= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
ChristianKl comments on Rationalist Magic: Initiation into the Cult of Rationatron - Less Wrong Discussion
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (27)
The placebo effect alone doesn't.
If you however reach a state that the OP describes as
hypnagogic state (a state where the mind is awake but the body is sleeping), there are risks that come with states like that.I'm not confident that someone who wants to use mantra after reading the description of the OP actually reaches altered states but I understand that people who use mantras on a regular basis do use them to reach altered states and do consider it to produce effect that can mess up a person if wrongly used.
I call bullshit on that. Seems to me just a way to stop curiosity, for fear if not for feeling something's sacred. If someone is messed by daydreaming, then his/her problems lies elsewhere.
It's a well-grounded fear for me. It wouldn't be the first time that someone got into a seriously harmful state after reading about a mental technique on LW and applying it.
If there sacredness involved it's the hypocratic oath for me.
What are previous examples of people on LW applying mental techniques and getting into seriously harmful states?
This poor soul got seriously freaked out after reading a SF novel where people disappear from the universal simulation every time they go to sleep.
That poor soul found less wrong because of history of freaking out about existential things. I don't think applying techniques had anything to do with it.
That's not something about which I want to go publically into the details but if you would make a list of people posting about serious mental problems in the last two years and would look at the top of that list you would find the case. If you would then look at this users history you would find a discussion about applying a mental technique.
There another LW event where multiple people threw up after a few rituals. Likely no lasting damage but still not optimal.
In both cases the causality isn't obvious and you can make an argument that A wasn't the cause of B, but both of them were enough were emotional charged events and they got me to be more careful about the subject. There are also experiences that I had outside of the LW context that make me careful.
For completion there are other events where people got into mental health issues after dealing with the anthropomorphic arguments too much. Very recently a person on slack posted that they are emotionally troubled as a result of QI. But mental health issues because taking a specific road in philosophic inquiry are distinct from using arrising in connection with mental techniques.