[FRIAM] A longer response to Dave's question

Sat Feb 22 18:55:18 EST 2020

I agree slavishly with everything that Eric wrote, except: 

There are many examples that suggest certain insights-that-turn-out-to-hold-up-pretty-well, which were first experienced when under an altered state, were unlikely to have been experienced without that altered state.  

I thought you were going to assert the opposite of this.  For instance, people think that hypnosis is a very special state which can only be arrived at through a hypnosis ritual or some sort or other.  They think they can do things under hypnosis that they cannot do otherwise.  But isn’t there an extensive literature on hypnosis simulation in which judges try to distinguish between subjects that been hypnotized and subjects that have been asked politely to do whatever it is the “hypnotized” subjects have been asked to do.  The judges can’t reliably do so.   I supposed one could assert that polite- asking induces an altered state, but I don’t know where that gets you pragmatically.  

Can you explain?  And why didn’t you flog me with your Jamesian noodle, like I expected you to? 

Nick

Nick 

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

 <mailto:ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com> ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com

 <https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of Eric Charles
Sent: Saturday, February 22, 2020 2:42 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] A longer response to Dave's question

If we are willing to go back and forth a bit between being philosophers and psychologists for a moment, there are far more interesting things to talk about regarding "altered states".... here are the some of the issues: 

1.	When someone claims to be responding to something, we should believe they are responding to something. 
2.	People generally suck at stating what they are responding to, even in highly mundane situations. 
3.	It is worth studying any types of experiences that lead fairly reliably to other certain future experiences, because in such situations one has a chance discover what it is people are actually responding to. 
4.	As we are complex dynamic systems, human development is affected by all sorts of things in non-obvious ways.
5.	There is no a priori reason to discount the insights one experiences under "altered states of consciousness", but also no a priori reason to give them special credence. 
6.	The degree to which a someone has a sense of certainty about something is not generally a reliable measure of how likely that thing is to hold up in the long run, unless many, many, many other assumptions are met.
7.	There is likely good reason to think that altered states of consciousness are less reliable in general than "regular" states.
8.	There are many examples that suggest certain insights-that-turn-out-to-hold-up-pretty-well, which were first experienced when under an altered state, were unlikely to have been experienced without that altered state.  

Is that the type of stuff we were are poking at?

-----------

Eric P. Charles, Ph.D.
Department of Justice - Personnel Psychologist

American University - Adjunct Instructor

On Sat, Feb 22, 2020 at 2:30 PM Frank Wimberly <wimberly3 at gmail.com <mailto:wimberly3 at gmail.com> > wrote:

Agreed

---
Frank C. Wimberly, PhD
505 670-9918
Santa Fe, NM

On Sat, Feb 22, 2020, 12:25 PM Marcus Daniels <marcus at snoutfarm.com <mailto:marcus at snoutfarm.com> > wrote:

Frank writes:

<It would constitute proof that Marcus exists if he were to admit that I was correct in our years-ago argument when I said that gender defines an equivalence relation on the set of people.>

Definitions.  Notation.  Argh, who cares.  Where’s that neuralyzer, let me get rid of them.

(That should at least be evidence of continuity!)

Marcus

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