Standing on a narrow ledge, afraid of falling, you might feel a strong urge to jump. Why?
...I don’t know, but my reaction on reading this line was “holy crap, that happens to other people too?”
Even if the explicit verbal instruction you give your mind is “tell me how to be socially skilled in this conversation,” it will get parsed as “tell me how to be not awkward” and your fetcher will in turn parse that as “be awkward” and helpfully suggest ways to accomplish that goal.
Taking a brief mental inventory of those interactions embarrassing enough to be seriously painful years after the event, this or something very like it appears to be responsible for...all of them.
...I don’t know, but my reaction on reading this line was “holy crap, that happens to other people too?”
Taking a brief mental inventory of those interactions embarrassing enough to be seriously painful years after the event, this or something very like it appears to be responsible for...all of them.
It’s well-known enough that there’s an expression for it: l’appel du vide. (Roughly “the call of the void”, or so I’m told.)
Or “the imp of the perverse,” like in the Poe piece I linked to.
And in psychology the term is “intrusive thoughts”.
And, in theology, logismoi
And, in lesswrongology, basilisks.
A basilisk is somewhat different, I think—it’s supposed to be a strong informational hazard, not just an unhelpful thought pattern.