Posted by alexandra_k on January 17, 2005, at 16:10:43
In reply to Re: 1.3 » alexandra_k, posted by Larry Hoover on January 16, 2005, at 14:22:02
> > 1) Why does the delusional hypothesis occur to some subjects?
> I don't think delusional hypotheses are anything but commonplace, occurring to all people with high frequency.
Ok. I guess I agree.
> > 2) Why is the hypothesis adopted as a belief?
> Because it makes sense.Ok, but why does it make sense to some subjects but not others? Or; why is it that some people develop delusions while others do not? Some people adopt the hypothesis as a belief while others may contemplate it without actually adopting it. What is the difference between these two sets of people? Is it a difference in the anomalous experience that they are expressing / trying to explain? Is it a difference in something else - ie their inability to inhibit believing in 'crazy' hypotheses?
Stone and Young consider the difference is a tendancy to let observational adequacy trump conservativeness. They consider that there are two opposing principles that are typically in tension.
(1) Observational adequacy - updating out beliefs in the face of new experiences.
(2) Conservativeness - adopting the beliefs that require the least changes in our belief network.They consider that the delusional error is to basically give up on (2). They adopt a 'crazy hypothesis' despite 'everything they previously knew to be true'.
Davies et al maintain that the delusional error is the 'inability to inhibit pre-potent doxastic response'. Here the idea is that there is a mechanism that produces a 'believe what you perceive' response. If you perceive a computer in front of you then this mechanism would have you come to believe that there is a computer in front of you. They consider that normal subjects are able to inhibit this response 'when what they perceive diverges too much from everything the subject previously knew to be true'. Delusional subjects seem unable to inhibit their coming to believe the 'crazy' hypothesis, whereas non delusional subjects seem able to inhibit this response.
> > 3) Why is it retained as a belief despite 'incontrovertible and obvious proof and / or evidence to the contrary'?
> Here's the rub.
Indeed :-)
>The declaration that there is incontrovertible evidence or proof is relative.
Ya. The DSM says 'held despite incontrovertible and / or obvious proof or evidence to the contrary'. Walkup, 1995 says that it is far from clear that delusional subjects are routinely presented with this kind of evidence before diagnosis or that they gain access to this kind of evidence during their recovery. It may be that delusional hypotheses are the sorts of things that it is hard to find supporting / disconfirming evidence for (such as some spiritual or religious beliefs, conspiracy theories, belief in UFO's, belief that one is living in a matrix or a dream).
I would say that we need to be clear on (delineate the content or meaning of) what it is that the delusional subject is saying BEFORE we can assess it for truth and BEFORE we can grasp what KIND of evidence would be relevant to support of disconfirm the belief.
For example. Cotard subjects say 'I am dead'. If they are saying that they are no longer biologically alive then the hypothesis is false. Evidence against it would be such stuff as their heart beating and their being able to walk around etc. If they are saying that they are emotionally dead then that would be true. It would not be relevant to what they are saying that their heart is beating. To consider that to be evidence against the belief is to have missed the point in what they are saying. To attribute a content (meaning) they never intended.
>For it to be true, there must be some sort of objective place of truth.
Ah well that depends on your theory of truth :-)
The correspondance theory of truth is probably the most common sense (intuitive) account of truth when it comes to people making assertions about the way the world is. What makes their claim true is the world being that way and what makes it false is the worlds not being that way. This does seem to require an objective world.But this is to suppose that the delusional subject is making a claim about how things are with the world. If the subject is expressing their experience then none of that would be relevant (expressions of experience cannot be false if genuine. If you say you feel hot then it is true that you feel hot. The way the objective world is is not relevant for assessing the truth or falsity of your claim).
When people do act on their delusion. When the guy decapitated his stepfather to look for the batteries and microfilm in his head - then it seems that we do need to consider his claim 'my stepfather has been replaced by an impostor' to be making a (false) claim about the objective world.
> From the supposed delusional's perspective, the delusion is sensible.
Yes, but what do they mean by what they say. I need to spell it out so that it is sensible for the rest of us.
poster:alexandra_k
thread:432064
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/write/20041210/msgs/443256.html