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New theory of mental illness based on “biologically derived” emotions

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The Logic of Madness: A New Theory of Mental Illness (The Logic of Self-Destruction Book 2) by [Blakeway, Matthew] From Claire M. Fletcher-Flinn at Frontiers in Medicine, reviewing The Logic of Madness: A New Theory of Mental Illness

… It is rational behavior in response to a compound misunderstanding of various emotions.

The starting point of Blakeway’s theory is a basic algorithm that converts an emotion into an action that optimizes biological fitness. Depending upon the circumstances, an action state is driven by the emotion having the highest calculated value. He divides emotions into four categories, basic survival (e.g., fear, hunger), reproductive (e.g., lust, jealousy), social (e.g., guilt, anger), and strategic (e.g., anxiety, regret). Most of these biologically derived emotions are shared with other animals, especially chimpanzees, although there is the question of whether other animals can perform tactical manipulation with intent. Humans can do so, which leads to misconceptions of emotion that become quite complex depending on whether we are performing the deception or someone else. More.

Somehow one doubts this new theory will help much. No one cares whether chimpanzees are mad or sane. But it suits the temper of our times to drag them into a discussion.

Question: Re recent unfounded claims that chimpanzees are entering the the Stone Age seem to be based on a determinist theory of evolution, but Darwinists hold evolution to be directionless. Explain?

See also: Orangutan copies human speech? Must be BBC. Must be summer.

and Are apes entering the Stone Age?

