That’s a very interesting idea. Again, it reminds me of certain forms of magic—for example, of magic practioners who used to surround themselves with imagery of the God of Music before a music recital on the theory it would help them play better. I wish there were studies as to the effectiveness of that, but it’s kind of hard to get funding to study magic. I suspect that saying a prayer to God for help resisting temptation may work in the same way—you’re activating your concept of God and with it the entire religious system of morality and self-control. In the same way, giving yourself a reminder of rationalism or even reciting one of those rationalist litanies might make the stuff you learn here more salient.
Tell you what—tattoo “Less Wrong” on your palm and post a picture on here, and I’ll upvote ten of your comments. Ten karma points! Think about it! That would totally be worth it!
A friend of mine is interested in chaos magic which, from what he has told me, is essentially a collection of psychological tricks to perform on oneself. There even seems to be a tacit awareness that it’s not actually magic, though I don’t think the awareness ever becomes explicit.
The weirdest thing about it is that there is no single set of symbols or doctrine, chaos magicians create their own or steal bits from other magical or religious traditions.
There even seems to be a tacit awareness that it’s not actually magic, though I don’t think the awareness ever becomes explicit.
AFAICT most chaos magicians believe in the supernatural, but at least some have been thoroughgoing materialists who believe only in the psychological power of suspension of disbelief.
The few times I experimented with similar techniques (usually expressed as self-help rather than magic), I found it impossible to suspend disbelief, and ended up laughing at myself and giving up. I wonder if other rationalists would have the same experience, and if this would be different between self-selected rationalists and random people put through a course in a rationality dojo. I’d also like to see to whether this is mediated by the hypnotizability trait.
So many studies to do, so little status as a real psychologist who can do studies and stuff. I do want to run a survey of Less Wrong members and gather some demographic/other interesting data once I get working survey software, though.
I did a ritual with them once. She observed that I was not putting the work into running an event because I had not mentally committed to running it, that I was half convinced I would drop out. So she sat me down and said “now’s the time to decide, are you doing this or not?” and presented me with… a red and a blue Smartie. I took the red Smartie.
...and ended up dropping out anyway a couple of months later, leaving her running things to her dismay, but coming back and playing a big role in running it later still in any case. So, a very memorable ritual, but not a great success.
Commitment rituals aren’t very useful for telling whether you’re actually committed. The real test is whether, for all the worst-case scenarios you imagine possible, you feel you can accept and handle that as the outcome.
That is, even if the worst happens, you believe you can feel like you made the right decision. (Not, “well, that shouldn’t/probably won’t happen”, but “if it DID happen, could I deal with it?”)
And that’s not something that “taking the red pill” is going to make happen, since it most likely induced you to suppress your doubts, rather than face them.
Dude! using surveys to collect scientific data! that would be totally awesome!
Post a poll asking people to do stuff, and then come back and use their results as the poll result. Like, “squirt water in your ear, and tell us of the result”, “Ask a set of questisons to strangers in the street, 10 times dressed as in a suit, 10 times dressed as a clown, 10 times dressed as a scruffy activist”.
I found it reasonably easy to suspend my disbelief when I was messing with chaos magick, but I did also find it easy to tell that it didn’t work, so...
I was thinking more along the lines of something very simple and very free, since I have minimal computer skills and financial resources. I have SPSS for analysis, so all I need is a form that collects responses and sticks them into a spreadsheet. One of my friends helped me do a survey before, and I was planning to pester him until he showed me how to set something up.
If you’re a professional, though, I defer to you if you want to do the Unofficial Less Wrong Survey instead. Or if you want to cooperate on it, email me at yvain314@hotmail.com. If not, no worries; I’m sure I can set something up eventually.
The few times I experimented with similar techniques (usually expressed as self-help rather than magic), I found it impossible to suspend disbelief, and ended up laughing at myself and giving up.
The most interesting thing I’ve read on it says you ought to laugh and make fun of yourself, because chaos magic is ridiculous and can’t possibly be real. Then you forget about it, and then it works.
It would not be a stretch to say that the Yudkowsky story alluded to in the main article exhibits some of the same psychological tricks that ‘chaos magicians’ practice. The pure white rationality dojo, the symbolic plaques, the importance invested in each of the rooms, the sort of cleansing ritual and meditation techniques the main character uses. And most importantly to Chaos Magicians:
“Symbols could be made to stand for anything; a flexibility of visual power that even the Bardic Conspiracy would balk at admitting outright.”
The power of symbols is super important.
