“Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.”
A quote that could certainly apply to research on biological systems. Just because you think you're smart, doesn't mean you can out think the system or even understand it.
A quote that could certainly apply to research on biological systems. Just because you think you're smart, doesn't mean you can out think the system or even understand it.
These actually are most of the core experiences of schizophrenia for some people; people don't realize this because the stereotype (of hearing voices and so on) exists semi-independently of the illness and is self-reinforcing.
Probably there are many people who are more or less what is called "schizotypal" and don't have an episode that leads to hospitalization or other crisis so they never identify with the people who experience psychosis.
There was a former judge who was institutionalized a long time ago, and was still able to write a great deal about what he experienced, named Daniel Paul Schreber.
I think they are fundamentals of human experience. Especially because people are culturally influenced by those with more pronounced experiences than they themselves have had.
The sense that some things are real and other things are fake is present in virtually all philosophy and is probably part of being human. Sometimes, in philosophy, the empirical world (the way things appear to us) is fake and thought/categories/essences/ideal objects are real. Other times this is reversed, categories are seen as mere conventions, and reality is just empirical measurements with no "real" way to order them.
Of course it's part of being human, aren't schizophrenics human?
Dehumanizing other members of homo sapiens is also fundamentally part of being human, no question in my mind.
Nothing is as perfect as you believe it to be.
When political opponents can be labeled as dumb right-wing extremists, then, of course, the message is "we are friends of science and science is true". When actual scientists reveal inconvenient facts regarding current policies, then that is proclaimed as disinformation and censured.
In context, there were a lot of things in PKD's life that didn't go away even though he tried his best to not believe in them.