Merging traditional Western occultism with Bayesian ideas seems to produce some interesting parallels, which may be useful psychologically/motivationally. Anyone care to riff on the theme?
Eg: “The Great Work” is the Most Important Thing that you can possibly be doing.
Eg, tests to pass and gates to go through in which a student has to realize certain things for themselves, as opposed to simply being taught them, from pre-membership ones of learning basic arithmetic and physics, to the initial initiation of joining the Bayesian Conspiracy, to an early gate of becoming a full atheist, to a higher gate of, say, making arrangements to be brought back from the dead. (Possibly the highest level would be to have arrangements to be brought back from the dead /without/ anyone else’s help...)
That makes a bit of sense. The occultists fancied themselves scientists, back when that wasn’t such a clearly defined term as it is now, and they rummaged through lots of traditions looking for bits to incorporate into their new (claimed to be old) culture. But computer games design had all the same sources to draw from, greater manpower and vastly more cultural impact. I would expect “almost any” useful innovations the occultists came up with to be contained in computer games.
This is true for both of your examples: “winning the game” and skill trees, respectively. And skill trees are better than initiation paths, because they aren’t fully linear while still creating motivation to go further.
I say “almost any” because an exception may be fully immersed, bodily ritual stuff. Maybe that can hammer things down into system 1 that you simply don’t “get” the same way when you just read them.
I say “almost any” because an exception may be fully immersed, bodily ritual stuff. Maybe that can hammer things down into system 1 that you simply don’t “get” the same way when you just read them.
Is VR (Oculus Rift, Sony Morpheus) a significant step in that direction?
Sure. In fact, some occultists already use VR, so I don’t see why we couldn’t.
The one interesting innovation the occultists came up with is creative design of ritual—and sometimes they do manage to see them as psychological tools rather than somewhat supernatural things. Surely some of that could be “useful psychologically/motivationally”—although psychological research into that is practically nonexistent, it is plausible that a well-designed ritual could do something to participants, such as help them to actually change their mind.
For example, most of us agree Crocker’s rules are a good idea. I’m confident that if adopting them was done as a ritual event, something pompous with witnesses, that’d:
create positive reinforcement and a more impressive memory,
help keep the rules and
advertise them, especially if the witnesses aren’t familiar with them.
Maybe VR could help heighten the experience. But I assume that recording the event, and publishing it for all the world to witness, would do much more.
My computer gaming experience mostly peaks around the era of Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri and Ultima, so I’m only vaguely familiar with skill trees. Could you describe how they might apply here in a bit more detail?
Think of a research tree, then. Or more formally, a simple directed graph. Nodes can be “on” or “off”, meaning you (claim to) have or not have the skill that node describes. A nodes can be a prerequisite for other.
This can be taken many ways, but one obvious example would be a “sequences comprehension tree”. One node per part of the sequences, with the parts that part is based on as prerequisites. You could claim a node to express confidence you’ve understood (or even agreed with?) that particular part, track your progress, and if you could publicly share your progress along this sequences comprehension (or any other) tree, you could also show off.
This could be done in JavaScript fairly easily, and it’d be awesome I think. Anyone want to code it?
Additional idea: “DataPacRat’s Lower Bound” for the Great Work: “If what you’re doing isn’t at /least/ as important as ensuring that you will keep being able to read comics for the foreseeable future, then you should work on the comic thing instead.”
The simplest explanation I can see: I’m pretty sure the writers who coined some of the memes you reference (i.e. “Bayesian Conspiracy,” “higher gate”) were drawing on those very same occult traditions for affect and flair. The parallels are analogy because analogy is useful. Which brings up a question: I’m curious what you mean by “useful”? Useful as teaching analogies or useful as sources of structure and methodology? Or something else?
The simplest explanation I can see: I’m pretty sure the writers who coined some of the memes you reference (i.e. “Bayesian Conspiracy,” “higher gate”) were drawing on those very same occult traditions for affect and flair.
