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Post by Admin on Feb 17, 2017 7:14:58 GMT
Madness and Wisdom iai.tv/video/madness-and-wisdom?utm_source=Institute+of+Art+and+IdeasMight madness be a strange form of wisdom? 43 min "Madness is understood as the opposite of reason. Yet as Van Gogh and Nietzsche attest, madness can also be an inexplicable source of insight. Might madness be a strange form of wisdom rather than its diseased opposite? Or is this to make light of a condition that requires treatment? The Panel Author of Madness Explained Richard Bentall, psychiatrist Patricia Casey and philosopher and author of Death Drive Robert-Rowland Smith dispute meaning and madness." crazywisefilm.com/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crazy_wisdom
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Post by snowstorm on Feb 17, 2017 17:02:56 GMT
The psychiatrist on the panel is a bit 'one size fits all' and that's medication...
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Post by Admin on Feb 23, 2017 10:54:18 GMT
“Make no mistake. The greatest destroyer of ecology. The greatest source of waste, depletion and pollution. The greatest purveyor of violence, war, crime, poverty, animal abuse and inhumanity. The greatest generator of personal and social neurosis, mental disorders, depression, anxiety. Not to mention the greatest source of social paralysis, stopping us from moving into new methodologies for personal health, global sustainability and progress on this planet, is not some corrupt government or legislation.
Not some rogue corporation or banking cartel. Not some flaw of human nature and not some secret cabal that controls the world. It is the socioeconomic system itself at its very foundation.”
~ Peter Joseph
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Post by Bodhitree on Jul 11, 2017 9:02:53 GMT
I think madness does have elements of great creativity and increased diversity in it. It's the ultimate left-field thinking, going off the beaten track, and sometimes will come up with inspired guesses or solutions. But to call it real wisdom? That implies an aspect of balance and deep insight that I don't think people in these states possess. From my experience madness can bring great freedom from conventions and fears, it can remove all the blocks on one's behaviour.
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Post by snowstorm on Jul 11, 2017 9:22:04 GMT
I think madness does have elements of great creativity and increased diversity in it. It's the ultimate left-field thinking, going off the beaten track, and sometimes will come up with inspired guesses or solutions. But to call it real wisdom? I felt very creative during episodes - just personally I think there can be many insights during 'madness' that lead on to wisdom, especially when reflecting from a place of stability.
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Post by Bodhitree on Jul 11, 2017 11:19:00 GMT
I think madness does have elements of great creativity and increased diversity in it. It's the ultimate left-field thinking, going off the beaten track, and sometimes will come up with inspired guesses or solutions. But to call it real wisdom? I felt very creative during episodes - just personally I think there can be many insights during 'madness' that lead on to wisdom, especially when reflecting from a place of stability. There is certainly some truth in that, but you need to have a good filter on your ideas. Madness can also contain many ideas which are free but not necessarily wise, and separating the free-but-not-wise ideas from the ones that do have merit is a task that needs sober reflection and sound judgment. So I would say the process of extracting wisdom from madness happens afterwards... the madness itself is a period of growth and wild abandon, and if you are lucky wisdom will follow after. As an example, during my two months of psychosis on the loose in the UK I had a period of a week or so that I had this huge scheme relating to telepathy running through my head. Because of the voices, I was wondering if it was telepathy, which lead on to a large involved story where I was leading a secret army of telepaths to free the world from oppression. That period of my psychosis was pretty much a complete loss, no wisdom to be extracted, just lots of wasted energy... perhaps it would have made a good film script.
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Post by snowstorm on Jul 12, 2017 17:29:36 GMT
There is certainly some truth in that, but you need to have a good filter on your ideas. Madness can also contain many ideas which are free but not necessarily wise, and separating the free-but-not-wise ideas from the ones that do have merit is a task that needs sober reflection and sound judgment. So I would say the process of extracting wisdom from madness happens afterwards... the madness itself is a period of growth and wild abandon, and if you are lucky wisdom will follow after. Yes, would agree that there needs to be good filtering and to turn the question around, what is wisdom? I think there can be different sorts of wisdom gleaned from 'madness' e.g. personal wisdom - about a person's own strengths and challenges, global wisdom - about the state of the world - and universal wisdom, a further type of information. Some people may be focused on the one type of knowledge through their experiences, some may get all three, this is just my thinking on it.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 16, 2017 13:50:39 GMT
I felt very creative during episodes - just personally I think there can be many insights during 'madness' that lead on to wisdom, especially when reflecting from a place of stability. As an example, during my two months of psychosis on the loose in the UK I had a period of a week or so that I had this huge scheme relating to telepathy running through my head. Because of the voices, I was wondering if it was telepathy, which lead on to a large involved story where I was leading a secret army of telepaths to free the world from oppression. That period of my psychosis was pretty much a complete loss, no wisdom to be extracted, just lots of wasted energy... perhaps it would have made a good film script. Haha I had a similar experience except we were empaths and not telepaths. I tried to write a book out of it but I always run out of ideas. In which case it wouldn't have been a complete waste of time. It shows that potentially creative ideas can come out of 'madness'. The problem with madness for me is that in different parts of the world something considered wise here might be seen as a bit daft elsewhere. We frequently deride the customs of non Western groups of people and yet some of the things we do (especially in areas like mental health and our capitalist system in general) are pretty mad.
I would say that in itself my psychotic episode was not completely free of wisdom because it made me realise that everyone believes what they want to believe regardless of the evidence and it is a bit like the guy said about political discussions, even in front of overwhelming evidence lots of people stick to irrational unproven beliefs. I don't see anyone saying that all Brexiteers are mentally ill, not to single out such voters but just using the example given in the programme.
When I think of all the musicians with diagnosed mental illnesses who have created classic songs that millions of supposedly sane people enjoy I don't see how madness is never beneficial. And I have heard of people with a diagnosis of bipolar whose creativity is stunted when they take medication. So I suspect that there is a link to so called madness and genius, and it possible to be wise about certain things even when really ill.
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