Actually, I’m handling folks with kid gloves, compared to my students.
I didn’t say “nasty”, I said “patronizing”.
Actually, it does. I’m trying to tell you how to experience [...]
If someone tells you that by praying in a particular way anyone can achieve spiritual union with the creator of the universe, and you ask for evidence, it is Not Helpful if they tell you “just try it and see”. (Especially if they add that actually, on past experience, the chances are that if you try it you won’t see because you won’t really be doing it right; and that to do it right you have to suspend your disbelief in what they’re telling you and agree to obey all their instructions. But that’s a separate can of worms.) Because (1) you won’t know for sure whether you really have achieved spiritual union with the creator of the universe (it might just feel that way), and (2) you’ll have discovered scarcely anything about how it works for anyone else. You might be more impressed if they can point to some sort of statistical evidence that shows (say) that people who pray in their preferred way are particularly good at discovering new laws of physics, which they attribute to their intimate connection to the creator of the universe.
More briefly: If someone asks for evidence, then “if you do exactly what I tell you to and suspend disbelief, then you might feel what I say you will” is not answering their question.
[...] that “quality” equals some abstraction about “truth”, that progressively retreats.
I haven’t observed this progressive retreat (it looks more to me like a progressive realisation on your part of what the fussier denizens of LW had wanted all along). But I do have a comment on the last step you described—“the paper has to say it’s about NLP”. For anyone who isn’t a professional psychologist, neurologist, cognitive scientist, or whatever, determining whether (and how far) a paper like Damasio’s supports your claims is a decidedly nontrivial business. (It’s easy to verify that some similar words crop up in somewhat-similar contexts, but that’s not the same.) Whereas, if if a paper says “Our findings provide strong confirmation for the wibbling hypothesis of NLP” and what you’re saying is “I accept the wibbling hypothesis as described in NLP texts”, that makes it rather easier to get a handle on how much evidence the research actually gives for your claims.
(In the present case, unfortunately but quite reasonably Google Books only lets me read bits of Damasio’s paper. I have basically no idea to what extent it confirms your underlying model of human cognition, and even less of whether it offers any support for the conclusions you draw from it about how to improve one’s own mind.)
Frankly, I’m beginning to forget why I bothered trying to share any information in the first place.
What, because one or two people haven’t found what you’ve said useful, and have said so? That seems a bit extreme.
If someone tells you that by praying in a particular way anyone can achieve spiritual union with the creator of the universe, and you ask for evidence, it is Not Helpful if they tell you “just try it and see”.
I think this is a little unfair. Extending the Mormon Wednesday discussion, I didn’t take my church leader’s suggestions to “read the Book of Mormon and pray about it” because, in retrospect, I had an extremely low prior probability that my thoughts could be communicated to a divine being who would respond to them with warm fuzzies.
I don’t think pjeby’s claims that practicing certain mental states/self hypnosis (I’m unclear on exactly what he is advocating) can influence our subconscious are that implausible. That doesn’t mean his theories are right, but they seem plausible that even the weak evidence of self-experimentation might say something about them.
I don’t think pjeby’s claims that practicing certain mental states/self hypnosis (I’m unclear on exactly what he is advocating) can influence our subconscious
I’m suggesting that priming, suggestion, hypnosis, NLP, placebo effects, creative visualization and a host of other psychological and new-age phenomena are ALL functions of the near/far divide, relying on a single precondition that might be called “suspension of disbelief”.
Or more precisely, refraining from verbal overshadowing—or something that’s suspiciously close to being able to be described that way.
From an evolutionary POV, you might say my hypothesis is that verbal overshadowing actually evolved in a “persuasion arms race”, specifically as an anti-persuasion defense, to prevent others from verbally exploiting our exposed unconscious processes.
IOW, if simple language evolved first, and was hooked directly to the “near” process (because that’s all there was), then it could be exploited by others—we would be “gullible” or “suggestible”. We would then evolve more sophisticated verbal intelligence, both to better exploit others, and to better defend ourselves.
Unfortunately, while this arguably gave rise to “intelligence” and “consciousness” as we know them, it also means that we’re cut off from being able to exploit our own near systems, unless we learn how to shut off the shields long enough to put stuff in (or take stuff out, change it, etc.).
Most self-help material consists of elaborate explanations to convince people to let down the shields by believing that what they say is true. However, in truth it is only necessary to not engage in disbelieving—to not shoot down the incoming data, whether it’s being provided by one’s self, the therapist or hypnotist, or something you read in a book.
However, instead of “truth” as a guide for what you install in the near system, one should use usefulness, since it is entirely possible to believe different things in the two systems without conflict.
I consider the near system to basically be a robot that I program for my own use, so I can feel free to exploit its beliefs based on what results I, the programmer, wish to accomplish. (And NLP offers a nice set of rules that can be used in place of “truth” as a guide for what “robot” beliefs are hygenic, vs. ones likely to lead to malfunction or undesired results.)
