This “definition of insanity” is nothing but a meme. It has no grounds wrt neurological or psychiatric science, and also isn’t directly related to any actual symptoms of insanity.
“Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results” is actually the definition of training…
Not the exact quote no. It says something about “repeating mistakes”, the actual quote doesn’t. Repeating actions isn’t nearly the same as repeating mistakes. There’s a pretty big difference.
I mean, Jeffrey Dahmer was universally considered insane and he didn’t “do the same thing over and over and expect different results”. He just killed and ate people over and over and expected them to taste good.
Idk, if you’re doing the same thing after your training that you were doing before, you either didn’t need training or you weren’t successfully trained.
It’s an idiom, it’s not meant to be a clinical diagnosis. Like, yeah if you’re psychiatrist says it to you qnd tries to have you institutionalized, that’s obviously a problem. But I highly doubt that’s ever happened, certainly not in the modern age.
Ultimately, it’s actually the same exact idea as “Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it,” but in less politically correct terms.
Absolutely not. “Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it” is actually correct. It’s an intelligent thing to say.
On the other hand, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results”, is both incorrect and harmful. It’s also, very dumb.
Lemme elaborate:
When you train, you are actually doing the same thing. What changes isn’t what you are doing, but how you are doing it. And you can change that, because what you are doing it with, changes. Your muscles get more mass, tone, endurance, speed, etc. Your brain creates new connections, etc.
The definition of insanity is actually: “the loss of the ability to differentiate between facts, that can be empirically verified, and fiction, which cannot.”. It’s no mystery as to why the access of the masses to the Internet is causing worrying increases in the insanity the of average person. People are losing contact with reality. Literally.
Doing the same thing over and over, without an appreciable difference in results, while obsessing over it, can be tangentially related to insanity, since a sane person would be able to recognize the lack of progress, but that is conflating causation and correlation, and is harmful enough in itself to be called “dumb”.
think the meme has some grounds for truth. of course it was designed to be a dramatic speech for a scary character but it has some grounds to it: this may not be the truth but its how it feels. By doing the same thing over and over again and seeing no chance you go insane, and as such it feels like doing so is asking for insanity, thus the characters speech!
Ok, that’s interesting. But you got it backwards: what drives insane in situations where you are deprived (of feedback, or progress, etc) isn’t the lack/inability of observation, but the fact that said observation is seemingly detached from reality.
Basically showing a sane brain that it’s insane. That renders people insane, indeed.
Not to mention it’s always attributed to Albert Einstein which is not something he said and not something he would ever have said. Doesn’t stop people from continuing to invoke this “definition of insanity” as if its a smart thing to say.
Actually when you create a hypothesis and test it and prove it out, it is meant to be 100% repeatable by anyone following the metgod. Otherwise your method or hypothesis is wrong.
Right, but the reason you run the experiment repeatedly is to test the validity of the hypothesis. You’re looking for something different to happen. That’s the point behind rerunning the tests.
Right, but if you find a difference you alter the method or hypothesis, to get repearbility. An insane person (not neccessarily crazy person, but one that doesn’t follow sane rationalizarion) will keep repeating exact same thing.
But also if you keep running the compiler without changing any of the code hoping for the errors to be magically gone, you are insane. So there’s the same logic being applied to insanity in computer science
Not a meme, it comes from a thought experiment trying to disprove quantum mechanics. It’s often attributed to Einstein, though that’s very likely not true.
Well, digging further it seems like we are both wrong.
Rita Mae Brown’s quote is not the earliest example of it being used, so it’s certainly not the origin. Though the misattribution to Einstein was adapted into the quantum argument I knew about. Both are not the earliest mentions of the quote, and the exact origin is debated. The most likely scenario is that it originated in a Narcotics Anonymous setting.
Einstein’s name has also been affixed since his death to quotes from elsewhere. “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results,” for instance, was traced by Einstein archivist Barbara Wolff to US writer Rita Mae Brown’s Sudden Death (1983).
(Source)
Go argue with Barbara Wolff then. She seems to have got that wrong. I guess she rushed her research, being an “Einstein archivist” and all. I mean, you kinda found the right information almost immediately, right? Man, calling herself an “Einstein archivist”, and rushing to conclusion without doing her own research… the nerve of some people, right?
What an overly aggressive reply. But sure, let’s play.
Would you look at this, a 1981 Narcotics Anonymous pamphlet that contains the exact quote: “[…] Insanity is repeating the same mistakes and expecting different results.”
Hmm… 1981… But the book was released in 1983… But your previous comment so eloquently said I’m totally wrong, so you’ve just proven time machines exist! How cool! Einstein would be proud!
This “definition of insanity” is nothing but a meme. It has no grounds wrt neurological or psychiatric science, and also isn’t directly related to any actual symptoms of insanity.
“Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results” is actually the definition of training…
I too hate this quote for that reason, thank you for your service o7
Relevant xkcd
You’re also in a meme community, commenting on a meme, so while technically correct, it’s not super relevant.
You miss 100% of the DSM that doesn’t get discredited 3 years from now.
