Robbery is taking someone’s property by force or by threat of force. — NOS4A2

You people are so funny.

So if I just drive your car away without any force or threat of it (just because you happened to have left it unlocked) that's not robbery? Remind me to to pop round to your house next time you're out.

Oh, and 'property' is decided how exactly, if not by law?

What I'm conscious of is what I think my arm is doing, even if it's doing something else. What I am not conscious of are the brain signals that help to produce or inform my conscious thought about what my arm is doing. — Luke

The second part is just a technical definition of the first.

I'd imagine that I wouldn't need to make assumptions about my arm if I was already aware of the signals from my cerebellum. — Luke

Why not?

But why stop there? I don't see why I shouldn't also be aware of the lesion, if I were to actually have these superpowers of awareness about my unconscious bodily functions. — Luke

Why does being aware on one aspect mean that you automatically should be aware of all aspects? I'm aware of sound at mid-level pitch, does that mean I 'should' be aware of all pitches?

The last part of the system I described to Luke

... These are then modulated, filtered and suppressed in turn by models in the frontal cortex which is where cultural mediation, semantics, other somatosensory feedback and environmental cues come in to play.
— Isaac — Isaac


So the public referent to "pain in your head" comes from a bunch of technical jargon? — Marchesk

You didn't ask where the public referent fro the expression came from. You asked why people said it. Not all words directly refer.

...on the assumption that these refer to something shared - the public concept... — Isaac


The public concept is of a first person experience. — Marchesk

That's not possible is it? Public concepts require boundary indicators or sets of props which are publicly available, otherwise they're undefined.

If some stuff has not effect on anything, it cannot be sensed — Olivier5

"Hammering a nail whilst distracted caused the pain in my thumb"

"The hammer hitting my soft tissue caused the pain in my thumb"

"Some collection of carbon and iron atoms exerted a pressure on nociception cells which caused the pain in my thumb"

So do you now have three pains because something cannot be sensed without it having an effect. You sensed the event, the object, the physics - three things. But you didn't have three effects.

Am I aware of my arm movements or am I aware of my brain function? — Luke

I've just shown that. If you have a lesion in part of your cerebellum the thing you think of as awareness of your arm clearly isn't. You're obviously not aware of your arm (your arm is in one place, your awareness is telling you it's in another). So it simply can't be that you're aware of the location of your arm. You're conclusively not.

So why are they called, "the neural correlates of consciousness"? — Marchesk

...on the assumption that these refer to something shared - the public concept... — Isaac

Why do people in ordinary language occasionally say things like, "the pain must be in your head"? — Marchesk

The last part of the system I described to Luke

... These are then modulated, filtered and suppressed in turn by models in the frontal cortex which is where cultural mediation, semantics, other somatosensory feedback and environmental cues come in to play. — Isaac

How am I aware of the signals being sent from my thalamus? If I were conscious of it, I think I would know. — Luke

You're aware of your arm movements aren't you? Well, they're signals from your proprioception system through your cerebellum. All I've done there is given it a technical name and added some detail to the route, I've not changed what you're aware of.

Let's say you had some lesion within your cerebellum, you think your arm is doing one thing, but it's actually doing another. What is it you're 'aware of' there? You can't say "my arm", you're obviously not aware of your arm. You're aware of the (faulty) signals from your cerebellum. You assume they're telling you about your arm.

I'm not consciously aware of signals being sent from my thalamus, and I just feel my pain sensations. I guess I'm weird like that. — Luke

You are aware of them. Awareness of a thing and knowing what it's technical name is are not the same thing.

It is legal robbery, plain and simple. — NOS4A2

What a stupid thing to say. If it's legal, it's not robbery is it? That's the point. Robbery is taking something you don't legally have a right to take.

Who is making these inferences? Not you. That is, not the same ‘you’ that is the subject of pain sensations, so I think this is a category error of sorts. — Luke

Not following you (see what I did there - not following 'you'). How are you defining 'you' and why is the part making the inferences left out?

The minute detail of difference renders your experience private. — Isaac


Yea I thought it was clear I dropped that.

There's nothing special about the first which makes grouping them by loose affiliation OK but the second not. — Isaac


Yup.

Sort of feel bad that this is all I say after you wrote all that — khaled

Ha! Don't worry about it. Lucky for us both I spared everyone the even longer version!

