If you had not even considered the possibility of breaking your brain in the process of trying to develop a second person, you need to step back and think more before proceeding. This failure mode should be one of the first that pops into your head, without even trying to think of novel failure modes. Right alongside intense meditation, psychedelics, etc.
I think the referent of Guy’s “this failure mode” was “breaking your brain”, not “committing murder.” This comment seemed to me like an unnecessary strawman :(
I was referring to your earlier comment, re: a schizophrenic break, etc. “Breaking your brain” sounds like permanent damage, and it is not obvious why (or how) mental activity could have effects like lead poisoning, or what differentiates mental activities that are supposedly “potentially destabilizing” from those that are not.
I agree it might have been too specific/shorten the causal chain unnecessarily:
(Potentially) Destabilizing Activity → Worse Mental Health, etc. → More likely to do crime, drugs, etc.
Sure. Seems extremely unlikely IMO. But if you’re deliberately trying to change how your brain thinks at a fundamental level rather than training an overlay like we do when learning math or something and letting that trickle down or however it usually works, you might succeed at changing but fail at direction. This is an obvious failure mode to at least consider before beginning. e.g. http://meditatinginsafety.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Kuijpers_2007.pdf
If you had not even considered the possibility of breaking your brain in the process of trying to develop a second person, you need to step back and think more before proceeding. This failure mode should be one of the first that pops into your head, without even trying to think of novel failure modes. Right alongside intense meditation, psychedelics, etc.
You think if people meditate too much* they could end up committing murder**?
EDIT:
*Or if people have never done it before, if they do it the first time, it might destabilize their health (mental/emotional/etc.).
**This may be “too specific”, see my comment below.
I think the referent of Guy’s “this failure mode” was “breaking your brain”, not “committing murder.” This comment seemed to me like an unnecessary strawman :(
I was referring to your earlier comment, re: a schizophrenic break, etc. “Breaking your brain” sounds like permanent damage, and it is not obvious why (or how) mental activity could have effects like lead poisoning, or what differentiates mental activities that are supposedly “potentially destabilizing” from those that are not.
I agree it might have been too specific/shorten the causal chain unnecessarily:
(Potentially) Destabilizing Activity → Worse Mental Health, etc. → More likely to do crime, drugs, etc.
Sure. Seems extremely unlikely IMO. But if you’re deliberately trying to change how your brain thinks at a fundamental level rather than training an overlay like we do when learning math or something and letting that trickle down or however it usually works, you might succeed at changing but fail at direction. This is an obvious failure mode to at least consider before beginning. e.g. http://meditatinginsafety.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Kuijpers_2007.pdf