
Study: Experiencing awe affects the way you treat people - dpflan
http://qz.com/471388/study-how-experiencing-awe-transforms-the-way-you-treat-the-people-around-you/
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nota_bene
This is extremely interesting, because the effect which is proven in this
study is (only) 1 of the many beneficial aspects from the experience you live
through when you ingest the substance LSD: Handled the right way, you can
experience the most awe inspiring moment of your life, you can not just _see_
beauty, but _live_ it, be _immersed_ by it and _be a part of it_. You're
likely to ask yourself over and over "why was this hidden from me all those
years?".

This is why it's completely wrong for humanity to keep this substance illegal.
This substance can lead to a whole new appreciation for our Planet, the
Universe and for the human beings around us.

(Of course, " _follow the money_ " seems to apply here as well, when I think
how this molecule seems to be able to replace heavy side-effect ridden anti-
depressant therapies which are of course one gigantic cash cow for the pharma
industry.)

Note: It is absolutely mandatory to educate oneself about the substance as
much as possible and to prepare one's experience by respecting all the rules
that apply (and: there are a couple of medical conditions which make the
substance very risky for you, should you suffer from one of them knowingly or
unknowingly).

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dpflan
Drug-aided experiences of awe are interesting; however, it would be very
useful to understand the experience of awe sober. I think right now it is
known that drug-aided experiences can have powerful psychological effects that
can undermine powerful negative psychological experiences like PTSD or
depression. Certainly research should continue in both directions as part of
the search for the underlying natural causes for the negative and the positive
psychological experiences.

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pavelrub
After all the talk about reproducibility problems in psychological studies,
and especially after reading examples such as the following from [1]:

> A while ago, Dijksterhuis and van Knippenberg published a famous priming
> study showing that people who spend a few minutes before an exam thinking
> about brilliant professors will get better grades; conversely, people who
> spend a few minutes thinking about moronic soccer hooligans will get worse
> ones. They did four related experiments, and all strongly confirmed their
> thesis. A few years later, Shanks et al tried to replicate the effect and
> couldn’t. They did the same four experiments, and none of them replicated at
> all.

My natural reaction is to take any such study with a grain of salt.

[1] - [http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/09/05/if-you-cant-make-
predic...](http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/09/05/if-you-cant-make-predictions-
youre-still-in-a-crisis/)

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dpflan
I think what is potentially very interesting here is how human perceive
vastness, and how humans first experienced vastness: Viewing the horizon such
that it appears infinite, floating in a body of water so large that you can
see only water in all directions as the horizon curves, staring into the deep
blue sky, staring into the dark, star-filled sky.

Understanding how humans experience or understand the infinite (or perceived
infinite) would be a fun research topic. Do any HNers have experience with
such research or know of people involved or good reading about this?

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andrewksl
Shouldn't the same feelings of smallness be imparted by staring at a
sufficiently large building? So the sensation of awe fades as you become
accustomed to seeing the object in question?

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dpflan
You're arguing for the possibility of desensitization occurring which I agree
would make sense for any stimulus.

I cannot truly discuss the difference between awe-inspiring man-made objects
and nature-made objects, but perhaps there is an implicit understanding of
vastness with regard to nature that includes something intangible related to
true complexity of nature: when viewing the Grand Canyon with more context you
can try to experience the vastness in many variables: how long the canyon has
existed, how long it took be carved out of the earth, how much water there
once was flowing through it, etc. For a man-made object perhaps the context is
more shallow.

