Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Science/2019 March 5

= March 5 =

psychology / psychosis and intent?
Hi! Do we still speak of intent and/or deliberation, when a highly psychotic patient does something, that seems to be extremely gross to less sick human primates? This question comes up in the talk page/archive of the article Germanwings Flight 9525 quite often... somehow nobody there wants to believe me, that the report is demonstrably wrong, when it says "intentionnelle" (that was french for "intentional"...)... IMO: that governmental assertion should not be mentioned or it shall be used to prove the european governments are not in compliance with well founded knowledge about psychology... Thx. Bye. --Homer Landskirty (talk) 18:14, 5 March 2019 (UTC)
 * If a governmental or other entity or individual has said something which we can cite to a reliable source, then Wikipedia can record that fact. Whether or not what was said agrees with psychological theories (a somewhat protean field of study) is not Wikipedia's problem: we merely summarise what was said, we do not judge whether it is 'correct' or not. If however the assertion in question cannot be cited to a reliable source, it should not appear in the article. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 2.123.27.125 (talk) 19:13, 5 March 2019 (UTC)
 * That's not entirely correct; Wikipedia strives to be verifiable which means "able to be proven true". That is, we do care about the truth, but something is not true merely because the person who writes it in Wikipedia says it is true.  Any reader must be able to verify (that is, find the evidence that it is true) outside of Wikipedia.  What "vVerifiability not truth" means is that being true is not sufficient, though of course, it is necessary to be verifiable.  Something which is wrong will fail verifiability because it wasn't true to begin with.  -- Jayron 32 19:27, 5 March 2019 (UTC)


 * Perhaps worth noting that AFAICT, what the OP is talking about doesn't directly appear in the article text. Instead it's only a quote included with one of the refs. Nil Einne (talk) 19:42, 5 March 2019 (UTC)


 * the article even says: "Suicide by pilot"... i guess, that is even an interpretation of that official report... but at least it is not marked as the unfounded point of view of the french government (executive branch)... --Homer Landskirty (talk) 22:04, 5 March 2019 (UTC)


 * Well that's a separate issue from the one you initially raised. As others have said, for your initial point, simply including a quote with the reference, if it's relevant to what we are referencing, is entirely appropriate for wikipedia whatever your personal POV of what it says. I don't know how things work in Germany or France, but AFAIK in NZ and I think Australia, UK, Canada and most or all of the US, suicide itself is not a crime. Therefore from a legal view, the way something is determined a suicide is generally by some agent of the executive branch probably a coroner or some similar authority determines it as such, after a post mortem and perhaps an inquest. Unsurprisingly, many of these cases do involve patients with various degrees of mental health issues. From the medical standpoint, obviously suicide is something considered in research and treatment, [//www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28409714] [//jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/fullarticle/2130626] [//annals-general-psychiatry.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12991-018-0207-1] [//ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1176/ajp.156.10.1590] . I presume sometimes case reports also consider these things e.g. [//www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2644480/] [//www.jns-journal.com/article/S0022-510X(17)314685/abstract] [//www.hindawi.com/journals/crips/2019/4972760/] (nb Hindawi Publishing Corporation may be worth a read if you don't recognise the third publisher) albeit attempts. And there could be some cross over into the legal or quasi legal arena, such as when medical staff's management or treatment of a patient is examined. This may occur at the coronal (or whatever) level but could also be separate e.g. whoever registered the medical staff. Then of course there's cases like this were there may be some other body who looks into the case for various reasons. Precisely what each body, organisation or whatever can say is going to vary from place to place. As others have pointed out, in terms of the "suicide by pilot" thing which only seems to occur in the infobox this is probably more something which depends on what reliable secondary sources say. If most of them call it suicide by pilot, we are likely to do so so as well. Issues surrounding terms of art in whatever field may come into it. As people have point out in the talk page, while it may seem responsible to call a controlled flight into terrain by ordinary understanding of those words, it's misleading to call is such since this doesn't fit with what "controlled flight into terrain" means. Nil Einne (talk) 10:09, 6 March 2019 (UTC)


