
The hypersane are among us, if only we are prepared to look - prostoalex
https://aeon.co/ideas/the-hypersane-are-among-us-if-only-we-are-prepared-to-look
======
motohagiography
The point of diminishing returns on sanity occurs sooner than almost everyone
expects.

Surprised nobody has yet mentioned Douglas Adams' "Wonko the Sane," who built
an asylum turned inside out to house the whole world. Many comedians would
qualify as this as well.

I know a few people I would consider "hypersane," and you can't have too many
of them around because they are immune to the various arbitrages that create
need and value for everyone else. They are also very charismatic and hence,
contagious. I understand traditionally the cure for hypersanity was either
hemlock, or crucifixion.

~~~
checktheorder
>Surprised nobody has yet mentioned Douglas Adams' "Wonko the Sane," who built
an asylum turned inside out to house the whole world. Many comedians would
qualify as this as well.

I'm also thinking of the Terry Pratchett concept of being "knurd". On the
Discworld, the opposite of being drunk isn't being sober - sober is the middle
ground on the drunk/sober/knurd scale. To be knurd is to be so completely
aware of everything that one can't really function in normal society.

~~~
Erlich_Bachman
Why would being completely aware of everything not allow one to function in a
society if one wanted to?

Does it imply that you can't selectively focus on things?

Right now if I am to do the dishes, I am already aware of thousands other
things and concepts and deep truths about reality, and sciences, etc. etc, but
I can focus on this one task, it doesn't matter what I am aware of, if I
choose to do it I can do it. How would being aware of more things put a dent
in that?

If so, then call it for what it is (perhaps "attention deficit disorder"?),
but it has nothing to do with the amount of awareness.

~~~
jdietrich
_> Does it imply that you can't selectively focus on things?_

Yes - the ability to focus on one thing necessarily involves the ability to
ignore lots of other things. One of the key traits of autism spectrum disorder
is an inability to filter out irrelevant information. Constant awareness of
everything is often functionally equivalent to a lack of awareness, because it
degrades the signal-to-noise ratio of your perception.

For example, the artist Stephen Wiltshire can draw extraordinarily accurate
cityscapes from memory, but often struggles with basic tasks. Being aware of
the precise number and arrangement of windows in every building you pass is an
active impediment if you're just trying to get to the subway station.

[https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2017/04/autism-
artis...](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2017/04/autism-artist-
stephen-wiltshire-cities-genius/)

~~~
Erlich_Bachman
You are talking about autism. Autism is very commonly described as a disease
or disorder, disability, etc. How do you compare it to "being most aware", and
especially in the context of the term "sane"? It seems that the two are very
differnet things that have little to do with each other. "Constant awareness"
as you described it is surely not the kind of awareness that they meant when
talking about "sanity"? Any regular normal healthy person, if they were being
"constantly aware" of everything they already know and can perceive, even
though that set of things is much smaller than the set of things available to
a highly functioning autist, would already be too much to be able to function.
In such a case it is then more of a disorder in focusing, not the question of
how less or more aware you are?

------
nlh
My interpretation of the point the author is trying to make:

The 'hypersane' are those among us who have realized, for better or for worse,
that the traditional things that most in a society strive for - material
wealth, social status, conformity to social structures, etc. - aren't really
the keys to happiness and that when you "awaken" (and become hypersane, I
suppose) you realize that along with those things come stress, anxiety, the
rat race, and, well, a pretty boring existence.

I dig it! I expect to see a lot of folks reject this notion outright, because,
well, cognitive dissonance. If you've built your life around conforming, it
might be tough to hear someone suggest it's all for naught.

Thoughts?

~~~
kerkeslager
> The 'hypersane' are those among us who have realized, for better or for
> worse, that the traditional things that most in a society strive for -
> material wealth, social status, conformity to social structures, etc. -
> aren't really the keys to happiness and that when you "awaken" (and become
> hypersane, I suppose) you realize that along with those things come stress,
> anxiety, the rat race, and, well, a pretty boring existence.

> I dig it! I expect to see a lot of folks reject this notion outright,
> because, well, cognitive dissonance. If you've built your life around
> conforming, it might be tough to hear someone suggest it's all for naught.

> Thoughts?

Sounds pretty self-congratulatory, like you think you figured out something
most people don't figure out.

In reality, all those "realizations" are so mainstream that they show up in
Disney movies--there's nothing nonconformist about realizing any of that. And
in reality, the kinds of people who act on those ideas sometimes flee their
country and loved ones and live in Russia (Edward Snowden), blow their brains
out with a gun (Hunter S. Thompson) or try to strangle themselves with their
underwear in a supermax prison (Ted Kaczynski).

~~~
oroeo92k
It’s possible to encounter a concept and not emotionally “get it.”

It’s one thing to hear about something on TV and another entirely to change
your entire life.

If it were “gotten” by the masses via Disney shows, we’d all stop chasing it
at all.

Social ties and bonds existed before money, achieved via other means.

So yeah we don’t all “get it” in the same way. As someone with enough to
retire on at 40, money feels pretty pointless to me. Same old cheeseburger or
whatever Gates said.

