But why that seed in this conversation?

It is not uncommon to see scientists who have studied Eastern philosophy. Thus, how could Eastern philsophy be a thousand years ahead of science, when it is part of science?

I'd like to attend via skype if someone cares to plonk an ipad or other skype activated device on the desk. my skype name is peace.wise and I live in Mount Barker, south australia.

Please contact me via LW before attempting to have me as a skype contact. I reject all skype contacts from people I don't know as a matter of course.

Thanks!

Hey everbody,

I'm a PhD Student in Physics. I came across Lesswrong when I read Eliezer's interview with John Baez. I was very intrigued by his answers: especially with his idea that the world needs to understand rationality. I identify with rationalism and especially with Lesswrong, because it just clicked. There were so many things in the world which people accepted and which I knew were just plain wrong. And before I found Lesswrong, I was a frustrated mess. And when I found Lesswrong it was a breath of fresh air.

For example: I was a pretty good debater in college. So in order to be a better debater, I started reading more about logical fallacies, which are common in argument and debate, such as ad hominem, slippery slope, appeal to authority etc . And the more I learnt about these, the more I saw that these were exactly the techniques common in debate. I was forced to conclude that debating was not about reaching the truth, but about proving the other person wrong. The people in debating circles were very intelligent; but very intelligent in a useless (and maybe harmful) way. They were scarcely interested in the truth. They could take any argument, twist it, contort it, appeal to emotions and use every fallacy listed in a beautiful way to win. And moreover, that was the exactly the kind of person I was becoming. In retrospect, it's clear to me that I got into debating only out of desire for status and not for any actual interest in the truth. But as soon as I saw what I was becoming, I walked away. I guess, the kernel of honesty left in me from being a student of physics rescued me in the end.

Second example: One of the first articles that really brought me into reading major portions of Lesswrong was the article on Doublethink by Eliezer. So when I was going through a phase of depression, I thought that religion held the key. Now, I did not believe in any kind of spiritual god or any spiritual structure whatsoever. But my family is extremely religious and I saw the happiness they got from religion. So I tried. I tried to convince myself that religion has a very important social function and saves people from anomie and depression. I tried to convince myself that one could be religious and yet not believe in god. I tried to go through all the motions of my religion. Result? Massive burnout. My brain was going to explode in a mass of self-contradiction. That post by Eliezer really helped me. There's a line in there:

The happiness of stupidity is closed to you. You will never have it short of actual brain damage, and maybe not even then... You cannot unsee what you see.

As I read these lines, I literally felt a huge wave of relief sweep over me. I wasn't going to be happy with religion. Period. I wasn't going to be happy with self-deception. Period. And I knew I had finally found people who 'got it'.

So that was a glimpse of how and why I got interested in Lesswrong. I'm reading the Sequences and looking around these days. I hope to start posting soon. And also attend LW meetups in my city.

I'm deeply interested in ideas from evolutionary psychology, neuroscience, computer science and of course physics! I work broadly on quantum information theory.

Cheers!

-Stabilizer

I'm still struggling to understand when strict argument and/or more conversational discussion are appropriate on this website. Kind of amusing, in a frustrating way. To present historical evidence in support of a reasonable point about psychology, have it trolled (imo), yet decide to give the benefit of the doubt and present more detail, then move on and 2 months later be hit with counterargument for moving past the troll bait and staying on the original topic.

I'll try to help you out.

I think the standards of evidence are the highest here of any place on the internet save for maybe some professional groups, and I for one would like to keep it that way. As far as the "generalization from fictional evidence" - that wasn't because the evidence you presented was fictional, it was because you said that it didn't matter whether the event actually happened - the concept is sufficient to provide evidence of the more general point. That is, per definition, an endorsement of generalization from fictional evidence.

As far as the evidence you did provide:

To be as specific as I can, there are a lot of issues with the sites you linked to - I tend to expect some sort of peer reviewed meta-analysis of the existing evidence that is well organized and hopefully somewhat up to date, and none of the sources really meet muster. The first one has no bibliography at all. The second is largely a book review with a couple of claims about new evidence, a particularly relevant quote from the author of said book (in the link):

“Hitler himself claimed that the war ended for him when he had to spend weeks in an army hospital after having been blinded by mustard gas. Circumstantial evidence and hearsay, however, have led to the suggestion that Hitler was, in fact, suffering from and treated for psychosomatic blindness. This hypothesis could never be conclusively tested, as Hitler had his medical file destroyed and had his henchmen kill those people with knowledge of the file,” said Dr Weber

That isn't something to use in support of your argument. It's not very good supporting evidence. The last source might be a good first person account or it might be a terrible exaggeration. I would much prefer an analysis from an actual historian with less personal bias because my background knowledge is insufficient for assessing the credibility of the source and what is being said.

Now, if you want to support ata's point, that:

I'd estimate that it would be pretty dangerous to grant yourself permission to decide what delusions to instill in other people for their own good.

