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Abugadu
Jul 12, 2004

1st Sgt. Matthews and the men have Procured for me a cummerbund from a traveling gypsy, who screeched Victory shall come at a Terrible price. i am Honored.

Libluini posted:

The problem with this is, we can't be fully sure if that's actually true. What if they all lied? Suddenly, the entire argument falls apart. In fact, it could very well be that they were hypnotized and then too embarrassed to confess that they were going along with this (since hypnotism can't actually force you to do anything against your will).

Anyway, the "they were hypnotized, therefore they were sluts"-argument is also false. Just because those women weren't, like Super-Catholics with weird sexual hang-ups , doesn't mean hypnotizing them for sexual reasons is OK without their consent. Obviously, those women didn't consent to getting hypno-sexed, so it's still a crime only the scum of the earth would do.

Though what most likely happened: The women went along with it out of fear, and then were to embarrassed to explain what actually happened, so they decided to "not remember" the sexual assault. It's the most direct and logical explanation I can come up with, using the info the OP has supplied.

Fear of a small fat bald old dude who couldn't outrun a Burger King meal?

And my argument was the opposite. They're not sluts if they're hypnotized. But if they weren't hypnotized, six embarrassed but terrible women just sent a guy to jail for 12 years for 'kidnapping' (seriously this is what they charged him with). If they all individually and consciously decided to 'not remember' it, why the avalanche of claims later when the first woman got the police involved?

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Zeniel
Oct 18, 2013
That isnt the only possibility though. There is a lot of ambiguity surrounding something like this. This tells us nothing, because the evidence is not taken from controlled conditions and is not empirical.

You cannot use the ruling of a court case as proof of anything other than the existence of a ruling of a court case

Abugadu
Jul 12, 2004

1st Sgt. Matthews and the men have Procured for me a cummerbund from a traveling gypsy, who screeched Victory shall come at a Terrible price. i am Honored.

Zeniel posted:

That isnt the only possibility though. There is a lot of ambiguity surrounding something like this. This tells us nothing, because the evidence is not taken from controlled conditions and is not empirical.

You cannot use the ruling of a court case as proof of anything other than the existence of a ruling of a court case

Agreed on the conditions thing, and it's unlikely you'll get a controlled scientific study of this sort of thing after 1975, but this wasn't a ruling - the guy plead to it. The point I'm trying to make with the Fine case isn't necessarily that it proves hypnosis exists, but that if you assume that hypnosis does not exist, it's one of the most hosed up things ever.

Libluini
May 18, 2012

I gravitated towards the Greens, eventually even joining the party itself.

The Linke is a party I grudgingly accept exists, but I've learned enough about DDR-history I can't bring myself to trust a party that was once the SED, a party leading the corrupt state apparatus ...
Grimey Drawer

Abugadu posted:

Fear of a small fat bald old dude who couldn't outrun a Burger King meal?

And my argument was the opposite. They're not sluts if they're hypnotized. But if they weren't hypnotized, six embarrassed but terrible women just sent a guy to jail for 12 years for 'kidnapping' (seriously this is what they charged him with). If they all individually and consciously decided to 'not remember' it, why the avalanche of claims later when the first woman got the police involved?

No, you just didn't read my counter-argument correctly. What I was saying is that they weren't "terrible" for sending a sexual predator into prison, regardless of being hypnotized or not. But you are right, he should have been charged with sexual assault, not kidnapping.

Also the very obvious answer to your dumb question is that after seeing one woman stepping forward, the others decided that they should do the same. See also the terrible track record of the US-justice system with sexual assault.

As to your first point, recently there was a case in Germany were a rapist went to a hearing with his therapist to decide if he was now healed and healthy enough to leave the mental institution he was held in. This hearing was held inside the mental institution and that guy was seen as mostly harmless at this point, since he had been a model patient up until then. He then raped her inside her own bureau and escaped. Apparently he had been a lot more dangerous then he had looked.

So I think women shouldn't go by looks alone to decide if someone is a danger to them.

To reiterate, there is no question of "hypnotized or not hypnotized" here, since that fat bald old dude committed a serious crime in both cases. The hypnosis is completely irrelevant here and without using SF-technology to look into the heads of the people involved, it's not possible to say if they were hypnotized or not. Since that's not a thing, we can only go by what the involved say what happened, and make our conclusions from there.

And said conclusions have to be logical, and logic doesn't mean we have to swallow "he said he hypnotized them, therefore it is true".

Yngwie Mangosteen
Aug 23, 2007

Abugadu posted:

but that if you assume that hypnosis does not exist, it's one of the most hosed up things ever.

No, its sadly a pretty bog standard 'man abusing power and authority to exploit vulnerable women' story. You don't need fantastical superpowers to achieve that, just a deeply misogynistic society like the one we exist in.

Zeniel
Oct 18, 2013
I read through the entire legal transcripts of the Michael Fine case here, WARNING CONTAINS SEXUAL REFERENCES

http://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/1363848/michael-fine-doc.txt

I'd like to read the report written by the expert witness on hyposis Dr Ross Santamaria but I have no idea if that's at all available, nothing I could find anyway.