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Comments
Oddly, Oddly, (dare i say mad) I agree with a minor point here. i think madness etc , mental illness, very well may be based on a "emotion' , i prefer thought, that the memory is triggered to hold onto. Just like getting a song stuck in ones head. Its of the memory but against the will. so mental illness can all be brought down to a mechanical failure based on the equation of triggering malfunction with the memory. this leaves the soul, immaterial, unaffected by the material world.Robert Byers
July 31, 2016
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Mental and spiritual health. Fr. John Woolley, an Anglican and former British Hospital Chaplin received in prayer times what is described as “heart whispers.” The words he received from the Lord in prayer he found had a wider appeal, especially for patients in the psychiatric hospital he was working in. He died in 2008. In the mind the Holy Spirit operates. A few extracts from his first book are provided: "Realise the value of rest . . . No human agency can give the absolute shielding of the mind which is the product of My love and My conquest of evil, as I deal with the causes of mental conflict." (p. 55) "In the realm of thought, the seeds are sown for that which can produce great good - or for that which may be disastrous… It is in that area where My Spirit dwells - promoting what is good - that evil can try to divert you." (p. 94) "Never remain in disgust with yourself, for this implies that My work in you is not going forward." (p. 95) "In those occasions which you dread I have gone . . . to prepare a way for My trusting child." (p. 127) "Turn form apprehension and preoccupation with self and turn to someone else’s need, or to an interest outside self." (p. 207) Woolley, Fr. John A. I Am With You. Berkhamstead, England: Arthur James Ltd., 1996. “The book is completely inter-denominational and has brought about many friendships across denominational boundaries.” http://www.iamwithyou.co.uk/home.php "I Am With You" is one of a number of similar books penned by Fr John Woolley. Make of them what you will.mw
July 31, 2016
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Thanks BA77 for your thoughtful references to mental illness, which reflect the power of faith for recovering health and as a means of coping through crises, shocks, and all manner of life's problems. For a while I was Head Occupational Therapist in Acute Psychiatry and have also worked with acute mentally ill deaf patients. I know from my own personal experience, my mother's suicide when I was fourteen, what shock can do. In the facility in which I worked, as part of holistic therapy, spiritual occupation was available for those who freely had a need or interest, including a Church with a Vicar on site. Visits to various faith communities and places of worship were made available. A MIND book of the year "Accepting Voices" Ed., Prof M Romme and S Escher (1993) comes to memory, which is an attempt at becoming more open to how people cope with hearing voices. "Christianity arose from people's individual encounters with God in the form of a human being" (p 96). It is to be remembered, that official, regular Judaeo-Christian worship comes direct from when Moses encountered an experience with an unknown Voice at Sinai, when God commanded and communicated for His worship: Creation be remembered every seven days. However, it was Carl Jung, who basically said, that unless a person finds meaning to life, they would not get well. Some have said he was a muddled mystic, now hijacked as a New Age guru. Nevertheless for many, he opened a door to the royal road of the unconscious: dreams. I have kept a dream diary for over 40 years. Without a doubt, dreams are connected to the spirit in the widest sense of the word. Jung said of Fraud - who was born a Jew, but became an atheist - "Fraud, who had always made much of his irreligiosity, had now constructed a dogma; or rather, in the place of a jealous God whom he had lost, he had substituted another compelling image, that of sexuality." Memories, Dreams, Reflections, Ed. A Jaffe (London:Collins, 1963), p 174. However, Fraud has merit. In human terms, spiritually, and psychologically, basically what holds the world together, is thought, belief, and faith. The Mind that does not err, set down in divine love, once and for all, what is right and wrong. Mind that changes not (Mal 3:6). We will one day face the divine Voice of Sinai. Any therapy constructed on evolutionism I regard as pure dangerous ditch-bound tripe.mw
July 30, 2016
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mw,
ni·hil·ism noun noun: nihilism the rejection of all religious and moral principles, often in the belief that life is meaningless. Also see 'The Parable of the Madman' - Friedrich Nietzsche - 1882
mw, It may interest you to know that Atheists, because of the nihilism inherent within their atheistic worldview, are shown to suffer from significantly more mental illnesses than Christian Theists do:
Lack of ultimate meaning in life associated with alcohol abuse, drug addiction and other mental health problems - August 2015 http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/08/150813092911.htm “, I maintain that whatever else faith may be, it cannot be a delusion. The advantageous effect of religious belief and spirituality on mental and physical health is one of the best-kept secrets in psychiatry and medicine generally. If the findings of the huge volume of research on this topic had gone in the opposite direction and it had been found that religion damages your mental health, it would have been front-page news in every newspaper in the land.” - Professor Andrew Sims former President of the Royal College of Psychiatrists - Is Faith Delusion?: Why religion is good for your health - preface “In the majority of studies, religious involvement is correlated with well-being, happiness and life satisfaction; hope and optimism; purpose and meaning in life; higher self-esteem; better adaptation to bereavement; greater social support and less loneliness; lower rates of depression and faster recovery from depression; lower rates of suicide and fewer positive attitudes towards suicide; less anxiety; less psychosis and fewer psychotic tendencies; lower rates of alcohol and drug use and abuse; less delinquency and criminal activity; greater marital stability and satisfaction… We concluded that for the vast majority of people the apparent benefits of devout belief and practice probably outweigh the risks.” - Professor Andrew Sims former President of the Royal College of Psychiatrists - Is Faith Delusion?: Why religion is good for your health – page 100 https://books.google.com/books?id=PREdCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA100#v=onepage&q&f=false Christians respond better to psychiatric treatment than atheists: - July 21, 2013 Excerpt: “Our work suggests that people with a moderate to high level of belief in a higher power do significantly better in short-term psychiatric treatment than those without, regardless of their religious affiliation. Belief was associated with not only improved psychological well-being, but decreases in depression and intention to self-harm,” explained Rosmarin. The study looked at 159 patients, recruited over a one-year period. Each participant was asked to gauge their belief in God as well as their expectations for treatment outcome and emotion regulation, each on a five-point scale. Levels of depression, well being, and self-harm were assessed at the beginning and end of their treatment program. https://uncommondescent.com/religion/if-religious-believers-are-crazy/ Atheism and health A meta-analysis of all studies, both published and unpublished, relating to religious involvement and longevity was carried out in 2000. Forty-two studies were included, involving some 126,000 subjects. Active religious involvement increased the chance of living longer by some 29%, and participation in public religious practices, such as church attendance, increased the chance of living longer by 43%.[4][5] http://www.conservapedia.com/Atheism_and_health
