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gjm comments on The Mystery of the Haunted Rationalist - Less Wrong
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I did a similar experiment on myself when I went on an organized trip to Israel. When we stopped at the Whaling (Western) Wall, I decided to test out my rationality. As you know, you're suppose to write down a wish on a piece of paper and put it in the wall i.e. another way of praying. I decided to write down "I wish my family would die in 2 weeks," and put it in the wall to see if I can do it.
To my surprise, I did feel a bit weird, a little anxious, but after a while I was fine. It is hard to overcome the emotions induced by our biases, but can be done with practice.
Just curious, would anyone not write the note (that I wrote)? Assuming you'd be compensated for your effort to write it and put it in the wall.
I like the idea, except that to me it seems somehow dishonest: to wish for something is (inter alia) to state that one wants it to happen, which I assume was not true in this case. And I think reluctance to be dishonest even when no one else is going to be deceived is a valuable emotion, to counter self-deception.
This might just be rationalization (introspecting, it seems to me that I'd be reluctant to do as you did), but I don't think so because similar introspection suggests that I'd be (e.g.) quite unafraid to learn that some group of religious people were praying for my death, unless there were some risk that they or their friends might try to bring it about by natural means.