An interesting thing happened to me yesterday, probably related to what happens with anosognosia. I was in my room at night, with computer turned on, in the opposite side of the room from the computer. Suddenly, the light went off. I looked around, and noticed that the light indicators around the computer were still on. “Circuit breaker must’ve overloaded on one of the lines, turning the light off, but not the computer”, I thought. Then I heard a characteristic noise caused by the CRT monitor turning off. “Interesting coincidence”, I thought, “exactly 15 minutes must’ve passed since I last touched the keyboard, just when the circuit breaker overloaded on another line”. I went to a light switch and flipped it absent-mindedly. The lights went on. “Strange”, I thought, “The switch must be to blame, it never happened before.” This is all in the span of a few seconds.
Then it hit me: the lights were never on.
The room was illuminated only by the monitor, so when it switched off after 15 minutes of inactivity, it became dark. My mind confused this single thing for the light turning off, and then produced a whole sequence of complex thoughts around this single confusion, all the way relying on this fact being true. Inability to convince yourself that an equally simple fact is false must result in similarly complex justifications. There is nothing unnatural about justifications being long and detailed, the point of failure is where a fact can’t be accepted, not where it just can’t be noticed.
I’ve had similar experiences, especially when sleepy. The interesting thing is that, at least in my case, it’s often difficult to remember the subjective experience of it—once the correction kicks in, the earlier rationalizations seem to be subject to the same fading effect that makes dreams tough to remember, especially when I haven’t acted on the original confusion (as you did by turning on the lights).
Also, this is why it’s probably reasonable for all of us to be confident that our left arms are not, in fact, paralyzed—because we have evidence of the anti-confabulation systems in our brain working as intended (if a bit slow to catch up, on occasion).
I do this all the time when I blink and wonder why the lights flickered. I used to verbalize my confusion and ask why the lights flickered. No one else saw it flicker and it took me awhile to realize that the flicker was me blinking. In addition, when the lights flicker, I usually blink. (To adjust for new light levels? You tell me...) Now, when the lights flicker or I blink I am stuck wondering which came first.
An interesting thing happened to me yesterday, probably related to what happens with anosognosia. I was in my room at night, with computer turned on, in the opposite side of the room from the computer. Suddenly, the light went off. I looked around, and noticed that the light indicators around the computer were still on. “Circuit breaker must’ve overloaded on one of the lines, turning the light off, but not the computer”, I thought. Then I heard a characteristic noise caused by the CRT monitor turning off. “Interesting coincidence”, I thought, “exactly 15 minutes must’ve passed since I last touched the keyboard, just when the circuit breaker overloaded on another line”. I went to a light switch and flipped it absent-mindedly. The lights went on. “Strange”, I thought, “The switch must be to blame, it never happened before.” This is all in the span of a few seconds.
Then it hit me: the lights were never on.
The room was illuminated only by the monitor, so when it switched off after 15 minutes of inactivity, it became dark. My mind confused this single thing for the light turning off, and then produced a whole sequence of complex thoughts around this single confusion, all the way relying on this fact being true. Inability to convince yourself that an equally simple fact is false must result in similarly complex justifications. There is nothing unnatural about justifications being long and detailed, the point of failure is where a fact can’t be accepted, not where it just can’t be noticed.
I’ve had similar experiences, especially when sleepy. The interesting thing is that, at least in my case, it’s often difficult to remember the subjective experience of it—once the correction kicks in, the earlier rationalizations seem to be subject to the same fading effect that makes dreams tough to remember, especially when I haven’t acted on the original confusion (as you did by turning on the lights).
Also, this is why it’s probably reasonable for all of us to be confident that our left arms are not, in fact, paralyzed—because we have evidence of the anti-confabulation systems in our brain working as intended (if a bit slow to catch up, on occasion).
I do this all the time when I blink and wonder why the lights flickered. I used to verbalize my confusion and ask why the lights flickered. No one else saw it flicker and it took me awhile to realize that the flicker was me blinking. In addition, when the lights flicker, I usually blink. (To adjust for new light levels? You tell me...) Now, when the lights flicker or I blink I am stuck wondering which came first.