 * suicide implies intent/deliberation... so it is my initial point... why oh why does the article say "intent"?
 * as far as i know, WP does not take the POV of the government, just because it is the POV of the government... if it is a questionable POV, WP has to mention it... but in fact WP goes even further and adds the word "suicide"... i just dont care, if some "g-man" or coroner says "suicide", too...
 * the coroner, who has to decide, if that was suicide or not, has a really hard job, because: there r hardly any findings... even if the patient knew, that the movements of his hands and arms will lead to his death, the coroner still has to prove, that the patient himself (but not just his disease) _wanted_ those movements... e. g. rabies patients refuse to drink water during the end of their suffering, but that does not mean, that they do not like water (in fact the disease changes something in the brain, so that the brain feels disgust, when it thinks of water...)... i think it is impossible to separate the disease-based movements from the patient-based movements... i just cant believe, that somebody deliberately wants to move like this patient obviously did (the flight data recorded by flightradar24 seems to be sufficient...)...
 * OTOH: there was a chief physician in munich (germany), who was found in a hotel room with an excess overdose of morphine... it is easy to believe for me, that a syringe with morphine seems to be much nicer than a gamma knife after some deliberation...
 * even if we can only find sources, that say intent/suicide/deliberation, that is no justification for those blunt lies in the article... --Homer Landskirty (talk) 10:53, 6 March 2019 (UTC)


 * We don't simply parrot official sources, but you've already been told we do rely entirely on reliable sources. Therefore in the case you outlined, there is justification if it's what reliable sources are saying. If there is controversy as reported in reliable sources, we report on that as well. What we don't do, is WP:OR. So your personal incredulity is irrelevant. All that matters is reliable sources. If you are unable to find reliable sources to support your specific POV, it's irrelevant to wikipedia. (Reliable sources would be sources specifically talking about the issues you mentioned in relation to the co-pilot. Sources simply talking about psychosis are irrelevant because again, we don't do OR.) In any case, if you want to debate what should and shouldn't be included in a specific article, you need to discuss it on the article talk page, not here. Nil Einne (talk) 11:27, 6 March 2019 (UTC)


 * yes, u tell me a lot... but it is not true... it is a lie to write, that one is sure beyond any doubt, that the patient intentionally/deliberately/knowingly wanted this outcome... a reliable source does not lie... period. --Homer Landskirty (talk) 11:41, 6 March 2019 (UTC)


 * Actually looking at the article more careful, it does use the word deliberate a few times and in this context it can be consider a synonym of intentional. I only looked for intentional because that's the word the OP used. Nil Einne (talk) 10:27, 6 March 2019 (UTC)


 * If I read this question correctly, the issue isn't a matter of truth or verifiability; it's one of definition.
 * When we use plain language to describe very complex matters, sometimes it is hard to find concord in the words we use. For example, a reliable and verifiable legal interpretation might use the word "intent" in a different way than a reliable and verifiable medical or psychological interpretation.
 * In that case, if both perspectives merit inclusion, then our article should include both descriptions. Readers must make peace with the fact that sometimes, especially in complex matters, several different reliable sources choose different words to describe the same set of facts; and sometimes, they even hold materially different interpretations of the same set of historical facts.
 * In our English-language Wikipedia, we have an elaborate article on intention, which has many different (and sometimes contradictory) definitions spread across multiple technical and philosophical contexts. If you try to apply the legal definition (which obviously varies across legal jurisdictions) in a context that is better served by a medical or psychological definition, then you're the one who is guilty of abusing terminology, which is at least logically unsound.
 * Nimur (talk) 19:49, 5 March 2019 (UTC)


 * 1. especially the legal definition possibly does not fit here, because: the state attorney R. cannot possibly prove, that the patient had knowledge of wrongdoing... 2. one M.D. (Prof. Heuser♀, Charité Berlin) even said, that the audible symptoms might be caused by serious bleeding inside the head... so maybe the patient "knew" that he calls the nurse when the patient in fact pushed that door-lock-knob... 3. so it is frivolous to claim, that the patient knew, what the patient was doing there... it is also frivolous to copy&paste that claim into WP as if we did not mention, that this claim is nonsense... --Homer Landskirty (talk) 22:04, 5 March 2019 (UTC) (edited because User:Nil Einne does not like to read "wrongdoing" or "Robin" --Homer Landskirty (talk) 11:00, 6 March 2019 (UTC))


 * The talk page section you linked to is again a different issue. There does not seem to be any significant support to use the word "murder" in the article, and I'm not aware of any official reports which support such a wording. It is entirely possible for the crash to be a deliberate or intentional act by the pilot (whatever those mean in the context of someone with mental illness), and for it to be a suicide, without murder being involved. In quite a number of jurisdictions, murder has a specific legal definition. It's most commonly established by a court case, although that isn't always possible, and as with everything else, we may call something a murder if reliable sources widely call it such, even though there was no court case. This is particularly common for murder-suicides for obvious reason. I had a quick look at previous discussion, and I can't see any significant support for your POV. There was some concern about the use of the word intentional or deliberate before the official report was out. After it came out and was widely reported on, most of the discussion seems to be on other things. The only discussion I can find where there was concern about saying it was a delibrate or intentional act by the pilot after the official report seems to be this discussion started by you Talk:Germanwings Flight 9525/Archive 6. Nil Einne (talk) 10:27, 6 March 2019 (UTC)


