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My intuition is that changing how the mind works in any significant way will destabilise it, long term or even worse. Techniques that mess with it, either psych

My intuition is that changing how the mind works in any significant way will destabilise it, long term or even worse. Techniques that mess with it, either psychologically or using drugs, are not sustainable. Using such techniques to correct a mind that's already out of balance isn't something I've got a problem with, but altering a healthy/typical mind is to be avoided.

throwanem 5y ago
This is a reasonable intuition, but consider the same statement in the context of physical exercise: > Using such techniques to correct a [body] that's already out of balance isn't something I've got a problem with, but altering a healthy/typical [body] is to be avoided. Of course there exists dangerous excess in both cases. You can exercise yourself to death, or ruin your health with horse testosterone. But that overindulgence can do harm doesn't automatically indict a daily hour of cardio, or even HIIT and a bit of protein powder or whatever. edit: Granted, some of the stuff in this "psychonetics" book seems a bit nonsense. But some of it certainly isn't. For example: What it systematizes apparently for the sake of systematism as "(VM.PDA) Planar Deconcentration of Attention (PDA)" is just a very highflown and rather silly description of something I learned from a great-uncle as one of a hunter's techniques for easily noticing movement. The way he put it was not to look at anything, but just look, and eventually I got the hang of it. I don't hunt, or at least not with a rifle, but I do regularly use the technique in wildlife photography, and it's extremely helpful and not at all as complicated or esoteric as Kusakov would seem to prefer. Too, Uncle Bram seemed perfectly sane when I knew him as a child, and I'm likewise not aware of any particular harm the use of this mental technique has inflicted on me. I wouldn't make the same assertion for everything in here, or even claim that anything in here is useful other than by coincidence, but there is at least one thing in here I can vouch for, albeit again preferably without all the nonsense with which Kusakov hedges it around. So if nothing else he's no worse off than a broken clock, I suppose.
qwerty456127 5y ago
It's definitely good to always remember this cautious idea, yet sticking entirely to it seems equivalent to "don't ever go to gym and lift any weights". People around do all sorts of things which are rather far from the stable point to where their bodies rest naturally and get all sorts of semi-sustainable benefits. A human can actually use brains some good ways most people don't know about. Your brain is a machine you should develop some degree of control over rather than leave it to drive itself chaotically based on external and unintentional internal stimuli alone. E.g. it is possible to develop some degree of effortless stress-free emotion control, learning to take your feelings and ideas critically is also very important. E.g. feeling anger doesn't necessarily mean the other person is wicked or have actually done anything bad at all, feeling depressed doesn't imply everything is bad, you can feel debilitating panic without actual danger, appetite is just loosely correlated to actual need to eat, it is possible and good for health to switch (by your will alone) to feeling gratitude from feeling annoyed. Most people are not aware of this but they should be. Also "normal" mind is a sleeping mind, occasionally you sort of "wake up" for a moment and find the time has passed as if it never was so you didn't live it for to full extent.
heavenlyblue 5y ago
> My intuition is that changing how the mind works in any significant way will destabilise it, long term or even worse. Techniques that mess with it, either psychologically or using drugs, are not sustainable. Your intuition from what experience exactly? What makes you think your mind is stable naturally? What makes you think that even if you're sure your mind is stable, that it's not left in it's local minima of abilities?
- trutannus 5y ago
  >What makes you think that even if you're sure your mind is stable, that it's not left in it's local minima of abilities? I don't think anybody needs to justify to anyone else why they don't want to tamper with their mind. This is by definition a subjective topic. If this person's intuition is that tampering with their mind will destabilize it, that's legitimate. Nobody is in a place to question someone's intuitions about their own mind. Other minds are alien experiences -- unknowable. Not everyone can, wants to, or needs to push their consciousness to the theoretical idea maximum of its capacity as defined by another fully isolated subject. It's deeply irresponsible for anyone to suggest, or aggressively advocate, otherwise.
  - Loughla 5y ago
    I'm genuinely confused by your argument. This is simply conscious training for the mind. Do you believe your mind developed in a vacuum? You do train your mind with habits, experiences, internal and external input, constantly. How is it worse than that to take it to the conscious, intentional level?
    - trutannus 5y ago
      Because we don't know what the full implications of training with untested, pseudoscientific 'tricks' from some website will be? Because for some people alterations in perception might be destabilizing? Because someone does not fully understand it? Because it's possible to train your mind to do the wrong things as a healthy person with no idea what you're doing? Your assessment of site's content is just that -- an assessment by a random person on the internet about a subject they can't concretely demonstrate expertise in. A subject that, if misapplied, can ruin people's lives. If someone says "no I'm fine", that's enough. Like I said before, I don't think anybody needs to justify to anyone else why they don't want to tamper with their mind. It's baffling to me why this isn't sufficient.

