Why Greta sees reality and you don't

Greta Thunberg sees reality. Most recently, she called out COP26 for what it is -- a cop out. That generated a lot of hate. And the usual dismissal, "Well, she has a mental disorder--she's not normal". Most of the time, she's smiling and happy. But it seems that every photo the MSM shows is of her scowling. As if she's pissed off by the prospect of being slaughtered by Corporate greed.

Maybe it is the "normal" people who are sick. There is a word for it.

Normopathy!

How do we characterize people like Greta? "Abnormal? " "Deviant? " "Sick"? Usually we say that have a mental illness, that impairs their ability to function. Quite the opposite. Greta calls her Asperger's her "super power" and whether it's "super" or not it is real power. If you think "normal" is "good", you're rationalizing dysfunctionality

Normopathy is delusional state in which you accept other people’s way of seeing the world as your own. If the rest of the rats think their kids are cats, you do too. And most normal people are like white rats-- they do what they are trained to do. They think the Lab is reality. They think their perceptual strait jacket is a mental fashion statement. Fifty shades of ... ? By all means, buy a strait jacket and have some kinky sex, but don't put one on your brain.

Normopathy is schizoaffective but since your delusions are held by the rest of society, you have no need for Thorazine—just beer--and maybe some weird. sex, as long as everyone else is doing it.

A recent article describes human consciousness as “controlled hallucination”. In other words, we are all mad – and the craziest are those who think they are “normal”.

The hallucination theory is a more elegant explanation of what Julian Jaynes tried to explain many years ago in this theory of the “bicameral” mind, which suggest that “consciousness” as we know it evolved just about 4000 years ago and before that we listened to the voices of the gods.

Controlled Hallucination

By “consciousness”, he meant something like rational thought. Poor Julian got it wrong. The Neolithic gave us “civilizations”, which used “reason” to keep the status quo, pyramidal, unequal societies, “normal” as mechanism for rationalizing an artificial social order.

Today, we still listen to the Gods – CNN, WaPo, the BBC, the NYT, MSNBC-- are the voices of a Pantheon made up of rich sociopaths.Like the Greek Gods, these ones care little about mere mortals like you and me--but demand worship.

For “normal” people, “consciousness” as awareness is still far off, an unrealized ideal -- and in the meantime we have to be satisfied with controlled hallucination.

“Reason” as the philosopher Heidegger pointed out is just a tool, and often the “adversary of thought” where it is a cultural artifact.

But Greta uses reason to break into that mortgaged suburban home you call a mind.

Perception and Imagination

What exactly is a “controlled hallucination”? It is pretty simple really. “Other directed” people see the world as others do. Perception is selective. You know, figure / ground. Y’know—gestalt .

So, conception is pre-determined by what we see. The animals or the tree. We see what we expect – or more correctly are expected to. Or, we do not see at all.

Let’s take another example.

Conception is always immaculate -- which is to say that conceptualization is pre-determined. We see what we expect – or more correctly are expected to. Or, we do not see at all. The thing is that conception is not necessarily "rational". Mary had to be a Virgin. Jesus arrived by "Immaculate Conception", an idea invented a few centuries after the Birth of the First Great Hippy, who, as we know, liked to hang with the Fallen. As with the gestalt above, "context" is all.

We can revise our conceptions only through radical perception of realty, which is what Greta is offering. The simple fact that, at this point in time, "adults" are offering kids only death.

To get to the truth, you have to unhide it, as Greta does, creating a new paradigm, which was not really new but there all the time -- you just didn't see it.

Imagine that you’re on a train. The train starts moving. You look out. “Oh, the train is moving”. You imagine the train moving – but you don’t actually see it.

Einstein sitting next to you, looks out and sees the world moving. You don’t know who Einstein is. But he has weird hair. You move to another seat so you don’t have to sit next to a nutjob. Somehow he reminds you of Greta.

In the meantime, Albert is asking the question: how could the world be moving when it is actually the train. He connects this to issues in Newtonian physics, which works well most of the time for most people – but not always—and realizes that the principles of time and space may be different on a cosmic scale. Hence: relativity.

Einstein’s perception is accurate. Yours isn’t ---because you don’t actually see the train is moving – you just infer it. Your inference is correct, of course—you get where you are going. Lucky for you. But Greta is telling you your destination is a train wreck.