The only other is one semi recent thread where the author inferred the coordinated malicious intent of MIRI and the existence of self-described demons from extremely shaky grounds of reasoning none of which involve any “weird, abusive, and cultish behavior among some community leader rationalists”.
Given that there’s no public explanation of why the word demon is used and potential infohazards involved in talking about that, there’s little way from the outside to judge the grounds based on which the word is used.
There was research into paranormal phenomena that lead to that point and that research should be considered inherently risky and definately under the label “weird”.
Whether or not the initiating research project is worthwhile to be done is debatable given that the kind of research can lead to interesting insights, but it’s weird/risky.
I’m going to lightly recommend you add more information to this comment highlighting the points you meant to make and defending against the ones you meant not to make, because I read it currently as the below. This feels incoherent as if I am making a mistake, so I didn’t vote down, but I feel others may do so and likewise fail to learn whatever it is you are saying.
Para 1: We shouldn’t talk about demons because they might hurt us
Para 2: There was paranormal research, which is risky (because demons are real)
Para 3: We could investigate this further, but we maybe shouldn’t (since we could be hurt by demons)
There’s information to which I have access and that I have shared with a handful of people about this, where I had infohazard concerns about sharing it more openly and people I shared it with a bunch of people who didn’t believe that making the information more public is worth it either.
The information itself is probably, not harmful to the average person but potentially harmful to people with some mental health issues.
I did not provide a justification for paragraph #2/#3 but made claims I believe to be true based on partly non-public information.
(I’m also still missing some pieces in understanding what happened)
Okay, to clarify, what did you mean by the word “paranormal”? I’m saying I thought the word would set people off [1]. I’d feel more comfortable with what you said if you clarified below “I don’t mean ghosts or magic, I’m using this word in a very nonstandard way”. Otherwise, I suspect you’re being Pascal’s mugged by concepts centuries older than the concept of “air”.
Leverage temporarily hired someone who did energy healing in 2018 and then did their own research project in that direction.
I do think that a variety of things that happened in the related research project would fall under the ban of the catholic church against magic.
If you are creative you can tell a story about how energy healing isn’t paranormal at all and also do that for the other phenomena that came under investigation, but I don’t think it’s “very nonstandard” to use the word paranormal when talking about the phenomena.
I’m going to cut myself off and say I won’t drag this out anymore [1] because I think there is some part of what I’m asking this is getting completely lost in translation (and that makes talking further pointless unless I get better at this).
I think the following statement:
There was research into paranormal phenomena that lead to that point and that research should be considered inherently risky and definately under the label “weird”.
(emphasis mine)
Means that you are saying there is something paranormal going on. I think that is silly, because no evidence has been proffered that would make that statement justified.
Further, you referring to “infohazards” confuses me, because it seems like you think the “mental demons” thing is real, which is a completely unjustified belief from where I’m standing. It would take an incredible amount of evidence to get me to agree with the following statement, which I think you agree with:
The “mental demons” thing involved with Leverage is real, and there is actual “paranormal” stuff going on here.
I generally believe in empiricism. Asking “what ontology is real” has it’s uses in some contexts. Having ontological commitments when dealing with a bunch of weird effects that are hard to make sense of isn’t.
There are weird effects involved in what pointed at with the word demon but I don’t think using that word is likely the most enlightening way to talk about the effects.
Here it is in the words of current Leverage Institute’s post about their previous work on psychology:
”During our research we encountered a large number of risks and potentially deleterious effects from the use or misuse of psychological tools and methods, including our own. We believe that research should be conducted by people who are informed, as far as possible, with the potential risks and dangers of research, and the use of our tools and methods are no exception.
As such, when equipping others to engage in psychological experimentation themselves, we will endeavor to help people to make informed choices by describing the risks and dangers as we see them, and making recommendations about what we believe to be more or less safe approaches.” https://www.leverageresearch.org/research-exploratory-psychology
I think you may have replied to the wrong poster as this does not address the truth value of the statement “mental demons are real” in a straightforward way, which I pretty explicitly have asked a few times about.
(This isn’t meant to be confrontational, I really don’t see the connection and think you used the wrong comment box)
Also: “If you have a bunch of weird(?) people experiment on their own minds and also each other, you would maybe imagine that could lead to bad effects and/or things might fall apart at some point. Perhaps this is why some people found Leverage to be a bad idea from the outset. Well, it took ~8 years (and we learned a lot in the process), but things did fall apart. We did know that going in though, and were aware that things might not work out (though I suppose people were also pretty committed to it working, and planning on that maybe more than they were planning on it falling apart quite so spectacularly).”
Given that there’s no public explanation of why the word demon is used and potential infohazards involved in talking about that, there’s little way from the outside to judge the grounds based on which the word is used.
