How do you define reality? How do you define insanity?

[signingupforgames]

I've been feeling philosophical lately, and after a with the recent onslaught of arkham city updates i've begun to wonder. How do you define insanity? and conversely How do you define reality? Considering all i can really think of is how things are percieved, I have my own ideas. But i decided to ask you guys. So tell me.

How do you define reality? How do you define insanity?

 

[SckizoBoy]

Two words: 'fuck' & 'you'

Why? It's bloody half past midnight, and I wanted to write a bloody essay in response to this, but I'm knackered from travelling all evening and need a shower.

Short answer(s):

Idealised Conceptualised Reality:
As according to the individual, it is merely the interpretation of sensory stimuli with self-correction by comparison to previous experiences.
As according to a population, it is merely the interpretation of interactions between individuals with self-correction by comparison to previous experiences dependent on plausibility, possibility and probability as dictated by the education/attitude/past experience of the individuals.

Rationalised Reality:
The thought process, which necessitates existence and belief of reality as thought is in response to internal/external precursors beyond the control of the individual.

Insanity:
Depending on which school of thought you go by, insanity can be undefinable (difference in thought process is sometimes sufficient to classify 'insanity', but this necessitates: everyone is insane, and only I am normal).
Traditionally, insanity is the disruption of either one of the following: rational/logical thought evolution; or rational/logical thought creation by false interpretation of sensory stimuli.

There's a shitload more scrambled about, but I'm tired.

Watch this space...

 

[Phlakes]

Before somebody posts that insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly expecting a different outcome, that's bullshit. I'm not insane when my car doesn't start the first few times and I keep trying. Plus it's an extremely limited definition. By it, schizophrenia isn't insanity.

 

[Joey Wonton]

I thought about this once when I was to myself.

I decided that reality was what information you interpret from your surroundings with all your bodily senses. Whatever it may be, it's your reality.

Insanity is seeing a reality that is noticeably different to common realities, and responding to them in a way you believe to be logical is what deems you as insane. Because your logic is not the same as everyone else's logic.

The only reason I have to believe that we see the universe "as it's true self" (which cannot be defined anyway, i.e. 'What is truth') is because seeing it this way makes us better able to survive and evolve, whereas being insane probably is not such a desirable condition for survival.

 

[sms_117b]

A simple idea about insanity is to not realise you're doing something ridiculously weird, talking to your self for example, if you've got another voice up in your head answering you and you think your fine, you're freaking insane, if you got that voice up there and you think "hey, that's not right" you're not insane.....wait....that doesn't sound quite right, try a different symptom, if you hear a answer to a question you ask yourself there's something not right up in that old brain of yours.

Now for reality, it's simply electron responce to exterior stimulus, sound waves infered by the ear drum electronically sent to ye olde brain, EM radiation detected by the retina sent to the brain via electons, touch is essentially electron repulsion.

Your brain is both insanity and reality, it's how it interperated electronic inputs.....to tired to think in any more depth

 

[9Darksoul6]

. But i decided to ask you guys. So tell me. How do you define reality? How do you define insanity?

Reality: the state of things.
The concept is too axiomatic to have a definition less vague than that. It is the concept that includes all concepts.

Any perception of reality, whether cientific, arbitrary, religious, or by any other criteria, is purely dogmatic. Logic and mathematics only work through premises, and so, are a fruit of this dogmaticism.
Therefore, 'obviousness' and 'reason' have no instrinsic value; and therefore these are a direct consequence of culture exposure and aritrarity, and nothing else.

Insanity is, within a culture, any mental state or process that that differs (noticeably enough) from an estalished norm.
Note: what worries me about this is that any person with enough intellectual authority over a culture to establish its norms, can (re)define what insanity is. The same goes for right and wrong, but that is another subject.