It’s what other people gave me for satisfying their goals. ️

Economic anxiety, a policy pushed by financial planners, is what motivates.
Not money.

~~~
xwdv
No, even if you realized all that to it's full extent, the fact is we don't
get to choose how we live if we plan to live in our current world for very
long.

Imagine we lived in a violent brutal world where it was kill or be killed.
Even if you realize that killing only brings you stress and unhappiness, you
won't last very long if you stop doing it. As soon as you lay down your arms
someone will come and bash your head in with a hammer and take what's left of
your belongings and family.

You could decide money and the rat race are pointless and decide to just stop
pursuing it. And you'll survive... for a time. Then you won't be able to
function in society. Won't be able to eat, or have a place to live,
effectively the equivalent of having your skull bashed in like in that
previous world.

~~~
orwin
Go visit back-to-landers hippies from the early 70s, they lived quasi of-grid
for almost 50 years now, all play music everyday, some of them (the youngest)
can still ride their horses everyday, and they eat whatever they grow. Poorest
people in the US, poorest than some homeless, but they still live really well,
and better than most i shall say.

They chose how to live their dreams, did it for ~50 years and still ended up
pretty comfortably. If they had the same viewpoint you have, they would
probably have lived miserably until an Oxycontin OD.

~~~
RHSeeger
That also means they don't get many of the benefits of modern society, I would
think. What do they do when their child becomes a type 1 diabetic? Or goes
into shock from an allergic reaction?

~~~
lonelappde
Same thing that happens to people in New York City who can't afford fast-
acting insulin or EpiPen? Your two examples are telling given the current
state of pharma business.

~~~
RHSeeger
I hate this meme; and that's what is is nowadays, a meme. There are generics
for both EpiPen and fast acting insulin. You can walk into a Walmart and buy R
for $25/bottle [1]; it didn't even require a prescription, the last I bought
it. Sure, it's not as good as Apidra and the like, but it does work; it just
requires a more controlled diet. The generic EpiPen is just over $100 for a
2-pack.

I get it, there's stories every now and then of some person that died because
they couldn't afford their insulin (for $275/bottle). And every time I stare
at the story wondering why that person decided to kill themself for reason.

I get it that newer insulins should be cheaper, that they're way over priced.
But it's disingenuous to pretend there aren't options for people that can't
afford them.

[1] [https://www.walmart.com/ip/novolin-r-
relion/129783484](https://www.walmart.com/ip/novolin-r-relion/129783484)

------
Arbalest
This article talks about sanity, but doesn't really state what it is. What it
describes is essentially just alternative perspectives born out of those
rejecting, or rejected by, society. This state has indeed produced profound
ideas, but it has also produced even more nonsense ideas. The article makes
the classical mistake of the binary: There's the mainstream, and the higher
"hypersane". Unfortunately things aren't so black and white. Even black and
white plus grey is only one dimension. What this article serves to inspire is
pseudoscientific nonsense simply because it is alternative, by pitting all
alternatives against mainstream society, without acknowledging that amongst
the alternatives, there are some better than others. Unfortunately there's no
good heuristic to differentiate between them, when they are already
alternative and don't have all that many people researching them.

~~~
mapcars
>This state has indeed produced profound ideas, but it has also produced even
more nonsense ideas

Can you say with 100% confidence what is profound and what is nonsense in this
Universe?

>The article makes the classical mistake of the binary: There's the
mainstream, and the higher "hypersane".

The two are extreme points so that we can see the difference, of course, there
are all kinds of intermediate states as Diogen was not walking with a lamp
during daylight when he was 5.

~~~
Arbalest
> Can you say with 100% confidence what is profound and what is nonsense in
> this Universe?

Given that profundity only makes any sense at all in the context of humans,
with a fair degree of confidence (100% is never possible), I believe a
reasonable measure is possible. The funny thing about profundity is: It means
the advancement of thinking in people. To further add to this, it means
advancing society, by extension of advancing its people (Unless you can find
exceptions for which humanity does not benefit from cooperation). Advancement
of people can be measured, if people agree on criteria. You might even create
a measure based on how many different, sometimes competing criteria it
advances. One proviso to this is that it is not easy to do so immediately, we
usually need to look at the results over time, as it is an empirical measure
on society.

Never forget, it's easy to retreat to "Well nothing is absolute, so why
bother". The fact that we can create measures that have broad agreement mean
we can come up with practical compromises that would essentially guarantee
that ideas can never be equal. Yes that does mean that broad agreement will
favour society, see the previous paragraph. Also, due to the time issue, broad
agreement does change, and it should. So again, not 100% but reverting to that
requirement is also not useful. The other dimension in which broad agreement
is slippery is, what is the population of people you're asking. This is the
edge of where ideas are forged. So even though a wider population may not get
broad agreement of something, time will tell.

If there's one final point which I will make which drives home that it is
important to have some measure, it is embedded in this saying "We stand atop
the shoulders of giants". Without measure, what giants? What ideas can we
actually build upon and hope to get something that isn't random chance.

>The two are extreme points so that we can see the difference, of course,
there are all kinds of intermediate states as Diogen was not walking with a
lamp during daylight when he was 5.

I get that, as I said, the profound has come from this mode of thinking.
However, the issue is the framing of the article, it posits that becoming
hypersane essentially necessitates being divorced from society in it's
entirety. That part is not so well supported. But what this framing does do,
is make it seem like anyone who doesn't agree with society has an edge in
their thinking (and being, given we seem to be focusing on individual
capacity) and should therefore continue with what they are doing. My sense is
that this is somewhat orthogonal to success in creating the cutting edge.
Clearly accepting everything in society without question can't, but this
notion that you must go through madness seems outlandish. The framing seems
very good however, to pandering to the various counter-culture desires, and
the article does state the author has an upcoming book on the subject.