All knowledge is inferred. — Isaac


How are your own pain sensations inferred? From what are they inferred? — Luke

They're inferred by models in the primary somatosensory cortex. They're inferred from signals sent by from the thalamus (via nociceptor endings and transfer neurons in the spinal cord). These are then modulated, filtered and suppressed in turn by models in the frontal cortex which is where cultural mediation, semantics, other somatosensory feedback and environmental cues come in to play.

I'm simplifying a great deal, but I'm not sure what your question is getting at so I don't know what detail you're after.

a feeling that represents what you think of as your response to red, right now. — Isaac


If you're making the argument that what comes to mind when we think of "red" is not constant, sure, no disagreement there. From anyone I think. But it is largely similar. — khaled

One of the biggest misunderstanding here I think is generated by this equivocation about what constitutes 'similar'.

In order to justify that you do, in fact, know your own pain/red experience, you're (quite fairly) invoking the idea that there's some broad similarity across the many different experiences you have involving nocicpetor activation or 600nm wavelengths, whatever. Fine. But then when it comes to an argument that pain/red experiences are not private, similarity becomes insufficient. The minute detail of difference renders your experience private.

Either we're defining two experiences as 'the same' on the basis of a broad similarity, or we're not. If we are then your experience of the red post box and your later experience of the red letter A can be justifiably described as both containing an experience 'of red'. The 'red' bit being broadly similar across both events. But if we're to do that, then we have absolutely no lesser grounds to say that my experience of the red post box and your experience of the red box box both contain 'the same' elemental experience 'of red'. The broad similarities on which we grouped your two temporally separated experiences are no greater than the broad similarities on which we grouped yours and my experiences of the same event.

You reached for the word 'red' on both occasions - so too did we both reach for the word 'red'
You associated with other 'red' things on both occasions - so too did we both consequent to the same event.
You had perhaps some vaguely similar emotional response (red=exiting, blue=calming) on both occasions - so too did we both at the same event.

The point is that all you have are two experiences - two separate epiphenomena. In one case they occur in the same person, but across two times. In the other case they occurred in across two people but at the same time. There's nothing special about the first which makes grouping them by loose affiliation OK but the second not.

which can still be undermined by identifying your 'neural underpinnings', as you put it). — Isaac


That only works we can correlate with experiences we already have. — Marchesk

No. The neuroscientist is not correlating with experiences he has. He's correlating with the spoken words the subject is reporting, on the assumption that these refer to something shared - the public concept of pain.

We can also perform all of the pain behaviors without being in pain, depending on how good of an actor one is. — Marchesk

No we can't. That's the point. If what you say here is true you'd have to concede that there are people who appear to be in pain whom we could never, ever discover were actually faking it, no matter how hard we looked, not matter how long we observed them for. I even gave you examples - micro-expressions and auto-defensive recoil - as two behaviours associated with pain that it would be impossible to fake for any period of time. You cannot fake being in pain. You can fake some aspects of it, some of the time. That that's often enough to convince others is irrelevant to the argument about pain being a family resemblance definition of a range of behaviours.

If 'pain' were actually the experience, how would we ever learn how to use the word. "John's in pain" would make no sense, how do I know what experience he's having. "I was in pain yesterday" would make no sense, my 'pain' might not be your 'pain' so my use of the term does nothing.

I'm genuinely at a loss to understand what exactly it is that you're wanting to claim as the referent for the word 'pain'.

No, the issue is that pain can be faked successfully, not that we have no way of potentially finding out after the fact. — Marchesk

His is that an 'issue'. I don't see how it has any bearing on either behaviourism (which can take subsequent behaviour into account), or on privacy (which can still be undermined by identifying your 'neural underpinnings', as you put it).

I'm not seeing the relevance of the fact that people can pretend to be in pain for a limited period (and to a limited extent - micro expressions, auto-defensive recoil etc).

The takeaway from this is that behavior is not consciousness, because you can have behavior absent the experience — Marchesk

Don't see how that follows at all. I can raise my arm as part of catching a ball, or I can just raise it. Does that make 'catching a ball' no longer a physical act? We can do some of the behaviours of being in pain, or we can do all of them. That we can do only some doesn't have any bearing at all on what doing all of them would constitute

don't believe you. — Marchesk

Look, you said to Luke...

I really don't get the behaviorists. It's so clear to me how they're wrong. — Marchesk

Which, aside from striling me as being a bit silly (as if behaviourists hadn't thought of that), set up this ludicrous notion that if someone faked pain we have no behavioural method of telling, that we'd have to get our fMRI scanners out as our only resort.

