On insanity and the nature of reality

Question

If a person realizes that what they're experiencing is not real, and is fully cognizant of the fact that they can't distinguish between the two - the unreality they are experiencing and the reality which exists, and can express it to others, does this negate the fact that they are experiencing this unreality?

Conversely, if a person realizes what they're experiencing something that is unreal, and knows why (they're tired, have psychological problems, are upset, have a brain injury that causes them to experience something that is not there, etc), but CAN tell the difference between the two (either from training or from education), are they insane?

What about a person who sees something that falls outside what most people call "reality" but this reality they're experiencing is the ultimate reality? How would we ultimately know that what they're experiencing is real if we could not somehow "tap into" that reality?

Answer 1

Insanity has come to signify a psychological concept that is defined by social acceptance and scientific discovery. In this case, if ultimate reality equates to an individual's perceptual experience, then the only way to prove an ultimate reality (on any socially or scientifically acceptable level) is through corroboration.

There are still issues with how individual's interpret, and therefore corroborate, observable phenomenon. Consider a single event with 10 witnesses and their 10 interpretations of said event. Imagine a UFO sighting, for instance. There may be stories of angels or aliens, military activity or simple mass hysteria. So... was it real? These people can corroborate the occurrence of event, at least. But, society and science may still call them insane, depending on the circumstance.

From an individual's perspective, regardless of social acceptance, the question becomes about the nature of reality. If perceptual experience is the ultimate reality, then whatever one experiences IS real (even when it cannot be corroborated.) Barring any debates on the nature of existence, this concept can't easily be disregarded. For advanced as our science is, we should all still be aware of it's limitations; the same goes for our bodies and perception!

Humans perceive only a percentage of light and sound. So it could be argued that certain stimuli, such as a state of extreme fatigue, might simply allow one to perceive sensory information that is not observable in an otherwise healthy state.

Our generally minimal knowledge of the brain and human behavior is constantly changing our definitions of insanity... Consider the hysteria fiasco. Likewise, our theories on reality cannot determine what is real through abstract concept alone... So, this question may well be, ultimately, unanswerable for now. :S

Answer 2

What is "insanity"? What is "mental illness"?

In his 1961 work "The Myth of Mental Illness", Thomas Szasz famously argued that what is commonly qualified as "mental illness" is merely a deviation from societal norms. Szasz argued that "mental illness" is a metaphor and not a genuine disease, that it is merely a way of dealing with problematic people in society.

“Psychiatry is conventionally defined as a medical specialty concerned with the diagnosis and treatment of mental diseases,” he wrote. “I submit that this definition, which is still widely accepted, places psychiatry in the company of alchemy and astrology and commits it to the category of pseudoscience. The reason for this is that there is no such thing as ‘mental illness.’”

Recent works like Paris Williams’s 2012 publication Rethinking Madness and Wouter Kusters’s 2014 Philosophy of Madness reiterate this notion. They regard "psychosis" not as a form of "mental illness", but as a variation from the norm that comes with both positive and negative symptoms. Others have made similar arguments with respect to Autism, ADHD, Dyslexia, etc.

In fact, psychosis, Autism, ADHD, Dyslexia and many other variations typically perceived as "defects" all commonly co-occur with high intelligence and creativity. Many (if not most) of the world's greatest scientists, artists and entrepreneurs are known to walk or have walked the thin line between "genius" and "madness".

So what is the role of "insanity" in society? Maybe those perceived are "insane" or "mentally ill" are just more extreme variations within normal human neurodiversity, who are far more sensitive to context / environment than the average human, but who often also can become capable of the extraordinary under the right circumstances.

To quote Bruce Feirstein :

The distance between insanity and genius is measured only by success.