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Astronauts describe persistent 'observer' sensation after 6 month missions

spacedaily.com

61–70 of 119 posts

Re: Astronauts describe persistent 'observer' sensation after 6 month missions

#61
post #29

I used to spend weeks outdoors in the wilderness without ever entering a building (I would sleep in a small tent) and I used to have a similar range of sensations when coming back home and/or going into an enclosed building for the first time. This used to last maybe for a couple days. Two more things that I used to experience, which are not among the phenomena described in the article, is that I was hyper aware of h…

My wife informed me that I always comment on the hardness of the floor, regardless of where we are. (I will take off my footwear to stand on novel surfaces with my bare feet. Situationally, ofc.)

Anyways, there's dozens of us!

Re: Astronauts describe persistent 'observer' sensation after 6 month missions

#62
post #8

I thought this was going to be about feeling watched, reminding me of philip k dick but it's more like being john malkovich which might be scarier

That would be closer to the third man effect:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_man_factor

Re: Astronauts describe persistent 'observer' sensation after 6 month missions

#63
post #58
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one but you capitalized it. They are referring to what TFA describes ... it uses the phrase "observer sensation" rather than "observer effect", but it is an effect.

I’m not sure what capitalization has to do with anything. You can answer my question without being a pedant.

No man can answer your question.

https://m.xkcd.com/1704/

This is a neologism to describe something that is "not in the DSM" and not concretely documented in a particular study. This alleged phenomenon and coinage is the emergent result of some analysis by this journalist, writing for a commercial news site that sells ads but does not launch any astronauts or spacecraft anywhere, much less interview or evaluate them once they've landed and arrived home.

Commenters who are comparing it to a selection in the DSM-IV, or "oh yeah, I felt like this once" anecdotes are projecting subjective experience onto subjective journalism about subjective testimony. Where is our scientific empiricism? Would you like some ketamine? Would you care to take less ketamine?

Therefore, "observer sensation" means just what the journalist chooses it to mean. Nothing more, and nothing less.

Re: Astronauts describe persistent 'observer' sensation after 6 month missions

#64
post #9

Being an astronaut seems cognitively expensive. Your time is regimented down to the minute. Your space is regimented down to the inch. The things you bring up and down, including yourself, is measured to the pound. I would imagine you have to constantly be evaluating, assessing, and thinking critically about everything you do all the time. And then to suddenly not have to do that and just live in the moment has to be…

There's a popular clip from Joe Rogan out there where he says "Be the hero of your own movie. If your life was a movie and it started now. ... What would the hero of your life’s movie do right now? Do that. Do those things." So it's interesting that this cognitive state is helpful for some people to visit in a transient or metaphorical way but becomes weird when it's persistent. But it does seem potentially related i…

Don't take life advice from Joe Rogan.

Re: Astronauts describe persistent 'observer' sensation after 6 month missions

#65

Moving this out of a subthread, but I can't find any sources corroborating the the phenomenon described in this article. In fact a lot of the literature from NASA seems to explicitly contradict the claims in the article[0][1]. Obviously not dispositive, but this article reads to me at least partially like AI confabulation. Perhaps my Google-fu is lacking here but I had Claude do a search as well for good measure and…

Seemingly unrelated, I just saw some post on /new that was saying Dunning-Kruger had been debunked by some recent study. It looked pretty sus so I kagi'ed it and lo and behold guess what came up: https://spacedaily.com/j-v-the-dunning-kruger-effect-mapped-...

The 'Dunning-Kruger effect' of internet folklore is not what was in the original paper. And the original paper hasn't held up to well either:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect#... (and Wikipedia is very mild and nice to the authors).

See eg https://replicationindex.com/2020/09/13/the-dunning-kruger-e...

Re: Astronauts describe persistent 'observer' sensation after 6 month missions

#66

Time dilation. The ISS travels at 17,400 MPH. Just like satellites, their clocks have to be adjusted. > Gravitational time dilation is the time passed for a far away observer. That is, the satellites' clocks gain 45850 nanoseconds a day due to gravitational time dilation. https://www.gpsworld.com/inside-the-box-gps-and-relativity/

So the astronauts are perceiving that everything is a few minutes older than it "should be" when they return?

Re: Astronauts describe persistent 'observer' sensation after 6 month missions

#67

Moving this out of a subthread, but I can't find any sources corroborating the the phenomenon described in this article. In fact a lot of the literature from NASA seems to explicitly contradict the claims in the article[0][1]. Obviously not dispositive, but this article reads to me at least partially like AI confabulation. Perhaps my Google-fu is lacking here but I had Claude do a search as well for good measure and…

>Obviously not dispositive

You're too kind. The article is sloppily generated and is basically unchecked fiction presented as fact. It gives a few links and none of them support what it's saying. The "video version" of the article is even worse, it's a perfect example of the garbage that's currently filling up youtube: https://youtu.be/rmpbI4oMqwA

Re: Astronauts describe persistent 'observer' sensation after 6 month missions

#68
post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seemingly unrelated, I just saw some post on /new that was saying Dunning-Kruger had been debunked by some recent study. It looked pretty sus so I kagi'ed it and lo and behold guess what came up: https://spacedaily.com/j-v-the-dunning-kruger-effect-mapped-...

The 'Dunning-Kruger effect' of internet folklore is not what was in the original paper. And the original paper hasn't held up to well either: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect#... (and Wikipedia is very mild and nice to the authors). See eg https://replicationindex.com/2020/09/13/the-dunning-kruger-e...

Not disagreeing on that front. But the article I saw on /new and the spacedaily one, regardless of their accuracy, certainly looked like wholly AI generated writing to me

Re: Astronauts describe persistent 'observer' sensation after 6 month missions

#69

AI Slop writing

Of course it is.

And as usual the comment pointing this out is being downvoted and only to be found at the end of the thread.

This aggregator's community approach to important signals like that is baffling.

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