Leading neuroscientist: Religious fundamentalism may be "curable mental illness"

[Tetro Kornbluth]

This is why leading neuroscientists should not be in charge of public policy and/or mental health.

She's certainly not a leading neuroscientist; she's not even a tenure-track faculty member or lecturer.  (In her own words: "I’m a freelance science writer affiliated to the Department of Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics, University of Oxford")

Sorry. I should have put inverted commas around the term leading neuroscientists.

What is important here anyway is that this person was termed as such.

[DemPGH]

This is, of course, nothing new. She's not suggesting anything that was not suggested a number of years ago - saying "religious fundamentalism can be cured" gets everyone to stop and look for a variety of reasons. This line of inquiry has been around very substantially for at least the last 12-15 years.

A good starting point for an overview, assuming one has very basic knowledge about the workings of the brain and how the brain is connected (R-complex, limbic, neocortex) - basic knowledge, a good overview is a book from the late '90s called, I think, the Handbook of Religion and Mental Health.

You know, if the brain is an organ that analyzes physical reality, then much of religion is fantasy (and mystical experiences are often linked to things like magnetic fields). Well, what if, like Quixote, people take their fantasies too far? That's what she is talking about and that is nothing new.

Many, many hundreds of studies have been done on cult people as well - their psychologies are profiled to the 9th degree. And they should be because they can skirt the line too often with dangerous behavior, and our society has evolved to where their problems can be identified. It's not Kafka or Orwell.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

This is, of course, nothing new. She's not suggesting anything that was not suggested a number of years ago - saying "religious fundamentalism can be cured" gets everyone to stop and look for a variety of reasons. This line of inquiry has been around very substantially for at least the last 12-15 years.

A good starting point for an overview, assuming one has very basic knowledge about the workings of the brain and how the brain is connected (R-complex, limbic, neocortex) - basic knowledge, a good overview is a book from the late '90s called, I think, the Handbook of Religion and Mental Health.

You know, if the brain is an organ that analyzes physical reality, then much of religion is fantasy (and mystical experiences are often linked to things like magnetic fields). Well, what if, like Quixote, people take their fantasies too far? That's what she is talking about and that is nothing new.

Many, many hundreds of studies have been done on cult people as well - their psychologies are profiled to the 9th degree. And they should be because they can skirt the line too often with dangerous behavior, and our society has evolved to where their problems can be identified. It's not Kafka or Orwell.

You still have not come up with any strict measurement to say who is more attached from reality than others.

If I, for example, spent all days playing with my fiddling around aimleesly with the latest gadgets, drawing maps for fictional places for fictional events, writing pseudohistorical stories and getting into pointless heated arguments about nothing would that make me insane? Would I be suffering from Sluggishly progressing Schizophrenia, perhaps? After all, that is pretty detached from reality all things considered.

Or what about those people who talk to themselves. That's pretty detached from reality. There is nobody there. I speak, of course, as someone to talks to himself.

So then, where's the limit? At what point do you make the demarcation?

[afleitch]

So then, where's the limit? At what point do you make the demarcation?

Obviously there are some things which even for a relativist are fairly obvious; a man who think he has bugs under his skin is obviously suffering mentally and is detached from reality. A man who hears voices in his head telling him to kill women is obviously in the same boat. I think that's why it's an avenue for professionals as a collective body to make those judgments.

[All Along The Watchtower]

This is, of course, nothing new. She's not suggesting anything that was not suggested a number of years ago - saying "religious fundamentalism can be cured" gets everyone to stop and look for a variety of reasons. This line of inquiry has been around very substantially for at least the last 12-15 years.

A good starting point for an overview, assuming one has very basic knowledge about the workings of the brain and how the brain is connected (R-complex, limbic, neocortex) - basic knowledge, a good overview is a book from the late '90s called, I think, the Handbook of Religion and Mental Health.

You know, if the brain is an organ that analyzes physical reality, then much of religion is fantasy (and mystical experiences are often linked to things like magnetic fields). Well, what if, like Quixote, people take their fantasies too far? That's what she is talking about and that is nothing new.

Many, many hundreds of studies have been done on cult people as well - their psychologies are profiled to the 9th degree. And they should be because they can skirt the line too often with dangerous behavior, and our society has evolved to where their problems can be identified. It's not Kafka or Orwell.

What exactly is "physical reality", anyway? Can anyone define it? That's a big assumption you're making there, that "physical reality" is somehow a completely separate and distinct "reality" from the "spiritual." Or indeed, if "physical reality" is all there is. 