Seems like he was doing more than just hypnotherapy although it does seem to be main focus of the case. The defense also pointed out that hypnosis is not a valid argument in court due to the lack of scientific evidence, they clearly had plenty of footage to charge the guy with sexual assault and other things without it anyway.

WampaLord
Jan 14, 2010

Abugadu posted:

Fear of a small fat bald old dude who couldn't outrun a Burger King meal?

This is a disgusting argument, OP. Women can fear men who aren't physically intimidating. Fat bald old dudes can still pull out a gun and kill you, so don't loving dismiss their fears as "lol what do you have to worry about, he fat"

Boris Galerkin
Dec 17, 2011

I don't understand why I can't harass people online. Seriously, somebody please explain why I shouldn't be allowed to stalk others on social media!

Abugadu posted:

Fear of a small fat bald old dude who couldn't outrun a Burger King meal?

And my argument was the opposite. They're not sluts if they're hypnotized. But if they weren't hypnotized, six embarrassed but terrible women just sent a guy to jail for 12 years for 'kidnapping' (seriously this is what they charged him with). If they all individually and consciously decided to 'not remember' it, why the avalanche of claims later when the first woman got the police involved?

Please tell us what a slut is exactly, and whether or not they are bad people. This is important.

Space T Rex
Sep 15, 2007

Your title was so old it used HTML which isn't even allowed in titles anymore what the hell
I saw my friend's twin brother get hypnotized at a show once. It was one of those deals where the hypnotist tries to do the whole audience and only some people actually become hypnotized. The guy who I saw get hypnotized I know well and I really don't think hes the kind of guy who would fake it and he did some pretty embarrassing poo poo so there's my 2 cents.

Also if hypnotism isn't real at all, it seems weird to me that you can actually make a profession out of getting on a stage and telling people to do stuff and hoping really hard that they actually do it for you. Are there unsuccessful hypnotists? Like if there's nothing to it can't I, having no knowledge of how it works, just go get on a stage somewhere and make some money tonight? I do need a new job so that sounds easy.

That all said I actually am not convinced its real, I'm just not convinced its all horse poo poo either.

Aleph Null
Jun 10, 2008

You look very stressed
Tortured By Flan

Space T Rex posted:

Also if hypnotism isn't real at all, it seems weird to me that you can actually make a profession out of getting on a stage and telling people to do stuff and hoping really hard that they actually do it for you. Are there unsuccessful hypnotists? Like if there's nothing to it can't I, having no knowledge of how it works, just go get on a stage somewhere and make some money tonight? I do need a new job so that sounds easy.

You need skills on how to read and manipulate people. Otherwise, you'd be a crap "hypnotist" and your shows would bomb.
It works because our brains are dumber than we think they are, but you still need to know how to exploit that.

I mean, why not be a stand-up comic? All you do is go on stage and tell a few jokes.

Space T Rex
Sep 15, 2007

Your title was so old it used HTML which isn't even allowed in titles anymore what the hell

Aleph Null posted:

You need skills on how to read and manipulate people. Otherwise, you'd be a crap "hypnotist" and your shows would bomb.
It works because our brains are dumber than we think they are, but you still need to know how to exploit that.

I mean, why not be a stand-up comic? All you do is go on stage and tell a few jokes.

Manipulate how? Into being hypnotized or into faking it on your behalf? It seems to me that currently there is no way to distinguish scientifically between the two, which isn't to say the former is impossible, just not verifiable. Which forces people to rely on anecdotal evidence such as my experience with my friend's twin. Granted I know that's lovely proof, because its not proof whatsoever.

I think this is what the thread has been trying to get out of the OP the whole time, but is there any distinguishing between a hypnotized person and a someone faking it really well? I used to sleep walk a lot, I remember one time while sleep walking I told my dad I couldn't get back in bed because "I'm as big as Jupiter, I can't fit" it was winter so he jokingly suggested I go sleep on the trampoline then since its bigger. I started to head right out the back door to go do that until he stopped me. I definitely wasn't faking it, but he definitely caught me in a state of hyper-suggestibility or whatever you want to call it. So I guess I'm positive the proper state of mind exists. But is the argument over where or not it can be induced intentionally by just talking to someone?

I did a lot of rambling here haha sorry. Thoughts all over the place but it is what it is.

Space T Rex fucked around with this message at 20:33 on Aug 1, 2017

the holy poopacy
May 16, 2009

hey! check this out
Fun Shoe

Space T Rex posted:

Manipulate how? Into being hypnotized or into faking it on your behalf? It seems to me that currently there is no way to distinguish scientifically between the two, which isn't to say the former is impossible, just not verifiable. Which forces people to rely on anecdotal evidence such as my experience with my friend's twin. Granted I know that's lovely proof, because its not proof whatsoever.

I think this is what the thread has been trying to get out of the OP the whole time, but is there any distinguishing between a hypnotized person and a someone faking it really well? I used to sleep walk a lot, I remember one time while sleep walking I told my dad I couldn't get back in bed because "I was as big as Jupiter, I can't fit" it was winter so he jokingly suggested I go sleep on the trampoline then since its bigger. I started to head right out the back door to go do that until he stopped me. I definitely wasn't faking it, but he definitely caught me in a state of hyper-suggestibility or whatever you want to call it. So I guess I'm positive the proper state of mind exists. But is the argument over where or not it can be induced intentionally by just talking to someone?

