"The Benefits of Madness"

[Jasper]

  Something like that.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

You have to remember that some of us are neurologically atypical. Rubbing ice cream on your testicles and running around your house with a sheet tied around your neck is just wonderful for loosing the creative juices for you because at the end of the day, you get to wipe off the pistachio swirl with those 480 thread counts and dump the whole fucking thing into the hamper.

I have to fight the natural inclination towards the hysterical on a daily basis. I am Eris incarnate in this way. I have worked my entire life to stop indulging in "intuition" and look, look at the goddamned facts for fuck's sake.

What you're suggesting is not actually blurring the lines between mental function and malfunction, but rather an internal dadaist, new-age TED Convention from which you're hoping to glean videos that no one else will understand because the problem with going off into a cardboard box with your G.I. Joes and a puppy is that whatever you produce in there isn't much use to anyone but yourself.

I'm not saying this is a waste of time, but why bother? We've already got scientifically proven methods...standard operating procedures n shit. Optimization is a fantastic word. So are relevance and altruism--the quest to discipline the self in such a way as to produce things which are beautiful and useful to others. Elegant solutions hardly ever result from complicating the recipe with a bunch of "fun shit" you tossed in just to "mix things up." You may think your own cupcakes are beautiful (everybody thinks they own cupcakes is byootiful) but I guarantee you, no one's gonna appreciate oregano-mint-hotsauce frosting except other whackadoodles producing much of the same.

That's not to say I'm suggesting you conform, just that the goal should be to produce. Make a message, make a song, make a supaFuck automated robotic Loch Ness Monster to clean up the Oil spill and piss your FAYCE, just don't think that "altering your consciousness" so you can watch the Woody Woodpecker cartoons on your frontal cortex is going to get things done any faster or better than grabbing some markers, paper and a stapler and going full-frontal trial-and-error.

But hey, you know how dey say in New Orleans: "Errybody got dey own Gumbo."

Extraordinarily well fucking said.

You want the luxury of feeling a little crazy? Here's a good one for you. Pick a chair in which you feel safe. Make a list of things you need to do. It can be a short list; three things is fine. Now, sit in that chair. Intermittently get up and walk from one room to another, trying to decide what thing to do first. Pick something, then retreat to your chair because the task seems impossibly daunting and you're sure you're going to fuck it up and you just need a few more minutes and then you'll be ready.

Repeat for a week.

Then a month.

Then a year.

[LMNO]

A less wrong post I thought was interesting.

http://lesswrong.com/lw/5dj/the_benefits_of_madness_a_positive_account_of/#more

The ability to loosen one's associations and build bridges between disparate ideas seems to help us solve problems not amenable to direct, formal computation: to intuit mathematical truths before sitting down to prove them, for example, or to recognize that a pattern seen in one system is reflected in another, totally unrelated system.  A state of mental excitation, even to the point of fervour, is also useful for overcoming akrasia, and promotes the quick thinking necessary when you don't have time to sit around and compute.  If this is the case, then there is considerable benefit to be had in learning to depart from rationality in a safe and controlled manner.  I say safe and controlled because, as we have seen, there are real dangers in overextending oneself; but with proper technique, I believe these dangers can be minimized while still reaping the benefits.

Ok, after reading the post in question, a few observations:

The story given is one where the author is bi-polar, and he relates how his mania caused him to focus intently on intellectual projects, but ultimately biting him on the ass when the passion outweighs the rationality, causing him to make mistakes; while his depressions were like a collapse of his entire worldview, which then needed to be rebuilt.

Oddly, the conclusion he reaches has little to do directly with his disorder: He basically says we can't all be Spock, nor should we.  We should embrace our emotions and passions as fervently as we do our intellectualism.  To use your emotions while engaging rationally. 

In addition, the quote above sounds more like the funadmental equation of creativity: Try to relate two previously unrelated things.  A simple rule, but sometimes it can be difficult if you can't free your mind up to think of something unrelated.

Unfortunately for Sig, and the author of the LessWrong post, the word "madness" was used, which tends to cause it's own discussion.  In the case of the author, he actually suffers from Bi-Polar disorder, and he was trying to relate it to the way he currently thinks.  Sig should have couched and caveat-ed the quote in a manner that addressed the use of the word, to limit the side discussion.

All in all, the LessWrong post was a bit disjointed, though it has one or two good ideas.  I'd be willing to break it down and discuss further, if that would be interesting to anyone else.

