Hulver's site || Comments || My People are Strange

It's quite a jump by dark nowhere (4.00 / 0) #3 Sun Sep 09, 2007 at 06:29:48 PM EST

I don't think most people think of autistics, retards or other challenged people as crazy. Or take aspergers... they've got brain problems and they're just 'dorks'. The condition on its own is essentially a lack of perception. Most crazy people I've run into perceive a bit too much.

Anyway, everybody has symptoms that are visible in regular interaction. The common ones just aren't listed as special conditions because they're so common.

I am not your dupe account.
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capgras syndrome by MillMan (4.00 / 0) #5 Sun Sep 09, 2007 at 07:08:46 PM EST

is the direct result of damage to a specific part of the brain. As far as psychological issues go, it's not fuzzy at all (vs conditions like depression for example).

When I'm imprisoned as an enemy combatant, will you blog about it?
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Crahzy, Crayzy by CheeseburgerBrown (2.00 / 0) #12 Mon Sep 10, 2007 at 09:32:36 AM EST

Granted, those are some very fine counter-examples. I agree with you that retarded people are infrequently called crazy, but I think Aspergerites might earn the tag from time to time.

But what does "crazy" mean?

If we take it to mean "inspires fear in others due to strange behaviour" then Tourette's sufferers are crazy even though their cognitive relationship with the world might be very straightforward.

On the other hand, if we take it to mean "enjoys a warped perception of reality" then we have to lump in almost everyone who thinks Fox News is news.

At any rate, if any of my friends ever approaches me and says, without a shred of evidence beyond their own conviction, that people they know have been replaced by facsimiles, then asks my opinion about whether or not such a notion is "crazy", I will be obliged to say, "Yes, that is crazy. You need immediate help. Take my hand, and I will lead you to the mothership and into the maw of the transformatron so the duplication process can begin."

I am from a small, unknown country in the north called Ca-na-da.
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: Maybe it is splitting hairs by dark nowhere (2.00 / 0) #29 Mon Sep 10, 2007 at 08:49:42 PM EST

If someone said the same to me, I'd retort with "you're crazy" or "what have you been smoking?" at the least. Most with Capgras will eventually say something like that to someone. But I don't think they're crazy for a perception failure.
There's a guy around town who believes people have been replaced by clones. He is crazy and doesn't have Capgras. He also believes people are out to get him, etc. If a diagnosed Capgras sufferer believed the same things he did, they'd pretty much have to support it in the same way: "my doctor is lying to me." I'd even expect most to end up like this pretty quickly. But then there's that one guy who maybe understand what's going on and says "to me, you're not you." That doesn't sound crazy to me.

I am not your dupe account.
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