A difficult case: Diagnosis made by hallucinatory voices (1997) • Hacker News Board

Re: A difficult case: Diagnosis made by hallucinatory voices (1997)

#31

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jun 17, 2020, 10:01 AM UTC

treeman79 wrote: post #20

themodelplumber wrote: post #7

This reminded me of the guy who thought a third party was interfering with his life, and then realized he had CO poisoning thanks to a good person on the internet. And the third party in question was his past self. https://www.reddit.com/r/legaladvice/comments/34m92h/update_... So I wonder...is it possible that this person's memory (of e.g. personal health research) or consciousness was affected by the malady to the…

I Suffered CO2 poisoning for months. This explanation is believable. My sense of time was screwed up. It got to the point I would often joke about being casualty challenged. (When more lucid) Hallucinations started up from this. A constant sense of doom became the norm. So yea, confused timeline, hallucinations and, and a sense of going to die can make some interesting and unpleasant mental games.

[deleted]

Re: A difficult case: Diagnosis made by hallucinatory voices (1997)

#32

Post by quietbritishjim » Wed, Jun 17, 2020, 10:02 AM UTC

treeman79 wrote: post #20

themodelplumber wrote: post #7

This reminded me of the guy who thought a third party was interfering with his life, and then realized he had CO poisoning thanks to a good person on the internet. And the third party in question was his past self. https://www.reddit.com/r/legaladvice/comments/34m92h/update_... So I wonder...is it possible that this person's memory (of e.g. personal health research) or consciousness was affected by the malady to the…

I Suffered CO2 poisoning for months. This explanation is believable. My sense of time was screwed up. It got to the point I would often joke about being casualty challenged. (When more lucid) Hallucinations started up from this. A constant sense of doom became the norm. So yea, confused timeline, hallucinations and, and a sense of going to die can make some interesting and unpleasant mental games.

FYI, and sorry for the pedantry, but it's CO (carbon monoxide) poisoning. CO2 (carbdon dioxide) poisoning is also a thing but very hard to do in a domestic scenario, and especially hard to do without noticing because you'd feel very out of breath (too much CO2 in your lungs is exactly what makes you want to take breaths in regular breathing).

Re: A difficult case: Diagnosis made by hallucinatory voices (1997)

#33

Post by DagAgren » Wed, Jun 17, 2020, 11:16 AM UTC

Confusion wrote: post #18

caymanjim wrote: post #5

I simply don't believe this. The implication is that some external knowledgable entity communicated with the patient. There's no way to prove what really happened, and in the absence of any evidence to the contrary, the easiest explanations are that the entire anecdote is fabricated; that someone was communicating with the patient through normal means and due to illness she interpreted it as a hallucinatory voice; or…

You have obviously not actually read the article and are railing against a strawman. The third of your ‘easiest explanations’ is pretty much the third explanation offered in the article. The article is an object level description of what happened, with little to no speculation, apart from three tentative explanations, and does not endorse any remarkable claims about how the world operates. You have invented that ‘imp…

The article also mildly makes fun of the people who believe it to be a supernatural phenomenon.

Re: A difficult case: Diagnosis made by hallucinatory voices (1997)

#34

Post by DagAgren » Wed, Jun 17, 2020, 11:19 AM UTC

caymanjim wrote: post #5

I simply don't believe this. The implication is that some external knowledgable entity communicated with the patient. There's no way to prove what really happened, and in the absence of any evidence to the contrary, the easiest explanations are that the entire anecdote is fabricated; that someone was communicating with the patient through normal means and due to illness she interpreted it as a hallucinatory voice; or…

> The implication is that some external knowledgable entity communicated with the patient

The implication of the actual article, if you read it to the end, is the exact opposite.