~~~
dsego
> However, the issue is the framing of the article, it posits that becoming
> hypersane essentially necessitates being divorced from society in it's
> entirety.

Yes, and it makes it clear it's necessarily so by definition. See, there is
this gaussian distribution in nature. Most people are a bit insane, not much,
but just enough. Of course the hypersane would be divorced from a society that
believes in fairy tales, propagates myths, and is ready to kill or die for it.

------
ggm
aeon web write ups feel like an attempt to be super-informative which just ..
misses. They always seem to riff on things making a HUGE DEAL about THIS ONE
THING which the authors feel WE ALL MISSED and I feel like I am watching a
1960s movie of stoned people.. grooving on the pattern the coffee cup makes on
their hand, man.. its all one hole man.. one hole, the hole is not the cup,
the hole is .. the HANDLE..

is it just me? Am I really too "thick" for what aeon is trying to say?

I hate this. I hate being critical of people doing long reads, but I think of
the family of long reads, Aeon is about the _worst_ example.

Jarrod Lanier. Jarod Diamond. Ray Kurzeweil. Rent-a-quote new-age theorists
trying to be a psychopomp for the modern age, or philosophers but as self-
taught, auto-didact philosophers they didn't learn how to do it very well..
And it shows.

The two line take-away is: care less about material things. Gee.. nobody said
that before, 2000+ years ago. Did they?

(I should speak. I can't write for toffee either, but the point is I don't put
it out there on Aeon)

~~~
easytiger
It isn't just you, the article reads almost exactly like something i'd have
conjured up at 15 years old.

It sounds to me like it is designed to massage the egos of disaffected under
achievers to make them feel that they might be special; that the day to day
humdrum is a result of a war against their special, now dampened, genius. In a
world where the masses want to identify as mentally ill and where
psychiatrists expand the definition of aberrant mental constructions and
outward behaviours it is hardly surprising this might sell some books.

I doubt this book has much to add over Thinking Fast, Thinking Slow et al.

~~~
t0astbread
I wouldn't put this on the same level as an increase in mental illness cases
in recent times. The scientists making those definitions know what they're
doing. This article seems to just be... rambling, I guess?

~~~
crawfordcomeaux
I identify as hypersane (though I've been using the term hypernormal for a few
years).

It's hard to put into words because it's a very personal shift from society.
Everyone I've met who is like this has got their own path, approaches life
differently, and seems to have shed some unique subset of society, while still
carrying some of humanity's codependent ways.

To me, rhe article seemed to be trying to introduce a new idea to the
mainstream without a clear grasp on what the idea is. I imagine the author
either isn't hypersane and/or doesn't have many collaborators looking at the
subject.

~~~
easytiger
> I identify as hypersane (though I've been using the term hypernormal for a
> few years).

I'm sorry, but this is self indulgence on a new near psychopathic level.

~~~
crawfordcomeaux
Would you be willing to go into more detail as to what you mean?

~~~
crawfordcomeaux
And to clarify, I refer to it as hypernormal because I'm making perfectly
normal choices others wouldn't today, but might in the future.

Example: I choose to abandon my taste preferences around things. Since doing
this on accident, I enjoy everything I eat, drink, and listen to.

Most people I've talked to about this (everyone except for 1-5 people) have no
desire to even try doing it. I have no idea why, but people seem really
attached to their preferences.

And yet having such strong preferences limits aspects of the world one can
enjoy. I suspect strong preferences is cultural programming gone amok, so I'm
raising my child while only asking what their experience is like, instead of
asking if they like or dislike something.

Being hypernormal here means choosing to allow myself to experience more
things. I think it'll be normal to do these things in the future, but it's
non-normative right now, so it's hypernormal compared to current times.
Hypernormalcy is going to look weird compared to the status quo, by
definition.

~~~
easytiger
I'm sorry, but this is just silly

------
neerajsi
I agree that this is not a very well-written article in that the terms are not
well-defined.

I think the self-transforming mind is a more useful concept:
[https://medium.com/@NataliMorad/how-to-be-an-adult-kegans-
th...](https://medium.com/@NataliMorad/how-to-be-an-adult-kegans-theory-of-
adult-development-d63f4311b553).

If you can understand your own motivations and see through ideology, you
aren't bound by the limited possibilities of the "normal man." Of course,
everyone thinks they are further along in development than they actually are.
Perhaps the author actually is hypersane... or he is just confused.

------
Arbalest
Now that I've thought about it, I'd like to posit that the Author is not in
fact talking about "Hypersanity" as a state of mind, but in fact, just people
particularly dedicated to spreading their ideas.

As I was reading the article, I was particularly struck by how it failed to
acknowledge the threads of ideas which "normal men" may have, but never
advertise particularly far. If we were to cast out the net of all the ideas
that normal people have, and then also put it through some kind of heuristic
to pick the best ideas, we'd end up with something far better than a
"hypersane" person.

Adding to my previous comment, the issue here is the heuristic for picking the
best ideas doesn't exist for either normal or alternative thinking, so amongst
both sets, we end up with masses of garbage.

------
Animats
Interesting subject, terrible article. This wouldn't even pass on one of those
sites that sells essays for students.

There are people who do well under stress. Army elite units have selection
programs to find such people.

