Is this a thing?

[MonDie]

I have never come across a term that specifically refers to what Strange speaks of, but it does appear in various disorders.

 

Right Hemisphere Language Functions and Schizophrenia: The Forgotten Hemisphere?

http://brain.oxfordjournals.org/content/128/5/963

 

The paper talks a lot about failing to provide adequate context or ensuring that the listener has enough background information to follow what's being said. This probably relates to the theory of mind (or mentalizing) deficits that you see in schizophrenia. Schizophrenia appears to consist of three subscales: negative symptoms, positive symptoms, and disorganized symptoms, with the latter two being more related to one another than to negative symptoms. Positive symptoms include s hallucinations and various delusions (e.g. paranoid: being followed; persecutory: being slandered; of guilt: having committed some terrible sin). Disorganized symptoms revolve around failures of rational communication: incoherence, tangential thoughts, neologism (inventing new words), disorganized sentence structure, et cetera. The negative symptoms are more akin to autism, and autism was initially thought to be a prodrome to schizophrenia. Negative symptoms include: lacking motivation, social disinterest, flattened affect, and poverty of speech. Poverty of speech involves giving the bare minimum response.

Somebody asks, "Do you have any children?" The schizophrenic, "Yes." "How many? Daughters or sons?" "Two daughters and one son."

"Do you have any jumper cables?" "Yes, I do."

Although I cannot say for sure that they're related, I invented the latter example as an example of both poverty of speech and an indirect request, which is discussed in the paper on right hemisphere language function. An indirect request expects the recipient to consider contextual information, such as the fact that the person asking about jumper cables has their hood up and is indirectly asking the recipient to jump their car. Not only do schizophrenics fail to pick up on important contextual information, but they also fail to provide it.

I wouldn't be surprised if this was a negative symptoms that also appears in autism. Autism is more common, or more extreme, among males. Females show greater right hemisphere activation during reading, and they develop their language skills sooner. As the paper explains, the right hemisphere seems to play a more synthetic role, detecting themes and utilizing contextual information to understand the particularities more clearly.

Edited October 17, 2016 by MonDie

[Strange]

Interesting. Thanks.

[MonDie]

I couldn't find that right hemisphere language function is more synthesizing. I suppose I inferred this given that it performs context sensitive functions. In pop science, "right brainers" are synthesizers.

Edited October 20, 2016 by MonDie

[koti]

Interesting. Thanks.

When I first came to this forum about two and a half months ago, Studiot greeted me in my thread (determinism thread) by giving me the benefit of doubt that I am not another preacher and stated that you guys had a bunch of them lately. I looked up some of the threads then and found that indeed there were preacher rants all over. It was SUMMER time then. We have FALL now (at least in europe) and the preachers got replaced with crackpots. Just sayin

 

Strange...this is my attempt at irony. Seriously though, I admire your patience in dealing with the title thread and other threads as well.

[Tom O'Neil]

Is there some sort of known psychological phenomenon (condition? disorder?) where people will say or write things that they assume will make sense to others because they understand it themselves. But they fail to reveal or explain any of the background knowledge or information that allows them to make sense of it.

 

This seems to happen fairly frequently on science forums (particularly in Speculations or equivalent). People will post a cryptic paragraph or equation or image and expect others to make sense of it. In some cases, it is possible to slowly drag enough information out of the other party to make some sort of sense of what they are trying to say. Occasionally, they will say, "oh, of course. What you need to know is ..." as if they just hadn't realised that others don't know what they are thinking. Some never seem to get to this level of awareness.

 

Is this related to (lack of) theory of mind? Or autism spectrum? Or some other sort of disordered thinking?

 

(P.s. the thread title is obviously an example )

There are two types of thinkers here like the left and right hemispheres of the brain.

 

1) The creative types who put across new ideas which may not be understood by mainstream science.

 

2) The logical types who need proof set down by laws who stay close to mainstream science.

 

I believe speculation is just as valuable as theory! Science fears the outlier due the fact its far away from the mean. There is nothing wrong with either types or progress would never occur. Yet when people become afraid of a new idea which maybe correct vs. common knowledge and they post crap like this, it just shows fear.

 

What's disturbing is chaps like yourself who put down creative thinkers and labeling them liars, because of a lack of understanding. A great deal of science and technology has been put down by people like yourself which slows progress. Sorry, cognitive thinking would imply you may have a problem Mr. Strange.

[Ophiolite]

You may believe yourself to be creative. All I see is undisciplined mind farts. All the great thinkers have combined imagination with critical thinking. Thus far you have failed to demonstrate you have a horse in either race.

[Acme]

Is there some sort of known psychological phenomenon (condition? disorder?) where people will say or write things that they assume will make sense to others because they understand it themselves. But they fail to reveal or explain any of the background knowledge or information that allows them to make sense of it.

...

Yes, it's a thang. The thang is dissociation.

In psychology, the term dissociation describes a wide array of experiences from mild detachment from immediate surroundings to more severe detachment from physical and emotional experience. The major characteristic of all dissociative phenomena involves a detachment from reality, rather than a loss of reality as in psychosis. ...

[MonDie]

Yes, it's a thang. The thang is dissociation.

 

No, that's wrong. Dissociation is completely unrelated. It involves abnormalities of memory, perception, and sense of self in response to stress.

 

Dissociation includes:

depersonalization - feeling of watching one's own body from third person

derealization - feeling that one's surroundings are dream-like or unreal

compartmentalizing - blocked memories that may resurface later, or be in the sole possession of one alter-ego and inaccessible to the primary personality.

identity disturbance - possibly dissociative? - sudden changes in values, goals, or sense of self accompanied by intense emotions or perceived inconsistency of values and actions.

