28: A Continuum

(Full Notes) Wednesday, August 12, 2020 Just read in Bill Bryson’s book how chemistry got on a firm footing with the invention of the periodic table. Psychology needs one of those. Seriously. Can the principles of self-deception do this? What are some indubitable examples of self-deception? My first answer was depression and anxiety. But what’s easier? From a distance those ones seem pretty obvious. Their sufferers think they’re generally worthless or that something bad is always going to happen, respectively. Who thinks that? Depressed and anxious people. But come on, really, you’re worthless? You realize that’s not rational, right? No more worthless than anybody else. Plus none of us is really worthless because God loves us with an infinite love. So really you’re thoughts are delusional. Everybody should know and see from a mile away how delusional you are. (We don’t, though, as much as we should.) Sunday, August 16, 2020 How mean. Saying people who struggle with mental illness are delusional. But it's true. We're all delusional, really. Oh, that I could expose that! Well let's try. I suppose we should start with examples that will be obvious to more people. Consult Internet… Well 1st thing is that when you look up "common delusions" Google suggests …in depression …in schizophrenia …in grandeur …in dementia …in bipolar …in alzheimers …in psychosis …so somebody seems to know that at least those things involve delusions. I didn't see anxiety there but it most certainly does, too. Some others I found include: Thought that somebody is out to get you Saturday, August 29, 2020 We say we're trying to understand depression and anxiety, and "tackle them to the ground". If somebody says, "you can't understand depression and anxiety, because they're different in every case," then we'll say, "well we're trying to understand the part that's common to everybody." There is a part that's common to everybody. Self-deception is common to everybody. There might be other principles that are. We can do that. I believe that.