Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

A psychiatrist reflects on Philip K. Dick’s substance abuse and mental health

thecompanion.app

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–88 of 88 posts

Re: A psychiatrist reflects on Philip K. Dick’s substance abuse and mental health

#81

Post by unaindz »

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #36
aYsY4dDQ2NrcNzA wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Off topic, but it bothers me when people decry spoilers for an older movie. As if everybody is supposed to have watched every major film in the history of Hollywood up to the last N years. "Spoiler alert for anybody who hasn't seen this movie from 1980: the dog did it!" Ugh.

Spoilers are a myth and don't affect enjoyment. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/08/opinion/spoilers-successi... https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/acp.4070 ' > they were just as immersed even though they knew the outcome. In follow-up questionnaires, they also reported the same levels of engagement and enjoyment as those who didn’t know the ending.

This study makes the assumption that inmersion equals enjoyment.

The questionnaires were only used with the study that tested intact, scrambled story and non-monetary incentive. They were not used for the study that tested spoilers (at least I can't find it). Instead they assumed that inmersion equals enjoyment because of the results of an earlier study by them.

All studies were performed using a highly suspenseful short film with a high capacity to engage and a simple spoiler: Telling them if the characters were or not hurt in the movie. This could well be one of the genres more prone to engage you even if you know the outcome. Even more so with a non specific spoiler like that.

I can't find individual data of the study to search for outliers. In my experience some people don't care or even seek spoilers while others avoid them like the plague.

Re: A psychiatrist reflects on Philip K. Dick’s substance abuse and mental health

#82

Post by unaindz »

JenrHywy wrote: post #42
2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spoilers are a myth and don't affect enjoyment. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/08/opinion/spoilers-successi... https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/acp.4070 ' > they were just as immersed even though they knew the outcome. In follow-up questionnaires, they also reported the same levels of engagement and enjoyment as those who didn’t know the ending.

Surely, as this is a purely subjective experience, what matters is not if spoilers don't affect enjoyment in general, but whether they affect enjoyment for me ? One of my favourite films, Stalker as a scene referred to as "the meat grinder". I knew how it went before I first watched it, and have always wished that I didn't. In general, I find it much more enjoyable to go into a film with as little foreknowledge as po…

Haven't seen the movie but assuming it's like the roadside picnic book that scene is what made the story worth it for me besides the concept.

Nevermind I took a quick look at the plot and although the concept is close it seems different enough, at least at the ending. I guess I should watch it already after postponing it for years.

Re: A psychiatrist reflects on Philip K. Dick’s substance abuse and mental health

#84

Post by sangnoir »

adrianmsmith wrote: post #68
blippage wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was talking to a guy who was into drug counselling. He laid out some pretty shocking facts, like children as young as 12 take drugs. This made me absolutely convinced that we should not legalise drugs, except in the case where there legitimate medical uses. He also said that he got annoyed when the police announced that there was a particularly potent batch of drugs on the streets at the time. His reasoning is that…

> He also said that he got annoyed when the police announced that there was a particularly potent batch of drugs on the streets at the time. ... Also, drug purity can vary by region. You won't know about it in advance, but if you take drugs from a less tainted batch then you usually do, then you could well be taking a much higher dosage of the drug than your body is used to. Not good. This would all be improved by le…

> Nobody dies because a Bud Light is suddenly a lot stronger in one region than another.

I'm sure a lot would die if one beer unexpectedly has the potency of 3. A lot of people already drink and drive and they'd be more impaired than usual.

Re: A psychiatrist reflects on Philip K. Dick’s substance abuse and mental health

#85

Post by JenrHywy »

unaindz wrote: post #82
JenrHywy wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely, as this is a purely subjective experience, what matters is not if spoilers don't affect enjoyment in general, but whether they affect enjoyment for me ? One of my favourite films, Stalker as a scene referred to as "the meat grinder". I knew how it went before I first watched it, and have always wished that I didn't. In general, I find it much more enjoyable to go into a film with as little foreknowledge as po…

Haven't seen the movie but assuming it's like the roadside picnic book that scene is what made the story worth it for me besides the concept. Nevermind I took a quick look at the plot and although the concept is close it seems different enough, at least at the ending. I guess I should watch it already after postponing it for years.

Obviously I'm biased, but I think it's well worth it, though you do have to be OK with films are are more about atmosphere than plot.

Re: A psychiatrist reflects on Philip K. Dick’s substance abuse and mental health

#86

Post by 2ICofafireteam »

mock-possum wrote: post #64
jtotheh wrote: post #13

Robert Crumb depicted PKD's religious experience in comic book form, here is a link: https://www.themarginalian.org/2014/02/07/r-crumb-weirdo-phi...

Wow. It’s terrifying how he says he wasn’t psychotic, while clearly describing psychosis. I didn’t realize how messed up he was.

When you're going through it, it can make perfect sense.

Re: A psychiatrist reflects on Philip K. Dick’s substance abuse and mental health

#87

Post by throwaway290 »

ajkjk wrote: post #51
throwaway290 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> sadly not surprised he struggled with mental and substance abuse. His books read in a way that often feature a character somewhat removed from reality or in some form of psychosis. The idea of what is real or not real is explored over and over again Don't take that is an indicator, Haruki Murakami often reads similarly and he seems to be a well adjusted person.

This comment is probably unnecessary but I've been reading tons of Murakami lately so here's a take: Murakami's main schtick, I realized, is to write in the style of a hard-boiled detective novel, like Raymond Chandler (who he has often cited as an influence / obsession)... except that instead of the protagonist being a literal private investigator who wanders the city and meets people to solve the mystery of a murde…

This sounds accurate, yeah. Take appreciated.

Re: A psychiatrist reflects on Philip K. Dick’s substance abuse and mental health

#88

Post by than3 »

ndsipa_pomu wrote: post #74
pizza wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree and would like for you to expand on that observation

His psychosis allowed him to see reality as being extremely flexible and influenced by often malignant forces. That applies to modern society as more of our "reality" depends on things such as social media and that's clearly able to be influenced by bad actors. It's only going to get worse as we can't believe that a picture or video of someone isn't faked and so all we can do is try to figure out our own narrative. H…

Highly intelligent people often suffer from these crises because they see more than most people, and have an unfortunate knack for predicting it right.

While feasible, you can't really call living in a panopticon actually living. You have no control over the inputs as indoctrination primes you to behave, believe, and act a certain way, and any divergence would be destroyed as a threat to the system.

People in those systems are often no better than cattle and threats to the system are secondarily correlated with intelligence. Through selective breeding (multiple steps removed) that too can be removed as a threat.

Post reply on HN