I did a lot of rambling here haha sorry. Thoughts all over the place but it is what it is.

No, hypnosis is definitely distinct from sleepwalking. You can't put someone into a sleepwalking state by talking to them. If they're gullible enough you can convince them that they are in a sleepwalking-like state, though--and this does not mean they are "faking it", just that they've been very thoroughly deceived. The main argument I see is, what is the difference between e.g. getting someone to bark by convincing them they've been hypnotized to act like a dog versus getting someone to bark by convincing them you'll pay them a lot of money to act like a dog? Because there's not much of any difference that's been successfully borne out by research.

Space T Rex
Sep 15, 2007

Your title was so old it used HTML which isn't even allowed in titles anymore what the hell

Straight White Shark posted:

If they're gullible enough you can convince them that they are in a sleepwalking-like state, though--and this does not mean they are "faking it", just that they've been very thoroughly deceived.

That looks like a description of what hypnotism is, what am I missing? Because I doubt that's what you intended. But you just said you can, by just talking to someone, put them into a state of mind in which they will unwittingly act out suggestions you give them. Now, I know you said "convince them they're in a state of mind that..." and not actually put them into such a state, but what is the difference functionally? Its maybe not a "a state of mind in which you are hypnotized" but a "state of mind in which you think you're in a state of mind in which you're hypnotized" which is clearly not ones normal state of mind, a switch has been made. If the result is the same in the sense that they are doing the commands yet are not faking loss of self control, then its hypnotism - even if not by the same means hypnotists claim its done.

the holy poopacy
May 16, 2009

hey! check this out
Fun Shoe

Space T Rex posted:

If the result is the same in the sense that they are doing the commands yet are not faking loss of self control, then its hypnotism - even if not by the same means hypnotists claim its done.

By this logic literally any time you persuade anyone to do anything, using any means whatsoever, it's hypnosis. I can tell people "I'll give you a million dollars if you do exactly what I say without hesitation" and become the most powerful hypnotist ever known.

Control Volume
Dec 31, 2008

Space T Rex posted:

That looks like a description of what hypnotism is, what am I missing?

This entire thread is a variant of a discussion about the chinese room in that there's outwardly no distinction and people will disagree extremely loudly about what that means

Space T Rex
Sep 15, 2007

Your title was so old it used HTML which isn't even allowed in titles anymore what the hell

Straight White Shark posted:

If they're gullible enough you can convince them that they are in a sleepwalking-like state, though--and this does not mean they are "faking it", just that they've been very thoroughly deceived.
I took what you said to mean that they were deceived into thinking they were hypnotized (or "in a sleepwalking-like state" you said), not that they were deceived into consciously choosing some ulterior motive to follow commands. No one is being tricked into accepting an easy million dollars, but you said you thought people could be deceived into thinking they were literally in another state of mind - the implications of which made them helpless to suggestions. I can definitely see someone acting like they're hypnotized for attention (the contextual parallel to your million dollar offer scenario) but that's not what you described at all. That's faking it.

Although you're right by the logic of the statement you quoted, yes that would include pretty much all persuasion. I'd have to change it to "If the result is the same in the sense that they are doing the commands yet are not faking loss of self control, YET have lost self control - then its hypnotism." If what that describes is not your "tricked into a sleepwalking like state" example, then what is the point of tricking someone into that state in the first place, as opposed to just trying to select people you think will fake it?

Space T Rex fucked around with this message at 21:52 on Aug 1, 2017

Space T Rex
Sep 15, 2007

Your title was so old it used HTML which isn't even allowed in titles anymore what the hell

Control Volume posted:

This entire thread is a variant of a discussion about the chinese room in that there's outwardly no distinction and people will disagree extremely loudly about what that means

I was gonna say philosophical zombie theory but that's been my take.

the holy poopacy
May 16, 2009

hey! check this out
Fun Shoe

Space T Rex posted:

I took what you said to mean that they were deceived into thinking they were hypnotized (or "in a sleepwalking-like state" you said), not that they were deceived into consciously choosing some ulterior motive to follow commands. No one is being tricked into accepting an easy million dollars, but you said you thought people could be deceived into thinking they were literally in another state of mind - the implications of which made them helpless to suggestions. I can definitely see someone acting like they're hypnotized for attention (the contextual parallel to your million dollar offer scenario) but that's not what you described at all. That's faking it.

Although you're right by the logic of the statement you quoted, yes that would include pretty much all persuasion. I'd have to change it to "If the result is the same in the sense that they are doing the commands yet are not faking loss of self control, YET have lost self control - then its hypnotism." If what that describes is not your "tricked into a sleepwalking like state" example, then what is the point of tricking someone into that state in the first place, as opposed to just trying to select people you think will fake it?

The problem is that hypnosis does not involve a loss of self control any more than any other form of persuasion. Hypnotists (including the OP) will consistently tell you that no matter how susceptible to hypnosis someone is, there is always going to be some line that they will not cross. These lines are largely arbitrary and are not consistent with any neurological or psychological definitions beyond "things they really, really don't want to do." In this regard hypnosis is indistinguishable from ordinary methods of persuasion.

