Sunday, June 22, 2008

I don't need an alibi

Paintballing was awesome and overall the weekend was amazing. Though I think many of us pushed our bodies and minds further than we usually do in a weekend. Was worth it though.

Quinten is going away :( I think I speak on behalf of everyone in saying we'll fuckin' miss you man!

Today I've spent all the day (after waking up at lunchtime) watching season 1 of "Dexter". I recommend everyone watches it, it's a pretty cool idea for a show, or a book which was turned into a tv series. I gotta get a copy of the book.

Anyway the main character is a sociopath (man that doesn't look right but I can't think of a better way to spell it), so basically the show is about how he is trying to fit in and be normal when he is far from it. It really got me thinking again about how we really differ from animals. But then most animals do have some kind of (loosely speaking) moral code, many animals have 'morals' which overlap our own. What drives this instinct? What does it mean to not have it at all? Some serious psychos really are less "humane" than most things which are indeed inhuman.

Ok I got completely distracted from this so my train of thought is lost. I'll come back to this one day though.

9 comments:

Ben said...

I think being a sociopath or psychopath by definition means you have something fucked up in your head.
Aha:
-a person suffering from mental aberrations and disorders, especially one who perceives reality clearly except for his or her own social or moral obligations and seeks instant gratification in criminal or otherwise abnormal behavior.
-Psychopathy (pronounced in General American), not to be confused with psychosis, is a term derived from the Greek psyche (mind) and pathos (suffering), and was once used to denote any form of mental illness.

There are more but you get the drift. Anyway that was me getting sidetracked.

Animals can suffer mental and behavioral disorders too. I was reading about it on wikipedia :) (go the wiki), tho it didn't mention psychopathy so maybe that's rare or not well studied. It seems to occur in 1% of humans so maybe it's hard to find psychopathic rats or something. Also wild animals seem to suffer way less disorders than lab, farm or domesticated animals which is interesting. Suggests that the mental problems society has are because of the unnatural way we live, which one would expect I think.

I forget what my point was. I think it was that being a psychopath almost by definition means they have no superego or conscience which pretty much makes them sub-human, tho it might not be their fault.

Jason said...

As is often the case, Damn Interesting has a relevant article.

Ben said...

That's a pretty scary article really. Every once in a while I look into someones eyes and get the feeling that their mind works in an alien way, it's a bit creepy. Maybe I'm not always just imagining it.

Nat said...

well coming from just studying a semester of mental health, people like in that article are known as PD (personality disorder). personality disorders can go unnoticed by others in mild forms, you probably know someone who has a PD. Most PDs are extreme and somewhat debilitating.
It's sad because it's not their fault they've become psychopaths. it's a combination of physical, environmental and social factors, more often than not as the result of some childhood trauma that has changed their brain growth

i think it would be difficult to study that in animals; you'd have to do a lot of searching to find mentally ill rats and be able to distinguish it as mental illness and not an organic disorder

Steve said...

Very interesting topic of conversation here. I think I'm a psychopath.

Nat said...

I think i'm particularly PD. I also think Sean would agree if I explained to him what I mean.

I think Sean is OCPD lol, it's basically like a less severe form of obsessive compulsive disorder.

What makes you think you're a psychopath???

Ben said...

Nah you aren't a psychopath. You feel sorry for our dogs being outside, psychopaths wouldn't understand that.

Nat said...

bahaha so true

tony said...

am i a psychopath?
if anyone has the most pd traits i think it would be me!