Fallout Studios Forums

 CodeCat, on 24 Jun 2007, 0:49, said:

This comment sparked a question in me. What exactly is sanity? And, stemming from that, what is insanity? Are we all (people on this forum, people all over the world) sane or insane? Who sets the standard?

IMO there are no actualy insane and sane people...."Insane" people are actualy poeple who the public thinks is acting weird and unusual and are put in Asylums where they get traumatized and people think they are even more "insane"...

Sanity is seeing the world for what it is, in a perfectly clear and conscious mind.

Nope, it is a generally accepted state of mind. It is all based on perception. Those who tend to stray from what we would call social norm are shown as different, and targets for claims of insanity. Many visionaries whom we highly regard now were regarded as lunatics in their own time.
Edited by AllStarZ, 24 June 2007 - 00:39.

The only true defintion of insanity is...

An easy way to get rehab rather then a prison sentence.

300 years ago psychology would have gotten you lynched as well AllStarz!!

Sanity is just the phrase given to hegemically normalised set of social behaviours and attitudes. Insanity is classified as those who fit outside of these boundaries and frame works. Everybody defines it differently, but based around a set of culturally normalised stereotypes for behaviour. Therefore we all accept that certain types of behaviour fall outside of the sanity spectrum, whilst each individual has their own more defined boundaries of sane actions.

Savvy?

@ Warbz

Quote

I call this sane actually, but see what you mean!
Edited by Wizardofnoz, 24 June 2007 - 00:45.

'Sanity' is what people determine basic behavior patterns to classify another as "normal" or "sane". Truth be told however, we're all insane to a degree the only difference is only just how much insanity we possess.

Ultimately, I see sanity as being the ability to to make sound and reasonable judgements.

 Warbz, on 23 Jun 2007, 21:37, said:

But what is sound? What is reasonable? Sacrificing three hundred people in the name of God would sound insane in our mindset than another.

It is all relative, as is the value of life.
Edited by AllStarZ, 24 June 2007 - 03:01.

It's in the eye of the beholder. You can't completely label someone as insane. But in Average Joe's eyes it means that you are not sadistic or masochistic (find extreme pleasure in pain), don't condone genocide and murder, or any of that jazz. But you can't 100% define it because genocide sounds perfectly normal to Hitler while it sounds unjustifiable to virtually everyone else.

Try acid and you'll experience the difference between both... unless you get caught in it hahaha.

 Solo Wing, on 24 Jun 2007, 1:38, said:

But what is the world? Who says we're not all crazy and those select few are actually seeing the true world? Fact is, we can't see the world through any means other than our own mind. And therefore we're biased by it. I think the question of what sanity is is closely related to what reality is. And I believe it is mostly a consensus between people that agree on things. Science is such a consensus, one which is built upon the logic reasoning of the mind itself. Effectively science is a description of a reality, expressed through the language of reason that resides within the mind.

But just as minds are all different, so also are realities all different. What makes people work together as they do is that there is a lot of overlap between perception of the world. Each individual sees things in its own way, but all of them collectively have a lot of parts of perception they have in common. It seems reasonable to say that this is what we call 'sanity' or 'reality'. If someone does not show sufficient overlap with others, it's when we call them deviant, different, insane or something else. Depending on the area of overlap we may also call them foreigners, extremists, terrorists, hippies, chavs, geeks, etc. There is just a general tendency for many people to view people in terms of 'similar' and 'different'. And the smaller the 'similar' group becomes, the more exclusive and individual they can claim themselves to be. It also gives people an opportunity to distinguish themselves from the things they dislike.

Depends on the person ,

Ex : peoples thinks I am crazy but I think I am just too smart for them .

Sanity is a subjective opinion. I feign insanity (or stupidity) at times to lull people into a false sense of security, make them think they have control over me.

Secretly, I just don't care for the small things people would want to control me for. When something major about me or my life is threatened, it reveals the true colours of that persons relationship to me, and also puts them on the back foot when they aren't prepared for the volume of my reaction.

Point I'm making is some people would call me insane, some people would hold things against me because "It's not what normal people would do" (heck, just look at me in my avatar ). I call those people assuming and unsuspecting, and while they may be more 'sane' than me by their own definition, their own ability to process logic is severely lacking.

as long as ur not a sirel kiler or somthing and arnt gonna harm the genral public then ur sane in my mind theres no such thing as normal every one is difrent

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, expecting a different result. I suppose those people who aren't doing that, are "sane."

Then by that definition, all people who go to war are insane.

In many people's eyes, that statement is true CodeCat. Going to war is a sacrifice, and there are a lot of people who think making sacrifices is "insane".

Enough time has passed and i now can no longer resist posting here.

Sanity is completely subjective, and thus a defintion made by people from different areas of the planet may seem like true community spirit but in fact would be unworkable in any official case.

The UK, Not deviating from social norms, very similar to any other european country, there are minor differences with food and drink etc but nothing serious.

The US, Social norms are different, the firebrand religion that is often publisied it not common in the UK, and I for one like the quote, "You talk to God, you're religious, God talks back you're insane."

Afganistan, a man converted to Christianity from Islam and was only spared the death penalty by pleading insanity. I wouldn't even blink if you told me someone in the UK had changed religion, my girlfriends mother does it like changing coats.

Isolated tribes in Papua New Guinea, canabalism is not uncommon, and everyone here would call that insane.

You get my point yet?

Fitting in. Being like other people.

Doing things you have the oppotunity to do.

It changes with the ages.
Watching people being torn to shreads by lions today and cheerinng and laughing nowadays would be insane.

2000 years ago it was normal.

Or even america 100 years ago.
"hunt the darky" was popular.

hundreds of people would go and lynch a black person.

That would be insane now.

Then, again it was commonplace.