Space T Rex
Sep 15, 2007

Your title was so old it used HTML which isn't even allowed in titles anymore what the hell
Oh so your argument is just a denial of the premise that's its real. Do you have an argument to support that or...? Again, I'm not convinced it's real myself it just seems silly to be so positive that its not when the culmination of your argument comes to a head at "naw uh no its not". So what if neurological studies haven't been able to define details yet, that means its either complicated, fake, difficult to define, has lots of variability, or many other things. But its not evidence that solely asserts its completely fake.

Control Volume
Dec 31, 2008

Straight White Shark posted:

The problem is that hypnosis does not involve a loss of self control any more than any other form of persuasion. Hypnotists (including the OP) will consistently tell you that no matter how susceptible to hypnosis someone is, there is always going to be some line that they will not cross. These lines are largely arbitrary and are not consistent with any neurological or psychological definitions beyond "things they really, really don't want to do." In this regard hypnosis is indistinguishable from ordinary methods of persuasion.

Yeah dude and there's no difference in the method between telling someone you'll give them a dollar and a million dollars, but only one of those is going to get you to act like a duck on stage.

twodot
Aug 7, 2005

You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

Space T Rex posted:

Oh so your argument is just a denial of the premise that's its real. Do you have an argument to support that or...? Again, I'm not convinced it's real myself it just seems silly to be so positive that its not when the culmination of your argument comes to a head at "naw uh no its not". So what if neurological studies haven't been able to define details yet, that means its either complicated, fake, difficult to define, has lots of variability, or many other things. But its not evidence that solely asserts its completely fake.
If we define hypnotism as "sometimes a person will declare they are performing hypnotism and then ask people to do things, and sometimes those people will do the things, even if we wouldn't ordinarily expect them to do the things" then hypnotism definitely exists, but is indistinguishable from normal persuasion. If hypnotism is something more than that, then we need to people who think that to come up with rigorous definitions that can be tested.

Like to get at what you were saying earlier, is it even possible for hypnotists to badly perform hypnotism? Can a hypnotism expert make a mistake that wouldn't be noticed by non-expert, but still prevent hypnotism from working? I earnestly can't even tell, because I'm getting definitions like "bypassing the critical factor", which on top of being nonsense, isn't a description of a process. It's just saying you keep doing it until you succeed. Once you succeed, then you know you've done hypnotism, if you don't succeed, the clearly you haven't done hypnotism and it's all your fault. Hypnotism can not fail, it can only be failed.

Control Volume
Dec 31, 2008

Here's my hot take: Hypnotism is essentially sleight of mind meant to create a suggestible state. There's a preexisting framework of what hypnotism should be, and if you follow that framework with people who want to be hypnotized, bam, their mind thinks they're hypnotized and follows along because that's just what's supposed to happen. A parallel is the alleged holy power of big tent preachers, because they follow a known framework that makes people suggestible enough to feel the power of god.

Offering money isn't the same because people see money as an exchange rather than a blank check to do whatever someone tells you to do, and if they need to do something embarrassing, they'll usually do the bare minimum to meet whatever the agreement was, making for a poo poo show. Also you couldn't make money doing this

Control Volume
Dec 31, 2008

Also this sentiment that all forms of persuasion bring out the same behavior becomes deeply stupid when you trot out loving money as an example

the holy poopacy
May 16, 2009

hey! check this out
Fun Shoe

Space T Rex posted:

Oh so your argument is just a denial of the premise that's its real. Do you have an argument to support that or...? Again, I'm not convinced it's real myself it just seems silly to be so positive that its not when the culmination of your argument comes to a head at "naw uh no its not". So what if neurological studies haven't been able to define details yet, that means its either complicated, fake, difficult to define, has lots of variability, or many other things. But its not evidence that solely asserts its completely fake.

I mean, the OP comes out repeatedly and says exactly the same thing I said, so maybe ask him? All the links he cites do too. I'll just cite the CIA research on the topic since I'm most familiar with it.

I find this document particularly useful since it assumes that hypnosis is A Thing while remaining skeptical of most of the mysticism surrounding it. A few choice passages:

quote:

Several more recent approaches, which might be called motivational theories of hypnosis, hold that achievement of trance is related to the subject's desire to enter such a state. Experimentalists and clinicians who take the motivational view--including the present writer, whose conclusions on the subject of this paper are undoubtedly colored by it--believe that it accounts best for the major portion of the clinical data. Trance is commonly induced in situations where the subject is motivated a priori to cooperate with the hypnotist, usually to obtain relief from suffering, to contribute to a scientific study, or (as in a stage performance) to become a center of attraction. Almost all information currently available about hypnosis has been derived from such situations, and this fact must be kept in mind when one attempts to apply the data theoretically to situations different from these.

quote:

It is evident that a case like this offers little encouragement to the interrogator hoping to extract secrets by hypnosis. When the relationship between two individuals is marked by intense feelings and a strong tendency in one to comply with whatever requests are made of him by the other, it is in fact hardly necessary to invoke hypnosis to explain the resultant behavior. In the interrogation setting this emotional relationship of subject to hypnotist is not likely to exist.

quote:

