For the past three days I have been repeatedly performing the following mental operation:
“Imagine that you never read any documents claimed to be produced by telepathy with extraterrestrials. Now gauge your emotional reaction to this situation. Once calm, ask yourself what you would believe about the world in this situation. Would you accept materialism? Or would you still be seeking mystical answers to the nature of reality?”
I am still asking myself this question. Why? I am struggling to figure out whether or not I am wrong.
I believe things that raise a lot of red flags for “crazy delusion.” Things like:
“I came from another planet, vastly advanced in spiritual evolution relative to Earth, in order to help Earth transition from the third dimension to the fourth dimension. My primary mission is to generate as much light and love as possible, because this light and love will diffuse throughout Earth’s magnetic fields and reduce the global amount of strife and suffering while helping others to achieve enlightenment. I am being aided in this mission by extraterrestrials from the fourth dimension who are telepathically beaming me aid packages of light and love.”
These beliefs, and many others like them, are important to my worldview and I use them to decide my actions. Because I like to think of myself as a rational person, it is a matter of great concern to me to determine whether or not they are true.
I have come across nobody who can put forth an argument that makes me question these beliefs. Noboby except for one person: Eliezer Yudkowsky. This man did what no other could: he made me doubt my basic beliefs. I am still struggling with the gift he gave me.
This gift is that he made me realize, on a gut level, that I might be wrong, and gave me motivation to really figure out the truth of the matter.
So many intelligent people believe patently absurd things. It is so difficult to escape from such a trap once you have fallen into it. If I am deluded, I want to be one of the fortunate ones who escaped from his insanity.
The thing is, I really don’t know whether or not I am deluded. I have never before been so divided on any issue. Does anybody have anything they’d like to add, which might stimulate my thinking towards resolving this confusion?
There are several things to ask about beliefs like this:
Do they make internal sense? (e.g. “What is the fourth dimension?”)
Do they match the sort of evidence that you would expect to have in the case of non-delusion? (e.g. “Do you have any observable physical traits indicating your extraterrestrial origin? Would someone looking into records of your birth find discrepancies in your records indicating forgery?”)
Do they try to defend themselves against testing? (e.g. “Do you expect to illuminate a completely dark room at night by generating light? Would you expect to exist happily in psychological conditions that would harm normal humans by subsisting on aid packages full of love?”)
Do they have explanatory power? (e.g. “Has there, as a matter of historical fact, been a sudden and dramatic reduction in global strife and suffering since the date of your supposed arrival?”)
Do they have a causal history that can be reasonably expected to track with truth across the entire reference class from an outside view? (e.g. “Did you receive your information via private mental revelation or a belief from as long ago as you can remember, similar to the beliefs of people you do consider crazy?”)
Yes. They are drawn from the material at http://lawofone.info/ . The philosophy presented there is internally consistent, to the best of my understanding.
There is no physical evidence. All of the “evidence” is in my head. This is a significant point.
There are a variety of points in the source document which could be interpreted as designed to defend its claims against testing. This is a significant point.
I am not aware of any physically testable predictions that these beliefs make. This is a significant point.
The causal history of these beliefs is that I read the aforementioned document, and eventually decided that it was true, mainly on the basis of the fact that it made sense to my intuition and resonated personally with me. This is a significant point.
Currently reading Law of One. I’m not sure what the mechanism is, but it seems to involve people receiving telepathic messages (from an entity named Ra) and speaking them aloud. I would like to note that I have experienced messages coming into my head, seemingly from outside (either as voices or as an impulse to write), and can even occasionally cause it voluntarily. Their content can be partially unexpected, but it never contains information I could test independently. I consider this an entertaining misbug in my brain, not evidence of an external telepathic entity.
Good luck! It may help to remember that this sort of thing seems to be a
failure mode of the human mind. I know someone who had a manic episode during
which he believed he was destined to bring enlightenment to the world. (He
also believed he could control the weather.)
In case you haven’t come across this already, go
here and read the
paragraph that starts “But it is possible to do better, even if your brain
malfunctions on you.”
