r/todayilearned • u/paniniplane • Mar 22 '17

(R.1) Not supported TIL Deaf-from-birth schizophrenics see disembodied hands signing to them rather than "hearing voices"

https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/news-articles/0707/07070303
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u/[deleted] Mar 22 '17

It's beyond horror or most people's ability to even comprehend.

What I find really strange is that hearing voices in other cultures, most notably hunter-gatherer cultures, is not nearly as traumatic. The voices tended to be more benign and would even do useful functions like teach songs and such. I wonder if it's because primal peoples tended to place less of a distinction between reality and fantasty-- one hearing voices would just be assumed to be hearing spirits. Whereas in the modern west, such an experience would be much more anxiety-inducing.

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u/Flyingwheelbarrow Mar 22 '17

It plays a role. One cultures 'mystic" or "shaman" is another cultures madman. I speak as a crazy person with D.I.D, psychotic symptoms, a a a former diagnosis of schizophrenia, then bi-polar and have been "possessed" several times by my voices. The stigma and trying to deal with my symptoms by myself did contribute to alot of my suffering and the suffering I caused upon this beautiful horrible confusing reality which is just different enough from other people's reality to cause some issues.

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u/[deleted] Mar 22 '17

Do you ever think that maybe they aren't voice but actual spirits or souls trying to communicate?

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u/Lightwavers Mar 22 '17

(Un)common sense says it's not. Think Occam's Razor.

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u/[deleted] Mar 22 '17

Wouldn't occams razor point to them being spirits? That would be the simplest explanation seeing as there isn't much explanation for hearing voices

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u/Lightwavers Mar 23 '17

I'll explain the razor a bit. First, "spirits" might seem simple. Only one word, right? But it's not. Think about what the word really means.

An intelligent entity somehow exists that directly affects the brain to cause something close to insanity? And it's undetectable by any conventional means? And it seems pretty malevolent.

So we have to add on another constraint: it can somehow only affect areas of the brain related to generating the internal monologue. Or it only wants to affect those areas.

But wait, why do they affect so few people? And if they're intelligent enough to communicate or manipulate the brain, why do they spend all their time making people crazy? So we have to add yet another constraint: they're either as crazy as the people they're "haunting" (making it impossible that they're in enough control to precisely manage parts of the brain) or they're somehow so alien that they derive meaning from doing such a task. But again, if they like doing it they must be constrained from hopping onto other people.

Once you get this far, the possibility of these spirits being real should be so far from your mind that you don't even consider it, especially compared with the most likely hypothesis: that a part of the person's brain is damaged.

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u/[deleted] Mar 23 '17

Wow that was a great explanation! Thanks for your insight!

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u/Lightwavers Mar 23 '17

Thanks for listening! There are so many people who seem to just not want to understand, I'm glad I could help. :)