magfrump comments on Fixedness From Frailty - Less Wrong

10 Post author: Vaniver 14 November 2010 09:51PM

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Comment author: NancyLebovitz 15 November 2010 03:17:43AM *  1 point [-]

Are there good self-tests for sanity?

I read an account some years ago by a woman who'd gone through withdrawal from steroids. She had an elaborate hallucination of secret agencies setting up a communications center in her hospital room.

She said that it never occurred to her during the hallucination to do a plausibility check.

Comment author: magfrump 15 November 2010 07:27:52AM 2 points [-]

If it never occurred to her to do a plausibility check, that's strong evidence that given insanity, you will not check for sanity; not that it's impossible to check for sanity.

Forming a strong precommitment to test your sanity when certain unlikely events occur seems like an even better idea given that it usually doesn't even occur to people.