characteristics first of course; that would be interesting in itself. I'm sure there are models Out There for such an enterprise, but I have sufficient faith in the intelligence and creativity of those most respected here that they could come up with something truly determinative on their own.Then we'd have EVIDENCE rather than subjective opinion. You know, the stuff you all purport to admire above all else.Yours truly,
FaithABE: Apologies, this should probably have been a General Reply.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

You raise a good point.Certainly I believe that you are not mentally ill. I assert that you are not mentally ill. But can anyone prove that you are not mentally ill?Maybe you yourself could, but apparently you are not inclined to furnish us with the requisite demonstration.

There is nothing I'm aware of that I could furnish here that would be accepted as proving that. Simply believing in an inerrant Bible that teaches a 6000-year-old Earth seems to be sufficient proof that I'm mentally unhinged to most here, and my opinion on gun control gets me a similar judgment.This is why an objective test is desirable, one that seeks to be as neutral and objective as possible, employing criteria that don't simply reflect the biases on either side of the ongoing arguments at EvC but truly aim at an objective assessment of ability to think rationally and logically.I remember years ago being given some kind of test for Independent Thinking or Context-Independence or some such title, something that purportedly demonstrates to what extent a person solves problems on the evidence available or according to preconceived notions, and I scored extremely high on independence or evidential (evidentiary?) thinking, which at the time gave me a little rush of pride.It seems to be what you are all looking for and yet here subjectively I am judged quite otherwise according to YOUR biases. So it seems to me. Not that a truly objective test would influence any of you I suppose, you'd probably just decide there's something wrong with the test if I did well on it.But at EvC of all places, where EVIDENCE is of such high value, and OBJECTIVITY, it would be nice to see it done.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

It's fairly difficult to prove a negative. E.g., it's very, very hard to prove something could not have evolved. It's much easier to show (a) it did evolve, or (b) it was designed. Just sayin'.

Yeah, I was just yanking your chain.I shall refrain from giving my actual opinion on your intelligence or sanity, because, meh.

No possibility of an objective test then. Not that I'm surprised.

Oh, I think in the case of the particular deficiency I have postulated for you, you've been given an objective test and you've failed. Someone who really can't observe the merits of real geology over your version when your version violates conservation of matter does indeed suffer from "dysphysica". The objective test would be if someone looks at a pictorial representation of real geology and says "oh, yes, that's plausible" but bursts out laughing when presented with a pictorial representation of your fantasies.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

I don't think the people who are crazy are the time wasters. The only people who go back and forth with someone like Mabus are people who are enjoying the exercise.For me, the real time wasters are not crazy at all. They are instead the people you originally described. Namely the people whose arguments have gaping holes in logic that you believe they would acknowledge after a few words of rebuttal, even if they don't change their ultimate position. But somehow there never seems to be the right combination of words to see their error. If you are lucky they'll make some truly,shark jumping statement that let's you know its time to move on.My observation is that people in this group employ flagrant stalling tactics. The best response to that is to call them on it, and to drop discussing with them if you don't get a satisfactory answer. And no I'm not going to cite any examples.I don't believe there is single current poster that I'm convinced is crazy. If reach the conclusion that poster is crazy, I won't engage them. But I cannot seem to resist the true time wasters.