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MichaelVassar comments on Would Your Real Preferences Please Stand Up? - Less Wrong
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Because I think people with OCD do have, contra Caplan, a compulsion to do those specific acts, not a compulsion to be 99.99999% sure of certain things. Wanting that much certainty in such a narrow area is a very unlikely state, and if it were just about certainty, they would come up with different ways to achieve that certainty, not just do the same thing over and over.
"Because I think people with OCD do have, contra Caplan, a compulsion to do those specific acts, not a compulsion to be 99.99999% sure of certain things. "
Person with OCD here, reporting late to the party (I'm always behind in my reading).
SilasBarta, you are correct.
It must be remembered that sometimes what OCD people do is not check the lock nine times, but touch the red dish every time we go out the back door. Sometimes we have a nagging doubt that our mom will die if we don't (magical thinking). This isn't to be read as a preference for being more sure that mom won't die, since we know damn well that if she does it won't be because we didn't touch the dish. It's, as someone said, crazy.
The compulsion and the attempt to satisfy it are uncomfortable.
What you're describing isn't an OCD symptom; it's just a garden-variety irrational belief. The fact that you "know" something is false doesn't stop you from behaving as if it's true -- see the previous examples here about haunted houses and serial killers.
(To be clear: I don't mean the entire combination of behaviors isn't OCD; I just mean the part where you act on a belief you "know" to be untrue. That part, everybody has.)