What is Lightgassing? A way we harm people by validating their false beliefs

October 1, 2023

Gaslighting, where someone causes another person to doubt their sanity or senses, can cause psychological damage. There's an opposite thing, though, that can also be damaging. As far as I know, it has no name. I call it "lightgassing" (or "light gassing"). Here, I explain how lightgassing works. Lightgassing is when one person agrees with or validates another person's false beliefs or misconceptions in order to be supportive. Unlike gaslighting, a tactic of jerks and abusers,...

Philosophical questions that arise when we compare reality to our subjective experience of it

December 23, 2020

A surprisingly large number of unsettled questions in philosophy arise from the difficulty of meshing: A. our theoretical understanding of what things are "really" like (physics, atoms, etc.) with B. our direct, first-hand experiences as humans. Examples: (1) Ethics - most people experience a visceral feeling that some things are inherently and universally morally wrong (e.g., murdering children). Yet it's unclear what, in the universe of atoms (or in physics), could make (o...

On Philosophical Disorders

July 18, 2020

I'd like to propose a new term: "philosophical disorder." It's when someone has a persistent belief that's both highly inaccurate and substantially harmful. Here are some examples: A false belief that you are unlovableBeing convinced that God punishes pre-marital with deathBelieving that "no usually means yes" in sexual encounters Whereas a psychological disorder consists of emotions, thoughts, and personality traits creating distress or impairment, many WITHOUT psychological challenge...

Remaining Mysteries of the Universe

September 28, 2019

It's fascinating to me that, despite all of humanity's incredible progress over the last few thousand years, so many profound mysteries about the nature of reality remain. Below is my list of what I see as the deepest mysteries. What would you add to the list? — LIST OF DEEP MYSTERIES ABOUT THE NATURE OF REALITY — 1. THE UNIVERSE 1.1 Eternity - Will our universe last forever? If it won't, what will the end of the universe be like (e.g., a new big bang, a big crun...

Some Things Are Only In Your Simulation

July 28, 2011

It is impossible to perceive anything directly. What we experience as a visual image starts out as electromagnetic radiation of various frequencies which reflects off of an object and then hits our eye. The photoreceptor cells in our eye are stimulated, information propagates down the optic nerve, and so forth. We usually interpret this as seeing the object we are looking at. However, a more complete description involves acknowledging that we live in a simulation constructed by our brain. Our ey...