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Old 12-26-2012, 09:13 AM   #114
Jonathan
 
Join Date: Feb 2008
Location: northeast us
Posts: 887
Quote:
Originally Posted by Miss Absynthe View Post
Actually, doing the things that he did *isn't* indicative of mental illness. That's the point.

There is no evidence that this person was mentally ill.


Murdered grandmother with hammer. Dead grandma by hammer is a pretty clear indication he was a sick man. This has to be trolling.

Quote:
Did you know that mental illness is diagnosed by looking for clusters of symptoms that occur within a specific time, that are outside of the cultural norm for that person, and that have no physical explanation to them.

For instance (and this is a really really oversimplified example), someone who hears voices twice a year isn't classed as mentally ill, someone who hears voices but is part of an Australian Aboriginal culture where visitations from deceased relatives is seen as a norm isn't classed as mentally ill, someone who hears voices because they have a tumour pressing on their auditory nerve isn't mentally ill...

You have no evidence to back up the idea that these people suffered from mental illness.
OK, so things like this are a terrible but solid example that more needs to be done. If guys like Lanza or now Spengler aren't classified as mentally ill, then there's a flaw with the classification. I don't understand how anyone can look at what these people are doing and not see very sick individuals. This is just pants-on-the-head absurd to refuse to acknowledge that, hey, these guys had something seriously wrong with them.

Quote:
Also, do you realise that just because someone has a mental illness that illness doesn't dictate ALL the things that they do. So, in the same way that mental illness might not be the reason that they had a bath instead of a shower on Tuesday morning, mental illness might not be the reason that they parked in a No Parking zone on Wednesday day afternoon, mental illness might not be the reason that they kicked their neighbours dog on Friday night, and mental illness might not be the reason that they shot a bunch of people on Sunday morning.

Again - CORRELATION DOES NOT EQUATE TO CAUSALITY.[/color]
So, in this example, mentally ill person sets fire with the intention of drawing in as many unrelated victims as possible to open fire on them. This action has nothing to do with his brain not working correctly.

Correlation does not equal causality does not mean every correlation is spurious! If I was saying that because the killer had a house that he set on fire, then it was home ownership that caused these murders it would be a ridiculous correlation/causation argument flaw. You're asking me to somehow ignore that a person's psychological makeup influences their behaviors.

The man was crazy, he did a crazy thing. Can anything be done about it? Maybe yes, maybe no, but this hand-wringing about whether or not he was mentally ill / psychologically damaged / fucked in the head is beyond the pale.
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