01 March 2007

Worth Reading

A fascinating article (actually a transcription of a speech) that everyone should read. As the daughter of a schizophrenic, I found the section discussing that disorder particularly interesting. But it mentions others as well. Some excerpts:

"What is schizotypal? It's a more subtle version of schizophrenia. This is not somebody who's completely socially crippled; they're just solitary, detached: these are the lighthouse keepers, the projectionists in the movie theaters. These are not people who are thought-disordered to the point of being completely nonfunctional; these are people who just believe in kinda strange stuff. They are into their Star Trek conventions. They're into their astrology, they're into their telepathy and their paranormal beliefs, they're into--and you can see now where I'm heading [laughter]--very, very literal, concrete interpretations of religious events."

"The more important reason why people shouldn't be afraid is, we're never going to inadvertently go and explain everything. We may learn everything about something, and we may learn something about everything, but we're never going to learn everything about everything." [The attitude of a true scientist; there's always something left to discover]

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