[navkat]

Ok, after reading the post in question, a few observations:

The story given is one where the author is bi-polar, and he relates how his mania caused him to focus intently on intellectual projects, but ultimately biting him on the ass when the passion outweighs the rationality, causing him to make mistakes; while his depressions were like a collapse of his entire worldview, which then needed to be rebuilt.

Oddly, the conclusion he reaches has little to do directly with his disorder: He basically says we can't all be Spock, nor should we.  We should embrace our emotions and passions as fervently as we do our intellectualism.  To use your emotions while engaging rationally.  

In addition, the quote above sounds more like the funadmental equation of creativity: Try to relate two previously unrelated things.  A simple rule, but sometimes it can be difficult if you can't free your mind up to think of something unrelated.

And I'm saying it's a self-indulgent mistake...especially with BiPolar disorder which has every bit of justification being referred to as a "madness" without a trace of irony.

Anyone struggling with a neurological pre-frontal disorder in earnest knows that the last thing you need to worry about is embracing your emotional/creative/illogical side. The last thing you need to worry about is being too rational.

I know from experience that it's really easy to come up with complex, intellectual-sounding excuses to rationalize your own crazies...to "explore the recesses of your own, unique, snowflake fucking mind" in an attempt defer payment for later...to keep hitting the snooze button on the work you gotta do to get a firm fucking grasp on reality before you can even entertain the thought of "embracing passion."

Only a robot with a Dissociative Disorder would see the need to incorporate passion into your rational works as some profound discovery. This isn't rocket science. Even the emotionally/psychiatrically balanced of us don't really need to point something like that out because it's second nature. It's a no-brainer about as trite as saying shit like "Sometimes ya gotta stop and smell the roses" and "Dare to be different!"  His whole blog was a scattered, overly-complex way of saying just those things.

He's full of shit and he knows it...but the dichotomy is that he believes his own shit and won't figure it out until later. Right now he's just having fun masturbating with his own shit-sandwich.

[LMNO]

I agree.  His conclusions seemed valid to me, but I objected to how he got there.

And as my physics teacher used to say, "Getting the process right is more important than getting the right answer."

[navkat]

  I'd be willing to break it down and discuss further, if that would be interesting to anyone else.

BTW, I'm always interested in what you have to say. You're my favorite breakbeat, dontcha know.

[East Coast Hustle]

I think the word "madness" doesn't always have to be synonymous with "mental illness".

[navkat]

I think the word "madness" doesn't always have to be synonymous with "mental illness".

Of course not. I partake in incredibly obnoxious, delightfully healthy, flushed-and-sweaty, eyes gleaming, ripped-stockings, lost shoe and where-the-fuck-did-I-park-my-car madness all the time.

OP referred to it in the depraved, reduced cognitive functioning due to a clinical disorder sense.

[East Coast Hustle]

I'm calling confirmation bias. That's not what I got out of it at all.

[East Coast Hustle]

I only feel the need to bring it up because there's been a long-standing convention here of busting peoples' balls for anything resembling "FUCK YOU, MY MOTHER DIED FROM ****", and yet there has also been a long-standing convention here of "YOU CAN'T TAKE MENTAL ILLNESS LIGHTLY, NO NOT AT ALL, DON'T YOU KNOW THERE ARE ACTUAL MENTALLY ILL PEOPLE HERE?" and I don't see how this situation can exist without an unhealthy dose of cognitive dissonance.

This, as one might expect, is incredibly annoying to me.

[navkat]

Absolutely. Call me on it if you think you gotta.

What I'm saying is that he's full of shit and due to my unique set of life experiences and circumstances, I see it. It's not a point worthy of our time here but it seems like it might be because the writer baffles you with bullshit.

There's nothing wrong with looking at my batshit mental illness and laughing at it--laughing diminishes its power. There is an element of that healthy madness in doing just that. Whistling in the dark. Heckling and throwing fish at the mirror. Roger does it all the time and I absolutely love him for it.

What the writer of this piece is attempting to do is not accept and laugh at the absurdity of his lot, but rather, to bullshit himself into thinking he can somehow incorporate the gambling, the staying awake for 5 days in a row, the coke and meth benders, the tendancy to stalk girlfriends and spend money he doesn't have, the punching walls, and then the weeks of thinking about all the stupid shit he did in that phase and hating himself to the point where he wants to leave his landlord a 180 lb rent-check in the closet, hanging from his own belt.

