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So, when I heard that the shooter in Aurora was a neuroscience PHD student, I immediately thought of this book.  I sure hope the kid doesn't have an Argument he's trying to win.

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Pleased to see I'm not the one starting this thread. But yes, I could almost see the copy of Neuropath and a heavily marked version LTG among his affects.

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Too statistically difficult. Brains break for a variety of reasons, people. It's one of the points Bakker's got going on in LTG - I'll get to this later. I can guarantee you if Holmes was pulling a Neil he wouldn't have done as he did. My initial thought is that he's just the first of many.  That is, as more and more people are exposed to the ideas like those Bakker riffs off and articulates in Neuropath, especially within its own academic discipline, a number of them will be unable to cope - probably, no more or less than any other difficult conceptions have helped create any other suicidal and murderous individuals.

From the court transcripts, I'd say Holmes is suffering from severe derealization, possibly even depersonalization.

Some form of autistic solipsism. People have ceased to exist to him.

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yeah, my first post doesn't indicate this, but I was thinking more along the lines as that the shooter is the first of Neil's experiments sort of thing.

That's the hook on Neuropath,

(click to show/hide)

a serial killer who creates other serial killers, but the lede is so deeply buried in the book that it's hard to remember after the 98th repetition of EAMD

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Call it simple, but I was guessing just an old fashioned sociopath. No guilt circuits. I've never confirmed the statistic from any government body, but I've heard around 2% of the population are sociopaths. I quote I heard that was attributed to his mother was "You've got the right man. I need to get a flight to Colorado."

Add to that his inability to get a job and prospects of failing at his course (more inability to get a job) as more fireworks.

And hey, the neuroscience could have added to it as well.

Sure, there might be another horse in the race I'm not aware of, but the above horse is the one my money rests on ATM.

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Wasn't there some guy who started robbing banks after reading Neuropath?

eta: being serious. in fact Bakker makes a reference to it on Larry's blog IIRC. will look for it.

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I'm pretty sure you're talking about an incident from a class Bakker was teaching - and I'm not positive on the chronicle but I think it was Kellhus and Nihilism that got this kid, pre-Neuropath.

Also, lockesnow, the most inventive narrative on the internet concerning Holmes goes to you, Sir. Congratulations.

I still don't support that he's a Neil or a Chiropractor. And after a semi-thorough purview, the drugs he was on don't support his "clear-minded" intentions.

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More engaging than VD's piece, anyway. Wait, VD was speculating for fun, wasn't he?

Anyway, the anecdote I remember is that some kid, after attending Scott's teachings, turned around and said to Scott that he had leaned he didn't have to feel guilty for holding up a liquour store in the past.

Possibly I'd partially agree - unlimited guilt is simply enslaving though a blank cheque entitlement scheme invoked by someone else. However, going from unlimited to absolutely none? I guess this is one of the big issue of neuro science, the semantic apostrophe (lol) etc. How people might snap from one extreme to another, a binary flip flop, rather than try and make a nest in the middle somewhere. Mostly the environment would force us into a nesting position somewhere, in the past. Now...