Official Discussion Thread (Ghost Edit)

[JSynth]

Here what I think is weird about the furry forum and this one.
In regards to hypnotism, literally nobody has talked about the negative effects if it. Like, everyone is like "yea!! That's cool! Let me try!" And then later post "holy cow I was a dragon!"

But here, it's different. Like, I wonder why there is a lot more people here that are negative about it than on there. Literally 0 disliked the idea and there was at least 3 pages about it.

It really depends on the area of hypnosis. I mean, watching people you know do goofy things at a hypnotist show never gets old. There is also hypnotherapy, which can be used to quit smoking or help with phobias. I had a teacher who used it to help with her arachnophobia. The weird parts are the things like pony hypnosis.

[Stuntddude]

Also, placebo is a welldocumented effect that proves you very much wrong, stuntdude.

Yes, we all know about the placebo effect. The difference is that some of us understand that something having a placebo effect does not mean it works. Quite the contrary - if, say, a medicine or treatment is shown to produce a very similar effect to a placebo, it means it doesn't work.

If you think that "proves me very much wrong," probably either you didn't understand my post or you don't understand the placebo effect.

You can pretty much tell your mind anything as long as you believe it hard enough.

Belief is a product of the mind, not the other way around. What you believe is based on how you're informed - you can't just arbitrarily choose to believe something. Plus what you're saying is essentially "if you can make yourself believe something strongly enough, then you can make yourself believe it" - well no dip, Sherlock, but belief is not something that can be spontaneously wished into existence any more than (for instance) knowledge can.

[ExoBassTix]

Rule of thumb: If it "only works when you believe it will", then it probably doesn't work.

I prefer "shit happened" over "shit happens," sorry.

[FLAOFEI]

Oh Stuntdude, how do you know that? You are convinced the facts you know are true, you believe in them. Why? You learned from a trustworthy source. Do you believe you are infallible at judging what is a trustworthy source?

Anyway. Placebo is a term for medical effects without any chemical intervention. Hypnosis is a term for some sort of mind alteration thingy or something without chemical intervention. Pretty much the same thing :/

[LFP]

You can pretty much tell your mind anything as long as you believe it hard enough.

Belief is a product of the mind, not the other way around. What you believe is based on how you're informed - you can't just arbitrarily choose to believe something. Plus what you're saying is essentially "if you can make yourself believe something strongly enough, then you can make yourself believe it" - well no dip, Sherlock, but belief is not something that can be spontaneously wished into existence any more than (for instance) knowledge can.

I wouldn't necessarily say that what you believe is always based on how you're informed.
How would someone then be in denial of, say a traumatic experience.
I would say that counts as someone "just arbitrarily choosing to believe something".

What I meant to say with the text is that if you can make yourself believe something strongly enough, then you can make that your reality.
If my poor phrasing or choice of words deceived the message then I am sorry, I thought my little history texts explained it enough :P

[ph00tbag]

Rule of thumb: If it "only works when you believe it will", then it probably doesn't work.

In matters of the mind and its connection with the body, things are less clear than that. The fact that reality can really only be interpreted through the mind means that your reality is whatever your mind tells you it is, and if your mind tells you you're a horse, then holy shit you're a horse.

And make no mistake; the altered states of consciousness that inceive these ideas are real. They are experiences validated by consistently replicated descriptions given by people who've experienced them, and neurologically, they have properties that are significantly distinct from your day-to-day conscious experience. And pretty consistently, their nature and intensity are highly dependent on initial conditions and receptiveness.

In general, however, mind-programming (and make no mistake, this is what any kind of psychonautical endeavor is, no matter how non-extreme) like hypnosis, or dianetics must be recognized as such, and given due respect. Like with any program, when changing a line of code, you need to make sure every routine that calls that line is able to handle the return. But with the mind, it's so much more complicated because there's so many more connections between everything.

