The Fear Experiments

post by Tim Lyons · 2021-02-05T22:57:08.888Z · LW · GW · 2 comments

Contents

2 comments

I. INTRODUCTION

The physiological experience of fear is an interesting area for inquiry because of how these physical effects come to influence our decision making. I will start by saying that these are very personal notes that are much too raw to be seen as a formal paper or argument. I am choosing to share them here because I think they could be fertile soil for an interesting conversation about epistemology.

The Experiment:
 

In 2018 I had made a new year's resolution to run four times a week, because of work scheduling my run would most often be in the evening. After sticking with the resolution for a few nights I began to consider a large patch of woods I would pass on my run as a potential location for experimentation. The woods are roughly 80,000 square yards with the perimeter lined with residential houses. This is to say, the area is small in size with very little chance of an unknown threat finding its way into the area. The area's small size combined with a significantly low crime rate/lack of large predators created an excellent control setting for the experience of fear. With this, the experiments would begin.  Each evening after my run  I would enter the woods at the same opening and slowly make my way through the unlit forest. As I had imagined the environment proved to be a perfect control to almost immediately induce the typical physiological effects of fear. The hair standing up on your neck, the cold extremities, the hyper-focus to what is perceived as any unusual sensory experience. The experience of fear was like a thick viscous sludge. Each step was hard, but as I walked forward they became easier, and eventually once pushed through the sludge made its way into water. Over time the sludge would only appear at the beginning of the walk, diminishing little by little upon each visit. Eventually, the entire walk became water. Other than a slightly heightened awareness the movement from the lit street into the darkness of the forest overhang was almost transitionless. That was until the first of what would become three incidents.  

II. THE THREE INCIDENTS

Incident I:
After continuing this habit/experiment for roughly two months something drastically different had occurred. I approached the mouth of the woods where I had entered every time previously and a fear that I had not yet experienced up to that point washed over me. Rather than the typical isolated physical responses, it was a full-body heat that I imagine is the accurate embodiment of the word “terror”. After standing at the mouth of the woods for a few minutes I accepted that I simply could not go in. I would walk around the woods and continue my run home. Like a thick residue, the feeling of terror stayed on me until long after the run finished. Nothing according to my immediate perception of the incident was different about this night than any of those before it.

Incident II:
The previous experience and an injured knee would put a pause on both my nightly run and my experiment in the woods. After a few weeks had passed I began to slowly ease my way back into the habit of nightly runs. In doing so I found myself back at the mouth of the woods, and again back at that same spot of complete terror. This time around however I tried to frame things differently. I thought to myself what a gift it is to experience such a strong emotion twice. After seeing this as an opportunity I told myself I would simply continue straight into the woods and not stop until I am out the other side. I would quite simply just keep each foot in front of the other until I cross the entire woods. As I made this promise and I entered into the darkness the terror rather than diminish quickly got worse, much worse. A feeling of fear that I previously hadn’t thought possible. As things began getting worse I was struck by a moment of pragmatism when I had discovered that I was not where I thought I was. Mentally backtracking my steps I came to the conclusion that I must have entered at a different section of the woods than I usually do, and that my only hope of not getting lost was to backtrack my steps. As I made my way back the way I came, the logic I had presented to myself stuck, that was until I crossed the familiar mouth I had always entered into the light of a nearby streetlamp. I was immediately struck by my lack of commitment to my original promise. It was an incredible moment of self-delusion where perhaps the incentives were so strong that the “me” in the supposed "driver’s seat" fully took the bait. In hindsight what was so interesting about this experience was the willingness to accept the claim of being lost while in the woods, and then the immediate realization of the claim’s falsehood the very moment I arrived at perceived safety. 