—Michael Gretzky
☝️ 🤓
the original commenter was who downvoted this
Who, me? Nope. I didn’t spend enough time on reddit to be irritated by this 😉
For me, it’s the definition of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos.
it’s also what i do when i run my programs over and over again hoping the bugs fix themselves
Yeah but Vaas is iconic and absolutely arresting in every scene he’s in.
It’s not from FarCry 3. Vaas is indeed a very cool character, but it’s originally from Rita Mae Brown’s “Sudden Death” (1984, ISBN 0-553-26930-5).
Quote Investigator tracked it to some AA meetings around 1981.
Not the exact quote no. It says something about “repeating mistakes”, the actual quote doesn’t. Repeating actions isn’t nearly the same as repeating mistakes. There’s a pretty big difference.
Iconic only for those who played it or randomly encountered him via meme propagation.
You should play it 3 is the best far cry game
I mean, Jeffrey Dahmer was universally considered insane and he didn’t “do the same thing over and over and expect different results”. He just killed and ate people over and over and expected them to taste good.
So they tasted good? If not, where’s the difference?
Idk, if you’re doing the same thing after your training that you were doing before, you either didn’t need training or you weren’t successfully trained.
It’s an idiom, it’s not meant to be a clinical diagnosis. Like, yeah if you’re psychiatrist says it to you qnd tries to have you institutionalized, that’s obviously a problem. But I highly doubt that’s ever happened, certainly not in the modern age.
Ultimately, it’s actually the same exact idea as “Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it,” but in less politically correct terms.
Absolutely not. “Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it” is actually correct. It’s an intelligent thing to say.
On the other hand, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results”, is both incorrect and harmful. It’s also, very dumb.
Lemme elaborate:
For the training, I’d argue that you’re not trying to get different results.
Each time, the result is minor growth in whatever your goal is, be it strength, muscle mass, or endurance, etc.
Who said anything about what the person is trying to do?? 🤨
think the meme has some grounds for truth. of course it was designed to be a dramatic speech for a scary character but it has some grounds to it: this may not be the truth but its how it feels. By doing the same thing over and over again and seeing no chance you go insane, and as such it feels like doing so is asking for insanity, thus the characters speech!
Ok, that’s interesting. But you got it backwards: what drives insane in situations where you are deprived (of feedback, or progress, etc) isn’t the lack/inability of observation, but the fact that said observation is seemingly detached from reality.
Basically showing a sane brain that it’s insane. That renders people insane, indeed.
Not to mention it’s always attributed to Albert Einstein which is not something he said and not something he would ever have said. Doesn’t stop people from continuing to invoke this “definition of insanity” as if its a smart thing to say.
If you’re getting different results it’s because you’re adjusting something. That’s training.
What a lovely twist on an annoying misattributed quote!
Doing the same thing over and over with an expectation to see differing results is also science.
Actually when you create a hypothesis and test it and prove it out, it is meant to be 100% repeatable by anyone following the metgod. Otherwise your method or hypothesis is wrong.
Right, but the reason you run the experiment repeatedly is to test the validity of the hypothesis. You’re looking for something different to happen. That’s the point behind rerunning the tests.
Right, but if you find a difference you alter the method or hypothesis, to get repearbility. An insane person (not neccessarily crazy person, but one that doesn’t follow sane rationalizarion) will keep repeating exact same thing.
While I’m at it, it’s the very logic at the basis of “monitoring” in computer science.
But also if you keep running the compiler without changing any of the code hoping for the errors to be magically gone, you are insane. So there’s the same logic being applied to insanity in computer science
Insane, or running against remote hosts…
Not a meme, it comes from a thought experiment trying to disprove quantum mechanics. It’s often attributed to Einstein, though that’s very likely not true.
EDIT: This is wrong.
It comes from Rita Mae Brown’s “Sudden Death”, which is hardly trying to disprove quantum mechanics…
Well, digging further it seems like we are both wrong.
Rita Mae Brown’s quote is not the earliest example of it being used, so it’s certainly not the origin. Though the misattribution to Einstein was adapted into the quantum argument I knew about. Both are not the earliest mentions of the quote, and the exact origin is debated. The most likely scenario is that it originated in a Narcotics Anonymous setting.
Go argue with Barbara Wolff then. She seems to have got that wrong. I guess she rushed her research, being an “Einstein archivist” and all. I mean, you kinda found the right information almost immediately, right? Man, calling herself an “Einstein archivist”, and rushing to conclusion without doing her own research… the nerve of some people, right?
What an overly aggressive reply. But sure, let’s play.
Would you look at this, a 1981 Narcotics Anonymous pamphlet that contains the exact quote: “[…] Insanity is repeating the same mistakes and expecting different results.”
Hmm… 1981… But the book was released in 1983… But your previous comment so eloquently said I’m totally wrong, so you’ve just proven time machines exist! How cool! Einstein would be proud!
Edit: ok, scratch that. You can’t read. You quoted a different text and called it “the exact [same]”. I’m done.
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Doing the same thing over and over with an expectation to see differing results is also science.
Doing the same thing over and over with an expectation to see differing results is also science.