We also have to take into account priors in an individual situation. So, for example, maybe I have found that shamanistic scammers who lie about things related to dreams are pretty common. Then it would make sense for me to apply a special-case rule to disbelieve strange-sounding dream-related claims, even if I tend to believe similarly surprising claims in other contexts (where my priors point to people’s honesty).
Lucid dreaming is actually an interesting one where I always have to start an introduction to it with “It has been scientifically proven, I am not crazy or part of a cult.”. Even then I sometimes get sceptical responses. In most cases, I don’t think I would be able to communicate it at all if it had not been scientifically proven. Meditation is another one that is highly stigmatised because of its associations with (in many cases demonstrably) crazy claims and.. “thrown out with the bath water” though this seems to be slowly changing as more and more studies are showing its benefits.
These are two instances where scientific evidence has surfaced so it is easy to talk about. They are good as indicative examples. The post is about experiences that (assuming they exist) have not yet enter the area discoverable by our current scientific tools.
You must move in much more skeptical circles than me. I’ve never encountered someone who even “rolled to disbelieve” when told about lucid dreaming (at least not visibly), even among aspiring rationalists; people just seem to accept that it’s a thing. But it might be that most of them already heard about it from other sources.
We also have to take into account priors in an individual situation. So, for example, maybe I have found that shamanistic scammers who lie about things related to dreams are pretty common. Then it would make sense for me to apply a special-case rule to disbelieve strange-sounding dream-related claims, even if I tend to believe similarly surprising claims in other contexts (where my priors point to people’s honesty).
Lucid dreaming is actually an interesting one where I always have to start an introduction to it with “It has been scientifically proven, I am not crazy or part of a cult.”. Even then I sometimes get sceptical responses. In most cases, I don’t think I would be able to communicate it at all if it had not been scientifically proven. Meditation is another one that is highly stigmatised because of its associations with (in many cases demonstrably) crazy claims and.. “thrown out with the bath water” though this seems to be slowly changing as more and more studies are showing its benefits.
These are two instances where scientific evidence has surfaced so it is easy to talk about. They are good as indicative examples. The post is about experiences that (assuming they exist) have not yet enter the area discoverable by our current scientific tools.
You must move in much more skeptical circles than me. I’ve never encountered someone who even “rolled to disbelieve” when told about lucid dreaming (at least not visibly), even among aspiring rationalists; people just seem to accept that it’s a thing. But it might be that most of them already heard about it from other sources.