Re: CHAT: Unsolicited abuse

> I have unfortunately a schizophrenic relative in my family. He tends to be
> over-logical. When you listened to him, everything he says makes sense. The
> only thing is that it's pure invention. So I think that his conlangs would be
> very logical if he were a conlanger. And I met a guy in the underground many
> years ago who was talking aloud to himself as if in a foreign language, but
> actually I could hear it was merely random syllables uttered in a way they
> looked like words of a foreign language (that may be word salad). I think
> that he was speaking nonsense to stop thinking.
> I don't like to think of conlanging in these terms.
>
> Mathias
I hardly think such behavior applies to our sort of conlanging.  Interesting
about your "logical" schizophrenic relative -- I thought schizophrenia was all
about scattered and incoherent thoughts.  Have there been any great
schizophrenic mathematicians, I wonder?  Haven't heard of any, but logic and
invention is what it's all about in that field; mathematics does not concern
itself with "reality" at all, only with logical consistency.


(in response to a post by James):
> No offence at all. I didn't criticize your post. I only expressed my concern
> with how close craziness may lurk about.
"Craziness" is of course an unfair stereotype, although I realize that you
were probably referring to actual psychosis here, not to neurological problems
in general.  Many people get along well enough with even a serious mental
illness, which does not neccessarily mean psychosis or delusional behavior.
For instance, Charles Dickens, "Mark Twain", Ernest Hemingway, Leo Tolstoy,
George Handel, Robert Schuman, Peter Tchaikovsky, Sergey Rachmaninoff and
Michelangelo, among many many others, were all bipolar ("manic-depressive").
This condition has been shown to be especially prevalent in artists of any
kind (see "Touched with Fire", by K.R. Jamison).

JJS