(June 13, 2017 at 1:26 am)Adventurer Wrote: This is a very interesting question, thanks to someone else chatting with me whose name I won't disclose in the best interests of everyone's safety and anonymity.
For someone who's delusional, how to tell the difference and find reality?
What sorts of thinking do you do? What kind of research do you do? What kind of experiments and experiences do you try out to verify if something is real or not?
I don't know good ways to it but I guess, one should identify the sources of delusions, get to the root of it and evaluate.
Existentialistically speaking, one may evaluate if delusions are practical, positive or not... and whether to live with it or change it.
I think the key to avoiding delusion, is to be very aware that you are susceptible to delusion. The foundation of delusion, in my opinion, is certainty.
Playing Devil's Advocate to yourself is a handy practice. Just constantly and sincerely trying to break down everything you believe in, and find the flaws. It's the opposite of what we usually practice, which is to have an opinion, and find as much to support it as possible.
I read a while back that someone thought the evolutionary purpose of reason wasn't to discover the truth, but to be able to convince others. No idea if that's accurate or not, but when you look at the pitfalls of humans attempting to use reason, it fits pretty well in a lot of places.
