Photo via Flickr / CC.
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Einstein at Harvard graduation, 1935, via Flickr / CC.
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Delusions feel like they are almost entirely freestanding of anything other than belief. It sounds a bit heady, but I’m actually just referring to a module or physical representation of belief within the brain. There’s hardly a viable way to speak of these connections without the interpretive dissonance of language.Whether I momentarily believe I am retarded, or “in love”, or God, it is evidence that my seemingly coherent, chronologically understood mash-up of memory and perception is in realiy subject to its own physics. And it isn’t that my identity is “just” a series of computations. It is a marvelous, vast, complex series of computations that is synonymous with nature. While whatever causes momentary discrepancies of intellectual understanding could be considered a flaw, perhaps the infinite amount of possible features that are yet to be “flaws” should also be considered in the scope of psychopathology as well. Most researchers understand this point of view, probably because they’re constantly living on the edge of ignorance by principle, but when it comes to medical application there seems to be a conflicting approach.My personal relationship with my intellect is riddled with skepticism and doubt, based on the amount of times I’ve been deceived by it. Language itself seems to be the most inconspicuous feature of its extreme vulnerability, hence why syntax and semantics are even transferable at all.Humans often harbor a misleading sense of ownership, and sometimes even praise, over their intelligence, which I’m almost forced to believe is necessary for creating whatever circumstances its determinism as a species thrives upon. (Eh, ehm, computers.)Is the anxiety within health phobia separate from whatever “health” is in the first place? Is anxiety a social creation? When is something considered an illness and not just a predisposition? Is anyone truly healthy? How efficiently does language reflect nature in characterizing pathology, especially in terms of mental health?