Gosh, this is fantastic. Thank you for sharing. It seems to me that online communities are significant drivers of a higher percentage of people believing delusions, compared to, say, 1990 (but maybe not compared to when we lived in smaller communities?).
I particularly like how succinct these lines are in covering so much important info:
"Outside of narrow domains, knowledge of our reality is not the default state of human minds, even when they are healthy or functioning well.
"...enables perfectly rational, healthy individuals to co-create spectacular forms of madness and irrationality"
Oh wow. Yes that is quite pricey - I can't promise I'll be shelling out for that.
I must say I'm always a bit sceptical about philosophical theories of delusions. I remember hearing someone like Martin Davies talking about how patients don't act on their delusions and being struck by how little his description reflected the patients I actually saw where they certainly did act on their delusions in various rather serious ways.
Personally I tend towards a salience description of delusions - there's a balance of internal and external salience and a lot of what I might call "overvalued ideas" like AI psychosis, conspiracy theories etc seems to depend on external reinforcement and/or lack of friction against such ideas. But in the true delusional experiences I see esp delusional perceptions, nihilistic delusions, and thought alienation and passivity phenomena I'm a lot more sceptical of any kind of social explanation. Sure delusional content is often related to what is going on in the world around the patient - I don't see so many fears about the IRA but a lot more about being called a paedophile now. But these really do seem to be driven by internal rather than external features.
You really have to debate with someone who is psychotic (e.g. trying to persuade someone to eat who is fasting for months because God has told them they can exist on air) to understand just how outside of normal discourse and argument they are. To have a doctoral student explain to you that they understand how what they are saying sounds incredible *but it is really happening to them*!
So I'm a little intrigued how you thread the needle of delusions being both social generated and the sufferer being socially disconnected through epistemic vigilance.
My guess (or I guess, my position which I naturally expect any sage writer to defend) is that it's not so much to deny that actual imbalances or dysfunctions in the brain exist, but to point out that the imbalance or dysfunction is warping the ability to process social information, and can come about or be exacerbated by way of social harm--so it's "rooted" in sociality, while its mechanisms are (biochemical/hormonal/physical/i am not a psychiatrist i do not know what I am talking about)
That might well be the intended reading. But social adversity is a general psychiatric not a specific psychotic risk factor. And the social account of delusions needs social learning working well enough to provide the anomalous belief while epistemic vigilance works hard enough to reject social correction which is the antagonism I'm getting at. And on this account social learning needs to create nihilistic delusions, thought insertion, and delusional perceptions in a way that doesn't seem straightforward to me on a social reading. What teaches me that seeing 7pm on this clock means I must bomb Stormont?
No we don't think social learning is "the" cause of such beliefs. Rather certain vulnerabilities of epistemic vigilance and the biased nature of individual human reasoning (which itself has a social function) explain why individuals hold onto and elaborate initially delusional ideas, which, we argue, likely have their proximate causes in anomalous experiences (including aberrant salience) and perhaps very general cognitive factors. In other words it's a complex multifactorial story we tell, not easily summarised.
Thanks Dan, this looks so interesting that I'd like to buy two copies -one for me and another one for a close friend who is a professional psychiatrist- but it is indeed expensive. Have you considered writing a more popular book on the subject, with a more affordable price? The "technical" book published today, together with your posts and academic articles, would provide a very solid ground for such a popular book, and many of us would buy many copies of it!😄
Outstanding, though I found this passage chilling:
> Importantly, none of this requires conscious dishonesty. Sincerity and strategy, we argue, are not opposites: people often internalise those beliefs that help them persuade others, support allies, demonise enemies, or display their social allegiances.
104 pounds? At the present exchange rate, that's over 140 dollars. That's absolutely ridiculous for an organization whose reason for existence is transmitting knowledge. On Amazon, you can pre-order the American publication for "only" 135 dollars.
Have you written about this for *The Conversation*? You would be confined to 800 words, but would get a five-figure or even six-figure varied and in part very well-informed readership. When I have published to them, it was a very pleasant process, with total time from pitch to publication of around two weeks. I look forward to reading the (I have institutional access) and wonder about two topics; how much of this is already closely guarded state-of-the-art knowledge in the advertising and political influence industries, and whether you discuss the deliberate use of social pressures to promote delusions in what seems to me at times the entire strategy of the MAGA-MAHA-Christian Nationalist movement?
I'll never understand academic book pricing—or rather book pricing by academic publishers.
However, I've already put in a purchase recommendation to my local public library. And if it doesn't purchase, I'll request an interlibrary loan which is how us plebs can obtain books from university libraries.
Thanks for the brilliantly concise summary of the big book. The blind leading the blind.
Fascinating framework for trying to make sense of why we believe what we believe, and how we believe we know what we believe we know. The mind is a fragile reed indeed, and the intrinsic fragility of belief structures facilitating social cooperation is downright frightening when you think about it, which you obviously do. In the context of this fragility, human advancement and achievement of any kind are a kind of miracle. And no wonder we face the kinds of problems we face today, with the delusions of one group clashing with the delusions of another, and so on.
