Show HN: Engineering Schizophrenia: Trusting yourself through Byzantine faults

Hi Robert - I have no comments on the human mind, but wanted to say that I enjoyed your work on Warp and I'm glad to hear you're finding a path that's working for you. I've had two relatives with schizophrenia and the difference between the one who found a way to make things work and the one who didn't was very striking (and sad for the one who didn't).

Thanks for sharing that, Robert, and good luck!

I have close family with schizoaffective disorder, which is very close to schizophrenia, and have a couple of acquaintances with schizophrenia.

One of them is a chap that has chosen to take the “John Forbes Nash Jr” approach, and eschew medication. In his case, it has been effective. He’s a bit odd, to talk to, but otherwise, does fine. He's married, with a couple of beautiful kids, and has a good career.

I do find it annoying, though, that he pressures others to do the same. My family member desperately needs their meds, and can’t function, without. I think it has to do with how the condition manifests.

Another acquaintance also desperately needs their meds. A few years ago, they spent a few months, where they tried going off them, carefully, and assisted by doctors, personal research, discipline, diet, and exercise. Also, they had our full support (friends and family). We all wanted it to work.

It didn’t work. We watched them slowly disintegrate, until they damn near committed suicide, and were forced to go back.

Each case is different, but they hold in common, a total devastation of normal life.

Also from 1988. Nice writings. Btw, still in meds but same symptoms. My psych doesn 't allow me to not have those pills. I am on leave at work so not so happy about work life. But I am based in Spain so YMMV.

Thanks, is there a .mobi version?

I have had some meditation induced psychotic symptoms. Terrifying experience, but also got me much more carious about the nature o mind.

I read parts of this and found them quite interesting! One of the annoying things about schizophrenia is when someone you care about is in treatment/remission/managing their symptoms, if they use metaphor or symbolism or other similar linguistic devices it can be hard to tell if they are doing that - intentionally using metaphor/symbolism/imagery to make a point, or if they are veering off into a strange delusional statement and something you think is meant to be metaphor is actually written or spoken literally.

I had a similar reaction when first skimming this book in that some of the sections sort of looked almost like allegory or something similar to allegory, but I wasn't sure if it was an artistic/linguistic device or if it was something resultant from schizophrenia.

Do you care to comment about that OP? EG: Metropolis chapter (page 10) through page 19 (Yoshu Prophecies). FWIW my takeaway was to have the charitable view that given your ability to even write this book, these sections are a depiction of some of those psychosis period for some illustrative purpose. But I have a small question in my head about it.

I understand it must be a burden to do have do so, but I wonder if you'd find that others would understand you more if you loudly prefaced usages of these sorts of techniques with their announcement. EG: "This is a metaphor, but _____" or "Here's an example:", or "I don't mean this literally, but ____". Dunno what the preface would be for these parts of the book, and I like I said I skimmed because I'm supposed to be at work rn.

Hello!

I spent a decade hearing voices, in and out of suicidal depression and manic psychosis.

In 2012 I started a process of exploration and growth to heal without medications.

13 years later mission accomplished.

Dr. Paris Williams book Rethinking Madness was a huge help, and recently become a friend and mentor.

Curious to check out your book and approach and to compare notes sometime.

Well, I've reached the end of the book.

I like the systems mindset in the book. I think it's great to introspect and try to debug your own self.

Starting from pages 31-33, I found some interesting things. This book is the product of an internal fight. It's lucid in places, and those are the most interesting. In other chapters... my takeaway is that you can't always come out on top when fighting yourself, but you still have to try.

I was really rooting for the protagonist, there:

>Instead of treating the events like a delusion and having to fight them, I chose to work through them—choosing to believe that somehow I was shown something.

>By treating it as real, working through it as a real problem, I was admittedly taking a gamble. I could totally succumb to my delusions and get stuck in the worlds of the Yoshu and the Mechanicals.

>It would be easy. What I found instead was opportunity

The parts of the book I liked the most are those that break free from Yoshu. The rest breaks my heart.

I will check out your book as I had what I now believe to be trauma schizophrenic response (auditory and visually), and was diagnosed with unspecified schizophrenia in my late teens. I found that dealing with the trauma and dealing with what allows my brain to struggle helped solve things. Now in my mid 30's I am so used to dealing with it without medication it isn't an issue any more but I do have to do a few things every day to make sure I do not get to a place where things are possible.

I found computing and the internet to be the support network and escape network I needed but I could very easily see with a different personality how it could be the source of the issue. I work in engineering now, but i always focus on community projects such as supporting those with mental health challenges or those in prison which allows me to also stay focused on what my problems will always be.

Loved this post :).

good writing!!

Great book. Its first part could become a sci-fi novel, and that's probably how many of the great novels were written. Its second part makes me think that you have a high spiritual foundation, despite your hardcore scientific attitude. Otherwise how did you spontaneously jump to the essence of meditation at that level?

This probably explains the disturbing breakthrough that you call psychosis. If you had a sudden insight into the weird life of microbes, you'd quickly put it into reasonable terms because those insights are below your level. However, if the contents of the insights exceed your level, you'll be overwhelmed and may even suffer serious neural damage.

> Who is it that identifies something as missing? Can it itself go missing?

Your true spirit, most likely. You might reject this idea at the moment, but that's okay.

I'd also firmly reject everything that comes from that Yoshua. The vision you've described isn't really novel, and it's not a heaven, but hell, deceptively decorated with technology. It's a possible future for humanity. Helping others to get unglued from such visions would be a noble deed.

[dead]

[dead]