Even the more supernatural aspects of Chaos Magic could be looked upon as a practice in belief annihilation, much like Eliezer’s story. By examining the mechanism of belief through practice and meditation, one starts to exhibit more control over one’s beliefs. More control, the more likely one will catch irrational beliefs. When one has complete control over beliefs, then rationality can control the monkey brain. When you laugh at something, like Yvain does below, you’re exhibiting some control over what you’re taking seriously. That’s good, so long as what you’re laughing at DESERVES to be laughed at.
btw, laughter is a chaos magic dispelling/banishing technique :D Thought that was interesting.
Suspension of disbelief merely means that you withhold your rejection of input as false. In order to understand something at all, you have to temporarily represent it in your mind as true… which is why there are studies that show you can convince people of things by telling them the idea and then distracting them before they have a chance to analyze or reject it. Disbelief is an active, conscious process; belief is the default.
(Which makes sense evolutionarily—camouflage and deceptive behaviors are perceptual problems, not logical analysis problems. An ability to logically disbelieve probably had to evolve as a defensive weapon against human liars—it doesn’t make much sense to have it until you also have language and imagination.)
I find that I find comfort in brining my smarthphone everywhere, and knowing that I have internet access, even when I’m almost certainly not going to use it. It can be used as a symbol for any specific website or community, any specific person I could contact, of the internet and humanity itself, and of how scifi the world is because such devices exists. Etc.
This is somehting I intentionally use, wearing it like The One Ring around my neck, hugging it to my chest if I’m feeling uncomfortable, sometimes petting it and/or whispering “my presssiusss”, etc. (And yes, that’s literary; pop culture references is somehting I associate with the internet.)
Can we use this to our advantage? Maybe tattoo “Less Wrong” on one’s palm and look at it when in distress?
btw, this is almost the sort of thing a chaos magician would do. They would create a symbol by smashing the letters in Less Wrong together and then tattoo the created symbol on their palm. Or at least keep copies of it around all the time.. Perhaps the symbol has more priming power than mere words. Any evidence of this?
This is a bit shaky; but I think I recall from reading Peter Carroll and Austin Osman Spare that one’s supposed to create a sigil, energize it, then put it somewhere you’ll never see it again; not perpetually see it. I would expect a double-blind study to find more priming from explicitly visualized concepts than from obfuscated symbols, but it might be interesting to throw that in as another option alongside various vectors for subliminal messages.
Can we use this to our advantage? Maybe tattoo “Less Wrong” on one’s palm and look at it when in distress?
That’s a very interesting idea. Again, it reminds me of certain forms of magic—for example, of magic practioners who used to surround themselves with imagery of the God of Music before a music recital on the theory it would help them play better. I wish there were studies as to the effectiveness of that, but it’s kind of hard to get funding to study magic. I suspect that saying a prayer to God for help resisting temptation may work in the same way—you’re activating your concept of God and with it the entire religious system of morality and self-control. In the same way, giving yourself a reminder of rationalism or even reciting one of those rationalist litanies might make the stuff you learn here more salient.
Tell you what—tattoo “Less Wrong” on your palm and post a picture on here, and I’ll upvote ten of your comments. Ten karma points! Think about it! That would totally be worth it!
A friend of mine is interested in chaos magic which, from what he has told me, is essentially a collection of psychological tricks to perform on oneself. There even seems to be a tacit awareness that it’s not actually magic, though I don’t think the awareness ever becomes explicit.
The weirdest thing about it is that there is no single set of symbols or doctrine, chaos magicians create their own or steal bits from other magical or religious traditions.
There even seems to be a tacit awareness that it’s not actually magic, though I don’t think the awareness ever becomes explicit.
AFAICT most chaos magicians believe in the supernatural, but at least some have been thoroughgoing materialists who believe only in the psychological power of suspension of disbelief.
The few times I experimented with similar techniques (usually expressed as self-help rather than magic), I found it impossible to suspend disbelief, and ended up laughing at myself and giving up. I wonder if other rationalists would have the same experience, and if this would be different between self-selected rationalists and random people put through a course in a rationality dojo. I’d also like to see to whether this is mediated by the hypnotizability trait.
So many studies to do, so little status as a real psychologist who can do studies and stuff. I do want to run a survey of Less Wrong members and gather some demographic/other interesting data once I get working survey software, though.
I did a ritual with them once. She observed that I was not putting the work into running an event because I had not mentally committed to running it, that I was half convinced I would drop out. So she sat me down and said “now’s the time to decide, are you doing this or not?” and presented me with… a red and a blue Smartie. I took the red Smartie.
...and ended up dropping out anyway a couple of months later, leaving her running things to her dismay, but coming back and playing a big role in running it later still in any case. So, a very memorable ritual, but not a great success.