throwanem 5y ago

This is a reasonable intuition, but consider the same statement in the context of physical exercise: > Using such techniques to correct a [body] that's already out of balance isn't something I've got a problem with, but altering a healthy/typical [body] is to be avoided. Of course there exists dangerous excess in both cases. You can exercise yourself to death, or ruin your health with horse testosterone. But that overindulgence can do harm doesn't automatically indict a daily hour of cardio, or even HIIT and a bit of protein powder or whatever. edit: Granted, some of the stuff in this "psychonetics" book seems a bit nonsense. But some of it certainly isn't. For example: What it systematizes apparently for the sake of systematism as "(VM.PDA) Planar Deconcentration of Attention (PDA)" is just a very highflown and rather silly description of something I learned from a great-uncle as one of a hunter's techniques for easily noticing movement. The way he put it was not to look at anything, but just look, and eventually I got the hang of it. I don't hunt, or at least not with a rifle, but I do regularly use the technique in wildlife photography, and it's extremely helpful and not at all as complicated or esoteric as Kusakov would seem to prefer. Too, Uncle Bram seemed perfectly sane when I knew him as a child, and I'm likewise not aware of any particular harm the use of this mental technique has inflicted on me. I wouldn't make the same assertion for everything in here, or even claim that anything in here is useful other than by coincidence, but there is at least one thing in here I can vouch for, albeit again preferably without all the nonsense with which Kusakov hedges it around. So if nothing else he's no worse off than a broken clock, I suppose.

qwerty456127 5y ago

It's definitely good to always remember this cautious idea, yet sticking entirely to it seems equivalent to "don't ever go to gym and lift any weights". People around do all sorts of things which are rather far from the stable point to where their bodies rest naturally and get all sorts of semi-sustainable benefits. A human can actually use brains some good ways most people don't know about. Your brain is a machine you should develop some degree of control over rather than leave it to drive itself chaotically based on external and unintentional internal stimuli alone. E.g. it is possible to develop some degree of effortless stress-free emotion control, learning to take your feelings and ideas critically is also very important. E.g. feeling anger doesn't necessarily mean the other person is wicked or have actually done anything bad at all, feeling depressed doesn't imply everything is bad, you can feel debilitating panic without actual danger, appetite is just loosely correlated to actual need to eat, it is possible and good for health to switch (by your will alone) to feeling gratitude from feeling annoyed. Most people are not aware of this but they should be. Also "normal" mind is a sleeping mind, occasionally you sort of "wake up" for a moment and find the time has passed as if it never was so you didn't live it for to full extent.

heavenlyblue 5y ago

> My intuition is that changing how the mind works in any significant way will destabilise it, long term or even worse. Techniques that mess with it, either psychologically or using drugs, are not sustainable. Your intuition from what experience exactly? What makes you think your mind is stable naturally? What makes you think that even if you're sure your mind is stable, that it's not left in it's local minima of abilities?

trutannus 5y ago
>What makes you think that even if you're sure your mind is stable, that it's not left in it's local minima of abilities? I don't think anybody needs to justify to anyone else why they don't want to tamper with their mind. This is by definition a subjective topic. If this person's intuition is that tampering with their mind will destabilize it, that's legitimate. Nobody is in a place to question someone's intuitions about their own mind. Other minds are alien experiences -- unknowable. Not everyone can, wants to, or needs to push their consciousness to the theoretical idea maximum of its capacity as defined by another fully isolated subject. It's deeply irresponsible for anyone to suggest, or aggressively advocate, otherwise.
- Loughla 5y ago
  I'm genuinely confused by your argument. This is simply conscious training for the mind. Do you believe your mind developed in a vacuum? You do train your mind with habits, experiences, internal and external input, constantly. How is it worse than that to take it to the conscious, intentional level?
  - trutannus 5y ago
    Because we don't know what the full implications of training with untested, pseudoscientific 'tricks' from some website will be? Because for some people alterations in perception might be destabilizing? Because someone does not fully understand it? Because it's possible to train your mind to do the wrong things as a healthy person with no idea what you're doing? Your assessment of site's content is just that -- an assessment by a random person on the internet about a subject they can't concretely demonstrate expertise in. A subject that, if misapplied, can ruin people's lives. If someone says "no I'm fine", that's enough. Like I said before, I don't think anybody needs to justify to anyone else why they don't want to tamper with their mind. It's baffling to me why this isn't sufficient.