RichardKennaway comments on Your inner Google - Less Wrong

101 Post author: PhilGoetz 16 September 2011 06:56AM

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Comment author: Hey 16 September 2011 01:25:29PM 0 points [-]

To my understanding, what you are describing here is what is called a transderivational search in Neuro-Linguistic Programming. It is basically a "satisficing" (suffice+satisfy) fuzzy search.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transderivational_search http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satisficing

Here's a pet peeve of mine: I think this site could find A LOT of benefit in delving into NLP. I mean, the whole field is basically a quest to find the machine-code of the human psyche. The version of NLP that is represented on sites like SkepDic seems like a poor representation of the amazing stuff I am always reading about, which is a shame as it turns people off from reading more about it.

Right now I'm reading Shlomo Vaknin's "Patterns of Neuro Linguistic Programming", which is pretty much a spellbook/hacking-manual containing 300+ patterns for doing all kinds of things to your mind.

http://www.amazon.com/Big-Book-NLP-Expanded-Programming/dp/9657489083 http://www.coachingleaders.co.uk/blog/nlp-book-review-the-big-book-of-nlp-techniques-by-shlomo-vak.html

The reason I bring up this book in particular is because it's a lot more concise and info-packed than any others I've seen, and so could serve as a good introduction.

There's an event going on right now called the NLP Mind Fest, which is proving to be very interesting. It's on day 4 already, though, and you can only listen to the presentations on a day-to-day basis.

http://www.nlpmindfestevent.com/

Oh, and this concept of asking better questions is something that Anthony Robbins is always talking about as one of the most important factors in self improvement. He says something to the effect of "the quality of your life is determined by the quality of the questions you ask yourself". And Robbins' background is in, you guessed it, NLP :)

TLDR: LessWrong needs to investigate NLP. I am a somewhat smart and non-kooky cookie and I find NLP interesting and worthwhile AND I am a big fan of LW. This might indicate that others could find value in the field as well.

Comment author: RichardKennaway 16 September 2011 01:50:43PM *  7 points [-]

the amazing stuff I am always reading about

I'm sure it's amazing to read about. How amazing have you found it in practice?

Comment author: jimmy 16 September 2011 06:43:57PM 3 points [-]

I've used their "fast phobia cure" to amazing effect - at least it amazed me (and him) at the time.

It took less than 29 minutes of text chat back in early April, and the issue remains solved.

Comment author: jsalvatier 16 September 2011 07:09:05PM 1 point [-]

Interesting, that seems like an especially cheap and concrete thing to test.

Comment author: Hey 16 September 2011 07:16:47PM *  2 points [-]

Interesting video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtUatMghbHg

Follow up 25 years later: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjjCzhrYJDQ&feature=related

I suspect the efficacy of this method depends a lot on the subject's ability to really bring forth the internal representations of the phobia (ie mental images, feelings, etc) so that they can be changed.

Comment author: jimmy 16 September 2011 07:31:29PM 1 point [-]

Indeed it is. The hardest part seems to be finding subjects. If you know one and would like to try it, I could walk you through it and explain a few failure modes to avoid.

Comment author: Hey 16 September 2011 03:51:54PM 1 point [-]

Haven't dicked around much with it yet. But one thing I can tell is that a lot of the self-hacking stuff I came up with myself over the years has been laid out in much clearer form in NLP. Always cool to get those "ah! so that's what I was doing" moments.

One thing I'm going to be experimenting with is changing my chunking and anchoring around exercise. In other words, trying to change the number of steps I perceive it to be, and the mental images and feelings it evokes when I think about it.

Something I'm currently playing around with is imagining turning down negative self-talk and dimming mental images that I don't wish to have.