Posted by alexandra_k on December 22, 2004, at 16:46:42
In reply to Re: 1.4, posted by smokeymadison on December 21, 2004, at 20:20:03
I agree that it could be the case that an extreme emotion preceeded the shutting down. This could be empirically supported or falsified. Even if it was the case, however, the delusion does not occur until after the shutting down has occured and so I think that it would be fair to say that it is LACK of emotion / affective response that is causally relevant to the production of the Cotard delusion.
> so you are interested in localized brain damage causing specific delusions. and the whole time i have been focusing on delusions found in schizophrenia, BPD, and the mood disorders, etc.
Yes. But the delusions that occur within the context of schizophrenia, BPD, and the mood disorders etc are the hardest cases for the cognitive neuro-psychological model, so it is good not to lose sight of those. Thats why I didn't say anything until now. What that means, however, is that my attempted explations / thoughts with respect to those sorts of delusions are a whole heap less well thought out than my attempted explanations of the Capgras and Fregoli delusions as they occur in response to cerebral injury.
>I think that eventually psychodynamic and neurological theories will mesh.
It would be nice indeed to be able to explain all of those delusions from within a single framework. This may involve a framework of explanation that is slightly different from either the cognitive neuropsychological or the psychodynamic frameworks, as they currently stand, however. And of course explanation isn't a fixed or absolute thing, anyhow. A good explanation should raise any number of new interesting questions, and new empirical findings should spur on the evolution of theories (and hence explanations).
>they put a spot on their face and then put them in front of a mirror to see if the primate will try to wipe off the dot, meaning that they know that it is them in the mirror.This has a lot to do with 6)Mirrored Self Mis-Identification. It has been found that there are two groups of people with this delusion. The first seem to have lost their ability to interact fluently with mirrors. If an experimentor stands behind a subject who is facing a mirror and holds up a ball then when the subject is asked to take the ball they claw at the surface of the mirror. They no longer seem to see mirrors AS mirrors. They no longer seem to see mirror images as REFLECTIONS. The other group do ok on these kinds of tasks, but they still claim that the person in the mirror is another person who is following them around. It would seem that the deficit in the first group is different from the deficit in the second. Both would fail the spot on the face task, however.
It is interesting that if you (as a comparatively 'normal' subject) are standing in front of a mirror with an experimentor behind you, if they make to suddenly wack you on the back of the head by throwing a ball or something then you will cringe AWAY from the mirror (back towards the thing that is being thrown so it is better able to hit you!). It seems as though our initial response to mirrors is to see them as gateways into reality, it is just that we are able to inhibit this response (that very small children have) and see the mirror space AS reflection.
Perhaps the delusional subjects have lost this ability to inhibit their natural response. It is interesting that you are considering the development of these abilities from the perspective of development within the lifetime of the individual. I guess I attempt the same manouver, but appeal to the development of abilities (or special purpose cognitive mechanisms or mental modules / structures) from the perspective of the course of evolution. Still they are similar (if not the same) things, over different time courses, I suppose.
>this is all my b*llsh*tting of course, i really don't know.
Don't worry, b*llsh*tt*ng is all there is. Nobody does it any differently. It is just that there are more or less plausible varieties of b*llsh*t, but he who b*llsh*ts best wins!
Or, of course some b*llsh*t has such lovely practical consequences that we are kind of forced to take it seriously (rockets to the moon, computers, the atomic bomb etc). AI, AI is the test, IMO
poster:alexandra_k
thread:432333
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/write/20041210/msgs/432986.html