[หมูเด้ง]

This is, of course, nothing new. She's not suggesting anything that was not suggested a number of years ago - saying "religious fundamentalism can be cured" gets everyone to stop and look for a variety of reasons. This line of inquiry has been around very substantially for at least the last 12-15 years.

A good starting point for an overview, assuming one has very basic knowledge about the workings of the brain and how the brain is connected (R-complex, limbic, neocortex) - basic knowledge, a good overview is a book from the late '90s called, I think, the Handbook of Religion and Mental Health.

You know, if the brain is an organ that analyzes physical reality, then much of religion is fantasy (and mystical experiences are often linked to things like magnetic fields). Well, what if, like Quixote, people take their fantasies too far? That's what she is talking about and that is nothing new.

Many, many hundreds of studies have been done on cult people as well - their psychologies are profiled to the 9th degree. And they should be because they can skirt the line too often with dangerous behavior, and our society has evolved to where their problems can be identified. It's not Kafka or Orwell.

You still have not come up with any strict measurement to say who is more attached from reality than others.

If I, for example, spent all days playing with my fiddling around aimleesly with the latest gadgets, drawing maps for fictional places for fictional events, writing pseudohistorical stories and getting into pointless heated arguments about nothing would that make me insane? Would I be suffering from Sluggishly progressing Schizophrenia, perhaps? After all, that is pretty detached from reality all things considered.

Or what about those people who talk to themselves. That's pretty detached from reality. There is nobody there. I speak, of course, as someone to talks to himself.

So then, where's the limit? At what point do you make the demarcation?

Where do you draw the line between a "bad" person and a "sick" person?

[DemPGH]

This is, of course, nothing new. She's not suggesting anything that was not suggested a number of years ago - saying "religious fundamentalism can be cured" gets everyone to stop and look for a variety of reasons. This line of inquiry has been around very substantially for at least the last 12-15 years.

A good starting point for an overview, assuming one has very basic knowledge about the workings of the brain and how the brain is connected (R-complex, limbic, neocortex) - basic knowledge, a good overview is a book from the late '90s called, I think, the Handbook of Religion and Mental Health.

You know, if the brain is an organ that analyzes physical reality, then much of religion is fantasy (and mystical experiences are often linked to things like magnetic fields). Well, what if, like Quixote, people take their fantasies too far? That's what she is talking about and that is nothing new.

Many, many hundreds of studies have been done on cult people as well - their psychologies are profiled to the 9th degree. And they should be because they can skirt the line too often with dangerous behavior, and our society has evolved to where their problems can be identified. It's not Kafka or Orwell.

What exactly is "physical reality", anyway? Can anyone define it? That's a big assumption you're making there, that "physical reality" is somehow a completely separate and distinct "reality" from the "spiritual." Or indeed, if "physical reality" is all there is. 

It's actually based upon what I know, what I observe, what I can prove. For example, I can test for the reliability of the laws of planetary motion, as well as gravity, other motion, etc. I cannot test for the gnomes down in the park, angelic intervention, ESP, whatever else - because it's fiction. Your computer screen in front of you? That's real. The gnomes down in the park? They're not.

I'm quite open to there being a spirit world, but where is it? I mean, that's really crucial. But also, why does there have to be a spirit world?

[Tetro Kornbluth]

This is, of course, nothing new. She's not suggesting anything that was not suggested a number of years ago - saying "religious fundamentalism can be cured" gets everyone to stop and look for a variety of reasons. This line of inquiry has been around very substantially for at least the last 12-15 years.

A good starting point for an overview, assuming one has very basic knowledge about the workings of the brain and how the brain is connected (R-complex, limbic, neocortex) - basic knowledge, a good overview is a book from the late '90s called, I think, the Handbook of Religion and Mental Health.

You know, if the brain is an organ that analyzes physical reality, then much of religion is fantasy (and mystical experiences are often linked to things like magnetic fields). Well, what if, like Quixote, people take their fantasies too far? That's what she is talking about and that is nothing new.

Many, many hundreds of studies have been done on cult people as well - their psychologies are profiled to the 9th degree. And they should be because they can skirt the line too often with dangerous behavior, and our society has evolved to where their problems can be identified. It's not Kafka or Orwell.

What exactly is "physical reality", anyway? Can anyone define it? That's a big assumption you're making there, that "physical reality" is somehow a completely separate and distinct "reality" from the "spiritual." Or indeed, if "physical reality" is all there is. 