Re: A difficult case: Diagnosis made by hallucinatory voices (1997)

#35

Post by hprotagonist » Wed, Jun 17, 2020, 12:30 PM UTC

But this is the first and only instance I have come across in which hallucinatory voices sought to reassure the patient of their genuine interest in her welfare, offered her a specific diagnosis (there were no clinical signs that would have alerted anyone to the tumour), directed her to the type of hospital best equipped to deal with her problem, expressed pleasure that she had at last received the treatment they desired for her, bid her farewell, and thereafter disappeared.

I love medical reports.

Re: A difficult case: Diagnosis made by hallucinatory voices (1997)

#36

Post by Hitton » Wed, Jun 17, 2020, 12:40 PM UTC

There is one more alternative explanation. There are so many different people with many different delusions without any substantiation that it's statistically inevitable that in few extremely rare cases the delusion turns out to be true.

Re: A difficult case: Diagnosis made by hallucinatory voices (1997)

#37

Post by akimball » Wed, Jun 17, 2020, 1:14 PM UTC

Hitton wrote: post #36

There is one more alternative explanation. There are so many different people with many different delusions without any substantiation that it's statistically inevitable that in few extremely rare cases the delusion turns out to be true.

The likelihood of stopping in an infinite search space depends on the distribution of stop regions. The hypothesis makes an implicit assertion about that distribution. I'd love to see that assertion made explicit, and support provided, if you will.

Re: A difficult case: Diagnosis made by hallucinatory voices (1997)

#38

Post by akimball » Wed, Jun 17, 2020, 1:19 PM UTC

caymanjim wrote: post #5

I simply don't believe this. The implication is that some external knowledgable entity communicated with the patient. There's no way to prove what really happened, and in the absence of any evidence to the contrary, the easiest explanations are that the entire anecdote is fabricated; that someone was communicating with the patient through normal means and due to illness she interpreted it as a hallucinatory voice; or…

Either it happened or it didn't. If it did, it constitutes important differential information, and publication is important. Saying that it is not medicine or science implies that medicine and science disregard facts, which is an implication I reject.

Re: A difficult case: Diagnosis made by hallucinatory voices (1997)

#39

Post by jrochkind1 » Wed, Jun 17, 2020, 1:22 PM UTC

caymanjim wrote: post #5

I simply don't believe this. The implication is that some external knowledgable entity communicated with the patient. There's no way to prove what really happened, and in the absence of any evidence to the contrary, the easiest explanations are that the entire anecdote is fabricated; that someone was communicating with the patient through normal means and due to illness she interpreted it as a hallucinatory voice; or…

> or that the patient had acquired information about the hospital facilities through normal means and due to illness the memories manifested as hallucinatory voices.

The paper suggests this as one possibility too.

What I take from this is simply that we shouldn't be so dismissive of what "crazy" people are telling us, but should pay attention to it. Regardless of what caused it (assuming the story is true and not simply fabricated), this was a case that paying attention to what the 'crazy' person was saying, instead of just dismissing it as crazy, resulted in a succesful medical outcome.

Re: A difficult case: Diagnosis made by hallucinatory voices (1997)

#40

Post by akimball » Wed, Jun 17, 2020, 1:23 PM UTC

caymanjim wrote: post #14

_8j50 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not the easiest explanation, it's just more convenient for you. Burde of proof is on the accuser, you can't prove they fabricated or hallucinated and no one can prove their experience to you. If they learned new information with no prior visits to any one capable of diagnosing them then the easiest explanation is their experience was real, especially give that this phenomena has been observed in other historic…

This is the exact opposite of how burden of proof works. An extraordinary claim is being made. The burden of proof is on the person making the extraordinary claim. The claim is not only extraordinary, but the anecdote does not include any information indicating research into the origin of the "voices". I don't have to prove anything. I'm saying I don't believe it. The full article contains zero citations, zero clinic…

The claim is not particularly extraordinary. Gravity wave observations are extraordinary. True information from internal mental dialog is quite ordinary. The variety of that dialog is remarkably wide, and not well analyzed for distribution, making every instance effectively unique.