The argument for neuroses behaving like living beings:
Neuroses are passed from person to person, in a similar way to genetic material. This is replication and is one criterion for the definition of “life”.
They take advantage of the human emotional condition in order to spread more effectively. With all neurotic conditions the person’s emotions become “hijacked” for the purpose of furthering the existence of the neurosis. This could be construed as evidence of “intelligence” of the same type as indicated in the theory of the “Selfish Gene”. Both genes, and some neuroses also use the human sexual urge to replicate.
The neurosis “grows” throughout the person’s life in a cycle of action which shapes attitude, which shapes action…
I feel compelled by this argument, but what does it really mean to say that? I mean genes also behave like living beings, but while being essential to life, they are not really considered living beings, right?
I never intended to prove that. I was merely saying that there is a case for them being described as “behaving like living beings”.
ex animo:
I can’t say what the other criteria for life are just now as dict.org seems to be down… I would add though that you must already know if you hold that “‘fire’ fits all the prerequisites of a living being.”, unless you just accept that fact without proof.
I was (long ago) advised by a psychiatrist that the concept of a mental illness as a sort of living being was a good way to deal with a neurotic family member. That is, to remind myself that at times, it was the mental illness speaking or doing things, and not the family member. I guess that’s sort of thinking of a neurosis as some sort of mental possession.
Which fights for its continued existence, when threatened.
The concept was very helpful, allowing me to separate behaviors, so that when psychopharmacological treatments were effective, I didn’t think that SHE had mistreated or manipulated me… it was the mental illness that had done those things.
As pizzabrat; this is meme theory we’re talking about here, isn’t it?
As far as I understand it, there are some compelling arguments in favour of considering certain mental states as ‘organisms’, while at the same time there is no objective way to test if it is really the case (which I think is almost universally the case in psychology).
The conventional definition is fivefold: Growth, Metabolism, Motion, Reproduction and Stimulus Response. Memes or neuroses satisfy most of these criteria only under extremely strained interpretation, if at all.
Neuroses are self-defeating behaviour, bad habits indicating underlying fear. They can be completely cured by understanding their nature and practicing counter behaviour. As long as we understand we are in control we can win. If we believe our bad behaviour to come from an outside source we will be defeated.
Memes refers fairly much to any replicating mental thing. There isn’t a real scientific body of memetic work as of yet.
I would say that it is straining the definition of life to refer to mental states as living things. Metabolism is a stickler for me - what exactly is the mental analog to this?
This is not to say that replicator theory, and other concepts from biology, fail to produce useful results when applied to ideas. I think that memetics has a lot of promise, in much the way behaviorism did. Better experimental methodology and formal theories may result from it being taken seriously.