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Where Does Sanity End and Insanity Begin?
It is often not evidence but trust that determines what we believe.
Perhaps the headline for this article is too extreme, but really there is no way around it because it’s difficult to conceptualize, much less to describe, insanity and sanity as a spectrum, and so we cling to some definitive distinction, likely cause this dividing line is so central to the reliability of our own perceived reality. Yet, exempting various forms of hallucination — the direct, confirmable non-existence of something perceived — the line becomes quite blurry.
If we’re to say a person suffers from paranoid delusion because they think the CIA is watching their every move, we have to concede they’re only crazy if they’re wrong. What if the CIA had, on the basis of an error, monitored them once — monitoring people is, after all, something the CIA does. What if they saw technical glitches in some electronic device that are reminiscent of those that might accompany an attempt to hack into it? What amount of possible evidence justifies holding such a suspicion?
What of the political conspiracy theorists? It seems every day I encounter someone, in real life or on social media, that believes that Muslims or marxists or satanists are on their way to take over the world. I’ve heard from friends of friends that…
