It is said that sociopaths are perfectly happy with the way they are and aren't bothered by their emptiness and lifelessness but is that really true or is it just that they can't express it?

Answer 1

Sociopaths rarely feel true happiness. If they do, it is usually in the condition that some kind of intervention -- such as one of the small number of medications made for other conditions that may also help somewhat with theirs -- has taken place, and it will be fleeting. For all their frantic racing around, they are really very dead inside, and this is tragic beyond description. Imagine spending your entire life trying to get your brain to wake up! And failing. Thousands of times.

There are stories of people diagnosed as sociopaths who did improve to some degree, with the most ceaseless and diligent help. But since the vast majority of this huge body of people (there are more than three hundred million sociopaths on Earth) cannot get that kind of attention, they turn to abusing those they envy, and often to crime. It is certainly vengeance: "If I can't have any of this, why should you?" This is the real reason sociopaths lash out at strong and kind people. No matter what they say, they know that inside, they are always empty and damaged beyond repair.

Only in neuroscience is there hope for these incomplete people. The key lies in awakening the brain, which is risky because sociopaths are much more prone to seizures than the rest of the population, and that -- an uncontrolled blast of electrical discharge spreading through the brain and causing violent convulsions -- is likely to be the first response from brain pathways that, after years or even decades of silence, are suddenly flooded with impulses.

But if the devices of neurosurgeons can be tweaked to avoid this shock, and all else related to this idea is workable, it's feasible that small electronic devices planted in the brain (these already exist, but are not yet being used for mental illness) could open up a closed connection.

That leaves us with the problem of whether a lifetime of scattered information can ever be set into order.

Probably the best that could be hoped for would be a kind of retraining -- like what is now done with stroke survivors and head injury patients -- that would be both intensive and compensatory.

One of the things that would be necessary would be to try to socialize the person whose congenital birth defect made such a thing completely impossible before.

Whatever intervention is used, be it drugs or computer chips or what have you, it would probably -- I'd say certainly -- be excruciating for the patient at first.

With no standing knowledge of how to cope with the emotions the rest of the world has been dealing with all their lives, the recovering sociopath would be rendered as vulnerable as a baby. Which makes sense, because some of the most basic aspects of the human mind would be developing from the primordial stasis in which they had remained since birth!

A person thus treated would never be fully normal, but the human brain is amazing in the way it adapts and continues to develop all through life.

And given the utterly joyless and meaningless existence a sociopath leads, any improvement is better than none.

The matter of missing neurotransmitters in a sociopath is, of course, another problem. Would "waking up" the cerebral cortex eventually stimulate production of these? Or would they have to be synthesized? Only time will tell.

Just as science understands that epilepsy is not demonic possession, that people with dissociative conditions are not harboring ghosts or devils in their bodies, and that depression is not a "deadly sin," it would and will be able to prove that sociopathy happens for a reason and that it can be dealt with. Sociopaths do very bad things. But branding them all "pure evil" isn't going to help anyone. It's just more hate.

I have commented elsewhere that the human brain is the greatest new frontier in many ways. (Although I certainly have no lack of interest in space.) Sociopaths, along with other "hopeless cases" like people with Alzheimer's disease, Down's syndrome, Asperger's, ADD, ADHD, autism, and the schizophrenias, along with more common disorders such as depression and addiction, and so on, are a mystery, but scientists have a way of hammering away at mysteries until they unravel them, and, be assured, they are well on their way to the core of this one.

NEW INFORMATION:

It is now known that it can be diagnosed in childhood, since the underlying brain dysfunction is present at birth.

It was up until very recently believed that children cannot be diagnosed as psychopaths; the newest research, recently published, says that it starts in the womb. The condition is inborn and, so far, incurable. But neuroscience will almost certainly be able to develop some way of compensating for and even partially correcting this terrible condition with the use of computer chips and other artificial implants in the brain, and as well a certain type of specialized inpatient therapy geared to awakening as much as is possible in the person as soon as the condition is diagnosed.

One of the problems with anything wrong with one's central nervous system is that if it's severe and pervasive enough, it can interfere with the autonomic and peripheral nervous systems as well. In psychopaths, such maladies as what was once called neurasthenia (a state of unnatural sedation) or epilepsy (seizure disorders) are far more frequent than in the general population. Many people who are not psychopaths have some of the more than 100 forms of peripheral neuropathy, but some of these may be more common in psychopaths.

The autonomic nervous system, which prepares the body for emergencies (fight-or-flight) is erratic and inefficient in a psychopath, which can, in some situations, lead to fatal accidents; human beings have adrenaline for a reason, and the sympathetic nervous system of a true psychopath is sluggish and cannot sustain arousal for long. (In Borderline Personality Disorder, the problem is the opposite: the sympathetic nervous system responds too easily, too strongly, and way too often!)

Aside from this is the fact that a true psychopath has an extremely peculiar brainwave pattern: while awake, their brain waves most resemble a hybrid of normal waking brain waves and alpha-level sleep waves. And they often tend to fall asleep easily and to sleep deeply.

Emotionally, they are cold, detached, distant, and yet deeply resentful of normal people.

They know they're missing something, and often spend most of their typically short, tragic lives avenging themselves on others for what they cannot ever enjoy.

So they are not truly emotionless, but they do not love, do not know true joy, and are hostile and destructive.