~~~
cryptonector
It felt like a word salad.

------
dfeojm-zlib
Certainly, there's too much magical thinking, but what the heck is
"hypersane?" Is it an absence of conspiracy theories, foolish beliefs, and
word-salad? Maybe giving too much attention to the histrionic, the
unreasonable and the crazies is part of the problem.

~~~
Nasrudith
Hypersanity isn't well defined but it implies 'saner than normal'. Now sanity
has many aspects to it in how it is defined but it clearly isn't meant in a
pure 'normative' sense. Viewing infections as caused by germs instead of
miasma or evil spirits may be reacted to negatively but it is still sane.

One way to define it would be lacking 'common madness' but even that is
arguably a reference problem. There isn't a need for a word for 'not a
believer in alchemy'. Defining it is a problem since practically by definition
we wouldn't know that it was insane and it wouldn't be recognized as such. If
you were to point out said issues there would also likely be push-back and
resistance.

I have noticed from being on the autistic spectrum that interviewing protocols
and expectations are truly insane - like finding people more trustworthy when
they fake emotional expression on demand more effectively and mimic their
manners of speech seemingly authentically - when it isn't a job skill. This
may be too subjective to 'truly count' and I admit to not understanding people
well enough to know for sure.

As mentioned earlier sanity is multifaceted with goals and how to pursue them
as aspects. Barring a far worse alternative suicide isn't a rational goal but
trying to pursue it with a deadly weapon makes more sense than attempting it
by painting X's over your eyes.

------
pcstl
Based on this article, there is absolutely no way to distinguish "Hypersanity"
from just plain old insanity.

Rationality is systematized winning. Unless your actions are benefitting
yourself in some significant way, you cannot be considered rational.

However, you cannot determine a person's inner drivers from the outside.
Therefore, you cannot tell, based purely on their actions, whether they are
winning (where winning is defined purely based on the individual's value
system). Therefore, it is impossible to tell if an individual is "hypersane"
or insane.

The whole concept is meaningless and sounds like something people would think
is "very deep" while stoned.

~~~
ltbarcly3
> Based on this article, there is absolutely no way to distinguish
> "Hypersanity" from just plain old insanity.

I don't see it this way at all. Plain old insanity can manifest as typical (or
atypical) behavior combined with absurd, easily disprovable beliefs.
Hypersanity as described leads to atypical behavior and worldview via a
reasoned dismissal of widely accepted values, but nothing wrong on it's face
or disprovable. For example, insanity is believing you are covered with
spiders when you are not, hypersanity would be not feeling the need to disturb
a harmless spider that is sitting on your nose.

> Rationality is systematized winning. Unless your actions are benefitting
> yourself in some significant way, you cannot be considered rational.

Now I see why you can't distinguish between insanity and hypersanity, you are
conflating epistemology and ethics, and they just aren't the same thing. A
'true belief' is one which enables you to achieve some goal, but whether that
goal is 'good' or desirable can only be determined when evaluated via some
kind of ethical framework. For example, if I decide that the most important
thing is to make sure the Canadian flag never touches the ground I will have a
very different concept of what 'winning' is compared to someone who's goal is
to make as much money as possible, and both of us will have a different
concept of winning compared to someone who thinks the most important thing is
to teach others that their widely held assumptions are not true or important,
such as Diogenes.

~~~
pcstl
The article mentions "conversing with beings which cannot be perceived by
anyone but the person themselves" as a canonical example of hypersanity.

I find that pretty comparable to "believing you are covered with spiders when
you are not".

>you are conflating epistemology and ethics

The interpretation that the idea of hypersanity refers only to ethics is due
to you and you alone, as the article states nothing to that end, so please do
not make claims about my thought process that amount to "you are wrong because
you did not arrive at the same conclusion as me". It is not only disingenuous,
but also arrogant and short-sighted.

~~~
ltbarcly3
I'm not saying it refers only to ethics, I'm saying that you are conflating
ethics and epistemology when you say that sanity==beneficial. Sanity refers to
a combination of rationality and accurate enough perceptions of the factual
state of the world. Rationality means able to make logical inferences, and
when you talk about perceptions of the factual state of the world that is
epistemology.

A soldier who jumps on a grenade to save his friend isn't automatically
insane, but it's certainly not beneficial to the soldier. You would probably
counter by pointing out that 'beneficial' depends on what the soldier thinks
is best, but that is ethics!

So to say sanity (which is an epistemological concept) is the same as benefit
(which can _only_ be defined with reference to an ethical framework) are the
same thing, you are directly conflating two very distinct things.

~~~
pcstl
Sanity does not mean necessarily "holding only true beliefs". I believe the
issue here is we do not define sanity in the same way.

Given your example of the soldier jumping on a grenade - clearly they value
the life of their friend more than their own. Therefore, it is beneficial to
them.

~~~
ltbarcly3
'true belief' is a philosophical term used in epistemology.

[https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/truth-
pragmatic/](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/truth-pragmatic/)

The question is 'what does it mean for something to be true', since Hume and
Kant largely demolished any possibility that we can access 'objective truth'.

