I've got a conundrum and need an outside perspective. My own attempts to create an alternative hypothesis have only produced the "placebo effect" and that doesn't fit the data. This is not a debate thread of any kind, I'm only asking for different ways to look at a phenomena.

Ok, back when I was 14, my family decided to convert to Catholicism, and part of that conversion involved going to confession. Now, going into this I really didn't know what to expect. it was my first time, and I'd heard it was supposed to feel good, but I really didn't have anything to compare it too at the time. I sat down, told the confessor something embarrassing but relatively minor that I really was sorry for, he blessed me, and I walked away feeling completely elated unlike anything else I've ever experienced. I felt lighter than before, and was able to do a far better job of not goofing off during my studying, a chronic problem I've had to deal with my entire life. This feeling persisted for either two weeks or two months, I forget which, and only left me the instant I forced myself to goof off again. I distinctly remember a sensation much like my heart sinking into my chest as I did it. I've never been able to get that feeling back, despite going to confession three more times and confessing much larger sins by comparison, if perhaps less sincerely. I had no idea rationality was a thing at that point in my life, so the memory might be a little foggy, but I've done my best to record it as accurately as possible. You can't give good ideas if you have faulty data.

The reason the placebo effect doesn't work as an explanation is threefold. First, if you asked 14-year old me to predict how I would feel after that first confession, I would not have guessed what happened. It's surprising, even today. I know this the same way I know that if I'd played the 2-4-6 game before reading about it in HPMOR, I would have lost. Second, if it was a placebo, I doubt it would have lasted as long as it did. When I pump myself up it lasts maybe two days, tops, not weeks after the fact. Third, I would have gotten that feeling back that second, third, and fourth time in confession, because I was doing the same thing and expecting the same result. I would have felt it again because I repeated the actions that generated it. Together, they sink the hypothesis, unless I understand nothing about how placebos work.

As far as I can tell, the results I'm getting are like that Equestria Girls 3 short where Sunset Shimmer tries to analyze magic and her equipment starts making butterflies. I can't come up with an explanation. That's where you come in. Just think of something I haven't that might explain this and I'll be happy. Even if you can't I'll still be happy, because it meant I tried and failed instead of not trying at all.

P.S. If this doesn't fit the group requirements, I'll delete the thread and move elsewhere.

I'm probably one of the few religious guys in this group and I'll just come out and say it, you had an encounter with the divine and all that goes with it.

5231220 I think this fits the group. My off-the-cuff reaction is to take into account degrees of freedom and multiple hypothesis testing. That is:

- "Degrees of freedom": What was the distribution of possible outcomes, and what fraction of those outcomes would have been similarly surprising? Conceptually, compare this to drawing five cards and getting 4 of a kind, or getting 4 random numbers as a PIN and finding they're 1357. Both are surprising outcomes, but what fraction of possible outcomes are surprising? 5432, 0000, 8008, and many other numbers would also be surprising.

I downgrade the surprisingness of your experience because it didn't recur on your second confession. That isn't consistent with Catholic doctrine, which teaches that the efficacy of confession doesn't depend on the penitent or even (beyond formal qualifications) on the priest. Neither does the effect, being able to focus, seem one I would predict on the basis of Catholic doctrine. The surprisingness of the result is, I presume, proportional to how much they validate Catholicism.

- Multiple hypothesis testing: From my perspective, there is one post here from one person who had an unusual experience at his first confession, and presumably many other people who didn't have an unusual experience and didn't post. You're in an anthropic argument: Do you give your own experience priority over the experiences of others, beyond that of your greater certainty that it happened as you said it did?

Because religious rituals work? I mean, in the sense that if people didn't get some benefit in how they feel about these rituals, the rituals wouldn't survive and thrive in the way they do. This sort of ritualized behavior feels a deep-seated need in the human psyche, and there are lots of faiths --jews, muslims, catholics-- that get the need for these sorts of rituals.

My guess is this: the first time one experiences anything new is unique, and so tends to produce unique results. The subsequent times produced different results because you were different from how you were during your first go.

In other words, you could only get the first result if you were not expecting it.