As a layperson interested in ideas and politics and international affairs, I'd prefer to know there was a clean division between "true things" and the (in Jonathan Swift's words) the "thing that is not." Is the veracity of scientific knowledge a matter of social consensus now too? Are transparent lies about given events in the external world (eg, vandals were responsible for the damage to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool) less true than, say, the results of a straightforward forensic investigation might show? Or does the answer depend on the meaning of the word "straightforward"?
Dan - congratulations on your new book and thank you for this helpful summary. I love your citation to John Maynard Keynes. Keynes would welcome your book because as you know, he predicted in 1930 that our permanent problem would be whether humanity could reach consensus on "how to live wisely and agreeably and well." Your new book brings us a step closer to solving that problem.
You weren’t joking about OED prices. Still less than my (now out of print) boxed set of
The Complete Anti-Federalist
Edited by Herbert J. Storing. Glad I bought it when I did. Now egregiously the University of Chicago press is trying to get $500 for a PDF! Or a time limited PDF (45 days) for $12.50!
Anyway your book sounds interesting. I had a moment in grad school (legal history) where I was interested in witch trials and boundary policing. And later somewhat related at least as I see it the ways authority/legitimacy develops or collapses.
My observation is that people who self-identify as being ‘rational’ can struggle with the idea that what we understand as Rationalism is not the human norm, and that there may be a lot of benefit inherent in hewing to beliefs that are inconsistent with verifiable evidence. We didn’t evolve to be ‘fact based’—we evolved to gain and maintain social advantage.
I’m curious if the book explores the concept that Rationalism is itself a form of culture, and it’s one that requires a lot of maintenance. I suspect this underlies the concept of WEIRD (Western, Educated, Rich and Democratic), a wryly ironic acronym that provides an important insight—our highly-educated culture is the human outlier, and hence, we are the weird ones.
Sounds good. Congratulations on getting it published.
In the comments, I've seen a few complaints about the cost. Unfortunately, that's a typical price for academic press monographs these days. Publishers don't expect to sell many of them and can't take advantage of economies of scale. Basically, the audience is academic libraries, which can afford $140 for a book (a few of them at least). I'll order a copy for my library. The cover picture is good. Maybe some public libraries will get it too.
Gosh, this is fantastic. Thank you for sharing. It seems to me that online communities are significant drivers of a higher percentage of people believing delusions, compared to, say, 1990 (but maybe not compared to when we lived in smaller communities?).
I particularly like how succinct these lines are in covering so much important info:
"Outside of narrow domains, knowledge of our reality is not the default state of human minds, even when they are healthy or functioning well.
"...enables perfectly rational, healthy individuals to co-create spectacular forms of madness and irrationality"
Oh wow. Yes that is quite pricey - I can't promise I'll be shelling out for that.
I must say I'm always a bit sceptical about philosophical theories of delusions. I remember hearing someone like Martin Davies talking about how patients don't act on their delusions and being struck by how little his description reflected the patients I actually saw where they certainly did act on their delusions in various rather serious ways.
Personally I tend towards a salience description of delusions - there's a balance of internal and external salience and a lot of what I might call "overvalued ideas" like AI psychosis, conspiracy theories etc seems to depend on external reinforcement and/or lack of friction against such ideas. But in the true delusional experiences I see esp delusional perceptions, nihilistic delusions, and thought alienation and passivity phenomena I'm a lot more sceptical of any kind of social explanation. Sure delusional content is often related to what is going on in the world around the patient - I don't see so many fears about the IRA but a lot more about being called a paedophile now. But these really do seem to be driven by internal rather than external features.
You really have to debate with someone who is psychotic (e.g. trying to persuade someone to eat who is fasting for months because God has told them they can exist on air) to understand just how outside of normal discourse and argument they are. To have a doctoral student explain to you that they understand how what they are saying sounds incredible *but it is really happening to them*!
So I'm a little intrigued how you thread the needle of delusions being both social generated and the sufferer being socially disconnected through epistemic vigilance.
My guess (or I guess, my position which I naturally expect any sage writer to defend) is that it's not so much to deny that actual imbalances or dysfunctions in the brain exist, but to point out that the imbalance or dysfunction is warping the ability to process social information, and can come about or be exacerbated by way of social harm--so it's "rooted" in sociality, while its mechanisms are (biochemical/hormonal/physical/i am not a psychiatrist i do not know what I am talking about)
That might well be the intended reading. But social adversity is a general psychiatric not a specific psychotic risk factor. And the social account of delusions needs social learning working well enough to provide the anomalous belief while epistemic vigilance works hard enough to reject social correction which is the antagonism I'm getting at. And on this account social learning needs to create nihilistic delusions, thought insertion, and delusional perceptions in a way that doesn't seem straightforward to me on a social reading. What teaches me that seeing 7pm on this clock means I must bomb Stormont?
No we don't think social learning is "the" cause of such beliefs. Rather certain vulnerabilities of epistemic vigilance and the biased nature of individual human reasoning (which itself has a social function) explain why individuals hold onto and elaborate initially delusional ideas, which, we argue, likely have their proximate causes in anomalous experiences (including aberrant salience) and perhaps very general cognitive factors. In other words it's a complex multifactorial story we tell, not easily summarised.