There was research into paranormal phenomena that lead to that point and that research should be considered inherently risky and definately under the label “weird”.
Whether or not the initiating research project is worthwhile to be done is debatable given that the kind of research can lead to interesting insights, but it’s weird/risky.
I’m going to lightly recommend you add more information to this comment highlighting the points you meant to make and defending against the ones you meant not to make, because I read it currently as the below. This feels incoherent as if I am making a mistake, so I didn’t vote down, but I feel others may do so and likewise fail to learn whatever it is you are saying.
Para 1: We shouldn’t talk about demons because they might hurt us Para 2: There was paranormal research, which is risky (because demons are real) Para 3: We could investigate this further, but we maybe shouldn’t (since we could be hurt by demons)
There’s information to which I have access and that I have shared with a handful of people about this, where I had infohazard concerns about sharing it more openly and people I shared it with a bunch of people who didn’t believe that making the information more public is worth it either.
The information itself is probably, not harmful to the average person but potentially harmful to people with some mental health issues.
I did not provide a justification for paragraph #2/#3 but made claims I believe to be true based on partly non-public information.
(I’m also still missing some pieces in understanding what happened)
Okay, to clarify, what did you mean by the word “paranormal”? I’m saying I thought the word would set people off [1]. I’d feel more comfortable with what you said if you clarified below “I don’t mean ghosts or magic, I’m using this word in a very nonstandard way”. Otherwise, I suspect you’re being Pascal’s mugged by concepts centuries older than the concept of “air”.
Leverage temporarily hired someone who did energy healing in 2018 and then did their own research project in that direction.
I do think that a variety of things that happened in the related research project would fall under the ban of the catholic church against magic.
If you are creative you can tell a story about how energy healing isn’t paranormal at all and also do that for the other phenomena that came under investigation, but I don’t think it’s “very nonstandard” to use the word paranormal when talking about the phenomena.
I’m going to cut myself off and say I won’t drag this out anymore [1] because I think there is some part of what I’m asking this is getting completely lost in translation (and that makes talking further pointless unless I get better at this).
I think the following statement:
Means that you are saying there is something paranormal going on. I think that is silly, because no evidence has been proffered that would make that statement justified. Further, you referring to “infohazards” confuses me, because it seems like you think the “mental demons” thing is real, which is a completely unjustified belief from where I’m standing. It would take an incredible amount of evidence to get me to agree with the following statement, which I think you agree with:
Unless something truly wild happens below or I want to say “Ah, thanks, I understand you now” or something in one of those 2 broad categories.
I generally believe in empiricism. Asking “what ontology is real” has it’s uses in some contexts. Having ontological commitments when dealing with a bunch of weird effects that are hard to make sense of isn’t.
There are weird effects involved in what pointed at with the word demon but I don’t think using that word is likely the most enlightening way to talk about the effects.
Here it is in the words of current Leverage Institute’s post about their previous work on psychology:
”During our research we encountered a large number of risks and potentially deleterious effects from the use or misuse of psychological tools and methods, including our own. We believe that research should be conducted by people who are informed, as far as possible, with the potential risks and dangers of research, and the use of our tools and methods are no exception.
As such, when equipping others to engage in psychological experimentation themselves, we will endeavor to help people to make informed choices by describing the risks and dangers as we see them, and making recommendations about what we believe to be more or less safe approaches.”
https://www.leverageresearch.org/research-exploratory-psychology
A more detailed account of bodywork, energy work etc. in this section about “Mapping the Unconscious Mind”:
https://www.leverageresearch.org/research-exploratory-psychology#:~:text=2018%20%2D%202019%3A%20Mapping%20the%20Unconscious%20Mind
I think you may have replied to the wrong poster as this does not address the truth value of the statement “mental demons are real” in a straightforward way, which I pretty explicitly have asked a few times about.
(This isn’t meant to be confrontational, I really don’t see the connection and think you used the wrong comment box)
Also: “If you have a bunch of weird(?) people experiment on their own minds and also each other, you would maybe imagine that could lead to bad effects and/or things might fall apart at some point. Perhaps this is why some people found Leverage to be a bad idea from the outset. Well, it took ~8 years (and we learned a lot in the process), but things did fall apart. We did know that going in though, and were aware that things might not work out (though I suppose people were also pretty committed to it working, and planning on that maybe more than they were planning on it falling apart quite so spectacularly).”
https://cathleensdiscoveries.com/LivingLifeWell/in-defense-of-attempting-hard-things
And more specifically:
https://cathleensdiscoveries.com/LivingLifeWell/in-defense-of-attempting-hard-things#:~:text=from%20the%20outside.-,Weird%20experiments%20and%20terminology%20result%20in%20sensational%20claims%20and%20rumors,-Crystals%3F%20Demons%3F%20Seances