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Creutzer comments on Rationality Quotes February 2014 - Less Wrong
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Possession. I think is psychology the effect is named "Alien Hand Syndrome". There was a time when my arm was moving around in ways that I didn't control (but could override if I wanted) that happened directly after a little girl doing "spirit healing".
While certainly not believing in ghosts at that moment in time, I was seriously thinking about reading up on defenses against ghosts.
But then today I would have no problem spending a night meditating at a graveyard. I think people aren't really afraid of ghosts but they are afraid of the unknown. If you are a materialist and have to deal with a goal, the biggest fear isn't that the ghost hurts you but that you have to rearrange your whole way of looking at the world.
Spending a night at a graveyard might be a good training exercise for a rationalist. If you don't want to admit that you believe in ghosts but fear being in a graveyard at night, go and face your fears.
Why? I have better things to do than train my system 1, which alieves in various things, on such matters which are unlikely to ever come up in my life and be relevant to my goals.
There are more reasons to do it than training your system 1. It sounds like it would be an interesting experience and make a good story. Interesting experiences are worth their weight in insights, and good stories are useful to any goals that involve social interaction.
Also, graveyards at night are a lot less crowded then parks, i.e. awesome for outdoors sex.
Isn't that rather disrespectful to the dead? Yes, I realize the dead are not physically alive to be appalled, but I still think a graveyard is a place of life-taking, not life-making. We ought respect that.
Why should we respect that? As you said, the dead don't care.
"Respect for the dead" is a shorthand for "Respect for the living who care about the dead".
So, when I commemorate my friend J.'s death every year, I'm really honoring myself?
You may be making yourself a better person; but J. is — alas — not around to receive benefit.
Do you prefer them to be dead? Also, what of their living relatives who come to the graveyard to mourn?
I don't prefer them to be dead, but I'm not making them any more dead by being in a graveyard. As for the living relatives - some may not like it, but that alone doesn't necessarily mean that it's wrong to do so, as they're not actually being harmed, only their sensibilities are being offended.
It's not rude if it's not a social setting. If no one sees you do it, no one's sensibilities are offended.
So we can at least agree that it's extremely rude, but you place less moral value on the rudeness than I do?
I'm not sure that it's "extremely rude". Is it extremely rude for a gay couple to hold hands in a conservative Southern small town, even though that would offend people?
Well it would be a bit of a dick move to let eli_sennesh or others who would feel similarly find out about your actions. Of course, this restriction tends to cripple the "charming anecdote" advantage.
And going in with that intention would provide a very powerful motivation to lose one's alief in ghosts!
If you allow your system 1 to alieve in various things than it will quite often determine your actions without you being aware that it's your system 1 that driving you to do something irrational. You will make up plausible sounding explanations for why your decisions are rational.
Being able to face silly fears builds strength of mind that also useful when you push against your other ugh-fields.
We are talking about training system 1 not to be afraid on graveyards at night, which I'm very much inclined to think is a complete waste of time, not about training system 1 in general. I'm not sure to what extent the "strenght of mind" that you build by engaging in such curious exercises as spending a night on a graveyard carries over to something actually useful...
In any case, this has nothing to do with not wanting to admit that one believes in ghosts. Most of us genuinely do not believe in ghosts, but do alieve in them.
If spending a night at a graveyard is basically a boring prospect for you that's just a waste of time you might not learn much.
If it's of the other hand an experience that triggers significant emotions than you do learn something by being confronted with your emotions.
At a graveyard even a smart rationalist can't easily reason himself into an excuse that it's valid to be afraid of ghost. Yet you get a significant emotional response. That pattern makes it a good general training exercise.
In also speaking about a single night and not a regular activity.