(Whee! I’m getting the explanation shorter! Practice, FTW! Too bad this particular explanation leans heavily on prior knowledge of at least priming, near/far, and verbal overshadowing, and lightly on pickup, suspension of disbelief, and the like. So in its bare form, it’s only really useful for a regular LW reader. But an improvement nonetheless.)
Well, I am genuinely appreciative of your attempts to explain, whether they are getting through or not.
Actually, I should be thanking you and the other people I’ve been replying to, because I just realized what pure gold I ended up with. I didn’t actually realize I had an implicit synthesis of the entire self-help field on my hands; in fact, I never consciously synthesized it before. And when I was telling my wife about it this evening, the ramifications of what should be possible under this simplified model hit me like a ton of bricks.
And it was the questions that Vladimir Nesov, gjm, Vladimir Golovin and others asked—about the techniques, the model, the self-help field in general, the similarities -- combined with sprocket’s post about “A/B” thinking that primed me with the right context to put it all together in a tightly integrated way. The refined model makes everything make a whole lot more sense to me—failures and successes alike. (For example, I now have an idea of why certain “affirmation” techniques are likely to work better than others, for some poeple.)
As soon as I get some rest, I have some things I want to try. Because if this more-unified model is indeed “less wrong” than my previous one, I just “levelled up” in my art. Frackin’ awesome! I think my massive investment of time here is actually going to pay off.
But whether it enables me to do anything new or not, this revision is still a big step forward in simplified communication regarding what I already do. So either way...
Thank you, LWers, I couldn’t have done it without you!
And it was the questions that Vladimir Nesov, gjm, Vladimir Golovin and others asked—about the techniques, the model, the self-help field in general, the similarities—combined with sprocket’s post about “A/B” thinking that primed me with the right context to put it all together in a tightly integrated way. The refined model makes everything make a whole lot more sense to me—failures and successes alike. (For example, I now have an idea of why certain “affirmation” techniques are likely to work better than others, for some poeple.)
Hmmm… I wish you well, but usually this kind of revelation, when put into writing and left to draw on a shelf for a couple of weeks, reveals itself as much less wonderful than it originally seemed to be. Although usually it’s also a step forward, even if in the direction opposite to where you were walking before.
One might get the opposite impression, but in fact I am too. One reason why I keep whingeing at Philip is that his style of presentation makes it very difficult to tell where he is on the charlatan-to-expert spectrum, and that wouldn’t bother me if I didn’t think there was at least a chance that he’s near the expert end.
What, because one or two people haven’t found what you’ve said useful, and have said so? That seems a bit extreme.
No, because the amount of time I’ve spent attempting to communicate these things might have been better spent teaching more people who actually need the information badly enough to jump at the chance to apply it, and whose primary criterion for the quality of the information is whether it helps them.
The only thing that makes it a tossup is that here, I’m forced to search for better and better metaphors, and more compact ways to communicate things… which is good practice/feedback for certain parts of the book I’m currently writing. But my current inability to quantify the effects of that practice, vs. the easily measurable time spent and the equivalent number of words towards a finished book, the tradeoff doesn’t look so good.
I didn’t say “nasty”, I said “patronizing”.
If someone tells you that by praying in a particular way anyone can achieve spiritual union with the creator of the universe, and you ask for evidence, it is Not Helpful if they tell you “just try it and see”. (Especially if they add that actually, on past experience, the chances are that if you try it you won’t see because you won’t really be doing it right; and that to do it right you have to suspend your disbelief in what they’re telling you and agree to obey all their instructions. But that’s a separate can of worms.) Because (1) you won’t know for sure whether you really have achieved spiritual union with the creator of the universe (it might just feel that way), and (2) you’ll have discovered scarcely anything about how it works for anyone else. You might be more impressed if they can point to some sort of statistical evidence that shows (say) that people who pray in their preferred way are particularly good at discovering new laws of physics, which they attribute to their intimate connection to the creator of the universe.
More briefly: If someone asks for evidence, then “if you do exactly what I tell you to and suspend disbelief, then you might feel what I say you will” is not answering their question.
I haven’t observed this progressive retreat (it looks more to me like a progressive realisation on your part of what the fussier denizens of LW had wanted all along). But I do have a comment on the last step you described—“the paper has to say it’s about NLP”. For anyone who isn’t a professional psychologist, neurologist, cognitive scientist, or whatever, determining whether (and how far) a paper like Damasio’s supports your claims is a decidedly nontrivial business. (It’s easy to verify that some similar words crop up in somewhat-similar contexts, but that’s not the same.) Whereas, if if a paper says “Our findings provide strong confirmation for the wibbling hypothesis of NLP” and what you’re saying is “I accept the wibbling hypothesis as described in NLP texts”, that makes it rather easier to get a handle on how much evidence the research actually gives for your claims.
(In the present case, unfortunately but quite reasonably Google Books only lets me read bits of Damasio’s paper. I have basically no idea to what extent it confirms your underlying model of human cognition, and even less of whether it offers any support for the conclusions you draw from it about how to improve one’s own mind.)