For the past three days I have been repeatedly performing the following mental operation:
“Imagine that you never read any documents claimed to be produced by telepathy with extraterrestrials. Now gauge your emotional reaction to this situation. Once calm, ask yourself what you would believe about the world in this situation. Would you accept materialism? Or would you still be seeking mystical answers to the nature of reality?”
I am still asking myself this question. Why? I am struggling to figure out whether or not I am wrong.
I believe things that raise a lot of red flags for “crazy delusion.” Things like:
“I came from another planet, vastly advanced in spiritual evolution relative to Earth, in order to help Earth transition from the third dimension to the fourth dimension. My primary mission is to generate as much light and love as possible, because this light and love will diffuse throughout Earth’s magnetic fields and reduce the global amount of strife and suffering while helping others to achieve enlightenment. I am being aided in this mission by extraterrestrials from the fourth dimension who are telepathically beaming me aid packages of light and love.”
These beliefs, and many others like them, are important to my worldview and I use them to decide my actions. Because I like to think of myself as a rational person, it is a matter of great concern to me to determine whether or not they are true.
I have come across nobody who can put forth an argument that makes me question these beliefs. Noboby except for one person: Eliezer Yudkowsky. This man did what no other could: he made me doubt my basic beliefs. I am still struggling with the gift he gave me.
This gift is that he made me realize, on a gut level, that I might be wrong, and gave me motivation to really figure out the truth of the matter.
So many intelligent people believe patently absurd things. It is so difficult to escape from such a trap once you have fallen into it. If I am deluded, I want to be one of the fortunate ones who escaped from his insanity.
The thing is, I really don’t know whether or not I am deluded. I have never before been so divided on any issue. Does anybody have anything they’d like to add, which might stimulate my thinking towards resolving this confusion?
There are several things to ask about beliefs like this:
Do they make internal sense? (e.g. “What is the fourth dimension?”)
Do they match the sort of evidence that you would expect to have in the case of non-delusion? (e.g. “Do you have any observable physical traits indicating your extraterrestrial origin? Would someone looking into records of your birth find discrepancies in your records indicating forgery?”)
Do they try to defend themselves against testing? (e.g. “Do you expect to illuminate a completely dark room at night by generating light? Would you expect to exist happily in psychological conditions that would harm normal humans by subsisting on aid packages full of love?”)
Do they have explanatory power? (e.g. “Has there, as a matter of historical fact, been a sudden and dramatic reduction in global strife and suffering since the date of your supposed arrival?”)
Do they have a causal history that can be reasonably expected to track with truth across the entire reference class from an outside view? (e.g. “Did you receive your information via private mental revelation or a belief from as long ago as you can remember, similar to the beliefs of people you do consider crazy?”)
Hi, Alicorn!
Yes. They are drawn from the material at http://lawofone.info/ . The philosophy presented there is internally consistent, to the best of my understanding.
There is no physical evidence. All of the “evidence” is in my head. This is a significant point.
There are a variety of points in the source document which could be interpreted as designed to defend its claims against testing. This is a significant point.
I am not aware of any physically testable predictions that these beliefs make. This is a significant point.
The causal history of these beliefs is that I read the aforementioned document, and eventually decided that it was true, mainly on the basis of the fact that it made sense to my intuition and resonated personally with me. This is a significant point.
Thanks for asking!
Currently reading Law of One. I’m not sure what the mechanism is, but it seems to involve people receiving telepathic messages (from an entity named Ra) and speaking them aloud. I would like to note that I have experienced messages coming into my head, seemingly from outside (either as voices or as an impulse to write), and can even occasionally cause it voluntarily. Their content can be partially unexpected, but it never contains information I could test independently. I consider this an entertaining misbug in my brain, not evidence of an external telepathic entity.
I understand your point, but it also reminded me of this :-)
Good luck! It may help to remember that this sort of thing seems to be a failure mode of the human mind. I know someone who had a manic episode during which he believed he was destined to bring enlightenment to the world. (He also believed he could control the weather.)
In case you haven’t come across this already, go here and read the paragraph that starts “But it is possible to do better, even if your brain malfunctions on you.”