There is little evidence for the genuineness of hypnotic age-regression, even though there have been a number of studies, mostly based on single cases. Young 31 demonstrated that performance on intelligence tests was not appropriate to the suggested age. Unhypnotized control subjects were more successful than subjects under deep hypnosis in simulating their age. Using the Rorschach test and drawings in a study of hypnotic age-regression in ten subjects, Orne 17 demonstrated that while some regressive changes appeared, non-regressive elements were also present, and changes toward regression showed no consistency from subject to subject. The drawings did not resemble the work of six-year-olds, being characterized by Karen Machover as "sophisticated oversimplification." Drawings actually done at the age of six by one subject were available for comparison, and there was not even a superficial resemblance. Subjects often gave with great conviction the name of the wrong teacher, one they had had at a later age.

quote:

It is therefore possible that information obtained from an interrogee by hypnosis would be either deliberate prevarication or an unintentional confusion of fantasy and reality. The correctness of any information so obtained would thus have to be established by independent criteria.

There's another, older CIA manual that briefly addresses the use of hypnosis in interrogation. It's not nearly as in depth and doesn't have access to the same breadth of clinical material, being concerned entirely with practical applications instead of theory. It still comes to broadly similar conclusions, acknowledging that the limitations of hypnosis make it largely useless as an interrogation method but it does come up with some novel ideas about how to use hypnosis as a prop to play mind games (my favorite: drug someone into unconsciousness, then when they wake up claim they were hypnotized into spilling their guts, so that they think there's no point to resisting.)

Control Volume posted:

Here's my hot take: Hypnotism is essentially sleight of mind meant to create a suggestible state. There's a preexisting framework of what hypnotism should be, and if you follow that framework with people who want to be hypnotized, bam, their mind thinks they're hypnotized and follows along because that's just what's supposed to happen. A parallel is the alleged holy power of big tent preachers, because they follow a known framework that makes people suggestible enough to feel the power of god.

Offering money isn't the same because people see money as an exchange rather than a blank check to do whatever someone tells you to do, and if they need to do something embarrassing, they'll usually do the bare minimum to meet whatever the agreement was, making for a poo poo show. Also you couldn't make money doing this

I feel like your position isn't actually all that far off of mine; I agree 100% on the first part. Obviously you and I do not see eye to eye on the second part, but have you really never seen someone get really into a wacky game show? Candid Camera? Arguably reality TV qualifies too--there's a lot of deceptive editing and behind the scenes prodding involved but they still have no problem getting people to do plenty of uncharacteristically embarrassing and stupid stuff, often without any really credible promise of reward. It's not about the money per se.

Space T Rex
Sep 15, 2007

Your title was so old it used HTML which isn't even allowed in titles anymore what the hell

twodot posted:

If hypnotism is something more than that, then we need to people who think that to come up with rigorous definitions that can be tested.

Do you think consciousness exists within other people? You're going to have to provide with with a testable definition to prove it otherwise I'm going to say it doesn't. I have no idea what your background is so I'm not trying to be condescending when I explain myself, but it can't be done. Its the Philosophical Zombie theory I mentioned earlier. True consciousness and prefect faked consciousness are indistinguishable, so scientific testing is not always the end-all-be-all in determining whether something is certain or not. Its inductive by nature, its limited. This matter of hypnotism is just the same, it may be impossible to give a testable definition but that doesn't mean its fake. Sure it gives us the right to be skeptical but not the right to deny it altogether.

Space T Rex fucked around with this message at 22:52 on Aug 1, 2017

twodot
Aug 7, 2005

You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

Space T Rex posted:

Do you think consciousness exists within other people?
Using the definitions I'm familiar with, I'm agnostic to this, because, as you noted, there's no way to distinguish between true consciousness and faked consciousness. Now what? If there's no way to distinguish between hypnotism and persuasion why do we need words for both?
edit:
If this helps you, I don't give a poo poo if the Chinese room actually understands Chinese, only if it successfully communicates in Chinese.

Space T Rex
Sep 15, 2007

Your title was so old it used HTML which isn't even allowed in titles anymore what the hell
So then your opinion is that maybe its real maybe its not, who knows? Cause same my dude. Were tight now.

twodot
Aug 7, 2005

You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

Space T Rex posted:

So then your opinion is that maybe its real maybe its not, who knows? Cause same my dude. Were tight now.
No, because I know for sure persuasion exists, and if hypnosis is just persuasion then it also definitely exists, and people are just using extra words because people are weird about words. If hypnosis is something other than just persuasion, then the people who believe that need to present a testable definition before we can even have a sane conversation about it. Like if someone posted a thread insisting that some percentage of the population were p-zombies, I'd also be asking for a testable definition of consciousness such that we could even begin to have a conversation.
edit:
The people claiming hypnosis is real, do think it's distinguishable from persuasion, but aren't telling us a way to distinguish it.

Control Volume
Dec 31, 2008

Straight White Shark posted:

I feel like your position isn't actually all that far off of mine; I agree 100% on the first part. Obviously you and I do not see eye to eye on the second part, but have you really never seen someone get really into a wacky game show? Candid Camera? Arguably reality TV qualifies too--there's a lot of deceptive editing and behind the scenes prodding involved but they still have no problem getting people to do plenty of uncharacteristically embarrassing and stupid stuff, often without any really credible promise of reward. It's not about the money per se.