I’m pretty sure this is false, except insofar as some of the style of Western ceremonial magic has seeped into pop-cultural ideas of how conspiracies and secret teachings work. There isn’t much overlap in doctrine, terminology, or practice other than what you’d expect from two different groups that’ve spent a lot of time thinking about how to cause change in accordance with will (which we call “instrumental rationality” and they call “magic”).
There are people willing to run through the entire rigamarole of the Golden Dawn initiation rituals, and all associated memorization, without any significant evidence that any of the supposed magic has any effect on the real world. How much more motivation could be created using a similar process, but which can be demonstrated to be linked to how the universe actually works?
Some of my central questions: Would such methods prove effective with subjects whose drive to join is a desire to question and improve upon methods? If such methods led them to discover effective facts that can optimize efforts in the real world (rather than a “magic” used mainly for interpersonal signalling), then wouldn’t secrecy be self-defeating? After all, the subjects are being linked to the underlying laws of the universe. To expect them not to apply those laws in their public life, and, if altruistic, to share such discoveries, is a fact hard for me to accept.
Certainly, I find the drama and seriousness of such an idea exciting. It lends a nice, hefty weight to learning that the task should possess. Secret knowledge is appetizing, so it makes sense to want that knowledge to be useful rather than just a pageant show. The problem comes with the fact that secret knowledge that is entangled in the real world is not really secret. It’s real. We’re only pretending to keep it secret when really the answer is, literally, the nose in front of our face.
It’s like the adage “homeopathic medicine that worked would be called ‘medicine.’” Secret knowledge that is true is knowledge, plain and simple. It only takes one genius kid riding a train with a stopwatch and a mirror to discover relativity. Then the secret’s out and, probably, being used to produce terrible ads for the sides of trains.
You do realize that at least the latter two ‘gates’ you came up with are predicated entirely on a very specific local culture and set of values around here rather than having anything to do with rationality, right? (Not to mention not exactly being likely to be possible in the real world...)
Merging traditional Western occultism with Bayesian ideas seems to produce some interesting parallels, which may be useful psychologically/motivationally. Anyone care to riff on the theme?
Eg: “The Great Work” is the Most Important Thing that you can possibly be doing.
Eg, tests to pass and gates to go through in which a student has to realize certain things for themselves, as opposed to simply being taught them, from pre-membership ones of learning basic arithmetic and physics, to the initial initiation of joining the Bayesian Conspiracy, to an early gate of becoming a full atheist, to a higher gate of, say, making arrangements to be brought back from the dead. (Possibly the highest level would be to have arrangements to be brought back from the dead /without/ anyone else’s help...)
That makes a bit of sense. The occultists fancied themselves scientists, back when that wasn’t such a clearly defined term as it is now, and they rummaged through lots of traditions looking for bits to incorporate into their new (claimed to be old) culture. But computer games design had all the same sources to draw from, greater manpower and vastly more cultural impact. I would expect “almost any” useful innovations the occultists came up with to be contained in computer games.
This is true for both of your examples: “winning the game” and skill trees, respectively. And skill trees are better than initiation paths, because they aren’t fully linear while still creating motivation to go further.
Compare the rules of how to play more like a PC, less like an NPC.
I say “almost any” because an exception may be fully immersed, bodily ritual stuff. Maybe that can hammer things down into system 1 that you simply don’t “get” the same way when you just read them.
Is VR (Oculus Rift, Sony Morpheus) a significant step in that direction?
Sure. In fact, some occultists already use VR, so I don’t see why we couldn’t.
The one interesting innovation the occultists came up with is creative design of ritual—and sometimes they do manage to see them as psychological tools rather than somewhat supernatural things. Surely some of that could be “useful psychologically/motivationally”—although psychological research into that is practically nonexistent, it is plausible that a well-designed ritual could do something to participants, such as help them to actually change their mind.
For example, most of us agree Crocker’s rules are a good idea. I’m confident that if adopting them was done as a ritual event, something pompous with witnesses, that’d:
create positive reinforcement and a more impressive memory,
help keep the rules and
advertise them, especially if the witnesses aren’t familiar with them.
