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What is the difference between stupid and crazy?

Craziness is irrational, so what's the difference? Both involve a failure to function well. Is it that crazy serves a purpose, retroactively speaking? Or perhaps vice versa?

I doubt any philosopher has been blunt enough to ask this question, but can it be inferred from an analysis of intelligence and madness?

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    If you are stupid, then you study political science. If you are crazy, then you study philosophy. ;-) – nwr Aug 30 '19 at 18:52
  • ha, i laughed. crazy @NickR –  Aug 30 '19 at 18:52
  • Fail to see how this is a philosophy question... Unless that is, you are testing the waters so to speak!! Ie to what extent nonsensical questions get profound (sounding) answers. In which case I'll reverse my downvote! – Rushi Aug 31 '19 at 09:34
  • philosophers ask all sorts of questions, what is intelligence, madness @Rusi –  Aug 31 '19 at 20:11
  • So the question is off topic....but six answers are presented to answer the question within a day? – Eodnhoj7 Aug 31 '19 at 20:41
  • someone's being stupid anyway @Eodnhoj7 –  Aug 31 '19 at 21:00
  • @another_name. The censorship on this forum is a joke, half of the judgements are made up on the spot. Look at the reason: "It is not about philosophy"...so what does philosophy not cover? The problem with expertise is that is requires the memorization of obscure problems the majority will never need addressed, it is quantity over quality and is highly relative. Anyone can be an expert in anything...thus a democratic platform...but when a few start negating even basic questions it becomes elitist and knowledge is relegated to just a few people who have memorized complex assumptions. – Eodnhoj7 Aug 31 '19 at 21:22
  • i don't think we have a problem with elitism here @Eodnhoj7 though i sympathize with the opacity of some judgments to close etc –  Aug 31 '19 at 21:27
  • The closing of threads by a continual few is elitism... I would like to see the statistics on how many times conifold, curioussdanni, and a few others show up in voting what is put on hold. A thread asking about the basic difference between kant and berkely was put on hold by one of the mods, whose profile even states he studies kant. So what your are telling me is asking for general difference between two different philosophers is a question that does not have enough context? If an expert cannot talk about generalities at the everyday level, they are not experts but sophists. – Eodnhoj7 Aug 31 '19 at 21:33
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    they will say that you need a certain rep to vote to close, and that's why. it's doubly frustrating that the people that should be able to answer, close instead. it could be that expertise brings impatience @Eodnhoj7 –  Aug 31 '19 at 21:35
  • dyt it's on topic now @Rusi ? –  Aug 31 '19 at 21:50
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    This is a question about the English language. It's absolutely not on-topic here. If you disagree, you need to make absolutely clear how it's not a question about the English words "stupid" and "crazy". – curiousdannii Aug 31 '19 at 22:34
  • most if not all philosophy in enlglish is about the english langauge @curiousdannii –  Aug 31 '19 at 22:36
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    Not about the dictionary definitions of words. – curiousdannii Aug 31 '19 at 22:39
  • so what definition are philosophers using @curiousdannii –  Aug 31 '19 at 22:40
  • i don't think you have much idea what philosophers try to do tbh @curiousdannii a lot of philosophy is about clarifying confusions about concepts, ones that may be taken from the english language. i even included why i'm confused in the question, so neither do i understand your complaint. i find it puzzling that no philosopher answers this question, cos i do not think i'm uniquely confused –  Aug 31 '19 at 23:56
  • @curiousdannii...wittgenstein dealt with language games...the question is perfectly valid for a philosophy forum. – Eodnhoj7 Sep 01 '19 at 01:35
  • @another_name...its not expertise, it is word salads people are amazed by because of complexity. I pointed out a problem with the "valid" statement of (P=P)=(-P=-P) and a word salad of ""=" means equivalence, not equals" or other things. They throw the word context around to make it appear like each word has some special meaning only they know, when it is pure assumption and sophistry...intellectual bullying, throw a wall of words to hide ignorance. I mean look at conifold response on the parmenides thread, its a joke, and everyone wonders why philosophy is "dead" and academia is a waste. – Eodnhoj7 Sep 01 '19 at 03:26

5 Answers5

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I think "stupid" is due to lack of intelligence. On the other hand, "crazy" is related to a mental disorder. But both seem similar in some circumstances.