Have you been to a hypnotist stage show? There's a noticeable difference in behavior between those and reality TV. Even in the show itself you can see the juxtaposition of behavior between people who follow the hypnosis framework and the people who know there's an audience.

the holy poopacy
May 16, 2009

hey! check this out
Fun Shoe

Control Volume posted:

Have you been to a hypnotist stage show? There's a noticeable difference in behavior between those and reality TV. Even in the show itself you can see the juxtaposition of behavior between people who follow the hypnosis framework and the people who know there's an audience.

Sure, to some extent. It's not an entirely binary state, though, since it's an entirely subjective experience. The hypnosis framework means different things to different people. And in practical terms, there's still not actually that much difference between someone who believes in it and someone who doesn't, so long as they're sufficiently motivated and committed to it. There's nothing that they actually do within the hypnosis framework that can't be duplicated outside of it.

Control Volume
Dec 31, 2008

Straight White Shark posted:

Sure, to some extent. It's not an entirely binary state, though, since it's an entirely subjective experience. The hypnosis framework means different things to different people. And in practical terms, there's still not actually that much difference between someone who believes in it and someone who doesn't, so long as they're sufficiently motivated and committed to it. There's nothing that they actually do within the hypnosis framework that can't be duplicated outside of it.

Do you have an example of stage hypnosis behavior being duplicated?

Numerical Anxiety
Sep 2, 2011

Hello.

twodot posted:

No, because I know for sure persuasion exists, and if hypnosis is just persuasion then it also definitely exists, and people are just using extra words because people are weird about words. If hypnosis is something other than just persuasion, then the people who believe that need to present a testable definition before we can even have a sane conversation about it. Like if someone posted a thread insisting that some percentage of the population were p-zombies, I'd also be asking for a testable definition of consciousness such that we could even begin to have a conversation.
edit:
The people claiming hypnosis is real, do think it's distinguishable from persuasion, but aren't telling us a way to distinguish it.

One can find analogues of hypnosis in normal mental functioning, the same way that one can find normal prototypes for the mechanisms of just about any mental illness; a distinction remains practically useful for marking certain extremes. When I retreat to the happy place in my mind to block out some stressful circumstance, this is more or less normal - when this becomes my normal state of affairs, I get labeled as delusional. It's a meaningful quantitative difference, although not a qualitative one. I might be able to persuade you to act like a duck - chances are I can't convince you that your left arm is paralyzed such that you subjectively experience it to be so.

Here's a some extracts from a fairly recent paper describing neuroscientific studies of hypnosis (from a real cognitive science journal, mind you):

quote:

It is helpful first to draw a distinction between ‘hypnosis’ and the effects of suggestion. Operationally, ‘hypnosis’ refers to a change in baseline mental activity after an induction procedure and typically experienced at the subjective level as an increase in absorption, focused attention, disattention to extraneous stimuli and a reduction in spontaneous thought [5]. Hypnotic induction procedures comprise a set of verbal instructions that facilitate this particular mental state. Typical ‘hypnotic’ phenomena, such as alterations in sensory experience and motor control, amnesia and the adoption of false beliefs about the self and the environment, require specific suggestions. There is good evidence, however, that subjects can respond to suggestions of this sort without the need to employ formal induction procedures. Indeed, the best predictor of the suggestibility of an individual in hypnosis is their responsiveness to the same suggestions outside hypnosis [6]. Nevertheless, hypnotic induction procedures can increase responsiveness to suggestion, particularly if expectancy has been raised by explicitly labelling the procedure ‘hypnosis’ [7]. Also, the effect of hypnotic suggestion can be more evident at the level of brain activation. Derbyshire et al. [8], for example, showed that the same suggestions to increase or decrease fibromyalgia pain using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) produced greater changes in activation in pain-related brain areas when participants were hypnotised compared to when they were not, despite much less marked difference in reported subjective pain modulation between the two conditions.

quote:

In a similar way, Fingelkurts et al. [15], using EEG measurements with a hypnotic virtuoso subject, found alterations in local and remote functional connectivity between brain areas during neutral hypnosis, which were replicated in the same subject one year later. These changes imply a distinct hypnotic ‘state’ in which normal patterns of communication between separate cognitive systems are perturbed. In particular, they identified the weakening of remote functional connections as a possible correlate for some of the unusual experiences that subjects commonly report in hypnosis such as timelessness and detachment from self. Converging evidence comes from the finding that administration of a hypnotic induction procedure is associated with spontaneous increases in errors in a word and colour conflict test (the Stroop effect) in highly hypnotizable individuals [16]. The associated increase in activity in anterior cingulate cortex in the absence of compensatory changes in left frontal cortical areas has been interpreted as evidence that hypnosis acts to decouple the normal relationship between conflict monitoring and cognitive control [16]. Collectively, these studies raise not only the possibility
of identifying distinct patterns of brain activations attributable to hypnosis (including anterior cingulate cortex and frontal cortical areas) but also indicate that these patterns comprise familiar components that can be found in many
other cognitive tasks. In other words, a principled understanding of hypnosis is possible without the implication of arcane or esoteric processes that has arguably slowed the uptake of ‘hypnosis’ as a cognitive tool for illuminating interesting scientific questions about memory, perception, attention and volition.