[http://www.autodidactproject.org/other/panova1.html](http://www.autodidactproject.org/other/panova1.html)
"On these grounds, David Hume posits two systems of reality: the first—the
reality of perceptions and memory, and the second—the reality of the mind. The
mind is able, on the basis of its judgments, to compose a picture of the
Universe in spite of the fact that it never perceives all its parts. But as
the "first" and also the "second" system of reality exist only in our sense
experience, they do not say anything certain about the nature of the external
world, the existence of which even remains problematic."

Regarding "true beliefs", you would probably agree with William James who held
that "truth be defined in terms of utility", in other words, a belief is
'true' in so far as it is useful in accomplishing things, and another belief
would be more true if it is more useful to accomplish that thing.

As for the soldier, you are missing the point. Different people can disagree
on what 'beneficial' means without either being wrong. What is 'beneficial for
a person' basically means the same thing as 'good for a person', and there is
no objective way to decide what is 'good'. Any time you say something is
'good' or something is 'better' than something else, you are assuming some
kind of ethical framework.

~~~
pcstl
I never said that 'good' was an objective measure. Quite the opposite, in
fact. I quite explicitly said that rationality is about acting toward
achieving what is 'good' for oneself.

~~~
ltbarcly3
I wonder whether you are reading my comments with an open mind, or just trying
to find something you can disagree with. I'm not saying you are wrong, I'm
trying to give you a framework to understand your own opinion.

When you say sanity=success, you are expressing something that is purely an
opinion, and can never be anything more than an opinion, based on what you
think success is, and your belief that in order to succeed according to your
personal definition people have to be sane, or that sanity is just the same
thing as being able to achieve your goals.

\- What if I feel very guilty and I think I deserve to suffer? I'm sure you're
already getting ready to type "if suffering is your goal that just means you
are succeeding at suffering!" Fine.

\- What if you feel like you can't go on, so you kill yourself? Are you sane
because you are succeeding at killing yourself? Maybe so.

\- What if my goal is to go temporarily insane to see what that is like? Then
you are claiming that I'm only sane if I'm insane... It gets worse though,
because what if I fail to go insane, even though it's what I put all my effort
into every day? No matter what I just can't make myself insane. Well actually,
then I'm not succeeding, so it turns out that by failing to go insane I've
succeeded at going insane... which makes me sane.

~~~
pcstl
>I'm not saying you are wrong, I'm trying to give you a framework to
understand your own opinion.

The fact that you don't seem to comprehend how absurd and arrogant it is that
you think you need to help me understand my own opinion (which you continue to
misrepresent) is the reason why I am not inclined to do a charitable reading
of what you're saying. You seem to think very highly of yourself, to the point
where you seem completely unable to conceive that you might have
misapprehended the words of others, and assume immediately that anything that
seems illogical to you must be the result of others being confused.

While I'm sure you think you're helping me by showering me with your amazing
knowledge and clarity of mind, or something along those lines, you're actually
just being annoying. Which is why I'm not inclined to read your comments "with
an open mind", thank you very much.

>you are expressing something that is purely an opinion, and can never be
anything more than an opinion

Yes. Indeed. You are 100% correct about that. You seem to think I believe
"sanity=success" to be an objective fact. I do not.

What I believe is "rationality = acting in a manner one believes they will
further their own success, however they define their own success", and that
rationality requires sanity. When I state this, I am not stating it to be
objective fact. I am making it clear where I stand. If you disagree with me on
these premises, well, that's that. We disagree, and that's OK. The rest of my
argument stands on the premises that rationality = taking decisions that one
believes will further one's own success, and that rationality -> sanity (and
therefore insanity implies irrationality, but one can be sane and irrational).

Your example about temporary insanity is actually interesting, because it
reveals exactly what you have misapprehended.

>What if my goal is to go temporarily insane to see what that is like? Then
you are claiming that I'm only sane if I'm insane...

You seem to think I am saying that you are only rational while you are
succeeding, but that's not it. I am claiming you are rational _if you act in a
way you believe will lead to you succeeding_. Or, in other terms, if you
strive to act in ways that you believe will maximize your own "success" metric
- or "utility", if you will.

So if your ultimate goal is to go insane (and going insane will not interfere
with any other goals which are more important than going insane), if you are
doing things you believe will make yourself insane, you are rational.

However, once you make yourself insane, you will, by virtue of the fact that
insanity implies irrationality, not be rational anymore.

Failing to go insane does not mean you are irrational, just as someone whose
greatest goal is to become rich does not become irrational simply by failing
to become rich, as long as they keep trying to become rich while becoming rich
is their goal (or "increases their utility").

If I believed what you seem to think I believe, I'd have to believe that every
single person who makes a resolution to achieve some goal is insane as long as
the goal has not been achieved.

~~~
ltbarcly3
> I am claiming you are rational if you act in a way you believe will lead to
> you succeeding

This is worse than what you were saying before. Even irrational people believe
they are acting in a way that will lead to success, why would someone ever act
in a way they believe will fail to work? There has to be some kind of external
test of whether it is 'reasonable' for the person to believe that the way they
are acting will work, right?

I mean lots of people do things like making hats out of aluminum foil to
prevent the CIA from reading their thoughts, and they believe it works, but I
don't think you can say they are acting rationally by any definition.

