I am talking philosophy of mind here.  I do not mean to impugn the APA crowd but I am not really addressing them.  Besides, the APA hates the menses so what do I care if I impugn them?   True insanity is an observed state, it cannot be said to exist in the mind itself because it is diagnosed by other people to refer to their inability to find rationality in the diagnosed person.  I am using the terminology loosely here, I am not referring to anxiety disorders, or visual hallucinations, or elaborate fictional autobiographies: I am referring to the rejection of assumed rationality. It is human nature to assume rationality in the world around us.  We want to assign an agent to events and we want to believe that such an agent employs a decision process based upon intent = action = result.  We may not always claim to understand why this particular agent has this intent, but we do like to believe that it has desires and that is why it acted the way that it did.  This is why we anthropomorphize everything.  The computer dies because it is “being an asshole”, the car continues to function despite not having a bumper or shocks because “she is a tough and reliable bitch”.  It is also where God comes from.  It rained because “god is angry at you for having breasts”. Now, many people who could be said to suffer from mental illness nevertheless can still be said to act with rationality.  This dude thinks he is Napoleon, but to be fair he is acting in a reasonably predictable manner based upon a stereotyped and ever-so-slightly historically inaccurate image of how the original Napoleon would act.  This chick thinks she is covered in snakes.  Well, if I was covered in snakes I would react EXACTLY as this screaming woman is.  This guy eats people because he wants their strength.  If he believes eating is how you get it (which, remember, some faith systems have believed as well) then I suppose that makes an immoral but practical sense, to him.  These are flaws of perception, and perhaps indicate a limitation or reason, but we can still recognize that these troubled people are acting in accordance with their beliefs and in pursuit of their desires.  They are not, in their own perceived worlds, acting irrationally. Thus, a hallucinating person screaming because she sees spiders is not truly insane, a hallucinating person singing show-tunes because she sees spiders IS truly insane.   So, I’m on the Weather Network website looking at what Mr. Sun is going to do to me when I notice a picture of a large spider.  Click!  It turns out there is a section of the website where people can upload “weather photos” and basically fill time and space on a website trying to pretend it does more than indicate the temperature and POP (for which we love them, of course).  The photo above is the third photo. The thing that drops my jaw is not that someone would take this photo and certainly not that they would feel the impulse to share it - that is what the internet is at least half for after all - but that they somehow thought that the Weather Network was both an appropriate and a DESIRABLE forum for this Daguerreotype opus. I can understand that a person might want to take a photo of their dog, photoshop it to double the dog content, and include a witty line that turns it into a whole package of cute hilarity.  I can understand that person wanting to share it on the internet, for example, on one of the many, MANY, MASSIVE websites devoted to the exclusive purpose of displaying pet photos.  I cannot understand, why that truly insane person would put it on the Weather Network page of “weather photos”.  In doing so, that person just crossed the line out of rational action; that person is - truly - a nut. -Patterson

I am talking philosophy of mind here.  I do not mean to impugn the APA crowd but I am not really addressing them.  Besides, the APA hates the menses so what do I care if I impugn them?  

True insanity is an observed state, it cannot be said to exist in the mind itself because it is diagnosed by other people to refer to their inability to find rationality in the diagnosed person.  I am using the terminology loosely here, I am not referring to anxiety disorders, or visual hallucinations, or elaborate fictional autobiographies: I am referring to the rejection of assumed rationality.

It is human nature to assume rationality in the world around us.  We want to assign an agent to events and we want to believe that such an agent employs a decision process based upon intent = action = result.  We may not always claim to understand why this particular agent has this intent, but we do like to believe that it has desires and that is why it acted the way that it did. 

This is why we anthropomorphize everything.  The computer dies because it is “being an asshole”, the car continues to function despite not having a bumper or shocks because “she is a tough and reliable bitch”.  It is also where God comes from.  It rained because “god is angry at you for having breasts”.

Now, many people who could be said to suffer from mental illness nevertheless can still be said to act with rationality.  This dude thinks he is Napoleon, but to be fair he is acting in a reasonably predictable manner based upon a stereotyped and ever-so-slightly historically inaccurate image of how the original Napoleon would act.  This chick thinks she is covered in snakes.  Well, if I was covered in snakes I would react EXACTLY as this screaming woman is.  This guy eats people because he wants their strength.  If he believes eating is how you get it (which, remember, some faith systems have believed as well) then I suppose that makes an immoral but practical sense, to him.  These are flaws of perception, and perhaps indicate a limitation or reason, but we can still recognize that these troubled people are acting in accordance with their beliefs and in pursuit of their desires.  They are not, in their own perceived worlds, acting irrationally.

Thus, a hallucinating person screaming because she sees spiders is not truly insane, a hallucinating person singing show-tunes because she sees spiders IS truly insane.  

So, I’m on the Weather Network website looking at what Mr. Sun is going to do to me when I notice a picture of a large spider.  Click!  It turns out there is a section of the website where people can upload “weather photos” and basically fill time and space on a website trying to pretend it does more than indicate the temperature and POP (for which we love them, of course).  The photo above is the third photo.

The thing that drops my jaw is not that someone would take this photo and certainly not that they would feel the impulse to share it - that is what the internet is at least half for after all - but that they somehow thought that the Weather Network was both an appropriate and a DESIRABLE forum for this Daguerreotype opus.

I can understand that a person might want to take a photo of their dog, photoshop it to double the dog content, and include a witty line that turns it into a whole package of cute hilarity.  I can understand that person wanting to share it on the internet, for example, on one of the many, MANY, MASSIVE websites devoted to the exclusive purpose of displaying pet photos.  I cannot understand, why that truly insane person would put it on the Weather Network page of “weather photos”.  In doing so, that person just crossed the line out of rational action; that person is - truly - a nut.

-Patterson