Now, I must disclaim: taking certain ideas seriously is not always best for your mental health.
I’m highly skeptical of these claims of things that are true but predictably make you insane. Are you sure you aren’t just coddling yourself, protecting yourself from having to change your mind? More to the point, that sounds like a pretty good memetic evolution to protect current beliefs. “I’ve always held that X is false. Surely if I came to believe that X was true I would surely go insane or become evil! Therefore X is false!”
Once upon a time I would have thought that accepting the fact that there is no ultimate justice in the universe would drive me insane or lead to depression. Yet I have accepted that fact, and I’m as happy as ever. (Happiness set points are totally unfair, but they’re good for some things.)
Now, I must disclaim: taking certain ideas seriously is not always best for your mental health.
I’m highly skeptical of these claims of things that are true but predictably make you insane. Are you sure you aren’t just coddling yourself, protecting yourself from having to change your mind?
I doubt that there are any true things that can predictably make anyone go insane, but something tailored to a specific could. And there are some statement+person-type pairs that seem to reliably damage mental health, so there’s at least some real danger there. Of course, these are very rare, so the prior probability for an idea being harmful should be very low, and it shouldn’t be considered as a possibility without strong external evidence (such as examples of it happening to other people; but a mere intuitive judgment would not be sufficient evidence).
Right, and importantly it’s not just clinical insanity that is damaging. When you’re working on a hard and important problem, any type of mental irregularity or paralysis is potentially very harmful. I suppose most people don’t do the kinds of research where this is a real concern, but some do, and I figured it was important to address the small population of LW that might take one idea too many seriously and end up needlessly paranoid/depressed/etc because of a foolhardy desire to be completely ‘rational’. The Litanies of Tarski and Gendlin have exceptions, but those exceptions should not justify excuses. If you do not heed the exceptions you won’t be in a state to excuse yourself: the inferential distance would be too dangerous and too large.
I’m highly skeptical of these claims of things that are true but predictably make you insane. Are you sure you aren’t just coddling yourself, protecting yourself from having to change your mind? More to the point, that sounds like a pretty good memetic evolution to protect current beliefs. “I’ve always held that X is false. Surely if I came to believe that X was true I would surely go insane or become evil! Therefore X is false!”
Once upon a time I would have thought that accepting the fact that there is no ultimate justice in the universe would drive me insane or lead to depression. Yet I have accepted that fact, and I’m as happy as ever. (Happiness set points are totally unfair, but they’re good for some things.)
I doubt that there are any true things that can predictably make anyone go insane, but something tailored to a specific could. And there are some statement+person-type pairs that seem to reliably damage mental health, so there’s at least some real danger there. Of course, these are very rare, so the prior probability for an idea being harmful should be very low, and it shouldn’t be considered as a possibility without strong external evidence (such as examples of it happening to other people; but a mere intuitive judgment would not be sufficient evidence).
Right, and importantly it’s not just clinical insanity that is damaging. When you’re working on a hard and important problem, any type of mental irregularity or paralysis is potentially very harmful. I suppose most people don’t do the kinds of research where this is a real concern, but some do, and I figured it was important to address the small population of LW that might take one idea too many seriously and end up needlessly paranoid/depressed/etc because of a foolhardy desire to be completely ‘rational’. The Litanies of Tarski and Gendlin have exceptions, but those exceptions should not justify excuses. If you do not heed the exceptions you won’t be in a state to excuse yourself: the inferential distance would be too dangerous and too large.