In the few instances where I’ve seen bright minds approach “discourse” with an eye to verifiable feedback, they’ve found things to measure, been able to falsify their own predictions, and have ended up (mostly independently) coming to similar conclusions with demonstrably increased discourse abilities to show for it.
Yes, but it’s worth pointing out what you can actually expect to get from it, and how easily. Most of what I’m talking about is from personal interactions, and the stuff that’s online isn’t like “Oh, the science is unanimous, unarguable and unambiguous”—because we’re talking about the equivalent of “physics motors” not “engineering motors”. Even if our aerospace lab dyno results were publicly available you’d be right not to trust them at face value. If you have a physics degree then saying “Here’s the reasoning, here are the computer simulations and their assumptions, and here’s what our tests have shown so far” is easy. If you can’t distinguish valid physics from “free energy” kookiness, then even though it’s demonstrable and has been demonstrated to those with a good understanding of motor testing validity who have been following this stuff, it’s not necessarily trivial to set up a sufficiently legible demonstration for someone who hasn’t. It’s real, we can get into how I know, but it might not be as easy as you’d like.
The thing that proved to me beyond a shadow of a doubt that there exist bright feedback oriented minds that have developed demonstrable abilities involved talking to one over and over and witnessing the demonstrations first hand as well as the feedback cycles. This guy used to take paying clients for some specific issue they wanted resolved (e.g. “fear of heights”), set concrete testable goals (e.g. “If I climb this specific wall, I will consider our work to have been successful”), and then track his success rate over time and as he changed his methods. He used to rack his brain about what could be causing the behavior he’d see in his failures, come up with an insight that helps to explain, play with it in “role play” until he could anticipate what the likely reactions would be and how to deal with them, and then go test it out with actual clients. And then iterate.
On the “natural discourse, not obviously connected to deliberate cultivation of skill” side, the overarching trajectory of our interactions is itself pretty exceptional. I started out kinda talking shit and dismissing his ideas in a way that would have pissed off pretty much anyone, and he was able to turn that around and end up becoming someone I respect more than just about anyone. On the “clearly the result of iterated feedback, but diverging from natural discourse” side there’s quite a bit, but perhaps the best example is when I tried out his simple protocol for dealing with internal conflicts on physical pain, and it completely changed how I relate to pain to this day. I couldn’t imagine how it could possibly work “because the pain would still be there” so I just did it to see what would happen, and it took about two minutes to go from “I can’t focus at all because this shit hurts” to “It literally does not bother me at all, despite feeling the exact same”. Having that shift of experience, and not even noticing the change as it happened.… was weird.
From there, it was mostly just recognizing the patterns, knowing where to look, and knowing what isn’t actually an extraordinary claim.
This guy does have some stuff online including a description of that protocol and some transcripts, but again, my first reaction to his writings was to be openly dismissive of him so I’m not sure how much it’ll help. And the transcripts are from quite early in his process of figuring things out so it’s a better example of watching the mind work than getting to look at well supported and broadly applicable conclusions. Anyway, the first of his blog posts explaining that protocol is here, and other stuff can be found on the same site.
Another example that stands out to me as exceptionally clear concise and concrete (but pretty far from “natural discourse” towards “mind hack fuckery”) is this demonstration by Steve Andreas of helping a woman get rid of her phobia. In particular, look at the woman’s response and Steve’s response to these responses at 0:39,5:47,6:12,6:22,6:26, and 7:44. The 25 year follow up is neat too.
Can you link to some examples?
Yes, but it’s worth pointing out what you can actually expect to get from it, and how easily. Most of what I’m talking about is from personal interactions, and the stuff that’s online isn’t like “Oh, the science is unanimous, unarguable and unambiguous”—because we’re talking about the equivalent of “physics motors” not “engineering motors”. Even if our aerospace lab dyno results were publicly available you’d be right not to trust them at face value. If you have a physics degree then saying “Here’s the reasoning, here are the computer simulations and their assumptions, and here’s what our tests have shown so far” is easy. If you can’t distinguish valid physics from “free energy” kookiness, then even though it’s demonstrable and has been demonstrated to those with a good understanding of motor testing validity who have been following this stuff, it’s not necessarily trivial to set up a sufficiently legible demonstration for someone who hasn’t. It’s real, we can get into how I know, but it might not be as easy as you’d like.
The thing that proved to me beyond a shadow of a doubt that there exist bright feedback oriented minds that have developed demonstrable abilities involved talking to one over and over and witnessing the demonstrations first hand as well as the feedback cycles. This guy used to take paying clients for some specific issue they wanted resolved (e.g. “fear of heights”), set concrete testable goals (e.g. “If I climb this specific wall, I will consider our work to have been successful”), and then track his success rate over time and as he changed his methods. He used to rack his brain about what could be causing the behavior he’d see in his failures, come up with an insight that helps to explain, play with it in “role play” until he could anticipate what the likely reactions would be and how to deal with them, and then go test it out with actual clients. And then iterate.
On the “natural discourse, not obviously connected to deliberate cultivation of skill” side, the overarching trajectory of our interactions is itself pretty exceptional. I started out kinda talking shit and dismissing his ideas in a way that would have pissed off pretty much anyone, and he was able to turn that around and end up becoming someone I respect more than just about anyone. On the “clearly the result of iterated feedback, but diverging from natural discourse” side there’s quite a bit, but perhaps the best example is when I tried out his simple protocol for dealing with internal conflicts on physical pain, and it completely changed how I relate to pain to this day. I couldn’t imagine how it could possibly work “because the pain would still be there” so I just did it to see what would happen, and it took about two minutes to go from “I can’t focus at all because this shit hurts” to “It literally does not bother me at all, despite feeling the exact same”. Having that shift of experience, and not even noticing the change as it happened.… was weird.
From there, it was mostly just recognizing the patterns, knowing where to look, and knowing what isn’t actually an extraordinary claim.
This guy does have some stuff online including a description of that protocol and some transcripts, but again, my first reaction to his writings was to be openly dismissive of him so I’m not sure how much it’ll help. And the transcripts are from quite early in his process of figuring things out so it’s a better example of watching the mind work than getting to look at well supported and broadly applicable conclusions. Anyway, the first of his blog posts explaining that protocol is here, and other stuff can be found on the same site.
Another example that stands out to me as exceptionally clear concise and concrete (but pretty far from “natural discourse” towards “mind hack fuckery”) is this demonstration by Steve Andreas of helping a woman get rid of her phobia. In particular, look at the woman’s response and Steve’s response to these responses at 0:39,5:47,6:12,6:22,6:26, and 7:44. The 25 year follow up is neat too.