André Neves
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By modern medical standards stupid is just one kind of crazy. Processing impairments, developmental disorders and pervasive learning disabilities are listed alongside ailments that more selectively limit one's functioning. But these fall in a given part of the map of 'crazy', which is significantly different from the rest.

For one thing, consistency is a factor. The limitations that we naturally classify as stupid are generally permanent, or are of a nature one slowly and uniformly grows out of, just over a longer period of development that is ordinary, leaving a mark for live. But most other kinds of crazy are only sometimes crazy. An addict can't play out there addiction without something addictive to consume. A depressive won't always be depressed. All but the most serious of schizophrenics will have lucid periods during which they will be able to engage with all but a few topics about which they have very unusual opinions. People who really are always addictively driven, or always depressed, or always oppressed by the emptiness of catatonia will also exhibit a very low intellectual function even at the best of times, because they do not spend enough time interacting with the world to learn how to learn. They will be both.

For another, lots of mental disorders impose impairments that are very narrow. A phobia, or even a generalized anxiety disorder limits the things one can do without becoming afraid. The rest of life is not affected. As an extreme example, a paraphilia only affects sex, and only part of it. A lot of 'Axis II' disorders only dictate how you approach people. Once folks get used to you, or once you are engaged with just the people you can tolerate, life might just go on. (We are all pretty sure Trump is a narcissist (one of these Axis II disorders) and he managed to become President. The people who can tolerate him well seem to love him, and it doesn't keep him from getting what he wants done, done.)

  • Wait, so are you saying Trump is a bit crazy or some people have crazy thoughts about Trump being a narcissist? – Yukang Jiang Aug 30 '19 at 23:54
  • @YukangJiang In my opinion Trump has a Narcissistic Personality Disorder, (and I do have the training that entitles me to make such diagnoses, I just haven't held a license for twenty years). Some of the ways he handles people are just crazy, they are neither good for anyone else, nor productive for him. But as obvious as it is, it does not get in his way. You can be crazy and completely competent -- just not as competent as you would otherwise be. –  Aug 30 '19 at 23:56
  • @YukangJiang Mental disorder (crazy) is a quantity rather than a quality: It is not whether a symptom or behavior manifests in the tiniest amount, but to what extent and time frame it is manifest that determines a diagnoses. People can compensate and even utilize a little bit of crazy. – christo183 Aug 31 '19 at 05:43
  • i agree with the answer, but wondered what you thought of the speculative answer in my question (retroactively not stupid) –  Aug 31 '19 at 21:41
  • @another_name It is likely that a reasonable number of mental disorders are not defects, but instead represent adaptations to past circumstances or excesses of a necessary trait that would play out differently in a past environment. If that is the question you mean. But there are so many separate adaptations and traits that no general overview would be interesting in our format. Besides, there is a separate SE for psychology. –  Aug 31 '19 at 22:38
  • ok fair enough @jobermark i did suppose that no such analysis existed in psychiatry -- too good to be true –  Aug 31 '19 at 22:40
  • A lot of separate ones do. That is the problem. Philosophers writing on madness are just plain wrong most of the time. And answers to that question from Evo Psychh belong on the cognitive and psychological SE. –  Aug 31 '19 at 22:42
  • @jobermark ha funny... i was thinking of foucault btw –  Aug 31 '19 at 22:42
  • i have a friend who was close to another pdws, and he would often say that the communicative failures in schz can be understood, that they function to (non-obviously) get across some experience, in the right context. i wondered if e.g. a delusion could be analogous. i don't want to sound like laing about it, if only because he seems to some to misunderstand the seriousness of e.g. psychosis –  Aug 31 '19 at 22:48
  • Another way of looking at schizophrenia is that it forms connections and notices patterns too fast, but then it either becomes excessively attached to the guess, or just moves past it. (They motivating physicological detail is that when paranoiacs try to follow a moving dot, they alternately keep overshooting the predictive leap your eyes are designed to make, or they hold off too long on a given position.) –  Sep 01 '19 at 16:20
  • This captures paranoia, delusionality and weak of grammar. You get an answer from less data than most people, but you have a hard time not being drawn back to it when it is wrong. The way it relates to words is that you form a sentence to the level of grammatical precision it might take for you to understand it. But you use less data to get a meaning, so it comes out less deeply formed. But then you think that unformed mass *is* the right way to say it, and if you try again, it does not improve much. Likewise, since patterns come together easily they may overlap –  Sep 01 '19 at 16:44
  • Properly linked up with everything else, the ability to see patterns easily, to be a little attached, so that you spend the time to flesh them out, and to think several things all at the same time are all positive adaptations. But in a fully blown form, they are not productive. The theory then is that the negative base is this together with 'a bad case of Lao Tzu'. Your mind thinks it is being effective because it sees the end in the beginning and considers itself done. –  Sep 01 '19 at 16:47
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I would say “stupid” usually refers to people who don’t understand what’s already been proven or common knowledge. On the other hand, “crazy” refers to people who have irrational beliefs on things that haven’t been proven yet. You can be crazy about things that haven’t been proven, for example, by saying aliens gave us the ability to feel emotions. These beliefs are unlikely to be true, but the truth hasn’t been decided yet.