The pronounced mental and physical benefits of believing in God really should not be all that surprising since denying that you have a free will and that you really exist as a real person, i.e. denying that you have a 'mind and/or soul', is inherently an insane position to take in the first place:
Atheist Philosopher Thinks "We Never Have Direct Access To Our Thoughts" - Michael Egnor July 20, 2016 Excerpt: Materialist theories of the mind border on the insane. If a man walks into a doctor's office and says "I never have direct access to my thoughts and I have no first person point of view," the man will be referred to a psychiatrist and may be involuntarily hospitalized until it is established that he is not a danger to himself or others. If the same guy walks into the philosophy department at Duke University, he gets tenure. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2016/07/atheist_philoso103010.html More on John Searle and Free Will - Michael Egnor - July 27, 2016 Excerpt: the three defenses of free will that I listed are obvious points that any informed and minimally thoughtful person would raise.,,, The denial of free will is a psychiatric, not philosophical, issue. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2016/07/more_on_john_se103026.html
Since atheism is a false worldview, Atheists simply cannot live consistently within their worldview as if it were really true:
Existential Argument against Atheism - November 1, 2013 by Jason Petersen 1. If a worldview is true then you should be able to live consistently with that worldview. 2. Atheists are unable to live consistently with their worldview. 3. If you can’t live consistently with an atheist worldview then the worldview does not reflect reality. 4. If a worldview does not reflect reality then that worldview is a delusion. 5. If atheism is a delusion then atheism cannot be true. Conclusion: Atheism is false. http://answersforhope.com/existential-argument-atheism/ The Heretic - Who is Thomas Nagel and why are so many of his fellow academics condemning him? - March 25, 2013 Excerpt: ,,,Fortunately, materialism is never translated into life as it’s lived. As colleagues and friends, husbands and mothers, wives and fathers, sons and daughters, materialists never put their money where their mouth is. Nobody thinks his daughter is just molecules in motion and nothing but; nobody thinks the Holocaust was evil, but only in a relative, provisional sense. A materialist who lived his life according to his professed convictions—understanding himself to have no moral agency at all, seeing his friends and enemies and family as genetically determined robots—wouldn’t just be a materialist: He’d be a psychopath. http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/heretic_707692.html?page=3 Darwin's Robots: When Evolutionary Materialists Admit that Their Own Worldview Fails - Nancy Pearcey - April 23, 2015 Excerpt: Even materialists often admit that, in practice, it is impossible for humans to live any other way. One philosopher jokes that if people deny free will, then when ordering at a restaurant they should say, "Just bring me whatever the laws of nature have determined I will get." An especially clear example is Galen Strawson, a philosopher who states with great bravado, "The impossibility of free will ... can be proved with complete certainty." Yet in an interview, Strawson admits that, in practice, no one accepts his deterministic view. "To be honest, I can't really accept it myself," he says. "I can't really live with this fact from day to day. Can you, really?",,, In What Science Offers the Humanities, Edward Slingerland, identifies himself as an unabashed materialist and reductionist. Slingerland argues that Darwinian materialism leads logically to the conclusion that humans are robots -- that our sense of having a will or self or consciousness is an illusion. Yet, he admits, it is an illusion we find impossible to shake. No one "can help acting like and at some level really feeling that he or she is free." We are "constitutionally incapable of experiencing ourselves and other conspecifics [humans] as robots." One section in his book is even titled "We Are Robots Designed Not to Believe That We Are Robots.",,, When I teach these concepts in the classroom, an example my students find especially poignant is Flesh and Machines by Rodney Brooks, professor emeritus at MIT. Brooks writes that a human being is nothing but a machine -- a "big bag of skin full of biomolecules" interacting by the laws of physics and chemistry. In ordinary life, of course, it is difficult to actually see people that way. But, he says, "When I look at my children, I can, when I force myself, ... see that they are machines." Is that how he treats them, though? Of course not: "That is not how I treat them.... I interact with them on an entirely different level. They have my unconditional love, the furthest one might be able to get from rational analysis." Certainly if what counts as "rational" is a materialist worldview in which humans are machines, then loving your children is irrational. It has no basis within Brooks's worldview. It sticks out of his box. How does he reconcile such a heart-wrenching cognitive dissonance? He doesn't. Brooks ends by saying, "I maintain two sets of inconsistent beliefs." He has given up on any attempt to reconcile his theory with his experience. He has abandoned all hope for a unified, logically consistent worldview. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2015/04/when_evolutiona095451.html Who wrote Richard Dawkins's new book? - October 28, 2006 Excerpt: Dawkins: What I do know is that what it feels like to me, and I think to all of us, we don't feel determined. We feel like blaming people for what they do or giving people the credit for what they do. We feel like admiring people for what they do.,,, Manzari: But do you personally see that as an inconsistency in your views? Dawkins: I sort of do. Yes. But it is an inconsistency that we sort of have to live with otherwise life would be intolerable.,,, per ENV
bornagain77
July 30, 2016
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"The Logic of Madness: A New Theory of Mental Illness (The Logic of Self-Destruction Book 2)." True destructive madness: it would seem the world would rather be a worm's offspring and mate with a knuckle dragger than take God at His Word: Creation direct, perfectly fit for purpose.mw
July 30, 2016
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