A scientific paper demonstrates FALSE insights

[Fadious]

Check out these findings from false insights research:

• False insights can, and do, occur
• The “aha” experience is made up of suddenness, pleasure, and certainty
• Correct “aha” experiences have higher ratings of suddenness, pleasure, and certainty. When insights are correct, people tend to experience relief. But when they’re incorrect, people tend to feel surprised, leading to similar ratings that can be misconstrued as correct

There is no research yet into how these false insights can lead to delusions in people who use psychedelics. But maybe it's good to keep in mind that just because you have a powerful experience from psilocybin, LSD, MDMA, or another psychedelic, that doesn’t mean your conclusions are always necessarily true..

Of course this is just one paper on a sample size of 70 participants and it uses subjective ratings which are always tricky, but it's good food for thought.

Link to the paper.

[Leo Gura]

Well, insight is relative to one's state of consciousness. Your psychedelic insights are valid relative to the state you were in when you had them, but then you drop in state and the insights lose their relevance in the default material human state.

Likewise, scientific insight/truth is only valid relative to certain states of consciousness. This is what scientists don't understand.

Edited February 7, 2023 by Leo Gura

[DefinitelyNotARobot]

That's interesting, because I don't recall ever having had an "Aha!" moment that was flat out wrong. I don't remember them at the least. Usually, in order to arrive at a wrong conclusion, I need to perform some level of rationalization. Most of my "Aha!" moments usually moved me closer to understanding something, even if I didn't continue to understand these things afterwards. 

[zurew]

Interesting study, however I don't necessarily agree with their definition of an 'AHA' moment. The whole magic trick domain revolves around being deceptive, manipulative and leading your attention to certain things. I don't think thats a fair way to test AHA moments, or to even put an = between AHA moments and moments like mentioned in the paper.

 

When it comes to AHA moments, I think of moments when your mind finds new, deeper connections between certain concepts and ideas.

To frame it a different way - an AHA moment is when you find a different or a new pattern between certain concepts and ideas.

It could also be framed like this: an AHA moment is when you look at a problem/task from a different than ususal lense and you immediately see the solution or the synthesis of ideas.