[ExoBassTix]

If you believe in something with all your heart, something that others might not believe in, for whatever reason you do believe in it, it could evolve into a private reality. A fake reality, perhaps. It can be believing in a God, in something magical, or anything else popularly considered unprovable, or mythical. These beliefs can empower their wielder mentally, which is proven to be able to convert into more willpower, and sometimes physical strength. Perhaps even more. The act of believing becomes as powerful as that which is believed in.

Belief is something beautiful, even moreso if you can share your belief with those you hold dear. However, it can also become something destructive, if you start seeing your private reality as the actual reality, and force it upon others that have a different reality. The Mane 6 simply taught Discord this, in which he became 'reformed'.

And the fake reality persists inside of him.

[Stuntddude]

You are convinced the facts you know are true, you believe in them. Why? You learned from a trustworthy source.

Yes, as opposed to wishing my belief in them into existence.

Do you believe you are infallible at judging what is a trustworthy source?

...Are you really doing this? Do you realize this could literally be used as a de facto response to any argument, or anything anyone ever says? Of course I'm not infallible. I never claim to be, and it's irrelevant truth of the matter. Seriously, what a stupid question...

I wouldn't necessarily say that what you believe is always based on how you're informed.
How would someone then be in denial of, say a traumatic experience.
I would say that counts as someone "just arbitrarily choosing to believe something".

It doesn't, though. I don't mean "how you're informed" as in facts that you are directly told, I mean that the information your brain receives determines what you believe. Denial of a traumatic experience is a good example - in that situation, your belief isn't caused by a choice, it's caused by being unable to cope with the reality of a particular experience. If you had tried to make yourself believe that the traumatic experience really did happen, it would not have changed what you actually ended up believing.

A good exercise to test this is to try to will yourself to believe, for instance, that the sky is neon orange. Wish to believe it, try to will your own belief into existence all you like, try as hard as you can, you simply won't be able to do it, because that's just not how human brains work.

Of course, that's not to say you can't indirectly cause yourself to believe something (for instance, by looking up only sources of information that you know will confirm a particular view), but it's not as simple as flipping some Switch of Belief in your brain.

The fact that reality can really only be interpreted through the mind means that your reality is whatever your mind tells you it is, and if your mind tells you you're a horse, then holy shit you're a horse.

This is true, but it is not two-way. If your mind tells you you're a horse, then holy shit, you're a horse. But if you tell your mind that you're a horse, then holy shit, nothing happens. Because you can't will belief or experience into existence.

If you believe in something with all your heart, something that others might not believe in, for whatever reason you do believe in it, it could evolve into a private reality. A fake reality, perhaps.

That's just a description of what belief is, though. A "private reality" is a good way to describe what it is like for somebody to genuinely believe something that may not be true, but it's simply a description of belief, not a product of belief.

[Stuntddude]

The basis of the aforementioned rule of thumb is this:
If someone believes that a technique will work on them, or produce a specific result, then afterward, they'll probably believe that it worked or produced the result, regardless of whether it actually produce the result, as long as the result is not something with an obviously observable physical effect (like a surgical procedure, for example).
If the intended result is belief, and the technique requires belief to work, then it is simply a self-fulfilling prophecy.
A technique causing a placebo effect does not mean that the technique actually works.

[ph00tbag]

The fact that reality can really only be interpreted through the mind means that your reality is whatever your mind tells you it is, and if your mind tells you you're a horse, then holy shit you're a horse.

This is true, but it is not two-way. If your mind tells you you're a horse, then holy shit, you're a horse. But if you tell your mind that you're a horse, then holy shit, nothing happens. Because you can't will belief or experience into existence.

There's actually a fair amount of evidence to suggest that under the right circumstances, it's possible to get your brain to be utterly convinced of an irreal reality. It's not necessarily so simple as saying, "I am a horse," a bunch of times. It requires entering a different state of consciousness, and opening your mind up to suggestion, but it's fully possible.

[FLAOFEI]

You are convinced the facts you know are true, you believe in them. Why? You learned from a trustworthy source.

Yes, as opposed to wishing my belief in them into existence.

Do you believe you are infallible at judging what is a trustworthy source?