It's actually based upon what I know, what I observe, what I can prove. For example, I can test for the reliability of the laws of planetary motion, as well as gravity, other motion, etc. I cannot test for the gnomes down in the park, angelic intervention, ESP, whatever else - because it's fiction. Your computer screen in front of you? That's real. The gnomes down in the park? They're not.

I'm quite open to there being a spirit world, but where is it? I mean, that's really crucial. But also, why does there have to be a spirit world?

But again I repeat: There has to be a metric of reliability to test Mental Illness. To judge vis-a-vis reality would mean that practically everybody in, say, 1st Century AD was crazy but much fewer people are today and I suspect the majority of genetic psychiatrists would argue with that.

@Afleitch: I've been meaning and trying to reply to your post all day. The key question is not the distance to reality imo, it is whether the person is a threat to others and to him/herself.

[Tokugawa Sexgod Ieyasu]

This is, of course, nothing new. She's not suggesting anything that was not suggested a number of years ago - saying "religious fundamentalism can be cured" gets everyone to stop and look for a variety of reasons. This line of inquiry has been around very substantially for at least the last 12-15 years.

A good starting point for an overview, assuming one has very basic knowledge about the workings of the brain and how the brain is connected (R-complex, limbic, neocortex) - basic knowledge, a good overview is a book from the late '90s called, I think, the Handbook of Religion and Mental Health.

You know, if the brain is an organ that analyzes physical reality, then much of religion is fantasy (and mystical experiences are often linked to things like magnetic fields). Well, what if, like Quixote, people take their fantasies too far? That's what she is talking about and that is nothing new.

Many, many hundreds of studies have been done on cult people as well - their psychologies are profiled to the 9th degree. And they should be because they can skirt the line too often with dangerous behavior, and our society has evolved to where their problems can be identified. It's not Kafka or Orwell.

What exactly is "physical reality", anyway? Can anyone define it? That's a big assumption you're making there, that "physical reality" is somehow a completely separate and distinct "reality" from the "spiritual." Or indeed, if "physical reality" is all there is. 

It's actually based upon what I know, what I observe, what I can prove. For example, I can test for the reliability of the laws of planetary motion, as well as gravity, other motion, etc. I cannot test for the gnomes down in the park, angelic intervention, ESP, whatever else - because it's fiction. Your computer screen in front of you? That's real. The gnomes down in the park? They're not.

For certain definitions of 'real' (i.e. certain epistemologies), this is true, but it's far from self-evident that whatever can't be 'tested for' is 'fiction'.

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I still don't understand what makes this crucial.

[The Mikado]

Your computer screen in front of you? That's real. The gnomes down in the park? They're not.

Certainly I perceive the screen as real, but if I also perceive the gnomes as real, to me and in my reality they're equally real as the computer screen, even if it isn't so for your reality.  Even if your reality that the gnomes aren't there is accepted by more people than my insistence that I saw them frolicking in the part last Tuesday past midnight, that consensus doesn't change what I experienced, and the gnomes are real in my world even if they aren't in yours.

[Oldiesfreak1854]

It's actually based upon what I know, what I observe, what I can prove. For example, I can test for the reliability of the laws of planetary motion, as well as gravity, other motion, etc. I cannot test for the gnomes down in the park, angelic intervention, ESP, whatever else - because it's fiction. Your computer screen in front of you? That's real. The gnomes down in the park? They're not.

I'm quite open to there being a spirit world, but where is it? I mean, that's really crucial. But also, why does there have to be a spirit world?

Just because you can't see something doesn't mean it isn't there.  You can't see air, but we know that it exists because it can be tested for.  This is exactly where faith comes in.  By definition, faith is believing without seeing.  I'm not saying that the gnomes are real, but if your reasoning is that they don't exist because you can't see them, then that's a pretty weak argument.

[DemPGH]

For the sake of avoiding a massively long post incorporating quotes. . .

Gully, the behavior that you personally described is not delusional or harmful - unless it is, and I see no reason to think it is. As to your question about people in the 1st century being insane, that's really a fascinating question. The answer is no generally, but mental disorders existed back then like now! Could Jesus Christ have been insane? Sure. Could have. I think there were Medieval and Renaissance mystics, for example, who could possibly have been insane, but were more likely delusional, accentuated by the fact that a lot of that behavior was learned - and venerated. Shamans, for example, simply got high. But no one knew about how brain chemistry was affected by certain plants, so they made up a mystical explanation.