It's such a seemingly silly idea that it intrigues me how you managed to sustain it without hitting that exact notion I presented - "No one ever fakes pain". Because, presumably lacking your own fMRI, how would you ever find out they did, if not by their behaviour.

whether it is a political decision and why this political decision is seen as good, necessary, and cannot be criticized. — schopenhauer1

a) you've asked as question and then assumed your answer to it in the very same sentence - doesn't bode well for an open-minded discussion.

b) This one interests me most - what is the nature of "cannot be criticized? How 'cannot'? Are you not criticising it now? Are the police knocking at your door as we speak. What difference are you seeing between people disagreeing with your criticism (and so concluding it's invalid) and people somehow banning you from criticising?

Really? You don't know? — Marchesk

I know. What I'm trying to draw out is why you don't.

We can specify what physical differences are responsible for both content determining and structure determining differences. Though we haven't done so yet. So practically private. For now. — khaled

Yeah, I can agree on practical privacy, but (I'm going to take what might have been an agreement and ruin it here) I think they're just as private to you than they are to the neuroscientist - in the sense in which we're talking about them here.

As an ontologically real entity, I don't think there's a feeling that you can access either that represents an epiphenomenological response to 'red'. The best I would concede is a feeling that represents what you think of as your response to red, right now. It may be different in the next few seconds and you may be wrong about it being in response to red (using the public definition of 'red'). The neuroscientist can't see either because they're at the other end. They can see exactly what is in response to 'red' (tracing the main neural cascade from the cone cells), but they can't link that the the detail of how you're feeling because the links are too complex. So if there is an epiphenomenological qualia of 'red', no-one knows what it is.

I am interested in moving the conversation into different territories not rehashing it. — schopenhauer1

It's not new territory. There's nothing new here at all, it's exactly the same complaint you make every single time you post here.

The counter argument is going to be exactly the same too.

Why does this package seem justified to perpetuate onto more people born into the world? — schopenhauer1

We raise new generations to help alleviate what would otherwise be the suffering of existing generations. As most people seem to enjoy it more than they hate it, and most people intend for their children to lead a happy life, their own net happiness/pain is not a consideration. The only matter left to weigh against the good that new generations do is the affront to their autonomy that making the decision for them causes. Since the overwhelming majority of people do not place trivial matters of personal autonomy above the well-being of existing people, it's not an issue.

You (and a handful of other neo-liberal Randians) place autonomy much higher than others (in some specific areas). We all know that, you can't argue for or against it, so what's left to say?

No-one ever fakes pain. — Isaac


If you wish to abuse language to make a philosophical point. Otherwise, people fake being in pain. — Marchesk

How do you know?

You can obviously access your own sensations. I meant/implied how can you access other people's sensations (rather than their behaviour). — Luke

Other people's sensation are behaviour if you include (as you did), neural activity in 'behaviour'. Sensations are the modelling of signals sent from various nerve endings.

...with the advent of neuroscience we can start to piece together neural correlates. — Isaac


Neural correlates are not behaviours? This is still inference. — Luke

All knowledge is inferred.

If sensations were public, then you wouldn't have to make inferences about them. — Luke

Of course you would. All public knowledge is inferred too.

You define content as if it were a single property, yet later talk about different content. In order for two 'contents' to differ, they must themselves be composed of properties which differ. I'm asking what these properties are. — Isaac


I'm sorry but this legitimately read like word salad. I have no clue what you're saying. — khaled

Sorry about that. I'll try again. Let's say the content of a cup is a property of the cup. So cup A contains milk, cup B contains water. There's a reason why milk and water are different contents and it's to do with the properties of milk and water. Milk 'contains', or is made of, complex protein and lipid molecules, water is made of hydrogen and oxygen. Why is 'hydrogen and oxygen' different to 'complex proteins and lipids'...gain due to the different make-up of those things. eventually, I suppose, we get to some non-material property changing (I'm no physicist, so I won't speculate). what I'm asking is if one person has content A and another has content B what is the property of the content which makes A not B? Why are A and B not just the same thing? They can't differ in their consequences (they're non-physical epiphenomena, they have no physical consequences. So what are we measuring, to establish that A and B are two different experiences (in terms of content)?

as my example shows, the content of experience can change even if the V4 area doesn't at all. All it takes is some glasses. — khaled

If you add the glasses, the V4 area will change. It does.