------
yesenadam
A Man that steps aside from the World, and hath leisure to observe it without
Interest or Design, thinks all Mankind as mad as they think him. – Lord
Halifax (1633-95)

------
dang
An R.D. Laing story happened to be discussed here the other day:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20601466](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20601466)

------
caconym_
Reminds me of
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terror_management_theory](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terror_management_theory)
for some reason (not that I necessarily subscribe to either of these
"theories" in any particular form).

------
ganzuul
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depressive_realism](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depressive_realism)

------
js8
Not sure I would call it hypersanity (as people said, it is a bit self-
congratulatory), but I think it is closely related to the "Jester" archetype,
which I kinda like (and hacker - probably Wizard in terms of archetypes -
mentality is close to it).

The Jester is a free thinker, who ultimately doesn't want to be encumbered by
thinking about how his own thoughts or observations affect other people. In
order to do that, he makes an implicit deal with the society. He rejects power
or authority, and therefore, he is not going to be a threat for powers at be,
whoever that is.

This can be made clear by, for example, wearing a funny costume all the time,
therefore the image. In exchange for this postulated harmlessness, the Jester
gains access to information and also ability to speak freely with powers at
be. Of course the latter is also limited, his free speech cannot be used to
undermine the authority, because then he would actually had a real power.

Therefore, Jester often uses non-serious, funny manner of speaking about
things. Being laughed at by the unprivileged (while making witty and true
observations) is a part of his strategy. It is also beneficial for the
powerful (and sometimes part of the deal, in fact origin of the term "court
jester"), because they get to pick his brain while not being threatened by him
or his motives.

Some examples of Jesters in our society: John Oliver, John Stewart, Richard
Feynman. But they are at every place (in programming, the most obvious
celebrity examples are Erik Meijer and Steve Yegge). Look around, I am sure
you will find people who are deliberate in attempt not to look too seriously,
and you will probably have a Jester on your hands.

Some Jesters still decide to actually get power, but it is very risky, because
the whole freethinking schtick relies on general belief that the Jester is
harmless. (There is also an occasional literary trope where a Jester
temporarily and discreetly uses his privilege to influence the world as a
force of good.) These are, strictly speaking, not true to the archetype, they
just mimic it, so let's call them "Mimes". A good example is Boris Johnson,
who is consistently trying to look harmless, but in actuality is interested in
power.

------
gnode
There are two main elements to sanity: having a rational and sound
interpretation of reality, and acting in a way which rationally benefit's ones
interests.

I think hypersanity would constitute not only a hyper-rational worldview, and
to reconcile common cognitive dissonance, but also the ability to integrate
that awareness into better self-preserving behaviour (to improve ones safety
or efficacy), rather than to respond with depression, terror, self-ostracism,
etc.

------
mikorym
Jane Goodall has created quite a bunch of problems for Africans and I
certainly won't class her as "hypersane".

------
slowmovintarget
Sanity is the ability to correctly perceive what is real. Hypersanity, then,
is a nonsense term used to sell books.

~~~
dmwallin
I would say this article is making the case that sanity is the ability to
correctly perceive what society conceives as real, while hypersanity is the
ability to correctly perceive things outside of societies norms.

~~~
dnh44
That leads to the idea that society and the sane people within it cannot
distinguish between the insane and the hypersane.

~~~
djmips
As illustrated by a lot of angry comments by those who feel threatened by
perceived criticism of their devotion to societal norms.

------
Udo
This concept seems unhelpfully reductive and transparently targeted at people
who feel a need for self-congratulation on account of being alienated by the
"normal" people, although alienation is paradoxically also portrayed as one of
the markers of being painfully ordinary.

    
    
      "Many ‘normal’ people suffer from not being hypersane: 
       they have a restricted worldview, confused priorities,
       and are wracked by stress, anxiety and self-deception. 
       [...] In contrast, hypersane people are calm, contained 
       and constructive. It is not just that the ‘sane’ are 
       irrational but that they lack scope and range, [...]"
    

All of these things are orthogonal traits and can occur in an individual in
any combination. For example, I would categorize myself as having a moderately
open worldview, mostly straight priorities, not wracked by stress and anxiety,
moderate to severe self-deception, calm, contained, and mostly constructive.
So which one am I? A barely conscious pleb or an advanced rational
intelligence?

It seems to me these kinds of characterizations are really the product of
people trying to build a framework that appreciates their (subjectively
underappreciated) positive traits. It's obviously not wrong to celebrate those
traits, especially when confronted with their opposites so publicly on a daily
basis, but the problem arises when we're trying to bundle those traits up
under a buzzword package name. People are very diverse, and their traits and
behaviors develop over time.

I allege that it is more helpful to look at the positively connotated traits
mentioned here in isolation, and work on improving aspects of ourselves in a
targeted manner, as opposed to subscribing to a blanket identity (in this case
_hypersanity_ , which is ultimately meaningless). There needs to be less
emphasis on "what identity am I innately" and more emphasis on "what
properties do I like about myself and which ones do I want to improve". The
difference here is not only one of nuance and constructiveness, but also one
of fundamental outlook.

