Childhood demons

I submit the following definition to Mr. John Jones for his consideration:

Alzheimer's disease

n.

A disease marked by the loss of cognitive ability, generally over a period of 10 to 15 years, and associated with the development of abnormal tissues and protein deposits in the cerebral cortex.

The point here is that the abnormality is not an abnormality of tissue, but an abnormality of behaviour, and that is always a social consideration. The tissue doesn't tell you what is abnormal, you baptize it as being abnormal by a social judgement.

Is there some way we could work back to the original question?

John Jones wrote:

The point here is that the abnormality is not an abnormality of tissue, but an abnormality of behaviour, and that is always a social consideration. The tissue doesn't tell you what is abnormal, you baptize it as being abnormal by a social judgement.

In the later stages, deterioration of musculature and mobility, leading to bedfastness, inability to feed oneself, and incontinence, will be seen if death from some external cause (e.g. heart attack or pneumonia) does not intervene. Source: Wikipedia article

Alzheimer's can't be definitively diagnosed without an autopsy because the abnormal tissues can only be examined post-mortem, but by definition, the tissue abnormality, and not behavioral abnormality, is what constitutes Alzheimer's as distinct from other diseases that lead to the inablility to take care of oneself.

As soon as you think that you can convey a concept in any objective manner you fall into error.

Freshman parlor tricks.

That was a parody. An example of the freshman parlor tricks you are employing.

That you don't recognize it as such is telling.

They're both meaningless, tail-chasing mental masturbation.

They're both meaningless, tail-chasing mental masturbation.

There are ways to objectively determine whether brain matter is or is not abnormal given the meaning of all of those words in the English language, yes.

That is simply fact.

sozobe wrote:

There are ways to objectively determine whether brain matter is or is not abnormal given the meaning of all of those words in the English language, yes.

That is simply fact.

Go on then. Please show me. You tell me how matter tells us directly, without human judgement, that there is something wrong with it, or that it isn't thinking correctly.

Why is this so hard for everyone to follow? What particular point are you all not getting?

Again, deterioration and abnormality are not material events but events defined from a human perspective, and taken from what is of significance to human life. There is no such concept as 'disordered' or deteriorating matter. It is simply a linguistic convenience to say that brain tissue is deteriorating but as soon as you make conclusions based on it you fall into error. Just because you see the same brain structures in Alzeimers, doesn't mean that they tell you that they are deteriorating. You have already baptized them as deteriorating based on a deterioration of enjoyment of life, and then you simply make a match from one brain to another.

John Jones wrote:

Again, deterioration and abnormality are not material events but events defined from a human perspective, and taken from what is of significance to human life. There is no such concept as 'disordered' or deteriorating matter. It is simply a linguistic convenience to say that brain tissue is deteriorating but as soon as you make conclusions based on it you fall into error. Just because you see the same brain structures in Alzeimers, doesn't mean that they tell you that they are deteriorating. You have already baptized them as deteriorating based on a deterioration of enjoyment of life, and then you simply make a match from one brain to another.

Does your perspective encompass all bodily disorders, or is it limited to brain disorders? For instance, if I may paraphrase your comment, do you also maintain that "It is simply a linguistic convenience to say that heart tissue is deteriorating but as soon as you make conclusions based on it you fall into error. Just because you see the same hardening of ateries in Cardio-pulmonary disease, doesn't mean that they tell you that they are deteriorating. You have already baptized them as deteriorating based on a deterioration of enjoyment of life, and then you simply make a match from one circulatory system to another."

A bodily structure is dubbed a disorder only if it interferes with our lives. That is the ethical basis of the term 'disorder'. However, a judgement of a 'brain disorder' can also be immoral. In a judgement of brain disorder we make a moral decision that certain feelings or experiences are not acceptable, but then we go on to claim that that this is because of physical reasons.