The example I gave still has the change taking place in the visual system so is not evidence that any physical change (such as toes) can be responsible for content determining difference: I would agree. I would also add however that the human body is very integrated. Almost anything will cause a change in the visual system. — khaled

That's just not true in the sense we use the term. That's what I mean by a 'leaky' cascade. Despite the small streams of signal chains which enter and leave the main route, it's absolutely obvious which is the main route. Obvious enough to label. If you don't accept fuzzy edges to labels, then you're not going to be able to use the vast majority of language. It's like saying we can't use the word 'cup' because there are a few edge cases were it's not clear if it's a cup or a vase.

The neural signal cascade is clear enough, and has distinct enough boundaries for use to legitimately say what neural processes are part of it and which aren't, to the same degree (if not better) than you could say experience X is and experience 'of red' and not just 'of everything'.

If someone were to put on color inverting glasses from birth. And these color inverting glasses we couldn't detect for some reason. Would we be able to tell they had them on? — khaled

Yes. But that answer is obvious, so I'm sure that's not quite what you had in mind. I could tell by looking at them. I could tell by examining their eyes (if the 'glasses' were some sort of bio-mechanical device).

if you were to try and provide evidence for appendecto-genesis, what would it take to convince you that it’s real — Isaac


I wouldn’t bother, unless I was a bench scientist. It’s not philosophically interesting. — Wayfarer

So what you personally find interesting is the measure of what should be globally acknowledged as acceptable theory?

Sounds very egotistical

The content is changed. — khaled

You define content as if it were a single property, yet later talk about different content. In order for two 'contents' to differ, they must themselves be composed of properties which differ. I'm asking what these properties are.

Color inverting glasses. Color inverting glasses would be an example of a structure preserving, content altering physical change. I thought the example makes it clear what I mean. — khaled

Yet here the content is caused by cone cells - part of the neural cascade I described. That's how we know it's a change in the content of colour experience and not a change in the content of some other experience.

False.

The content can be derived from something else. As long as the structure is the same then it is "of red". The structure is decided by activity in the V4 area.

What is "of red" is decided by the activity in the V4 area. However the content of the experience can still be decided by something else. There is no problem in that. If you think there is then what is it? — khaled

You've not explained how content differs from structure - you keep introducing those terms without argument as if they were self-evident. The article you referred to about isomorphism described how preserving some properties of mathematical objects whilst changing others resulted in isomorphisms. I asked you what properties of experience were changed and what preserved in your isomorphisms, but you just changed the subject.

one of the inadmissible theories of evolution is called ‘appendecto-genesis’. This is the idea that evolution develops towards particular ends - such as for example gaining then loosing the function of the appendix. As we all know, h. Sapiens exhibits these attributes, and also appears at the very last stages of the billions of years of evolutionary development. So if you were to try and provide evidence for appendecto-genesis, what would it take to convince you that it’s real?

We have no evidence that all its properties are caused by these neural streams. — khaled

It's not about evidence, it's definitional. If any of it's properties are derived from something other than that stream it's no longer the epiphenomena 'of red'. It's the epiphenomena of something else.

If your position is that sensations are public rather than private, then how do you access/see them? — Luke

I don't understand. It's like you're saying we can't access something in more than one way. I access my sensations by other neural circuits connected to my nervous system. A sufficiently advanced neurologist could access them by fMRI, or microprobe, or whatever advanced technique is next developed.

You don't see someone scream in agony and also see their pain sensation, do you? So how do you verify a person's sensations? Do you have anything more than inferences from their behaviour? — Luke

Prior to neuroscience, you didn't have anything other than behaviour, but with the advent of neuroscience we can start to piece together neural correlates and, when those models are sufficiently robust, we can start to make inferences even without behaviour.

You don't see someone scream in agony and also see their pain sensation, do you? So how do you verify a person's sensations? Do you have anything more than inferences from their behaviour? — Luke


Obviously not, or faking pain for deception or acting — Marchesk

No-one ever fakes pain.

Why not? I don't get that from what I just said. Science can't show us now. But nothing in what I said precludes science from showing us in principle - which is what we're talking about here. — Isaac


Because you stated that one would have to possess the same neural makeup to have all the same experiences. — Marchesk

But you said "science cannot completely show us the conscious experiences of other people". You didn't say 'give us'. The two are different.

