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High level psychopathy: An Introdumaction
You can think of psychopathy as "absence of a certain noise". Mammals evolved & #39;empathy& #39; as a way of improving cooperation: empathy is an inconscious sub-routine that helps us "click" with others& #39; perceived emotions, but it does so by emulating them in our mind
You see someone crying, a tiny emulation of sadness runs in your brain. (Empathy is a wobbly concept but it& #39;ll do for now)
I once walked by a funerary and half-heard a woman cry. I instantly knew shit was fucked, before realizing I was in front of a funerary: what I& #39;m trying to convey with this is how developed is our empathic mechanism.
Feels are extremely efficient for co-op, yet noisy, very disrupting.
For psychopaths, this subprocess is absent, although it can be supplemented rationaly (i.e. you can use neocortex to do the math, instead of the PCB: orbitofrontal, mirror neurons, who knows)
For psychopaths, this subprocess is absent, although it can be supplemented rationaly (i.e. you can use neocortex to do the math, instead of the PCB: orbitofrontal, mirror neurons, who knows)
In our increasingly complex, fragmentary societies, you get insane advantage if you don& #39;t have that "noise" of feelings, yet you still can make others believe you do.
IMO, the key charactheristic of psychopathy is _perceiving the other as a thing_. What does this mean?
I have a backpack. Sometimes I& #39;m angry and beat it around. Sometimes I drag it to the floor. I& #39;d feel very displeased if my backpack was hurt, sure. But I& #39;m biologically unable to feel for my backpack like I& #39;d feel for my brother.
If I see some stranger on the streets crying, I biologically respond to their pain. Even more: I can& #39;t scam some poor mf even if I never see his face, bc I relate to the pain I& #39;ll cause him. I represent him as a non-thing, a human, w/e.
I can manipulate, like psychopaths do, sure as hell can. But when I manipulate someone, I know they& #39;re not a thing, the entire process changes, even if the results look the same.
I CAN shoot strangers if we& #39;re in war, I can steal, I could even scam, but the important part is that my brain is wired to react differently to things & to humans.
When I move my backpack around, I& #39;m utilizing it, I don& #39;t have any special relationship to it, & this is how psychopaths relate to humans. Psychopaths, for example, can& #39;t really "hate" people: they simply feel an intense anger when the thing doesn& #39;t do what they want,
like when you get angry at a shitty laptop or something. You don& #39;t hate "the" laptop, you& #39;re just angry at what& #39;s happening.
Psychopathy is hard to outline. The DSM records "Antisocial personality disorder", caracterized (basically) by
>Disregard for others& #39; "rights"
>"Low moral sense of conscience"
>Impulsive & aggressive behaviour
etc.
>Disregard for others& #39; "rights"
>"Low moral sense of conscience"
>Impulsive & aggressive behaviour
etc.
The problem is that the first 2 are useless, and the 3rd one is false in cases of high-lv psychopathy: they are extremely patient and highly sociable. There is no mention of "psychopathy" in the entire book, and this entry only covers low-lv.
As usual, books written by Associations are never to be trusted.
In a nutshell: Low lev psychopathy=dumb, high lev=smart
Maybe its hard to delimit psychopathy. Maybe it& #39;s a bunch of psychopaths who wrote the book. Cf. @BPD_GOD
In a nutshell: Low lev psychopathy=dumb, high lev=smart
Maybe its hard to delimit psychopathy. Maybe it& #39;s a bunch of psychopaths who wrote the book. Cf. @BPD_GOD
How does psychopathy "feel"? What does it smell and taste like? There& #39;s a masterful, succint resume in Nabokov& #39;s "Lolita", H.H.& #39;s experience with shrinks:
"I discovered there was an endless source of robust enjoyment in trifling with psychiatrists: cunningly leading them on; never letting them see that you know all the tricks of the trade; inventing for them elaborate dreams, pure classics in style...
(which make them, the dream-extortionists, dream and wake up shrieking); teasing them with fake “primal scenes”; and never allowing them the slightest glimpse of one’s real sexual predicament. By bribing a nurse I won access to some files and discovered, with glee,
cards calling me “potentially homosexual” and “totally impotent.” The sport was so excellent, its results — in my case — so ruddy that I stayed on for a whole month (...)
A psychopath (even low lv) will always give you what you want.
(Is H.H. a psychopath? Dunno. Not a pure exemplar, in any case. As with any psychological categories, pure cases are very rare IRL. But let& #39;s not further digress)