When referring to things that have already been proven or things that are known to make sense in some way, I would say “crazy” and “stupid” are similar.

Yukang Jiang
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Stupid is allowing this opinionated not academically oriented thread, while putting referenced not opinionated questions on hold.

Stupid is looking through the answers and seeing no references and strict subjective opinion while deleting other comments for the following same reason.

Stupid is looking through the members having a thread put on hold and seeing the same names pop up continually.

Stupidity is saying something is vague, therefore if I do not understand it is wrong.

Crazy is the continuation of it.

Truth is the stupidest and craziest thing of it all.

In other words stupid and crazy are simply grounded in the symmetry between perspective and group agreement. A person is stupid or crazy if they do not share the same perspectives and patterns behavior of the group. The same applies inversely for groups.

Stupid and crazy are points of view, thus assumed. One implies a finite action, the other a course of actions, but both as assumed through the nature language contexts are reversible.

They effectively mean the same thing, as both are strictly contexts for expressing behavior which diverges from a group.

Stupid and crazy are ways of saying "the context as a perspective does not align with another context as a perspective.

Eodnhoj7
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Let's put this in the simplest terms possible...

  • 'Stupidity' (a term I dislike) means that reasoning is inadequate: one does not form, follow, or implement reasoning well past some certain level of complexity. Miss a step in a sequence, and things fall apart; then one feels stupid.
  • 'Craziness' means that one reasons adequately, but from strange premises and presumptions. One can quite intelligently plan a safe route home on the assumption that stepping on a sidewalk crack will actually break one's mother's back, but that presumption is not quite right in the head.

The guy who shot people in that Walmart in El Paso was crazy, because he presumed that people would respond to that act of mass murder with approval, and that he would help achieve some presumptive collective goal. The guy who walked into a Walmart a few days later with an AR-15 (not because he was intent on shooting anyone, but just because...) was stupid, because he didn't think through the likely outcome of that act.

Ted Wrigley
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  • you need a reference for your second claim imho. i don't think you can subsume all madness under mistaken premises, anyway –  Aug 31 '19 at 21:39
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    @another_name - I didn't say 'mistaken'; I said 'strange'. That merely implies presumptions that deviate from cultural norms. Remember, someone who hears voices is only 'crazy' in a secular culture; in a religious culture, s'he is a prophet, or possessed by demons. – Ted Wrigley Aug 31 '19 at 22:07
  • ah sorry my mistake... that's interesting thanks, let me think –  Aug 31 '19 at 22:13