You have some evidence for this? — Isaac


Cognitive Science, evolutionary biology, various animal studies and object recognition and mapping in computing systems. — Marchesk

That's not evidence, that's a collection of scientific fields.

Right. Which undermines what you just said. They need not know "what a mate smells like, what food tastes like, and what kind of brightly colored pattern a poisonous animal is likely to have" What they evidently 'know' is what to do in a range of circumstances. — Isaac


In order to do that, they need to be able to cognate, which includes object recognition. — Marchesk

Yep. You were talking about responses to colour, not objects.

As you admit above, it is far from evident that they do this in any way other than a holistic assessment of the entire set of signals at any given time. — Isaac


I don't see how this helps for navigating the environment. An organism must be able to filter out noise and determine what's important to focus on. — Marchesk

Again, I've no objection to the concept of filtering. Proving that animals filter does not automatically prove they filter to the degree you think. Proving I'm using a sieve doesn't tell you what grade sieve I'm using.

Let's start over. — khaled

You've heard that definition of madness, yes?

First, let's establish whether or not people having different contents of epiphenomena is possible theoretically. Is there any theory or law that breaks by me having a different experience of red from you? — khaled

Yes. Or at least there's one that limits it. The 'of red' bit. In order for it to be an experience of red and not just an experience you happen to be having at the same time as seeing an object emitting 600nm wavelength, it has to be tied somehow to either the detection of the wavelength (if you want to take a very neurological approach), or to the public definition of 'red' (if you want to take a more linguistic approach). If it is tied to neither, it's just an experience, not an experience of red.

Let me take the neurological model first...

As I explained earlier, there is a 'leaky'* cascade of neural activity which leads from your cone cells to you preparedness to say/write/identify the colour red, right? (* 'leaky' meaning that small streams break away from the main channel to trigger all sorts of neural events too minor for us to include in the model, and likewise stream join the main one from areas too minor for us to include in the model - it's not like a direct line). This model is the neurological model of what it is to 'see red'.

You're postulating (and I have some sympathy with this explanation, though I wouldn't choose to phrase it this way) that our conscious experience is an epiphenomena caused by (but having no physical effect on) this cascade of neural firing.

So it's properties (structure or content doesn't matter - all it's properties) result from this loosely identified neural stream by definition. If they did not, in any way, then the epiphenomena thereby described ceases to be an epiphenomena 'of red' and starts to be an epiphenomena 'of something else'.

So to the extent that we can identify epiphenomena at all, we can do so publicly. any differences must be caused by differences in that cascade of neural activity. If there are no differences there, then there can be no differences in the properties of the epiphenomena it produces (again all properties - no matter if we label them as structure or content - all properties of the epiphenomena 'of red' are caused definitively, by the neural cascade we call 'seeing red').

So, the linguistic model (which will still be neurological - so sue me. @Banno would do this one better)

Since you have literally millions of experiences every few seconds, you cannot possibly identify which ones are associated with this cascade and which aren't by introspection, so no-one could possibly know what their experience 'of red' was. The best we can achieve is a post hoc narrative, a fabricated story about what our feelings were and what caused them. This cannot possibly be accurate (in order to be accurate it would have to record the state of each neuron in a second-by-second record and there would be an ever increasing storage requirement).

You form this narrative by re-activating relevant neural circuits via the hippocampus. The choice over which circuits to re-activate is highly influenced by the frontal cortex, and by existing synaptic channels - in layman's terms it's culturally mediated.

So what you think of as your experience 'of red' is a post hoc collection of re-activated neural activity generated by existing neural circuits themselves moulded and pruned by your cultural environment. You cannot have an experience 'of red' that is not selected and (to some extent) even completed made up, by the cultural definition of red. You experience what you think you ought to have experienced using public cultural and environmental cues.

What makes you think there needs to be a physical connection for a physical difference to have an effect on the epiphenomena? — khaled

It's how we're identifying what the epiphenomenon is of. Otherwise, how are you claiming that the aspect of your whole epiphenomenological experience at the time is in any way 'of red'?

If so, then how do you explain the fact when people see new objects they can easily tell what color they are? — khaled

It's really complicated, so this is a massive oversimplification but...

When the 600nm wavelength strikes the cone cell it sets off a series of neural responses, some of which are hard-wired by evolution, some of which are not. Those signals cause numerous responses (some of which are linguistic). Over very early childhood we prune the responses that aren't useful in predicting the causes of our sensations (and in promoting actions to further that aim). What we're left with are those responses which are (like using the word 'red').