What is of particular interest is that this kind of suspension of communication between cognitive systems is parallel to what one sees hysterical paralysis and other conditions where you have reports of subjectively experienced 'somatic' symptoms without any organic cause; the old hypothesis that there's some kind of auto-suggestion going on in these conditions isn't quite dead.

twodot
Aug 7, 2005

You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

Numerical Anxiety posted:

One can find analogues of hypnosis in normal mental functioning, the same way that one can find normal prototypes for the mechanisms of just about any mental illness; a distinction remains practically useful for marking certain extremes. When I retreat to the happy place in my mind to block out some stressful circumstance, this is more or less normal - when this becomes my normal state of affairs, I get labeled as delusional. It's a meaningful quantitative difference, although not a qualitative one. I might be able to persuade you to act like a duck - chances are I can't convince you that your left arm is paralyzed such that you subjectively experience it to be so.
I keep asking for a definition because the things people are doing in, for example, a stage show, a scummy lawyer's office, and clinical studies with people hooked up to EEGs and fMRIs are all clearly different, and I want to know which we're talking about.

quote:

Here's a some extracts from a fairly recent paper describing neuroscientific studies of hypnosis (from a real cognitive science journal, mind you):
This is a cool paper, but there's literally no reason at all to think that stage performers are even attempting to perform the same routine as what was studied, or even if they are attempting the same routine that they are successful at it, or even if they were successful, that some rear end in a top hat isn't just pretending to subjectively believe their left arm is paralyzed because it's a way better story then that one time you spent $100 bucks on a show, and nothing interesting happened, and you just burned $100 and 2 hours of your life for no reason.

Control Volume
Dec 31, 2008

twodot posted:

This is a cool paper, but there's literally no reason at all to think that stage performers are even attempting to perform the same routine as what was studied, or even if they are attempting the same routine that they are successful at it, or even if they were successful, that some rear end in a top hat isn't just pretending to subjectively believe their left arm is paralyzed because it's a way better story then that one time you spent $100 bucks on a show, and nothing interesting happened, and you just burned $100 and 2 hours of your life for no reason.

If youre trying to dispel the charlatanry of hypnosis it helps to bring out a theory that isnt supremely dumb

Control Volume
Dec 31, 2008

One neat trick to turn buyers remorse into perfect acting. Skeptics hate it!

Numerical Anxiety
Sep 2, 2011

Hello.

twodot posted:

I keep asking for a definition because the things people are doing in, for example, a stage show, a scummy lawyer's office, and clinical studies with people hooked up to EEGs and fMRIs are all clearly different, and I want to know which we're talking about.

And that's not unfair. One needs to separate the various degrees of mystical nonsense (probably most stage performers, scummy lawers, but then also the weirdo therapists with degrees from diploma mills and the OP) from the serious work on hypnosis that is done in psychology and the neurosciences. My objection - not to you in particular, but to the general direction of the thread - is to assume the nonsense as baseline, and then dismiss hypnosis whole cloth, instead of trying to sort the wheat from the chaff. This, in the same way that quantum physics isn't to be dismissed just because there is all sorts of new agey trash hawked under its name.

Numerical Anxiety fucked around with this message at 01:14 on Aug 2, 2017

Abugadu
Jul 12, 2004

1st Sgt. Matthews and the men have Procured for me a cummerbund from a traveling gypsy, who screeched Victory shall come at a Terrible price. i am Honored.

Numerical Anxiety posted:

And that's not unfair. One needs to separate the various degrees of mystical nonsense (stage performers, scummy lawers, but then also the weirdo therapists with degrees from diploma mills and the OP) from the serious work on hypnosis that is done in psychology and the neurosciences. My objection - not to you in particular, but to the general direction of the thread - is to assume the nonsense as baseline, and then dismiss hypnosis whole cloth, instead of trying to sort the wheat from the chaff. This, in the same way that quantum physics isn't to be dismissed just because there is all sorts of new agey trash hawked under its name.

I didn't think I was pushing anything mystical, but I'm just pleasantly surprised the thread hasn't devolved into the flaming bag of poo poo it was looking like for awhile.

But how do you sift the wheat from the chaff here, when the two are blended so much more than other sciences? Like, stage hypnosis effects can be superficially duplicated to some extent - the Milgram experiments, the McDonald's forced stripping incident, and as some would argue but I would disagree, the Fine case. And when you bring the formality of a scientific study into the equation, that to me already taints the study because you have introduced the Milgram variable into it. During one of the CIA projects, I forget if it was Bluebird or Artichoke, they had a subject fire a gun filled with blanks at a person in a chair. When the person did it, and when asked why later, the subject said something along the lines of 'well I knew you wouldn't have had me actually harming anyone'. Ditto with the experiment where they had the subject throwing acid at someone behind glass. Having the guy in the lab coat directing traffic blends the effects and makes it difficult to isolate.

And some of the new agey trash works in a way, to further muddle matters. Take faith healing: the preacher does the equivalent of an instant induction with a surprise pull or other action to cause a loss of balance in the person, then gives the loud command 'Heal' in the instance where a hypnotist would go with 'Sleep', and the person fully believes the pain is gone, leg is healed, whatever. The signal to the brain from the symptoms is removed or blocked or ignored. It gets dismissed because it looks like pure snake oil, and as far as the actual malady goes, it is. It's a major no-no for therapists to use hypnosis to mask pain symptoms without all parties knowing the cause, because it could lead to further injury or deterioration without the patient knowing it, but nobody cares about this happening in faith healing because it's a Miracle.