Maybe VR could help heighten the experience. But I assume that recording the event, and publishing it for all the world to witness, would do much more.
Occultus Rift?
My computer gaming experience mostly peaks around the era of Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri and Ultima, so I’m only vaguely familiar with skill trees. Could you describe how they might apply here in a bit more detail?
Think of a research tree, then. Or more formally, a simple directed graph. Nodes can be “on” or “off”, meaning you (claim to) have or not have the skill that node describes. A nodes can be a prerequisite for other.
This can be taken many ways, but one obvious example would be a “sequences comprehension tree”. One node per part of the sequences, with the parts that part is based on as prerequisites. You could claim a node to express confidence you’ve understood (or even agreed with?) that particular part, track your progress, and if you could publicly share your progress along this sequences comprehension (or any other) tree, you could also show off.
This could be done in JavaScript fairly easily, and it’d be awesome I think. Anyone want to code it?
Additional idea: “DataPacRat’s Lower Bound” for the Great Work: “If what you’re doing isn’t at /least/ as important as ensuring that you will keep being able to read comics for the foreseeable future, then you should work on the comic thing instead.”
What exactly do you mean when you say “traditional Western occultism”. Things like Freemasonism?
The Golden Dawn ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermetic_Order_of_the_Golden_Dawn , not the Greek political thing) and related groups, such as AA ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A%E2%88%B4A%E2%88%B4 , not the recovery program thing).
The simplest explanation I can see: I’m pretty sure the writers who coined some of the memes you reference (i.e. “Bayesian Conspiracy,” “higher gate”) were drawing on those very same occult traditions for affect and flair. The parallels are analogy because analogy is useful. Which brings up a question: I’m curious what you mean by “useful”? Useful as teaching analogies or useful as sources of structure and methodology? Or something else?
I’m pretty sure this is false, except insofar as some of the style of Western ceremonial magic has seeped into pop-cultural ideas of how conspiracies and secret teachings work. There isn’t much overlap in doctrine, terminology, or practice other than what you’d expect from two different groups that’ve spent a lot of time thinking about how to cause change in accordance with will (which we call “instrumental rationality” and they call “magic”).
There are people willing to run through the entire rigamarole of the Golden Dawn initiation rituals, and all associated memorization, without any significant evidence that any of the supposed magic has any effect on the real world. How much more motivation could be created using a similar process, but which can be demonstrated to be linked to how the universe actually works?
I do not know. A comparative study would help.
Some of my central questions: Would such methods prove effective with subjects whose drive to join is a desire to question and improve upon methods? If such methods led them to discover effective facts that can optimize efforts in the real world (rather than a “magic” used mainly for interpersonal signalling), then wouldn’t secrecy be self-defeating? After all, the subjects are being linked to the underlying laws of the universe. To expect them not to apply those laws in their public life, and, if altruistic, to share such discoveries, is a fact hard for me to accept.
Certainly, I find the drama and seriousness of such an idea exciting. It lends a nice, hefty weight to learning that the task should possess. Secret knowledge is appetizing, so it makes sense to want that knowledge to be useful rather than just a pageant show. The problem comes with the fact that secret knowledge that is entangled in the real world is not really secret. It’s real. We’re only pretending to keep it secret when really the answer is, literally, the nose in front of our face.
It’s like the adage “homeopathic medicine that worked would be called ‘medicine.’” Secret knowledge that is true is knowledge, plain and simple. It only takes one genius kid riding a train with a stopwatch and a mirror to discover relativity. Then the secret’s out and, probably, being used to produce terrible ads for the sides of trains.
You do realize that at least the latter two ‘gates’ you came up with are predicated entirely on a very specific local culture and set of values around here rather than having anything to do with rationality, right? (Not to mention not exactly being likely to be possible in the real world...)
Yep, I realize that. If you’ve got any better suggestions for the gates to pass and rites to perform, I welcome the ideas.
Yes, I have a suggestion. Imagine a meaningful life without religion.