What, because one or two people haven’t found what you’ve said useful, and have said so? That seems a bit extreme.
I think this is a little unfair. Extending the Mormon Wednesday discussion, I didn’t take my church leader’s suggestions to “read the Book of Mormon and pray about it” because, in retrospect, I had an extremely low prior probability that my thoughts could be communicated to a divine being who would respond to them with warm fuzzies.
I don’t think pjeby’s claims that practicing certain mental states/self hypnosis (I’m unclear on exactly what he is advocating) can influence our subconscious are that implausible. That doesn’t mean his theories are right, but they seem plausible that even the weak evidence of self-experimentation might say something about them.
I’m suggesting that priming, suggestion, hypnosis, NLP, placebo effects, creative visualization and a host of other psychological and new-age phenomena are ALL functions of the near/far divide, relying on a single precondition that might be called “suspension of disbelief”.
Or more precisely, refraining from verbal overshadowing—or something that’s suspiciously close to being able to be described that way.
From an evolutionary POV, you might say my hypothesis is that verbal overshadowing actually evolved in a “persuasion arms race”, specifically as an anti-persuasion defense, to prevent others from verbally exploiting our exposed unconscious processes.
IOW, if simple language evolved first, and was hooked directly to the “near” process (because that’s all there was), then it could be exploited by others—we would be “gullible” or “suggestible”. We would then evolve more sophisticated verbal intelligence, both to better exploit others, and to better defend ourselves.
Unfortunately, while this arguably gave rise to “intelligence” and “consciousness” as we know them, it also means that we’re cut off from being able to exploit our own near systems, unless we learn how to shut off the shields long enough to put stuff in (or take stuff out, change it, etc.).
Most self-help material consists of elaborate explanations to convince people to let down the shields by believing that what they say is true. However, in truth it is only necessary to not engage in disbelieving—to not shoot down the incoming data, whether it’s being provided by one’s self, the therapist or hypnotist, or something you read in a book.
However, instead of “truth” as a guide for what you install in the near system, one should use usefulness, since it is entirely possible to believe different things in the two systems without conflict.
I consider the near system to basically be a robot that I program for my own use, so I can feel free to exploit its beliefs based on what results I, the programmer, wish to accomplish. (And NLP offers a nice set of rules that can be used in place of “truth” as a guide for what “robot” beliefs are hygenic, vs. ones likely to lead to malfunction or undesired results.)
(Whee! I’m getting the explanation shorter! Practice, FTW! Too bad this particular explanation leans heavily on prior knowledge of at least priming, near/far, and verbal overshadowing, and lightly on pickup, suspension of disbelief, and the like. So in its bare form, it’s only really useful for a regular LW reader. But an improvement nonetheless.)
Well, I am genuinely appreciative of your attempts to explain, whether they are getting through or not.
Actually, I should be thanking you and the other people I’ve been replying to, because I just realized what pure gold I ended up with. I didn’t actually realize I had an implicit synthesis of the entire self-help field on my hands; in fact, I never consciously synthesized it before. And when I was telling my wife about it this evening, the ramifications of what should be possible under this simplified model hit me like a ton of bricks.
And it was the questions that Vladimir Nesov, gjm, Vladimir Golovin and others asked—about the techniques, the model, the self-help field in general, the similarities -- combined with sprocket’s post about “A/B” thinking that primed me with the right context to put it all together in a tightly integrated way. The refined model makes everything make a whole lot more sense to me—failures and successes alike. (For example, I now have an idea of why certain “affirmation” techniques are likely to work better than others, for some poeple.)
As soon as I get some rest, I have some things I want to try. Because if this more-unified model is indeed “less wrong” than my previous one, I just “levelled up” in my art. Frackin’ awesome! I think my massive investment of time here is actually going to pay off.
But whether it enables me to do anything new or not, this revision is still a big step forward in simplified communication regarding what I already do. So either way...
Thank you, LWers, I couldn’t have done it without you!
Hmmm… I wish you well, but usually this kind of revelation, when put into writing and left to draw on a shelf for a couple of weeks, reveals itself as much less wonderful than it originally seemed to be. Although usually it’s also a step forward, even if in the direction opposite to where you were walking before.
One might get the opposite impression, but in fact I am too. One reason why I keep whingeing at Philip is that his style of presentation makes it very difficult to tell where he is on the charlatan-to-expert spectrum, and that wouldn’t bother me if I didn’t think there was at least a chance that he’s near the expert end.
No, because the amount of time I’ve spent attempting to communicate these things might have been better spent teaching more people who actually need the information badly enough to jump at the chance to apply it, and whose primary criterion for the quality of the information is whether it helps them.
The only thing that makes it a tossup is that here, I’m forced to search for better and better metaphors, and more compact ways to communicate things… which is good practice/feedback for certain parts of the book I’m currently writing. But my current inability to quantify the effects of that practice, vs. the easily measurable time spent and the equivalent number of words towards a finished book, the tradeoff doesn’t look so good.