And this blending of wheat and chaff makes it nearly impossible to do legitimate studies. How are you going to get funding for something that most people assume is made up?

Tunicate
May 15, 2012

Well, given the opioid crisis, odds are there are a bunch of people spooling up for another round of hypnosis-as-pain-treatment studies

Abugadu
Jul 12, 2004

1st Sgt. Matthews and the men have Procured for me a cummerbund from a traveling gypsy, who screeched Victory shall come at a Terrible price. i am Honored.

Tunicate posted:

Well, given the opioid crisis, odds are there are a bunch of people spooling up for another round of hypnosis-as-pain-treatment studies

I'm all for more studies, because I think we're woefully short on information in this area. What worries me is the possibility that you get a wave of something similar to chiropractors, with degrees from whatever online BS thing they paid for, who don't know what they're doing and how it intersects with the actual workings of the human body, who have the potential of causing damage. A lot of states don't have laws on this stuff, and it's far more likely a legislator would put out the first piece of poo poo bill written by someone bankrolling his election, regardless of how it polices the industry.

edit: to be fair, some of this exists already, I just think it would happen on a wider, more dangerous scale.

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Numerical Anxiety
Sep 2, 2011

Hello.

Abugadu posted:

I didn't think I was pushing anything mystical, but I'm just pleasantly surprised the thread hasn't devolved into the flaming bag of poo poo it was looking like for awhile.

But how do you sift the wheat from the chaff here, when the two are blended so much more than other sciences? Like, stage hypnosis effects can be superficially duplicated to some extent - the Milgram experiments, the McDonald's forced stripping incident, and as some would argue but I would disagree, the Fine case. And when you bring the formality of a scientific study into the equation, that to me already taints the study because you have introduced the Milgram variable into it. During one of the CIA projects, I forget if it was Bluebird or Artichoke, they had a subject fire a gun filled with blanks at a person in a chair. When the person did it, and when asked why later, the subject said something along the lines of 'well I knew you wouldn't have had me actually harming anyone'. Ditto with the experiment where they had the subject throwing acid at someone behind glass. Having the guy in the lab coat directing traffic blends the effects and makes it difficult to isolate.

And some of the new agey trash works in a way, to further muddle matters. Take faith healing: the preacher does the equivalent of an instant induction with a surprise pull or other action to cause a loss of balance in the person, then gives the loud command 'Heal' in the instance where a hypnotist would go with 'Sleep', and the person fully believes the pain is gone, leg is healed, whatever. The signal to the brain from the symptoms is removed or blocked or ignored. It gets dismissed because it looks like pure snake oil, and as far as the actual malady goes, it is. It's a major no-no for therapists to use hypnosis to mask pain symptoms without all parties knowing the cause, because it could lead to further injury or deterioration without the patient knowing it, but nobody cares about this happening in faith healing because it's a Miracle.

And this blending of wheat and chaff makes it nearly impossible to do legitimate studies. How are you going to get funding for something that most people assume is made up?

As a general rule of thumb, I think that if one's approach to hypnosis isn't woven into a wider theory of mind, it can be safely dismissed. And, of course, anything involving past lives, unlocking hidden potential and the like is bunk. I don't mean to deny the fact that stage hypnotists can produce effects via suggestion - my dismissal was more directed towards the way that they talk themselves up. But then that's all marketing for a professional performer anyway, not worth taking seriously. Pehaps I'm approaching this too strongly from a psychotherapeutic angle, but when it comes to hypnotherapy, I don't think that it delivers anything that it promises. Already the literature from a hundred years ago shows this pretty clearly - with hypnotizable patients, you can make symptoms go away for a while, but it does nothing to address the underlying disturbance that makes them suffer. What one usually gets is just the appearance of a new set of symptoms after a period of time, which might well be worse. It does nothing to help really, it just kicks the can down the road and is less effective with each renewed attempt. That goes for faith healers as well as hypnotherapists; the promise that such treatments actually help can only be offered in bad faith.

To be honest, what worries me most is the manipulation of dissociative states, particularly given that highly hypnotizable people are generally those already prone to dissociation. To put it simply, dissociation is more or less a learned behavior that emerges in states of extreme fear. One mentally tunes out awful circumstances and at the same time becomes compliant, figuring if one does everything that the attacker wants, it is less dangerous than resisting. Not unsurprisingly, victims of abuse can become particularly skilled at this - blot out a terrible experience from conscious recollection and at the same time go along with it in the hopes that one will live to see another day; choose the bad in order to forestall the worse. That's not to say that everyone who can be hypnotized has suffered abuse, nor that hypnotism itself involves a threat of violence, but it does intentionally trigger a reflex meant to get one through extreme danger by submitting to the domination of another. And the question really becomes, for me, ethical. It might be one thing to use hypnosis to research dissociative states in the hope of better understanding them, and to help those who undergo them. But beyond that, why the gently caress would you want to manipulate another person that way?

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