...Are you really doing this? Do you realize this could literally be used as a de facto response to any argument, or anything anyone ever says? Of course I'm not infallible. I never claim to be, and it's irrelevant truth of the matter. Seriously, what a stupid question... [/quote]
It wasn't ment as a question. It was meant as an example. You can never know anything 100% certanly. For all you know you could be an alzheimers patient who thinks you're young again. It doesn't have much to do with Hypnosis specificly, but you made some assumptions about the human mind I don't agree with.

[Mr. Bigglesworth]

I just had a really good recording session, everything came out super clean and workable, pretty damn keen to start mixing it

[Stuntddude]

The fact that reality can really only be interpreted through the mind means that your reality is whatever your mind tells you it is, and if your mind tells you you're a horse, then holy shit you're a horse.

This is true, but it is not two-way. If your mind tells you you're a horse, then holy shit, you're a horse. But if you tell your mind that you're a horse, then holy shit, nothing happens. Because you can't will belief or experience into existence.

There's actually a fair amount of evidence to suggest that under the right circumstances, it's possible to get your brain to be utterly convinced of an irreal reality. It's not necessarily so simple as saying, "I am a horse," a bunch of times.

I don't disagree with this at all, actually. It's possible to set incredibly pervasive ideas in one's own mind, but because humans don't have the power to micromanage their own brains and control their own beliefs directly, it has to be accomplished through more roundabout means by setting up situations for oneself by which to be convinced. That's pretty much my point all along.

[ph00tbag]

I guess this really comes from ambiguity in the definition of the word, belief. If we're taking belief to mean, "acceptance of that which is, based on compelling evidence in favor," then yeah, that's not something that can be changed directly. But I've always understood belief to mean, "personal conviction formed in the absence of compelling evidence for or against." Such a thing is simple to change, really, relying on nothing more than a conscious decision to change.

But I don't consider hypnosis to be a matter of the latter. Hypnosis not only creates for you evidence of a particular non-truth, but encourages your mind to ignore all evidence to the contrary, so by all rights, you have compelling evidence that the hypnotic fallacy is true, and you believe it in the former sense--you accept it. It is just such a roundabout way of reprogramming the mind.

[Bronies Are Cool]

Me and my Ex went on a date last night....actually, that was our first real date

[LFP]

On another very related note

[DJ TATCM]

what is the difference between seapunk and vaporwave frankly i am so befuddled by all these newfangled genres you meddling kids come up with these days

[Viricide Filly]

I can't really tell you the difference because I don't listen to Seapunk, but I can tell you there is a pretty big difference in direction, aesthetic, style, origin etc

[Stuntddude]

What even is seapunk and what is vaporwave, and is it even worth the brain cells to know?

[ExoBassTix]

https://soundcloud.com/supersawhoover/callupontheseapunk
Seapunk.

[Viricide Filly]

I really do enjoy quite a lot of Vaporwave though. Not for the aesthetics, for the sound of it. Even though a lot of it doesn't take much to make, I still enjoy it.

[Stuntddude]

I think I can relate to that. It sounds sort of like my hobby of listening to songs paulstretched or with a 4 bar stereo offset.

[Acsii]

Sea punk sounds like ocean influenced ska-punk with accordions or something

I would listen the fuck out of anything that was like that

[Bronies Are Cool]

I feel more and more depressed the more tired I get.
I have been awake for 18 hours. Which is nothing compared to what I usually do. But I've been awake and getting very little sleep lately. It adds up. I'm very tired.
Fun fact: staying awake for 17 hours has similar effects on the brain as drinking two glasses of wine.
Meaning my brain is currently functioning the same as if I was slightly drunk. Weird

[Guthey]

I feel more and more depressed the more tired I get.
I have been awake for 18 hours. Which is nothing compared to what I usually do. But I've been awake and getting very little sleep lately. It adds up. I'm very tired.
Fun fact: staying awake for 17 hours has similar effects on the brain as drinking two glasses of wine.
Meaning my brain is currently functioning the same as if I was slightly drunk. Weird

Well that's not good, eh?