Redefining the definition of insanity

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I was rewatching Freeman's Mind recently. It's a Machinima where Gordon Freeman's thoughts are voiced throughout the events of the Half-Life series. During the Xen arc towards the end of Episode 64, he brings up The Definition of Insanity where you do the same thing over and over again expecting different results.

Quote from Episode 64: "What's that quote? Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results? Well, one: it's a stupid saying because it doesn't account for other variables. Look at slot machines. And two: it implies everything is not insane."

Continued in Episode 65 - Quote: "Friggin' pseudo-wisdom... if you're not insane, you're just ignorant."

So I was thinking of a better definition of insanity. How about doing something in a situation where it would NOT work and being determined to get it done whatever it takes and being ignorant of the bigger situation around you.

An example would be: Let's say you have a lot of cardboard lying around the house and there's no room for any of it in your garbage cans. You have an idea: start a fire pit and burn it in your backyard. There's just one problem: it's raining heavily outside so getting a fire going would be a big challenge not to mention really impossible. You're going to do it anyway. You ignore the rain and the temperature and spend hours trying to light a fire only for the wind and rain to snuff it out but you keep at it because you're determined to burn all the cardboard at whatever cost.

One problem with that definition is that you never know for sure that he won't succeed.

I prefer the "danger to self and/or others," but we can't always estimate danger accurately, and who's to say that the preservation of self and/or others is always paramount? If I'd risked my life to kill Hitler and his pals, the Allies would have revered me.

I suspect that insanity is just a construct, and that there can be no watertight definition of it. To me, a religionist is kind of insane for magical thinking, but to a religionist, I'm kind of insane for behaving in a way that will send me to hell. And neither I nor they can prove the other insane. In other words:

https://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks05/0500601h.html#12

THE WISE KING

Once there ruled in the distant city of Wirani a king who was both mighty and wise. And he was feared for his might and loved for his wisdom.

Now, in the heart of that city was a well, whose water was cool and crystalline, from which all the inhabitants drank, even the king and his courtiers; for there was no other well.

One night when all were asleep, a witch entered the city, and poured seven drops of strange liquid into the well, and said, “From this hour he who drinks this water shall become mad.”

Next morning all the inhabitants, save the king and his lord chamberlain, drank from the well and became mad, even as the witch had foretold.

And during that day the people in the narrow streets and in the market places did naught but whisper to one another, “The king is mad. Our king and his lord chamberlain have lost their reason. Surely we cannot be ruled by a mad king. We must dethrone him.”

That evening the king ordered a golden goblet to be filled from the well. And when it was brought to him he drank deeply, and gave it to his lord chamberlain to drink.

And there was great rejoicing in that distant city of Wirani, because its king and its lord chamberlain had regained their reason.

The real and grim of it? It's a loss of contact with reality that reason and facts can't fix. I'd assume in most cases it's genetic, neurochemical, some of it could be trauma responses so dense that they drown out normal functioning.

Roughly speaking if you're 'insane' you're too far gone to be held accountable for your actions in a court of law, ie. you're technically a force of nature.

Insanity in this instance is doing something irrational knowing there are other simpler options like cutting the cardboard into squares and driving it to the council tip.

There is no reason to re-define insanity. Using your cardboard analogy, trying to do something the hard way just to get it done, isn't insane. Some people might call it stupid, or a waste of effort and cardboard, but its not insanity.

Indeed.

Medically, there's no longer any such term anyway:

Insanity is no longer considered a medical diagnosis but is a legal term in the United States, stemming from its original use in common law. The disorders formerly encompassed by the term covered a wide range of mental disorders now diagnosed as bipolar disorder, organic brain syndromes, schizophrenia, and other psychotic disorders.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insanity#Medicine

Clearly the law still thinks there is such a thing, but when the law diverges from science, I think the law is less likely to be correct than science. Insanity is also still a lay term, but like many lay terms, lacks a precise definition, and is usually more of a pejorative than an attempt to describe anything accurately. Therefore I don't think anybody trying to refine or improve on the existing poor definitions of insanity is going to get very far. May as well discard the word if you're looking for precision.

People use the word insane like they do other outdated psychiatric terms in common vernacular. Doesn't make it right or wrong, we cant stop its common use.

The law never even pretended to use the term "insane" in the same way as the scientifc/medical community used it in any era.

In law "insane" simply means "unable to tell right from wrong" (either permanently or temporarily). The legal definition never applied to many who were diagnosed as "insane" by medicine. You can hallucinate and still know right from wrong.

Anthropologists (the folks who study the cultures of tribal folks around the world) like to say that "sanity means having the same delusions as your neighbors". Meaning every culture, including our own, relies on its people believing unprovable beliefs. Stone age tribesmen in the jungles of New Guinea believe in spirits and believe in witchcraft. And even our own ancestors only a couple centuries ago still burned people at the stake for witchcraft. Today a person afraid of witches casting evil spells would probably end up in a rubber room. BUT a politician can get elected by scapegoating certain groups, like immigrants, for doing black magic (ie poisoning the blood of the nation).

Some validity in that, but the Butler Committee studied the matter and seems to have come out in favour of my view:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insanity_ ... ted_reform

The Butler Committee subjected the wording of the insanity defence to intense criticism, noting that the rules were "based on too limited a concept of the nature of mental disorder", highlighting "the outmoded language of the M'Naghten Rules which gives rise to problems of interpretation" and arguing that the rules were "based on the now obsolete belief in the pre-eminent role of reason in controlling social behaviour... [the rules] are not therefore a satisfactory test of criminal responsibility."

Unfortunately this objection to the legal tradition is still ignored.