Incident III:
The last of the three incidents would prove to be the most interesting. As with each time previous, I would arrive at the mouth of the woods and slowly my fear would begin to compound upon itself until it reached the full-body terror I had become so acquainted with. Upon standing toe to toe with the darkness ahead I gave myself the same promise as previously, I would simply walk straight without stopping until I arrived at the other side. This was a strategy that failed me previously, but alas this time is different, I am now armed with the knowledge of the story my brain will give me in order to get me to abandon my promise and swiftly turn around.  When this happens I will be ready and with that, I start one foot in front of the other into the darkness. As I walk I feel the terror set in. The familiarity of the sensation has yet to have any effect of making the experience any easier. As dread washes over me I begin to notice how my attention jumps around finally settling in on a single thought: “There is somebody standing behind you”. Armed with the knowledge that this is most likely a story to get me to abandon my promise to simply “walk and don’t stop” I attempted to abandon the thought. Refusing to give in to the story I would not turn around, simply one foot in front of the other. Until finally the doubt of potential danger caught up with me: “What if it is a person?” “Why are they in here at night?” “Did they follow me?”. As these thoughts caught up with me I stopped walking and just knelt on the ground, with eyes closed I listened for potential footsteps or sounds. This allowed the thoughts to fade and the story to get me to turn around was becoming less compelling. As I felt myself get up and begin my walk forward I made a terrible mistake.  I gave in to the indulgence of looking back. Standing directly behind me, backlit by the streetlamp outside the entrance of the woods was a twelve-point buck (a very large male deer). With his horns included, he stood at about between six and seven feet tall. To my shock and dismay, there was actually something standing behind me. I quickly decided (or simply acted) to abandon this current experiment and get the hell out of there. I gestured a get-out-of-the-way hand wave towards the large mammal, but he didn’t want to move. It took a surprising amount of coaxing (yelling and hand waving) to get him to move, but in the end, he did and I was back at the entrance where I initially started.

III. THE HYPOTHESIS

I imagine that as I began this practice in early January, and the “terror” hadn’t arrived until early April, that a local deer population had migrated into the woods once warmer weather had arrived. Sadly I don’t have any hard data, other than local word of mouth that the warmer weather increased overall deer sightings in the area. Despite this, the possibility of there being a correlation between this particular experience of “terror” and the presence of deer is interesting enough it is worth exploring further. This brings me to the hypothesis: 

If there is a correlation between the presence of a large mammal and “the terror”, then there is sensory data being “perceived” without being “consciously” aware of it. 

What is more interesting than this hypothesis are its implications on our understanding of epistemology. For example, if sensory data is to play any role in the decision-making process, how are we to trust that we have access to all of the necessary information at any given moment? For clarity this is different from the instance of some piece of information that could influence our decision making if we had access to it, instead, I am speaking of data that an aspect of us has access to and has already begun acting upon. To illustrate this clearly I will employ a simple thought experiment:
 

Imagine you are on a game show and the host asks you to open one of three doors to win a new car. The car is only hidden behind one door, the other two are empty. Simply lacking the knowledge of which door has a car behind it (the door is blocking the photons from entering your eye and revealing the location of the car) is different from subconsciously accessing some vital information about the car's location. For the sake of this experiment, let us imagine that the car has a very subtle but distinct smell. In your decision making your rational mind is measuring the probability of the car's location and picking a door accordingly, while the smell of the car is being perceived but doesn't warrant the attention of the rational self, it instead is influencing the unconscious self toward a particular door. The hypothesis presented earlier in this section is of this second gameshow scenario, and while I am in no way claiming this is the way things are, I am rather claiming that this is enough of a possibility to warrant attention. 
 

IV. CONCLUSION
 

To sum the key ideas up in a succinct manner the interesting aspect of my personal experience was the influence that sensory data that I was not consciously aware of could have on my rational decisions. Some questions that follow include:

Is there the possibility of a replicate-able experiment? 

How else can this area of subconscious sensory data storage be explored? 

What consequences (if any) does this have on the current field of epistemology? 

Without more reliable data from the experiment as a whole, I don't feel that I am in a position to answer any of these questions. Unfortunately, much of the language around my experience is squishy at best. Depending too much on loose notes and fuzzy memory the delineation of selves between the "conscious" and "unconscious" is simply too weak. 
I would like to close out this paper by stating clearly to the reader that much of this could have already been explored in a branch of Neuroscience, Psychology, or Evolutionary Biology that I am simply unaware of. I want to make no illusions that I am not a professional scientist of any kind, rather I am simply a regular person who when given the choice to walk home in the familiar safety of the lighted path chose to explore the darkness instead. 

2 comments

Comments sorted by top scores.