alt Hacker News> A big part of it, is seeing “connections,” in everything.
I've lately been wondering if schizophrenia causes this connection-seeing, or if connections cause indicators of schizophrenia/psychosis.
I've lived in cities like New Orleans, where everything seems magically connected through something about the culture and relationship structure imho, which results in intense feelings of synchronicity. There seems to be a high proportion of schizophrenia and general mania in New Orleans.
And now LLMs (which are always making and reinforcing connections, right or wrong) lead me to wonder about this direction of causality once more...
> I've lately been wondering if schizophrenia causes this connection-seeing, or if connections cause indicators of schizophrenia/psychosis.
IANAD, but my reading of the literature is that the genes for schizophrenia cause connection seeing, which on its own is mostly net neutral (slightly negative on average, but positive for many people). But it’s not having the ability to think critically about those connections, along with trauma and lack of social support, that causes this ability to see connections to manifest as mental illness. The genes for schizophrenia on their own though are, on average, only slightly net negative in terms of their impact.