Commitment rituals aren’t very useful for telling whether you’re actually committed. The real test is whether, for all the worst-case scenarios you imagine possible, you feel you can accept and handle that as the outcome.
That is, even if the worst happens, you believe you can feel like you made the right decision. (Not, “well, that shouldn’t/probably won’t happen”, but “if it DID happen, could I deal with it?”)
And that’s not something that “taking the red pill” is going to make happen, since it most likely induced you to suppress your doubts, rather than face them.
Dude! using surveys to collect scientific data! that would be totally awesome!
Post a poll asking people to do stuff, and then come back and use their results as the poll result. Like, “squirt water in your ear, and tell us of the result”, “Ask a set of questisons to strangers in the street, 10 times dressed as in a suit, 10 times dressed as a clown, 10 times dressed as a scruffy activist”.
I found it reasonably easy to suspend my disbelief when I was messing with chaos magick, but I did also find it easy to tell that it didn’t work, so...
I work for a company that programs and hosts market research surveys—feel free to drop me a line and I’ll see if we’re interested.
I was thinking more along the lines of something very simple and very free, since I have minimal computer skills and financial resources. I have SPSS for analysis, so all I need is a form that collects responses and sticks them into a spreadsheet. One of my friends helped me do a survey before, and I was planning to pester him until he showed me how to set something up.
If you’re a professional, though, I defer to you if you want to do the Unofficial Less Wrong Survey instead. Or if you want to cooperate on it, email me at yvain314@hotmail.com. If not, no worries; I’m sure I can set something up eventually.
The most interesting thing I’ve read on it says you ought to laugh and make fun of yourself, because chaos magic is ridiculous and can’t possibly be real. Then you forget about it, and then it works.
I’m not sure about the last bit, though.
It would not be a stretch to say that the Yudkowsky story alluded to in the main article exhibits some of the same psychological tricks that ‘chaos magicians’ practice. The pure white rationality dojo, the symbolic plaques, the importance invested in each of the rooms, the sort of cleansing ritual and meditation techniques the main character uses. And most importantly to Chaos Magicians:
The power of symbols is super important.
Even the more supernatural aspects of Chaos Magic could be looked upon as a practice in belief annihilation, much like Eliezer’s story. By examining the mechanism of belief through practice and meditation, one starts to exhibit more control over one’s beliefs. More control, the more likely one will catch irrational beliefs. When one has complete control over beliefs, then rationality can control the monkey brain. When you laugh at something, like Yvain does below, you’re exhibiting some control over what you’re taking seriously. That’s good, so long as what you’re laughing at DESERVES to be laughed at.
btw, laughter is a chaos magic dispelling/banishing technique :D Thought that was interesting.
We’d better not tell them that they haven’t actually suspended their disbelief.
Suspension of disbelief merely means that you withhold your rejection of input as false. In order to understand something at all, you have to temporarily represent it in your mind as true… which is why there are studies that show you can convince people of things by telling them the idea and then distracting them before they have a chance to analyze or reject it. Disbelief is an active, conscious process; belief is the default.
(Which makes sense evolutionarily—camouflage and deceptive behaviors are perceptual problems, not logical analysis problems. An ability to logically disbelieve probably had to evolve as a defensive weapon against human liars—it doesn’t make much sense to have it until you also have language and imagination.)
By my meaning of the phrase, they have, your nominally Orthodox friend certainly has, and everyone who watches a film does it all the time.
Is there a “Less Wrong” logo? The “map/territory” imagery in the banner is interesting, but seems too complex as a logo/tattoo.
I find that I find comfort in brining my smarthphone everywhere, and knowing that I have internet access, even when I’m almost certainly not going to use it. It can be used as a symbol for any specific website or community, any specific person I could contact, of the internet and humanity itself, and of how scifi the world is because such devices exists. Etc.
This is somehting I intentionally use, wearing it like The One Ring around my neck, hugging it to my chest if I’m feeling uncomfortable, sometimes petting it and/or whispering “my presssiusss”, etc. (And yes, that’s literary; pop culture references is somehting I associate with the internet.)
btw, this is almost the sort of thing a chaos magician would do. They would create a symbol by smashing the letters in Less Wrong together and then tattoo the created symbol on their palm. Or at least keep copies of it around all the time.. Perhaps the symbol has more priming power than mere words. Any evidence of this?
Not that I know of.
This is a bit shaky; but I think I recall from reading Peter Carroll and Austin Osman Spare that one’s supposed to create a sigil, energize it, then put it somewhere you’ll never see it again; not perpetually see it. I would expect a double-blind study to find more priming from explicitly visualized concepts than from obfuscated symbols, but it might be interesting to throw that in as another option alongside various vectors for subliminal messages.