That's about as realistic as me trying to incorporate three screaming, hungry monkeys with full diapers as my dates at a Mardi Gras Society ball or a charity function.

He's not laughing, he's trying to convince others that he's giving himself a hug.

[LMNO]

throwing fish at the mirror.

That's a great phrase.  Is it yours?

[Cain]

There can also be strategic benefits to irrational behaviour:

We have observed that the rationality of the adversary is pertinent to the efficacy of a threat, and that madmen, like small children, can often not be controlled by threats.

[...]

The apparent restrictiveness of an assumption of "rational" behavior -- of a calculating, value-maximizing strategy of decision -- is mitigated by two additional observations. One, which I can only allege at second hand, is that even among the emotionally unbalanced, among the certified "irrationals," there is often observed an intuitive appreciation of the principles of strategy, or at least of particular applications of them. I am told that inmates of mental hospitals often seem to cultivate, deliberately or instinctively, value systems that make them less susceptible to disciplinary threats and more capable of exercising coercion themselves. A careless or even self-destructive attitude toward injury -- "I'll cut a vein in my arm if you don't let me . . ." -- can be a genuine strategic advantage; so can a cultivated inability to hear or to comprehend, or a reputation for frequent lapses of self-control that make punitive threats ineffectual as deterrents. (Again I am reminded of my children.)

As a matter of fact, one of the advantages of an explicit theory of "rational" strategic decision in situations of mixed conflict and common interest is that, by showing the strategic basis of certain paradoxical tactics, it can display how sound and rational some of the tactics are that are practiced by the untutored and the infirm. It may not be an exaggeration to say that our sophistication sometimes suppresses sound intuitions, and one of the effects of an explicit theory may be to restore some intuitive notions that were only superficially "irrational." 

The second observation is related to the first. It is that an explicit theory of "rational" decision, and of the strategic consequences of such decisions, makes perfectly clear that it is not a universal advantage in situations of conflict to be inalienably and manifestly rational in decision and motivation. Many of the attributes of rationality, as in several illustrations mentioned earlier, are strategic disabilities in certain conflict situations. It may be perfectly rational to wish oneself not altogether rational, or -- if that language is philosophically objectionable -- to wish for the power to suspend certain rational capabilities in particular situations. And one can suspend or destroy his own "rationality," at least to a limited extent; one can do this because the attributes that go to make up rationality are not inalienable, deeply personal, integral attributes of the human soul, but include such things as one's hearing aid, the reliability of the mails, the legal system, and the rationality of one's agents and partners. In principle, one might evade extortion  equally well by drugging his brain, conspicuously isolating himself geographically, getting his assets legally impounded, or breaking the hand that he uses in signing checks.

In a theory of strategy, several of these defenses can be represented as impairments of rationality if we wish to represent them so. A theory that makes rationality an explicit postulate is able not only to modify the postulate and examine its meaning but to take some of the mystery out of it. As a matter of fact, the paradoxical role of "rationality" in these conflict situations is evidence of the likely help that a systematic theory could  provide. 

And the results reached by a theoretical analysis of strategic behavior are often somewhat  paradoxical; they often do contradict common sense or accepted rules. It is not true, as illustrated in the example of extortion, that in the face of a threat it is invariably an advantage to be rational, particularly if the fact of being rational or irrational cannot be concealed. It is not invariably an advantage, in the face of a threat, to have a communication system in good order, to have complete information, or to be in full command of one's own actions or of one's own assets. Mossadeq and my small children have already been referred to; but the same tactic is illustrated by the burning of bridges behind oneself to persuade an adversary that one cannot be induced to retreat. An old English law that made it a serious crime to pay tribute to coastal pirates does not necessarily appear either cruel or anomalous in the light of a theory of strategy. It is interesting that political democracy itself relies on a particular communication system in which the transmittal of authentic evidence is precluded: the mandatory secret ballot is a scheme to deny the voter any means of proving which way he voted. Being stripped of his power to  prove how he voted, he is stripped of his power to be intimidated. Powerless to prove whether or not he complied with a threat, he knows -- and so do those who would  threaten him -- that any punishment would be unrelated to the way he actually voted. 

[navkat]

throwing fish at the mirror.

That's a great phrase.  Is it yours?

Directly from my ass and into your FAYCE.

[LMNO]

Cain, what's that from?  It's dense, but accurate.