There were kings, like John (1199-1216), who surely suffered from a number of other disorders, for e.g.

In any event, it's up to the people with PhD degrees in Psychiatry to make these determinations and to draw lines like you are describing. They know a great deal about the brain, and so they are qualified to make those determinations. IMO, When behavior becomes obsessive and delusional to the point that it impacts one's ability to be a productive, non-dangerous member of society, the line has been crossed. People who wander around talking to people who aren't there generally have other problems as well that cause them to erase the line between reality and imagination. That's not healthy by any rational estimation.

Oldiesfreak, that's why there is such a thing as a windsock.

Nathan, the gist of it is that if we start accepting things without any tangible evidence at all, we're just fooling ourselves. if I say there is a little blue man on the planet Xubar who created everything, and he wants me to hole up in some mountain and fight the government so I can establish a cult of some sort, is that to be taken as knowledge since I can show you neither Planet Xubar nor the little blue man who "talks to me"? I sure hope not. That's intellectually where I'm coming from.

Mikado, haha, you're messing with me, right? The difference is that the computer screen is there by measurable, tangible standards, and it's real to both of us. The gnomes are not there by the same standards.

[ilikeverin]

This is why leading neuroscientists should not be in charge of public policy and/or mental health.

She's certainly not a leading neuroscientist; she's not even a tenure-track faculty member or lecturer.  (In her own words: "I’m a freelance science writer affiliated to the Department of Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics, University of Oxford")

Sorry. I should have put inverted commas around the term leading neuroscientists.

What is important here anyway is that this person was termed as such.

Just another sign of the embarrassing state of science reporting.  Pretty much any and all neuroscience stories I see are full of fail, and in just about all of them all the "experts" are, well, promoted as "leading scientists", aka, "people at a big name institution listed under the directory of faculty".

o/c, I think your side's nonsense about how "provide an objective and qualitative difference that denotes a mental disorder OH WAIT YOU CAN'T THEREFORE THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS MENTAL HEALTH" () is wrong; we do similar things with what constitutes "high blood pressure" or "obesity" or "fever" or "AIDS" and no one seems to have any problems.  Heck, even with simple words like "packed" as in "the theatre is packed".  If you have a theatre that seats 1000, and there are 1000 people in the seats, it's fair to say that the theatre is packed.  If you take 1 away, it doesn't seem like we'd want to change our assessment of the theatre as "packed".  Yet if you follow this logic to its conclusion, there could be 0 people in the theatre and the thing would no longer be "packed".  Mental disorders are just a convenient label for behaviors, beyond a certain point we want to say make life more challenging, and for which we may want to say that we could follow similar treatments for people with this behavior and expect similar outcomes.  That said, it of course makes no sense to stigmatize people with mental disorders, particularly given that the definitions we've come up with (e.g., in the DSM) seem to be notoriously unreliable.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

For the sake of avoiding a massively long post incorporating quotes. . .

Gully, the behavior that you personally described is not delusional or harmful - unless it is, and I see no reason to think it is. As to your question about people in the 1st century being insane, that's really a fascinating question. The answer is no generally, but mental disorders existed back then like now! Could Jesus Christ have been insane? Sure. Could have. I think there were Medieval and Renaissance mystics, for example, who could possibly have been insane, but were more likely delusional, accentuated by the fact that a lot of that behavior was learned - and venerated. Shamans, for example, simply got high. But no one knew about how brain chemistry was affected by certain plants, so they made up a mystical explanation.

Having some knowledge of brain chemistry doesn't mean someone can't interpret an altered state of consciousness in mystical terms.  Shamans and others who make use of psychoactive plants of course know those plants are playing a role in facilitating their experience. That the doorway to the numinous can involve certain neural transmitters is just an extension of that.   

The idea that religious belief or experience is evidence of a mental disorder is wrong in that it first completely medicalizes a cultural tradition and universe of meaning, and then ignores anything beneficial.  A more useful question is whether a particular variety of religion is helpful or harmful to a particular person's mental health, and it can very much be either.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

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Ok, this is totally true (Which reminds me for now on, read the linked article before commenting).

Which doesn't mean that there aren't 'real' scientists who don't do this kind of thing either.

