> There is no reason to suspect that the cause of internal voices is anything
> other than delusion. There is no shred of evidence to support the opinion that the
> messages people hear in their heads come from an external source, and there is good
> evidence to suppose that it is wholly internal. Its called by many names, and there
> are many medications for it.
This type of thinking grates on my poor nerves. My point by analogy is
this: I've been
married to the same woman for ten years. She's never betrayed my trust.
There is no
evidence to suggest she would ever cheat on me. On the contrary, there
is a multitude
of evidence to suggest quite the opposite. She's always been, within the
bounds of
human perfection, perfect. Yet lo-and-behold! Today I found her in bed
with my brother.
Perhaps you'd care to suggest that the evidence was in fact there, but I
was too
blind to see it? Perhaps, having chosen to see my wife in a certain
light had clouded
my vision such that any evidence demonstrated was assimilated by my mind
in a way that
it was neutralized. Ie., I was dumb. Could very well be. And what makes
you so sure
you're any different?
> I would suspect that it is common for people to hear voices - those with messed
> up psyches get medicated, become fanatics, go insane, whatever.
Of course, whenever someone doesn't see the world and its workings in
the same way as
someone else does (within a certain matrix of variance), one is quite
willing to
dismiss that person's reality as messed up and due to variable X,
variable Y, and
blah blah blah. "There must be a reason their sight is warped. I mean
heck, they
don't see what I see."
Now, I'm not trying to suggest that when people hear some voice in their
head, be it zeus
or the Christian God or aliens from mars, that they are in fact hearing
zeus/etc. What I am
suggesting is that one shouldn't be too quick to dismiss the subjective
reality of others,
because quite simply... yours is subjective too.
If you want to hear my own views on the voices some people claim to
hear, I'll re-assure you
that I-too believe the individual is merely speaking to himself, so to
speak. I've told a few
Christians, in fact, that they should stop externalizing their own sense
of authority; to reclaim
their sense of worth; to return their morality to where it belongs..
within themselves. I have
great pity for them.. to be so insecure that they have to extranalize
their worth to a
metaphorically entity. Ah-well.
Then again.. Who am I to say what is right? Maybe my own 'sense of self'
is just another
metaphor.
> As for the uniqueness, I would agree that all grains of sand are unique unto
> themselves, but in a sea of sand, the concept of uniqueness because trivial - So I
> agree - it is bunk.
I don't... What about chaos theory? (An aside: I've been playing with
the idea that the mind is a
strange attractor. I'm not confident enough to say it is, or even to try
defend the
idea. But the relationship fascinates me.)
Anyhow.
I was lying about my wife. I'm not married. I'm also new here. Go me.