I believe it simply had to do with psychological validation: you felt good precisely due to the fact that you were sincere and received positive feedback. You then thought about it and thus had much lesser emotional effect.
Take it from an occasional salesman: pleasing a customer can knock your socks off. Similarly, being yelled at by a customer that just wants to be hurtful can send you to the dumps. And never mind a customer that wants to inflate a complaint just because he wants a discount, specially if your boss is one of those that doesn't give a damn for anything but himself.

You don't need religious validation for confession to feel good or for it to have a positive impact on your life.

Think of the fundamental attributes of confession:

1) You recognized that you did something wrong.
2) You admitted that you did something wrong to something else.
3) You wanted to change your behavior.
4) You made a promise to a perceived authority figure to change said behavior.

if you think about this for a moment, isn't this basic healthy human behavior? You recognize you have a problem, are willing to actually admit that the problem is your own behavior, and then worked to not make the same mistake that you were previously?

It "lost" its power because you didn't care enough to change your behavior persistently. Subsequent efforts failed because your behavior hadn't changed and you kept wanting to goof off more than you wanted to not do so. If the only thing that was stopping you from breaking your promise to stop screwing up was ineffective the first time, why would you expect it to be any more effective subsequently?

5231242 That's what I'm trying to determine. I mean, it's what I thought at the time, but I'd never questioned it properly so I couldn't honestly say I was confident in that answer.

5231256 The problem is that it's confusing from both sides. Pro-God predicts a major result every time. Placebo, ritual completion, and telling someone about your problems all predict minor, temporary results. No-God predicts nothing. I got one major result and three nothings. That doesn't match any of the above. When something doesn't match any available model it becomes more surprising to everyone, not less because it sort-of matched one you happened to already believe. What you expect affects what surprises you, but something that surprises you and the people who disagree with you is worth investigating.

It's like an early genetic experiment to find out if two genes are linked. If so, then it's a 50/50 split between AA/BB and aa/bb, if not then it's 25/25/25/25. Then you run the experiment and get 48/2/2/48. That answer was that you didn't account for crossing over, but I think it highlights the concept.

As for how much it happens, I think most people just won't talk about it period. This experience felt private, which is why I haven't shared it before now. Also, I'm not able to reasonably get an unbiased sample, so for the sake of this not being a complete waste of time I'm going to assume it happens often enough to not be a fluke (however much that is) and leave it at that.

5231285 Thank you for your hypothesis. It doesn't quite fit for the same reason as placebo (i.e. I still felt confused even after applying it), but it was something I hadn't considered.

5231492 That makes some sense, but good science is all about reproducible results. It's not something I can use here to understand what's going on.

5231529 Yet another useful lead. If I didn't have the tendency to not be affected for more than a few days at the very farthest extreme it would even fit, at least the first time. The problem is the result is way too extreme. I don't react like that to stuff do that, pretty much ever. Sudden shifts don't last more than a day, only gradual ones. I've tried starting an exercise/studying routine enough times to know that by now.

5231640 Dragon, I think you solved the failed repeat problem. Catholics have a similar idea, even if they use different words, where if you're not really repentant confessing isn't going to help. I knew those other things I mentioned talking about were wrong, but I didn't want to stop doing them. If I want more information I have to find something I really am not going to do again and confess that. Frankly, four data points is way too few, especially for something like this.

Thank you for your contributions. All of you.

5232960

The problem is the result is way too extreme. I don't react like that to stuff do that, pretty much ever. Sudden shifts don't last more than a day, only gradual ones. I've tried starting an exercise/studying routine enough times to know that by now.

You were fourteen; that's all the explanation you need. Boy or girl, your brain was flooded with hormones, extremely emotive and highly susceptible to being moody, either for the positive or the negative. Twenty years later, I still don't know what was I thinking when I had a year-long emo period around that age, while I was simultaneously dreaming of going to Catholic Seminar rather than college.
Perhaps you may still be too young to have perspective, but at that age you were an overemotional idiot, feeling so strongly that you could hardly think at all. We all were, and now I just wish I could forget the years between my thirteenth and seventeenth birthdays: I had my head shoved so far up Jesus Christ arse that I hardly know how I managed to listen to the teachers at all (except that I was Catholic, so I was never taught to dismiss biology class)!