 

People with borderline personality are prone to dissocation. Many of them have superior theory of mind skills, showing that the disorder has adaptive and maladaptive aspects. They score better on the reading the mind in the eyes test (RMET), which has been linked to verbal intelligence.

One could argue that depersonalization is a form of hyper-mentalism where the person not only takes on a third-person perspective of their self, but fully identifies with that perspective.

Alas the closely related schizotypal personality throws a monkey wrench in things, for they also report dissociative experiences despite their theory of mind deficits and social disinterest.

Dissociation is related to low serotonin and heightened cortisol secretion, both of which tend to be present to some degree in autistics, who have increased susceptibility to schizotypal personality disorder, among others.

[koti]

 

People with borderline personality are prone to dissocation. Many of them have superior theory of mind skills, showing that the disorder has adaptive and maladaptive aspects. They score better on the reading the mind in the eyes test (RMET), which has been linked to verbal intelligence.

One could argue that depersonalization is a form of hyper-mentalism where the person not only takes on a third-person perspective of their self, but fully identifies with that perspective.

Alas the closely related schizotypal personality throws a monkey wrench in things, for they also report dissociative experiences despite their theory of mind deficits and social disinterest.

Dissociation is related to low serotonin and heightened cortisol secretion, both of which tend to be present to some degree in autistics, who have increased susceptibility to schizotypal personality disorder, among others.

 

The emphasized traits are in my opinion what is being brought to attention here by Strange.

 

Edited October 25, 2016 by koti

[MonDie]

 

The emphasized traits are in my opinion what is being brought to attention here by Strange.

 

 

Indeed, I proposed, contrary to Acme's claim, a potentially positive relationship between dissocation and theory of mind skills to potentially account for the amplified mentalizing in borderline, but conceded that many dissociative individuals have poor theory of mind. Theory of mind and perspective-taking are synonymous, hence the intrigueing phenomenon of depersonalization. However Strange is speaking of perspective-taking on a less perceptual level and more verbal, intellectual level.

[koti]

 

Indeed, I proposed, contrary to Acme's claim, a potentially positive relationship between dissocation and theory of mind skills to potentially account for the amplified mentalizing in borderline, but conceded that many dissociative individuals have poor theory of mind. Theory of mind and perspective-taking are synonymous, hence the intrigueing phenomenon of depersonalization. However Strange is speaking of perspective-taking on a less perceptual level and more verbal, intellectual level.

 

I shall examine the depersonalization phenomenon as it does sound intriguing. Your superior command of the English language is impressive by the way.

[Strange]

There are two types of thinkers here like the left and right hemispheres of the brain.

 

 

The left-right brain thing is a myth, you know.

 

 

 

1) The creative types who put across new ideas which may not be understood by mainstream science.

 

2) The logical types who need proof set down by laws who stay close to mainstream science.

 

I don't believe this is true. (Do you have any evidence for it?)

 

There are people who are creative and also understand mainstream science.

 

But this is completely irrelevant to my original point. Even if there were your two types, the question is why some of them (from either type) are unable to communicate or explain their ideas. This applies, in my experience, both to those who are very creative and those who are less creative.

 

 

I believe speculation is just as valuable as theory!

 

It depends what you mean by "speculation". If you mean using imagination too come up with new ideas that can be tested by science then, obviously, it is a valuable part of the scientific process. It is one of the ways that science proceeds.

 

However, if you mean (as some of the posters in the Speculations forum) that it is OK to make up any old nonsense with no evidence, that is contradicted by science then no.

 

 

 

Science fears the outlier due the fact its far away from the mean.

 

Nonsense. Science is always on the look out for new and unexpected things.

 

Hence Asimov's statement that the most important phrase in science is not Eureka but "that's odd".

 

 

There is nothing wrong with either types or progress would never occur. Yet when people become afraid of a new idea which maybe correct vs. common knowledge and they post crap like this, it just shows fear.

 

The only people who think scientists are afraid of new ideas are crackpots who have their idiotic ideas rejected.

 

 

 

What's disturbing is chaps like yourself who put down creative thinkers and labeling them liars, because of a lack of understanding.

 

I do not put down creative thinkers.

 

But this is a science forum and, as such, creative ideas need to be supported by evidence and/or theory. I will question and criticise people who make up stuff with no evidence or theory and claim it is "science".

 

And I will only call someone a liar if they say something that is not true (for example, "I will not use numerology" before launching into an explanation based purely on numerology).

 

And finally, to drag this back on topic, if people do not understand something then the author needs to consider that it is a problem with their explanation.

 

(As your post is totally off topic, we can leave the subject there. Start a new thread if you wish to discuss it.)

Yes, it's a thang. The thang is dissociation.

 

I think that is a far more extreme phenomenon, where people say things that bear little relationship to what is going on and make little sense.

 

I am thinking of people who have (or may have) a clear internal model but explain it by leaping straight into the middle, without realising that people need to understand the assumptions and thought that went into developing the conclusion. And even detailed questioning can only step slowly back to the original evidence or thought processes.

 

I think there are probably several different causes. In some cases, it may be that people are very, very clever and assume everyone else will instantly see what they have worked out. There may be some where there is an element of mental disorder leading to slightly incoherent thoughts. And there are others who don't really have a clear idea in mind and so are generating partial explanations of half formed ideas.