I think it sometimes happens in cults, that they are first started by a person shamelessly lying to others, but as they are surrounded by true believers the social pressure instinct kicks in and suddenly the person is like: “wow, I was thinking I was making up this stuff, but seems like actually I have been receiving messages from the Universe all the time, I just wasn’t aware of it.”
Another possibility is that the people who confused the whole world die, and then all the living people are confused.
Not sure if “fooling people” requires intent. If you invent flogiston and make everyone believe in it, are people “fooled”?
Those are some interesting points. I think if someone truly promoted the idea of ‘flogiston’, even with the purest intentions, and as a consequence some people became deceived, I would consider it unintentional fooling, subconscious fooling, etc. So it definitely wouldn’t require intent.
After reflection, this also ties in with the issue of determining the competence of a superior intelligence. Where one can only identify the level above them, but not differentiate the level above the level above them, and so on.
So people who think they are near the top, and who believe there’s one level of people modestly greater than them in lets say ‘fooling ability’, may genuinely carry out their activities on that assumption. They effectively lead themselves into a trap if their estimation was wrong, if they are not actually near the very top.
I can understand why the simulation hypothesis and zoo hypothesis are so popular.
I think it sometimes happens in cults, that they are first started by a person shamelessly lying to others, but as they are surrounded by true believers the social pressure instinct kicks in and suddenly the person is like: “wow, I was thinking I was making up this stuff, but seems like actually I have been receiving messages from the Universe all the time, I just wasn’t aware of it.”
Another possibility is that the people who confused the whole world die, and then all the living people are confused.
Not sure if “fooling people” requires intent. If you invent flogiston and make everyone believe in it, are people “fooled”?
Those are some interesting points. I think if someone truly promoted the idea of ‘flogiston’, even with the purest intentions, and as a consequence some people became deceived, I would consider it unintentional fooling, subconscious fooling, etc. So it definitely wouldn’t require intent.
After reflection, this also ties in with the issue of determining the competence of a superior intelligence. Where one can only identify the level above them, but not differentiate the level above the level above them, and so on.
So people who think they are near the top, and who believe there’s one level of people modestly greater than them in lets say ‘fooling ability’, may genuinely carry out their activities on that assumption. They effectively lead themselves into a trap if their estimation was wrong, if they are not actually near the very top.
I can understand why the simulation hypothesis and zoo hypothesis are so popular.