~~~
djmips
I'm not agreeing or disagreeing but I feel like you should read some of the
books mentioned above and ponder a little more because I feel like you missed
something.

~~~
Udo
That's a very generic dismissal. Are you saying that I can't contribute to the
discussion because I'm ill-informed or because I failed to grasp the
significance of the concept? Could you be more specific about what it is that
I'm missing?

------
Luff
Hypersane sounds a little smug, but it feels close to something.

Like, there seems to be a difference between how smart a person is, and being
[effective? rational? non-reactive? introspective?].

It feels like there's a spectrum of to which extent people are programmed by,
and are reacting to, their environment. A spectrum that might be separate from
how smart they are. Give them a text-book or an IQ-test and they'll do great,
give them the news and they'll ineffectually berate and hate each-other, and
so on.

So while a sane person might have a common social programming, an insane
persons programming would be corrupted/deviant.

And a "hypersane" person would be someone who is more able to see their own
(and others) programming, and to a greater extent be able to opt-out of some
of it?

Maybe there are better words for it.

~~~
sifar
May be the Unsane ? :). Seriously, there is already a name for it.

"The name that can be named is not the eternal name."

------
soufron
This strikes me as a concept designed to cater to those willing to place
themselves above the fray.

As in "I am not crazy or asocial, I am only being hypersane".

In other words, it's just another way to rationalize the lack of empathy and
the will to diss any efforts to correct it.

------
cbanek
I feel like there are a lot more layers to this that aren't discussed. I think
it's a lot like enlightenment, in that there are sometimes considered
different levels. Some can be comforting (money isn't everything), and some
very sane thoughts are very disturbing (is humanity's nature to destroy
itself?)

It seems like one of the SV buzz phrases is "fake it till you make it"/"be
insanely optimistic and project that excitement". And that rarely comes from a
place of sanity, but it can still work too.

Being sane and self-aware can be great, but I think it's overrated in terms of
creating happiness.

------
tempguy9999
I read Lang's bird of paradise when I was a kid and was thoroughly wowed by
the fact it was so deep I couldn't understand it. When I grew up I realised
long obscure words used to conceal self-indulgent ramblings wasn't a sign of
anything good. I can't find an extract of meat of the book, can anyone else?

As someone who also has had, and likely always will have mental health
problems, anyone who glorifies that which is fundamentally an illness deserves
a good kicking. It's miserable, destructive, isolating and no less a disease
than, say, cancer.

~~~
chousuke
I believe that for some philosophical insight to be truly profound, you need
to be able to state it in a manner that is completely unambiguous. It is easy
to make yourself sound smart by allowing the listener to "fill in the gaps"
with their own interpretation, but it doesn't really contribute anything
meaningful.

~~~
ta1234567890
Language does not allow for complete unambiguity. Any sort of communication
requires context (eg. agreeing on a similar meaning to the words we
write/speak). Any difference in context will derive in differences in meaning.
We can never not "fill in the gaps". Listening or reading are exercises in
translation and interpretation of meaning, which implies always having to fill
in the gaps.

------
tudorizer
Interesting concept. Sounds more like an astute sense of critical thinking.
Would a machine (i.e. AI) with vast knowledge, driven solely by cold facts and
results be considered hypersane?

------
dynamite-ready
Might be a bit of a tangent, but I was looking at the names referenced to
support the article. Temple Grandin, Jung, Jane Goodall, etc...

While I have my doubts about the validity of MBTI testing, I Googled the
names, and each of those people appear to tend towards *NFJ types (most likely
INFJ).

Not sure if that means anything, just thought it was a fun observation.

------
teilo
This is a meaningless article. Define hypersanity or shut up. Don't tell me
what hypersane people do. Tell me what it is or else the word is an entirely
subjective and therefore useless distinction.

You can select any arbitrary set of behaviors and pin a label on it. That
doesn't make the label meaningful or useful.

------
ciconia
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society."
\- Krishnamurti

------
hyperion2010
This seems perhaps over stated and the second half is extremely elitist in its
phrasing. I think my favorite version of a character like this is Wonko the
Sane from HHG who lives 'Outside the Asylum.'

------
fjfaase
When I think about hypersane people, what come to my mind are: Josha Bach,
Frans de Waal, Thomas Ligotti (The Conspiracy Against the Human Race), and, a
non-human, fictional character: Mr. Spock.

------
Causality1
For all that, the author does not provide a definition of hypersanity by which
an individual may be judged to be or not be hypersane. His examples of
hypersane individuals are questionable. Nelson Mandela ordered the torture and
murder of political enemies and their families, including teenage children.
Tenzin Gyatso is a deposed theocratic dictator whose subjects toiled under
abject serfdom before his exile. Jane Goodall is guilty of the admittedly
minor sin of being a plagiarist.

It's not hard to win an argument that all of those people had a more positive
effect on the world and on history than negative, and I would agree with you,
but I believe it is an error to put them on a pedestal as examples of some
sort of transcendental rationality.

~~~
crawfordcomeaux
Who said transcendental rationality had to be something that completely
aligned with sustainably contributing to life or honesty?

He didn't make the word. I you don't like it, maybe propose a different one to
describe people who intentionally shed the teachings from society?

------
mapcars
There is Alan Watts video on the topic:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4wa0tSBdOU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4wa0tSBdOU)

------
the-peter
"It's not really a measure of mental health to be well-adjusted in a society
that's very sick." -The OA

------
AtlasBarfed
Seems like myth dressed up as pop science.

But we basically live in an insane world, and navigate it only by denialism,
tunnel vision, ignorance, or distraction.

If we were to actualize knowledge of the massive destruction of the natural
world and the insanity of the path of capitalism, it would make someone crazy
by the definition of the masses.

Imagine someone screaming at the top of their lungs about the forthcoming
destruction of the world and the evils of our economic structure, like some
stark raving mad lunatic man of religion pounding a book.

Well, sensible people will turn their head and start talking about football,
traffic, money, or a tv show.

Huxley was right, in the end.

