For at least 2 years prior to January 2009, I procrastinated between 1-3 hours a day reading random internet news sites. After I created my first CT chart, I made the following prediction: “If I design a way to gain information about the world that does not involve reading internet news sites that also does not alter my way of achieving my other intrinsic goods, then I will stop spending time reading these internet news sites.” The “does not alter my way of achieving my other intrinsic goods” was unpacked. It included: “does not alter my way of gaining social acceptance”, “does not alter my relationships with my family members”, etc. The specifics were unpacked there as well.
This was prediction was falsifiable—it would have failed if I had kept reading internet news sites. It was also bold—cogsci folk and good random human psychologists would have predicted no change in my internet news reading behavior. And it was also successful—after implementing the recommendation in January 2009, I stopped procrastinating as predicted. Now, of course there are multiple explanations for the success of the prediction, including “CT is true” and “you just used your willpower”. Nevertheless, this is an example of a faisifiable, bold, successful prediction.
cogsci folk and good random human psychologists would have predicted no change in my internet news reading behavior.
Your model of human psychologists needs updating, then. Books on hypnotism that I read when I was 11 discuss needs substitution, secondary gain, etc. that would be relevant to making such a prediction. Any good human psychologist knows to look for what gains a behavior produces.
Of course, maybe you meant “good (random human) psychologists”, not “good, random (human psychologists)”—i.e., psychologists who study the behavior of random humans, rather than people who help individual humans… in which case, that’s a really low bar for CT to leap over.
Also:
it would have failed if I had kept reading internet news sites.
This is also a really low bar, unless you specify how long you would stay away from them. In this case, three years is pretty good, but just getting somebody to stop for a few days or even a couple months is still a relatively low bar.
For at least 2 years prior to January 2009, I procrastinated between 1-3 hours a day reading random internet news sites. After I created my first CT chart, I made the following prediction: “If I design a way to gain information about the world that does not involve reading internet news sites that also does not alter my way of achieving my other intrinsic goods, then I will stop spending time reading these internet news sites.” The “does not alter my way of achieving my other intrinsic goods” was unpacked. It included: “does not alter my way of gaining social acceptance”, “does not alter my relationships with my family members”, etc. The specifics were unpacked there as well.
This was prediction was falsifiable—it would have failed if I had kept reading internet news sites. It was also bold—cogsci folk and good random human psychologists would have predicted no change in my internet news reading behavior. And it was also successful—after implementing the recommendation in January 2009, I stopped procrastinating as predicted. Now, of course there are multiple explanations for the success of the prediction, including “CT is true” and “you just used your willpower”. Nevertheless, this is an example of a faisifiable, bold, successful prediction.
Your model of human psychologists needs updating, then. Books on hypnotism that I read when I was 11 discuss needs substitution, secondary gain, etc. that would be relevant to making such a prediction. Any good human psychologist knows to look for what gains a behavior produces.
Of course, maybe you meant “good (random human) psychologists”, not “good, random (human psychologists)”—i.e., psychologists who study the behavior of random humans, rather than people who help individual humans… in which case, that’s a really low bar for CT to leap over.
Also:
This is also a really low bar, unless you specify how long you would stay away from them. In this case, three years is pretty good, but just getting somebody to stop for a few days or even a couple months is still a relatively low bar.