Thanks Dan, this looks so interesting that I'd like to buy two copies -one for me and another one for a close friend who is a professional psychiatrist- but it is indeed expensive. Have you considered writing a more popular book on the subject, with a more affordable price? The "technical" book published today, together with your posts and academic articles, would provide a very solid ground for such a popular book, and many of us would buy many copies of it!😄
Outstanding, though I found this passage chilling:
> Importantly, none of this requires conscious dishonesty. Sincerity and strategy, we argue, are not opposites: people often internalise those beliefs that help them persuade others, support allies, demonise enemies, or display their social allegiances.
104 pounds? At the present exchange rate, that's over 140 dollars. That's absolutely ridiculous for an organization whose reason for existence is transmitting knowledge. On Amazon, you can pre-order the American publication for "only" 135 dollars.
Have you written about this for *The Conversation*? You would be confined to 800 words, but would get a five-figure or even six-figure varied and in part very well-informed readership. When I have published to them, it was a very pleasant process, with total time from pitch to publication of around two weeks. I look forward to reading the (I have institutional access) and wonder about two topics; how much of this is already closely guarded state-of-the-art knowledge in the advertising and political influence industries, and whether you discuss the deliberate use of social pressures to promote delusions in what seems to me at times the entire strategy of the MAGA-MAHA-Christian Nationalist movement?
A very worthy topic - glad you've tackled it. I hope to check it out soon.
Do you discuss the econ literature on rational herding/'informational cascades'?
If not you should check it out - very relevant and insightful I think
https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/jel.20241472
We cite Kuran I think but there's not enough engagement. agree this is highly relevant - thanks
I'll never understand academic book pricing—or rather book pricing by academic publishers.
However, I've already put in a purchase recommendation to my local public library. And if it doesn't purchase, I'll request an interlibrary loan which is how us plebs can obtain books from university libraries.
Looking forward to reading it!
Congrats!
Thanks for the brilliantly concise summary of the big book. The blind leading the blind.
Fascinating framework for trying to make sense of why we believe what we believe, and how we believe we know what we believe we know. The mind is a fragile reed indeed, and the intrinsic fragility of belief structures facilitating social cooperation is downright frightening when you think about it, which you obviously do. In the context of this fragility, human advancement and achievement of any kind are a kind of miracle. And no wonder we face the kinds of problems we face today, with the delusions of one group clashing with the delusions of another, and so on.
As a layperson interested in ideas and politics and international affairs, I'd prefer to know there was a clean division between "true things" and the (in Jonathan Swift's words) the "thing that is not." Is the veracity of scientific knowledge a matter of social consensus now too? Are transparent lies about given events in the external world (eg, vandals were responsible for the damage to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool) less true than, say, the results of a straightforward forensic investigation might show? Or does the answer depend on the meaning of the word "straightforward"?
Interesting stuff.
Dan - congratulations on your new book and thank you for this helpful summary. I love your citation to John Maynard Keynes. Keynes would welcome your book because as you know, he predicted in 1930 that our permanent problem would be whether humanity could reach consensus on "how to live wisely and agreeably and well." Your new book brings us a step closer to solving that problem.
This promises to be a BANGER of a book, been looking forward to the publication for some time now!
You weren’t joking about OED prices. Still less than my (now out of print) boxed set of
The Complete Anti-Federalist
Edited by Herbert J. Storing. Glad I bought it when I did. Now egregiously the University of Chicago press is trying to get $500 for a PDF! Or a time limited PDF (45 days) for $12.50!
https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/C/bo5059201.html
Anyway your book sounds interesting. I had a moment in grad school (legal history) where I was interested in witch trials and boundary policing. And later somewhat related at least as I see it the ways authority/legitimacy develops or collapses.
Preordered and looking forward to reading it.
500 - wow! Great to hear - thanks.
My observation is that people who self-identify as being ‘rational’ can struggle with the idea that what we understand as Rationalism is not the human norm, and that there may be a lot of benefit inherent in hewing to beliefs that are inconsistent with verifiable evidence. We didn’t evolve to be ‘fact based’—we evolved to gain and maintain social advantage.
I’m curious if the book explores the concept that Rationalism is itself a form of culture, and it’s one that requires a lot of maintenance. I suspect this underlies the concept of WEIRD (Western, Educated, Rich and Democratic), a wryly ironic acronym that provides an important insight—our highly-educated culture is the human outlier, and hence, we are the weird ones.
Very interesting. Would love to read the book. Too bad of the price :(
Sounds good. Congratulations on getting it published.
In the comments, I've seen a few complaints about the cost. Unfortunately, that's a typical price for academic press monographs these days. Publishers don't expect to sell many of them and can't take advantage of economies of scale. Basically, the audience is academic libraries, which can afford $140 for a book (a few of them at least). I'll order a copy for my library. The cover picture is good. Maybe some public libraries will get it too.
Superb Dan and team,
I hope we have a few choice posts and summaries.
This section particularly stands out: “They are remarkably resistant to social evidence – to the testimony of family friends and doctors.”
How has this risen? Has it? The causes would be particularly fascinating.