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As for someone who has suffered on-off from depression over the years, that's not my position at all. And I certainly wouldn't go as far as the radical anti-psychiarists of the 60s and 70s did and say, for example, there is no such thing as schizophrenia (or at least that there are no conditions that amount to some similar diagnostic category)

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A concept of 'obesity' for example is different because it is much, much easier to a) know what you are measuring (weight and body fat) and b) correlating it to effects upon health. Ditto for blood pressure and AIDS. Albeit fever admittely is slightly more problematic - as it refers to a category of symptoms and behaviours caused by such.

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The amount of seats at a theatre can be quantified quiet easily. Level of 'sanity'/'attachment to reality' is not so easy.

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Ok, I agree with this. Actually NIMH has recently dropped the DSM-V as a guideline for mental disorders preferring to replace strict behavioral diagnosis' with spectrumal results (which is much much better imo).

[ilikeverin]

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Ok, this is totally true (Which reminds me for now on, read the linked article before commenting).

Which doesn't mean that there aren't 'real' scientists who don't do this kind of thing either.

Oh, certainly it doesn't! Grr.

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As for someone who has suffered on-off from depression over the years, that's not my position at all. And I certainly wouldn't go as far as the radical anti-psychiarists of the 60s and 70s did and say, for example, there is no such thing as schizophrenia (or at least that there are no conditions that amount to some similar diagnostic category)

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A concept of 'obesity' for example is different because it is much, much easier to a) know what you are measuring (weight and body fat) and b) correlating it to effects upon health. Ditto for blood pressure and AIDS. Albeit fever admittely is slightly more problematic - as it refers to a category of symptoms and behaviours caused by such.
[/quote]

Well, yes and no.  I mean, it's true, right now we don't have similarly "objective" measures for some mental health issues, but we're getting quite a bit better.  I know language best (duh ) and it might be that we could use issues with language to better get a handle on mental illness... surprisingly, there's a small cottage industry right now looking at abnormal language interpretation and production in people with schizophrenia.  But my argument would be that a half measure is better than no measure; though, o/c, we all seem to be in agreement here that what this crazy lady is proposing is more of an "anti-measure".

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The amount of seats at a theatre can be quantified quiet easily. Level of 'sanity'/'attachment to reality' is not so easy.
[/quote]

Well, that's true, but I just happened to use an example that has easily quantifiable numbers.  How about an amphitheater in a public park?  Or a cafeteria?  Or the like?  Regardless of whether we can count the number of people in a location, we can still describe it as "packed" if it's, well, packed.  The same applies to a lot of words.

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Ok, I agree with this. Actually NIMH has recently dropped the DSM-V as a guideline for mental disorders preferring to replace strict behavioral diagnosis' with spectrumal results (which is much much better imo).
[/quote]

Amen.  I'm glad they did.  Some of the reliability results for the DSM criteria are embarrassing, and this will free up the field for inferring useful categories rather than sticking with the DSM silliness.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

Ok, I was wanting an arguing but I find we pretty much agree on everything (except maybe one or two semantic points) so yeah...

[The Mikado]

Mikado, haha, you're messing with me, right? The difference is that the computer screen is there by measurable, tangible standards, and it's real to both of us. The gnomes are not there by the same standards.

That's the issue I have, the fundamental, overriding issue I have, with that viewpoint.  There is no single, objective reality.  We each live in the universe that is created by our minds and our perceptions of the world.  "Reality," such as it is, is created by our impression of reality.  In my world there might well be gnomes and in yours and the vast majority of other people's there might not be.  That's fine for you, and you might even say that my gnome-containing world is my delusion, but it's real in any respect that matters to me if I see, touch, and hear gnomes frolicking around the park at midnight when all but the most drunk of the homeless have long since left.  My universe is a series of impressions created by my mind and does not exist outside of it.

[ilikeverin]

Ok, I was wanting an arguing but I find we pretty much agree on everything (except maybe one or two semantic points) so yeah...

Like I've said, taking the history of sexuality class I took really opened my eyes to what your viewpoint is actually trying to do with respect to your critiques of science: keep us scientists humble and working to make the world a better place.  Once I figured that out, responding appropriately to criticisms like this became a lot easier

[Filuwaúrdjan]

There is no single, objective reality.  We each live in the universe that is created by our minds and our perceptions of the world.  "Reality," such as it is, is created by our impression of reality.

Quite so. Which is why it's dangerous to assert or assume that mental illness can be defined as some kind of dislocation from 'reality' - basically it just takes us to a normative understanding of mental illness, and from there right back to the dubious idea that we can neatly divide people up into the sane and the insane. And to move things back on topic, this is obviously seriously problematic when we have decided that that certain political and 'political' positions are really just mental illnesses...