So when I see that table, the light reflecting from it hits my retina which causes a cascade of signals to travel through my brain, one of which (combined with other signals identifying your request and an appropriate type of response), causes me to form the word 'red'.

In burning all this activity to memory, I create a narrative in which many of the physiological activities I identified at time are associated with the 600nm signal. This makes them more likely to fire in sequence next time.

Which of those are your private sensation of 'pain'? — Isaac


The one that hurts — Luke

'Hurts' is just another word for pain. Your answer is circular.

they’ll produce a similar experience in exposure to similar wavelengths.
— khaled

Yep. — Isaac


But a second ago when I asked you whether or not there is something common between experiences of red you replied with a staunch “No”. So what happened? — khaled

I'm following your line of thinking. It's other people's beliefs that interest me so I like to follow them. You said that our epiphenomenological experience of red might be influenced by our big toe for all we know. By that definition, it can't be defined by being caused by wavelengths of light can it, we know they've got nothing to do with your big toes.

So the content of that experience (the one just caused by your cone cells responding to 600nm wavelengths) can't have anything whatsoever to do with your big toe can it? — Isaac


False. — khaled

How so? There are no signals running from your cone cells to your big toe in response to the wavelength of light, so how can a signal from your big toe be causally related to the signal from your cone cells if there's no physical connection?

the only way we're dividing the experience of 'red' from everything else going on at the time is by restricting it to that which is caused by your cone cells responding to 600nm wavelengths. — Isaac


Agreed. Except the experience of red need not be the same for different people does it? Even if they have similar V4 areas, there is plenty of other physical differences between them that can account for them having different experiences. — khaled

Different experiences, yes... but not of red. The only way we're carving out some aspect of a person's holistic experience as being of red is that it is caused by the same physical components as are stimulated by the 600nm wavelength (or that they are associated with the word 'red' - therefore publicly learnt). Otherwise, on what grounds are we saying that those arbitrary bits of their private experience (the bit caused by the signal from their big toe, for example) is an experience of red, and not just an experience they happen to be having at the time.

The use of Ritalin, for example, to treat an overly rigid curriculum and un-engaging teaching seems more to be spreading than retreating. Psychiatry as substitute for corporal punishment - the chemical cosh returns. — unenlightened

Yes, that's true, actually - the progress (where it's being made) seems to be confined to adults at the moment. I don't think we're going to see a return to the bad old days of asylums for the 'sexually deviant' etc, but as usual we treat children as second class citizens and any progress made in the adult world may trickle down in fifty years (or not).

I think the treatment of children in schools (and in the homes sometimes) is tantamount to abuse and those psychiatrists, teachers, and parents who support it should be criminalised. For some reason, baffling to me, children's rights (something I've campaigned for all my professional life) is not an issue either side of the political spectrum cares much about - I guess if you don't vote you don't count.

I was taught the use of the word. But I don't see the point of your question. I'm not talking about the privacy of language, but the privacy of sensations. — Luke

OK, you stub your toe...

Also, at the same time, the room is quite bright, your heart is beating faster, your arm is stiff from hammering yesterday, your socks are a little too tight, there's a dog barking in the background...and these are just the macro interpretations...

Every hair on your body is signalling it's movement, you're processing three saccades per second of visual data from your retinas, you're processing signals from eight different types of nerve sensor for every square millimetre of your body...

Which of those are your private sensation of 'pain'? How does the, let's say couple of hundred, occasions where you see the word 'pain' being used tell you which of those several million sensations are your 'pain', and which are unrelated?

This movement went out of fashion, probably because it underplayed the reality of mental illness. However, the antipsychiatry movement does offer some insight for critical thinking about the way psychiatric labels are applied to individuals. — Jack Cummins

I think you've answered your own question there. The anti psychiatry movement had a point, and one which I don't think has really been taken up as much as it should, but it's their own fault their message didn't get across.

Mental illness is a real thing because there are people who's lives can be improved by treatment. We might just as well say that prosthetic limbs are stigmatising because they create a myth that we ought to have two limbs rather than one.

The problem is, with mental illness, it's too easy to diagnose an illness as the result of a failure to function according to some societal norm rather than a failure to function according the person's own preferences. That is gradually changing (although third world backwaters like America are very slow to progress). The solution is to press this change to happen faster. It's not to abandon the thousands of people who really do need psychiatric help just to make a political point.