"The hope here is that with the right kind of meta-awareness, perhaps we can build a meta-justification system, one that is conducive to the coming wave of change. A justification of justifications to use Waldemar’s frame.
That, Frank, is I think what you are getting at with the centrality of personal identity and dignity. What I am envisioning is a combination of a system that both integrates knowledge and fosters individual development, all in a way that “dances” with how the world will change (and change us) as it continues to accelerate. "
Looking forward to others thoughts and suggestions, especially about "meta-justification" (for me: freedom)
Best,
Frank
############################Ok, to move the conversation along, I developed a quick draft that gets at why the JH is a new, central piece of the puzzle, as it frames the shift in human consciousness and the emergence of large scale justification systems.
With this puzzle piece in place, then we are ready to focus on the “fifth joint point” and the future of humanity.
G
From: tree of knowledge system discussion <[log in to unmask]> On Behalf Of Frank Ambrosio
Sent: Sunday, August 19, 2018 10:13 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: re easy pieces
Gregg,
Just to be clear: I am all aboard for staying on topic here, the topic of which pieces are minimally necessary for an integrated view of what makes us different, both from other animals and AI. I am compressing the distinct question of the logic of that integration, for now, into the question of identifying the pieces.
Cheers,
Frank
Francis J. Ambrosio, PhD
Associate Professor of Philosophy
Senior Fellow, Center for New Designs in Learning and Scholarship
Georgetown University
202-687-7441
On Sun, Aug 19, 2018 at 3:52 PM Henriques, Gregg - henriqgx <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Mark and Frank,
I think the concept of what constitutes a mental disorder is a fascinating and important question (although I hope we stay on the topic of human difference—perhaps this can be an asterisk for future exporation?). It was the focus of one of my first theory papers, published prior to my unified theory work in 2002. The justification of mental disorder and disease is crucial to our identity. Szasz said some very important things. He also “over shot” in that, yes, people actually do go crazy. Their perceptual-affect systems breakdown and they hallucinate and their justification systems go haywire and they form delusions. A profound thought disorder is as evident of a broken mind as a heart attack. If someone grabbed their chest, screamed in pain and died, we would say something was wrong with them, even if we found no lesions in their heart.
All that said, the majority of what we call mental illnesses, the neurotic conditions, are by and large problems in living and coping that lead to clinically significant levels of distress. They are mental-behavioral problems, not diseases in the traditional medicine sense. Some blogs on this issue:
What is a Mental Disorder?
Five Broad Models of Mental Illness
Mental Disorders Vs DiseasesThis one is on Szasz:
Is Psychiatry the Science of Lies?
Best,
Gregg
-----Original Message-----
From: tree of knowledge system discussion <[log in to unmask]> On Behalf Of Mark Stahlman
Sent: Sunday, August 19, 2018 8:30 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: easy pieces
Frank:
Very interesting -- thanks . . . !!
As you know, Ernest Becker was "mentored" by Thomas Szasz, an important figure in the "anti-psychiatry" movement of the 1960s.
Just as we are now in another "counter-culture," Szasz was in the middle of his (along with some of the rest of us.) The last time this happened, RADIO psychology -- particularly the medical version -- came
under attack by the *new* techno-paradigm TELEVISION types.
Psychiatry lost.
His 1961 "The Myth of Mental Illness" and 1970 "The Manufacture of
Madness" accompanied Michel Foucault's 1961 "History of Madness" &c.
One of the components which fed all this was the use of LSD -- beginning and becoming widespread in psychotherapy in the 1950s and then spread by the anti-psychiatrists in the 1960s, including after it became illegal -- which was viewed by some as "mimicking" psychosis, while others saw it as opening the "Doors of Perception." How's that for "counter" views (reminding us of the recent "Entropic Brain" post by Gregg) . . . !!
Wikipedia notes --
"Szasz argued throughout his career that mental illness is a metaphor for human problems in living, and that mental illnesses are not "illnesses" in the sense that physical illnesses are; and that except for a few identifiable brain diseases, there are "neither biological or chemical tests nor biopsy or necropsy findings for verifying DSM diagnoses."
"Szasz maintained throughout his career that he was not anti-psychiatry but was rather anti-coercive psychiatry. He was a staunch opponent of civil commitment and involuntary psychiatric treatment but believed in, and practiced, psychiatry and psychotherapy between consenting adults."
Yes, the closing of mental institutions was one of the results. As are at least some aspects of the increase in "mass killings" &c.
In the summer of 1967 (aka "The Summer of Love," when I was in Haight-Ashbury looking for some LSD), the Tavistock Institute held a conference at what was probably the peak of this movement -- called the "Dialectics of Liberation Congress" (and published under the title "To Free a Generation") -- organized by David Cooper, their resident "anti-psychiatrist" (and a colleague of R.D. Laing, widely nominated to take over for Tim Leary, also a psychologist, as the LSD "guru.")
"Emergent cosmic reality" and "cosmic information exchange dynamism"
would likely have been phrases that would have been right at home there . . . <g>
Mark
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