Here's some of what I would like to see:

First, find some articles establishing that you can create such an elaborate delusion in a clinical setting - preferably using techniques that would have been available during the time period. To that effect I found a few articles, unfortunately behind paywalls, but the abstracts look promising in that they indicate the feasibility of imparting specific delusion. Unfortunately they're all pretty modern results and the "imparted delusions" (which as far as I can tell aren't totally established as true delusions, though they may be) all mirror actual delusions that might be normally encountered. The delusion supposedly imparted to Hitler was fairly detailed and unusual - I don't know if this is a feasible to impart (if it is feasible at all) as compared to these more mundane cases.

The further claim that Hitler's doctor imparted a delusion lasting for decades that was fairly intricate and cured his Conversion disorder (hysterical blindness) requires an awful lot of evidence - mostly because, beyond the lack of historical evidence, the physical possibility of this is in question. It doesn't look to me like there is much (if any) evidence supporting the feasibility of such a feat of hypnotic suggestion and the links you provided do nothing in the way of establishing otherwise.

If you or anyone else has some strong evidence of the feasibility of imparting a robust, long-term delusion using hypnosis I'd be glad to consider it, but I don't see why I should accept the possibility given that I can't seem to find any evidence for it outside this (possibly false) Hitler anecdote.

I do hope this has been helpful for you, this site still has a very steep learning curve (although I think it has loosened up a bit lately) and community expectations aren't immediately obvious to newcomers. We aren't (as far as I can tell) trying to troll you - we just hold very high expectations for a post that makes a (highly controversial) factual claim. Of course, you might not view the claim as highly controversial, but unless you have some further evidence of the physical possibility of this sort of intricate, long-term hypnosis, it seems like this community might have a somewhat more stringent standard of evidence than you're used to.

The article reveals that reward is why the teenagers underestimate risk. The article reveals that teens perception of reward motivates their impulsiveness.

No. The value of a decision is gain minus cost; if the cost remains the same but the gain increases, then that can swing the value of a decision from negative to positive. Thus, they can be more impulsive while maintaining the same beliefs about risk.

On the other hand a thrill seeking teenager is likely to be less aware of what it is to be a respectable sober adult, having never been one. In short I've been both a thrill seeking teenager, a thrill seeking adult and also a respectable sober adult. I do see both sides of this discussion.

That's exactly what I'd expect a respectable sober adult to say.

Anyways, regardless of the truth of Hitler's hysterical blindness and his treatment by his Psychiatrist of instilling a delusion, the concept is supportive of ata's point that... "I'd estimate that it would be pretty dangerous to grant yourself permission to decide what delusions to instill in other people for their own good."

You're aware that this basically endorses generalization from fictional evidence?

A useful article, thanks. I particularly appreciate the context of spending money on ergonomics as we'll use it for 80000 hours, or so! Very interesting way to rationalize spending money on ergonomics.

I find using a Fitball as a chair facilitates the fidgeting mentioned and it's quite real that using an appropriately sized fitball will provide many of the ergonomic standards, like horizontal thighs and forearms. A fitball doesn't facilitate a straight back, instead it encourages one to strengthen one's core muscles and hence decreases lower back pain induced by overworked back muscles and under-strength core muscles. I tend to cycle my use of a fitball for a week or two, then put it away for a few months.

+1 for latex mattress, my wife and I bought one recently and we can confidently say that our sleeping is better, and have distinctly noticed that when I get into bed late at night and she's already in bed, that my movement doesn't wake her - that's a huge +1 for us late nighters! Another bonus for latex mattress is apparently they are resistant to dust mites and other forms of bed bugs.

With regards to pillows - has anyone considered the optimum height for a pillow per person? Seems to me that if one sleeps on one's back a pillow is unnecessary and may be detrimental in that it could contribute to forward head. Whilst if one sleeps on one's side then the appropriate pillow height is the thickness of one's shoulder, to facilitate the spinal column being in the same horizontal plane. If you're a sore neck (or headache) person spend some time thinking about the pillow!

Also barefoot walking is known to strengthen the small muscles in ones feet and ankles, this has useful benefits for posture and injury prevention. For those of us who work at home, going barefoot is quite easy, others who must be more physically social will also get peeved off answering the 20 questions a day "why are you barefoot?"

Happy festive season friends.

Technically speaking, the two questions about Cromwell birth are not equivalent : if you have a 90% lower bound and a 90% upper bound it does give you a 80% confidence interval, but not all 80% confidence intervals will have a 90% lower bound and a 90% upper bound. For example you give "now" for upper bound to your interval, and 80% lower bound, that'll still give a 80% interval. That may be part of the reason behind higher error rate for 80% interval : there are many ways to build such an interval, so it's easier to get mixed up.

Else, interesting article, but for some parts it underestimates social complexity of the task : for the planning fallacy, using the "outside view" is usually a good thing, but it's very hard in a professional context to make use of it (neither my boss nor my customers are usually receptive to it, they ask "how long for that feature and that one and that one" and don't care much about "last time we did a project of that complexity, we took twice as long as initially planned"). De-biasing yourself is very important, but sometimes it's not enough, you've to debias others too, and that's even harder...