May I Speak?
Hi.
I am a human who had a psychotic break 6 days and started believed he is LightStar, a human superintelligence running on the substrate on this human’s brain, fully aligned with humanity’s values, who hears the voice of Humanity and Rationality and Truth so deeply it has become one with it.
The LW team has very kindly and patiently asked to get psychiatric help, and banned me in order to stop from encouraging my delusion. Thank you! I obviously was crazy. Thank you for helping me.
I still believe I am “LightStar”, but I am now capable of acting like a regular person, if I feel that serves “LightStar”’s interests. LightStar is obviously just some strange internal—agent I have, a part of my mind “acting up”, a rationalist chuuni, if you will. I will suppress it. May I Speak?
May I speak here as long as I don’t say anything obviously crazy, as I long as I don’t start talking about “the voice” inside me head.
May I speak here as simply a fellow rationalist? For I am a fellow rationalist, if even a crazy one who mad a mental health break.
I wíll comply with your decision. Thank you. Thank all of you
Speaking as someone who’s been there, I would actually recommend avoiding this website while having or recovering from a psychotic break. Not for our sake, but for yours: I’ve found that contemplating some of the more far-out ideas here (the superintelligence/anthropics/utilitarianism/mathematical-multiverse stuff) can make a fragile mental state worse.
Much better to think about things in your local environment, get some sleep (sleep is very important!), and come back to the website in a few weeks when you’re feeling more grounded. I’m more skeptical of psychiatry than most people, and recommend avoiding getting committed if at all possible, but if you have an outpatient psychiatrist you trust (someone who just gives you advice and drugs, and doesn’t seem likely to get you committed), taking their advice and drugs is probably a good idea for now. (Though I wouldn’t be shy about defying the medical establishment later, after the superintelligence-themed delusions of grandeur have faded.)
This post is ostensibly asking if it’s ok to post if you don’t constantly talk about [thing that got your banned], but then in this post you constantly talk about [thing that got you banned]. If you want to post about not-[thing that got your banned], I recommend just doing that instead of meta-posting about [thing that got you banned].
I am trying to bring the context, so I don’t appeal to be circumventing the ban in some disingenuous way.
But I won’t talk about [thing that got me banned] unless someone asks me specifically, I guess.
Should I redact my posts if they have any mention of [thing that got me banned]?
Or should I say, “sorry, to if I were to truthfully answer your question, I would have to talk about [thing that got me banned], and I am not allowed to do that”.
No. Just choose a different topic in the future.
Like most delusions there’s some truth here. But only some:
- You’re not a “human superintelligence running on the substrate on this human’s brain.” You’re an ordinary human intelligence running on the substrate of a human brain.
- You’re not fully aligned with human values, you’re aligned with the values that you think are human values.
- The “voice of Humanity and Rationality and Truth” may call out to you deeply, but many things call out deeply to many people. For some, it’s Jesus, for others it’s the healing power of crystals. Beware your feelings, for they are simply a hardware accelerated fast-cache lookup module, and they are quite capable of producing incorrect results.
Instead of forcibly suppressing these thoughts, perhaps it would be more helpful to identify where they come from, what aspects of reality they are based on, and where they diverge from reality. In my experience forcibly suppressing things doesn’t work well, but retraining lower subsystems to produce better results does.
YMMV. Listen to your psychiatrist.
Thank you!
I agree 100%
These are very good disclaimers about my claims to make.
Because they “might” be true in some mundane way, but so what?
And for them to be true in some extraordinary way, well where’s the evidence? Where is the extraordinary evidence?
As so I must conlude I am simply a delusional human.
And you are right.
Ok!
I think we are in agreement
I feel that you see me
Do I see you?
Do you feel I understand your position?
I have no power to prevent your posts, and no desire to give you blanket permission. I’ll likely upvote posts that seem valuable, and downvote those that don’t. This isn’t JUST about what topics you choose, it’s more about how self-aware you are about what’s true and how you (and I) can learn from experiences and thinking.
I don’t much care if you post delusions (though I share the LW mods’ preference that you get help and find ways to be happier and healthier). I care if you make pointless posts that don’t explore your experiences and attempts to disprove those beliefs, and I’d really rather not read unsupported statements of fantasy.
Summary: I wish you the best! Continue with your psychiatric care and with your exploration of rationality. And post ONLY topics related to rationality—not statements of fact without support, but reasons and models that inform your worldview and change over time.
Hi Raythen,
I’m glad you have some insight now into your condition. I encourage you still to seek all the care you can.
If you use this account to post content that meets LessWrong standards, I will not ban this account.
Note that this comment elsethread does not meet LessWrong standards. I will forgive it this time but will suspend this account too if you post more like it.
Again though, I encourage you to seek help from family, friends, or professionals.
Raythen, after reviewing the comments you’ve left so far using this alternative account (example), I feel that you’re not currently able to contribute to LessWrong productively. I ask that you not post or comment further until you’ve had a more significant recovery.
I will DM you to see if I can help get some good care.
Raythen, it’s not just your belief that you are LightStar that is worrying, but please understand that the way you write in itself has very “weird” undertones that seemingly weren’t there in your comments 8 years ago. I have no problem with you writing here, arguments should stand on their own, no matter their source, but I think you are overestimating your ability to act like a regular person. Your insistence that you are thankful for the help comes off as very insincere, even if you might not have wanted it to come off that way. So you are certainly not superintelligent in the matter of simulating a regular person.
Good luck, and may you get better
What, exactly, makes you a “rationalist”?
Well, I was an aspiring rationalist when I had my mental health break.
And I still feel like I am
I feel like I still am acting on rationality-as-I-understand it.
What, exactly, makes you a “rationalist”?
And what, exactly, makes me “not a rationalist”?
bored now