Stuff

[Exploding Squid of Thule]

A few days ago I procured ten grams of thiotimoline, a chemical made very useful by its structure causing parts of it to exist not only in the present, but also a few seconds into the past and the future.

My purpose was to try the cold caloric procedure, namely squirting icy water into a person's left ear, on myself, with a twist. You can find more details behind that link, but the short of it is that (however miraculous it might sound) the sudden sensation of freezing in the left ear can "wake up" or call attention to the hemisphere of your brain that's responsible for updating your internal models according to evidence, rather than letting the hemisphere that works by finding explanations for data within your models run the show.

It is possible to run this procedure on yourself using a syringe of cold tap water and a video camera or tape recorder. The latter is necessary because the effect seems to be temporary: After a few minutes or so, the normal balance of brain function returns and you not only return to your old beliefs, but forget ever holding different ones during the treatment. You need to prove to yourself that you changed your min- an excellent use for recording equipment if I ever saw one.

I already tried this procedure on myself a few weeks ago, trying to review my opinions on various controversial issues. Unfortunately, all I got on camera was a wince, and my a-few-minutes-old earlier self describing his relative lack of changes of opinion.

I can come up with two major hypotheses to explain this.

Either I really did not change my mind about anything - maybe the procedure has no effect on baseline brains, or maybe I'm just naturally right about everything... or maybe I thought of something so unpleasant I realized I would not want to know about it, and lied to myself. I try to be an honest person, but I have my reasons for being honest, and maybe I realized in the span of a few freezing seconds that those reasons are not as convincing as they currently seem.

I don't give a very high credence to anything but the first hypothesis, but for the sake of experiment I am ready for a test of the second one. I have here a cheap plastic pint containing four important things: The coldest water I could get out of the tap, a few chunks of ice I made by putting said pint in the freezer for a few minutes and crushing the ice that had formed on the top, all the thiotimoline I could get my hands on (currently dissolved), and a syringe.

I am now going to fill the syringe and try to inject some thiotimoline-containing water into my left ear. My working hypothesis is that at least some of the thiotimoline itself, if not the water, depending on the exact physics that are above my pay grade, will enter the ear before I actually inject the contents of the syringe. I will then be able to make a snap decision on whether to actually go ahead with the injection: Deciding not to do it will count strongly as evidence for the Unpleasant Thoughts hypothesis, whereas the other obvious result will not count as strong evidence for any hypothesis I am currently entertaining.

In the interest of science and general interestingness, I will post about the results later. In the meantime, you are invited to post your own guess about what will happen.

[Emogawa Koremoyasu]

That makes me want to cut myself even more.

[Alot]

Recently I read an article that suggested listening to Baroque music will bring both sides of the brain into synchronization. I am wondering if perhaps you might have had an old recording of Bach on your recording equipment that could have traces left in the background or didn´t get erased fully as you recorded. This might explain why your left brain is as crazy as your right brain.

[Emogawa Koremoyasu]

I cut my brain.

[Jacobus Loki]

Ouch!