
The Chamber of Guf - crunchiebones
https://slatestarcodex.com/2018/10/15/the-chamber-of-guf/
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kragen
This is the intra-individual equivalent of clickbait headlines. Alexander
speculates that memetic virality mechanisms are also at play within the
individual mind, but if you don't have Incest OCD or whatever, you're probably
more strongly affected by, say, the dogwhistle people claiming to find
"dogwhistles" showing that politicians are secretly racist or whatever in
every public statement. Or, here in South America, people blaming every
political event on the CIA.

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everdrive
I'm a little bit confused by your comment. Are you suggesting that an
alternative to intrusive thoughts / OCD is erroneously find dog-whistles in
the news?

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inimino
Kragen seems to be suggesting a parallel, not an alternative. If you are
strongly attuned to something, the same mechanism that would amplify these
thoughts when they occur spontaneously would also presumably extend to reading
spurious "deeper meanings" into the actions of others.

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kragen
That's right, and in the case of memetic contagion, the attunement can be an
emergent collective phenomenon rather than just an individual preoccupation.

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everdrive
I think the nature of intrusive thoughts is a bit different from memes or
other contagious ideas. Intrusive thoughts are persistent in part because of
the "semi" paradox required to ensure you're avoiding a thought. eg, in order
to not think of a pink elephant, some process in your brain must be checking
for a pink elephant. This process _is_ by some definition thinking of a pink
elephant. People who are more prone to OCD-like thinking will obviously have
even more trouble with this task, since they are less successful at
terminating a train of thought than the average person.

In the sort of memes you're describing people are actively doing their best to
(sometimes falsely) find dog whistles, or secret CIA involvement. The
emotional rush that comes from suspicion or outrage is wholly different than
someone with OCD failing to terminate a train of thought.

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vinceguidry
The meditation practice pointed to is fascinating, one can get 'attuned' to
that part of the mind and it's like a never ending acid trip. Everything
experienced and reactions to those experiences jumble around in the mind at a
very very low level. The attuning process 'amplifies' this brain activity and
coheres it into actual thoughts, using existing pattern and shape recognition
pathways to conjure up visualizations.

Creativity seems to revolve around laying down 'trails' through the
wilderness. The jumbled mess by itself isn't terribly interesting, it's the
application of pattern and craft that does that.

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pharke
I didn't see the part about visualizations and to my knowledge they are
considered a distraction to the practice of meditation and not to be sought
after. I was actually thinking the opposite for the cause of the perception of
"the chamber of guf" that it results from the suppression of the default mode
network and the decoherence of other organizing factors in the mind. To use
the metaphor of the article, you ask the Angel to stop promoting just a few of
the thoughts and instead just leave the door open so you can listen to their
murmuring.

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mej10
I have become conscious during dreams that I would describe as "being in a
river of disjointed thoughts and emotions" \-- the experience is exactly like
I was witness to the many thoughts being considered/happening in my brain
rapidly and simultaneously.

It is much more intense than normal dreams and I usually wake up within a few
moments, and there is never a narrative like normal dreams -- just an
awareness of many concurrent thoughts in quick succession.

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scribu
Are you refering to hypnogogia? That usually happens right before falling
asleep.

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mej10
Nope, though I am familiar with that, too. At least in my experiences with
hypnogogia I have some "control" or at least a feeling of control over what is
happening to some extent. Or maybe it is better to describe it as being a more
sequential experience than the other one I am describing.

Maybe if one is to stay conscious during hypnogogia for longer than I ever
have they would experience a similar thing? There just always seems to be some
bias in hypnagogia steered by and experienced by my consciousness in first
person. In the other experience it is really more like I am an outside
observer.

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CrawfordJF
Do you mean that you have had a lucid dream¹?

¹
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucid_dream](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucid_dream)

~~~
mej10
I have also had many lucid dreams -- I used to practice lucid dreaming.

This is like a lucid dream but there is no narrative or control over what is
happening -- only awareness. It is really most like being in the center of a
river of thoughts, briefly experiencing them as they rush by.

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cassowary37
Colorful analogies aside, many people find it tremendously reassuring (and
surprising) just to recognize that these thoughts can be a form of OCD. my
favorite book for patients is this one by Lee Baer, a bit outdated on the
science but the clinical discussion is right on:
[https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0452283078](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0452283078)

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kitotik
This seems very much inline with much of Carl Jungs work and a lot of the
western esoteric literature where there is a big emphasis on acknowledging and
objectively analyzing the ‘bad stuff’.

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SideburnsOfDoom
In British English, "guff" means either a fart, or "trivial, worthless talk".
e.g. people might say "stop talking guff" or "if you filter out the guff, what
did that politician's speech really mean?".

"filter out the guff" is itself a recognisably standard phrase.

This also works in the context of the article; considering the selector as a
filter to "filter out the guff" impulses.

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vorgisborg
The chamber of guf is open, the door to both the beginning of the end of the
world is open at least.

\---> Somebody had to reference Evangelion here....