~~~
rimliu
We cannot destroy natural world. We can only change it. Just like
cyanobacteria did. Was that event any less natural? I take an extreme(?) view
that humans are a product and a part of nature, so whatever we do is still
natural. It may affect other parts of the nature by a different degree, it may
make out living more or less comfortable, but it is still natural.

~~~
AtlasBarfed
Right, so there is no such thing as complex form, and you'd be juuuust fine
with living in a small bubble on an airless earth.

Your reductionism ad absurdum is not useful on any level of practical
discussion.

Why, by your nihilistic logic I can murder you and burn the body, and that's
absolutely fine by your line of thinking. I'm not destroying any atoms, dear
judge, all the atoms he was composed of are still there. There is no such
thing as a complex form. There is no he. He was atoms, and those atoms still
exist.

"Disruptors" I'm sure love these arguments, because it absolves them of any
latent subconscious guilt that they may have destroyed something better than
what they disrupted it into.

------
dgudkov
_Feeling_ hypersane and _being_ hypersane is not the same thing. I guess drug
users can tell more about this.

------
palad1n
Is it anything like this? [https://ebookoflove.com](https://ebookoflove.com)

------
mapcars
>But what if there were another route to hypersanity

Em, there are many, including Zen, Yoga, and Mysticism.

~~~
qwerty456127
These do not help everybody. For many people (including many of those who
practice it and even those who "believe in" spirituality) yoga is nothing but
a kind of physical exercise. As for mysticism - trying to practice it seems
more prone to make you insane than hypersane, it's not for everybody. As for
Zen - many people will probably just fail to get it, get bored and give up
trying at some point.

------
gct
It's a canonical fact that one of The Joker's super powers is hypersanity.

~~~
ravenstine
You actually bring up what I think is an interesting point.

People automatically attribute virtue and goodness to the idea of sanity. The
more sane someone is, the more rational and, therefore, the better decisions
they will make.

But what if a higher level of "sanity" leads to actions that are ultimately
bad for those who are less sane? They could perceive the world exactly how it
is and conclude that destroying that world is the best course of action. How
does one differentiates this behavior from actual insanity? It makes sense
that one could tell whether someone isn't sane, since someone who is insane
probably wouldn't have an experience consistent with other people, but
hypersane bad guy seems difficult to accurately assess; they might be sane
overall, but be totally insane in one particular facet, or perhaps not at all.

~~~
gct
There's a book called "The Killing Star" where humanity is wiped out by an
alien species because "Why take a risk?" That's a hyper rational position.

------
vinceguidry
One of my hobbies is comparing and contrasting apparent synonyms and trying to
discern the contours of thought through language usage.

This made me want to muddle around in the middle ground between _rational_ and
_sane_. Immediately at hand we have the 'human being' use case; when do we
call humans 'rational' and when do we call them 'sane'?

Similarly we can ask what sorts of non-human things do we call sane and which
do we call rational.

Rationality in humans appears to be quite temporal, while sanity moves much
more slowly. A person can be rational one second and irrational the next, then
'get over it' thereby becoming rational again. Whereas generally we speak of
sanity 'slowly slipping away'.

The outcomes generated also seem to have an effect on which words we use. When
the outcomes behind events seem outsized relative to proceedings, we might
call the whole thing 'insane'. Whereas 'irrational' seems to refer more to
smaller-scoped outcomes, the operative aspect simply being that they're
intransigent to ordinary reasoning.

As such, 'hypersane' seems to be a similar quality of sanity, and on a
continuum you might put 'insane' at the far left, followed by 'irrational'
then 'rational', then perhaps 'hyper-rational', followed by 'hypersane'.

What does this leave out? Could someone be hypersane and irrational at the
same time? I don't think that's the intended understanding of the hypersane
concept. In fact, I would venture a definition of hypersane to be someone
whose 'irrationalities' are actually expressions of a more universal
rationality. When Diogenes did seemingly irrational things, he was really
picking up on broader social themes and dynamics and acting in ways that would
confound and amaze rather than merely annoy and hinder. Diogenes' self-
expressions might be more or less rational at any given time, but that he had
a finger on the pulse of ancient Greek culture is undeniable, so he's
eminently distinguishable from a 'mere' madman.

Whereas someone who is insane's irrational expressions are expressions of
_individual_ rationality, hopelessly entangled with the individual's own
personal foibles.

So what is sanity, if rationalism captures the idea of 'self-expression being
intelligible to others'? Even a madman is going to have prescient moments,
perhaps they abound in them, as far from the mainstream they are. Perhaps it's
the 'capacity of output' that makes up the difference. Terry A. Davis' life,
may he rest in peace, was made infinitely better by his masters-level
education and programming skills. They gave him a form of agency and ability
to fascinate and participate in society that the guy in the red outfit that I
pass by frequently on my way to and from work doesn't seem to have.