 * it is all the same... murder/suicide/intent... it is just not true... --Homer Landskirty (talk) 10:53, 6 March 2019 (UTC)


 * No you're mistaken. Murder requires several things which may or may not be met even if there is intent to do other things. (Notably in many jurisdictions, murder required a specific state of mind as well as intent.) Likewise someone can intend to do something, without intending to do other things. To give a loosely related example, if someone intentionally flies their plane into the ground, perhaps they will kill someone on the ground. Depending on the jurisdiction, this may not be murder if the person didn't reasonably expect this to happen. If the person expected Xanadu to teleport them out of the plane just before it crashed, perhaps they didn't intend to kill themselves either, so it may or may not be considered suicide. Nil Einne (talk) 11:27, 6 March 2019 (UTC)


 * for this question it is all the same, because: u r missing evidence, that proves the intent of the patient... u do not even have findings, that he had any intent at all... but obvious is, that there were some very unusual glitches in the data coming from that plane hours before the patient had a situation, and that this data is still hidden from the public (by technical or financial obstacles...)... i would be glad, if someone fixes that article asap... thx... bye. --Homer Landskirty (talk) 11:41, 6 March 2019 (UTC)
 * A "big hit" in Germany, apparently. Martinevans123 (talk) 11:43, 6 March 2019 (UTC) p.s. bye Homer Landskirty, but how do you know about these "very unusual glitches in the data" that nobody else here knows about?
 * I actually was thinking of Xenu Nil Einne (talk) 11:48, 6 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Ah yes. That might explain everything. Martinevans123 (talk) 11:51, 6 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Ultimately of course as Nimur touched on, words have different meanings in different contexts. To give a completely different example, if I say my cat is trying to steal my food, and someone asks me if I mean he's deliberately (or intentionally) trying to take my food I may say yes. While in some contexts the debate over what "intent" or "deliberate" means for a cat is interesting, in most cases if the person then starts arguing over whether my cat is capable of having "intent" or doing something "deliberately", I'm going to ignore them. Likewise if the person seriously asks me whether I'm accusing my cat of "Theft or stealing" section 219 of the Crimes Act 1961 [//www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1961/0043/latest/DLM329897.html]. Nil Einne (talk) 11:46, 6 March 2019 (UTC)
 * BTW have you ever read about the fictional Ronald Opus case? Nil Einne (talk) 11:56, 6 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Haha. I had not. Many thanks for that. An interesting examination of criminal intent. Martinevans123 (talk) 12:02, 6 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Some of these issues were considered last week . 2A00:23C5:318D:5200:7114:8D53:ACB3:6574 (talk) 13:10, 7 March 2019 (UTC)
 * I think no-one disputed that Mrs. Challen fully intended to kill her husband. But she was "suffering from two mental disorders at the time of the killing". Martinevans123 (talk) 13:18, 7 March 2019 (UTC)

Not a Third Opinion
A request was made for a Third Opinion. There have already been more than two editors discussing. Robert McClenon (talk) 03:19, 7 March 2019 (UTC)

Well it is know, but I guess it is ignored. German Pilots only enforced getting paid well by the their union. Pilots are allowed to be up to 11 hours on job. Depression and flu are know for for affecting the chronobiology. So 11 hours on job is possible a burdon for affected individuals. Overfatigue occurs. Andreas Lubitz had problems in his relationship, his girlfriend presaged him to leave. About his financial situation was reported. Becoming a pilot causes huge expenses. When reported once, it is a question what investigation wants to result and focuses on. In this case, the first job was to investigate why the plane crashed. The second job needs to focus the pilot. The third job is to carefully investigate his point of view a his view on the world inside his perspective and situation. Taking a closer look on Germany, salaries have stuck over two decades, and Germans have another point of view take loans. Reports on recent German politics show, people were fighting on collecting empty bottles for getting a fee on returning these. On this facts, nobody resumed. The problem was later in the news, not caring about this incident behind. -- Hans Haase (有问题吗) 17:12, 7 March 2019 (UTC)