Thought Experiment: The Disappearing Dairy Queen

For Scenarios 1 & 3 (I have photographic evidence, regardless of whether my spouse remembers), I would start by saving the posts and photos to my hard drive, my backup drive, and uploading copies to Google Drive.

The proof is key, without no one else will believe me, and I can't even be sure I'm not crazy. Of course, it's possible that the photos themselves were faked by me during a psychotic state (although, if my wife remembers, that seems less likely).

I'm not too sure how I would go about trying to verify the photos, though. Private investigator? Social media? E-mail Joshua Kennon? Probably a private investigator with experience in photo verification.

What I would do after that depends on my conclusions based on my investigation. Assuming I find no conclusive answers, what can I do? Go about my life as normal, try to get on Ripley's Believe It or Not and make a few bucks.

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For Scenario 2 (my wife remembers, but we have no evidence), not sure what I could do. Mental illness seems unlikely, since both of us remember. But then, what could it be? Have we entered a parallel universe, ala Twilight Zone, where everything except this is the same? Is this some sort of gigantic prank to make us think we're crazy? Also seems unlikely, but what other explanation do we have?

In this scenario, we would continue to go about our lives, but keep our eyes peeled for new evidence in the mystery. If we never find any more evidence, we'd probably forget about it and continue on like always.

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For Scenario 4, (no proof, no one else remembers), I would be seriously concerned that I have a split personality or some other sort of mental disorder. It's possible I've entered into an alternate universe, or there's a gigantic conspiracy to trick me - but short of any other evidence, mental illness seems like the most likely explanation.

I would explain all this to my spouse and warn her to watch me for any signs of odd or dangerous behavior. Then I would seek professional psychological help, preferably with my wife there to help explain the situation.

What happens after that depends on what the psychiatrist says.

I know this is probably the wrong answer, but in all scenarios, I would trust my own memory of the place and/or event, and the less "proof" I have of it, the lower amount of time I would spend trying to convince others I'm "right."

I agree, there isn't much point in trying to convince others, at least to me. I mean, even if I do manage to convince somebody, what happens then? Probably nothing, so it's probably not worth spending much effort on.

But can you be so sure about your own memories? It's well known in the field of forensic science that eyewitnesses often mis-remember things. How can you be sure that you aren't going insane? And if you are, what would you do about it?

+1 and agreed, there is nothing to be gained from trying to convince other people that the dairy queen was indeed there, whatever the case. Best case scenario, assuming you would actually manage to make someone believe your story over their version of reality, you'll leave them puzzled and just as bewildered as you are - essentially a 3rd person to keep assuring you that you're sane but relying not on tools and direct data (which only you, the subject of this experiment, and possibly your spouse possess), but just your subjective account of it. Which makes it essentially your own rationalization repeated by someone else - it could make you feel better, but it won't lead anywhere.

In this experiment it is vital for the subject him/herself to establish whether this extraordinary event may be the result of a mental problem. And it's not a trivial task, but trying to convince other people and seeking their opinion probably does more harm than good. An fMRI is the closest we can get to actual objective quantifiable data, and still not much to work on - there is no guarantee that an illness has to be visible on the macro level.

Even professional psychologists, I was told by a friend in the business, are mostly doing informed guesswork based on their gut, making psychiatry a soft science at best. Since they deal with people with poor grasp of reality on a daily basis that leaves them somewhat biased, prone to dismiss issues with this or that mental illness. This was subjected to an experiment by the psychologist David Rosenhan in 1973, where volunteers, confirmed to be mentally healthy, were covertly admitted under false names to 12 different mental institutions, claiming fairly mild symptoms of auditory hallucinations. Such hallucinations may occur temporarily under stress, shock, sleep deprivation, drug use and similar circumstances in healthy people. All of them were diagnosed with flavours of schizophrenia and were asked and expected to accept and come to terms with their supposed disorder.

As mental institutions aren't supposed to be on the lookout for impostors, Rosenhan's results were challenged, claiming psychologists could in fact reliably spot impostors should they be informed of their presence prior to the experiment. The experiment was repeated and the participating institution considered as reputable at the time, housing 193 patients, presented a list of 41 imposters and 42 suspected imposters. Rosenhan, however, did not send any imposters. All of the people listed were regular patients.

Those surprising results illustrate how a medical professional's judgement is easily affected by confirmation bias - this suggests that psychologists don't really have quantifiable hard information to base their judgement on, like a blood test - their diagnosis is a well-informed but still subjective opinion, given weight mostly by their title of doctor and the formal nature of the institution they work at.

If that's the diagnosis of an experienced medical professional then the uninformed opinion of a sibling or friend would be even less accurate, not to mention biased by the personal nature of the relationship with the subject.

Sleep deprivation, psychoactive substances, drug interactions, hormonal disease, stroke ect could affect one's state of mind. Sane, healthy people without any mental disorders suddenly finding themselves in a situation where they are forced to question their sanity isn't unprecedented actually - in the 60s the CIA used to administer LSD to prisoners, military personnel and in later stages to hapless civilians, without their consent or knowledge, as part of the declassified project MkUltra, as investigated and confirmed by the Church Committee called by Congress in 1974. Occam's razor must be used as a nefarious experiment is far less likely than the other possible reasons for brain malfunction, though still non-zero compared to a zero-probability event of the building disappearing from existence into nothingness/alternate dimension, ignoring the rule of conservation of mass/energy.

What may appear counterintuitive is that even extreme changes of a person's state of consciousness, even when occurring rapidly within minutes, usually are not apparent to him/her. It appears as though the human mind has difficulty, on a subconscious level, to distinguish when it's working normally from even a brief unusual period when it's in an altered state. The "something is different" feedback is a result of conscious deliberate high-level thought - when this is impaired a person may not even realize their mental state.

Alkaloids of the Datura plant will induce schizophrenia-like delirium and hallucinations indistinguishable from reality in otherwise healthy victims. There are reports of individuals who voluntarily ingested the plant for it's effects forget they're under it's influence, in a similar fashion to mental illnesses. Derivatives of those alkaloids have been weaponized as an incapacitating chemical weapon, known under the NATO code BZ.

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/1404215/BZ
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3-quinuclidinyl_benzilate

The subject of this thought experiment, I believe, would be best equipped to make a judgement about his/her state of mind, as the scenario assumes no apparent outward signs of abnormal behavior outside of the mismatched memory of the dairy queen - judgement is intact and high-level thinking is as well - I postulate that such a person would be capable of determining whether something is wrong with him/her.

Making such a judgement is not easy and requires deep introspection - meditation, hypnosis or somesuch, but ultimately I think it allows the subject to directly access information other people can only infer by their subjective interpretation of the subject's actions and answers using poorly matched words that are the closest approximation to feelings, emotions, processes that I believe for the most part haven't been named, then further distorted by the subject's ego and defense mechanisms.

This long rant is just my subjective opinion and the only thing I have to do with psychology is that I have a brain in my head and I find the subject fascinating.

Assumptions:

- It is possible to doctor photos.
- It is possible to use forensic software to check photos for forgeries.
- Forgeries that are created with circumventing forensics in mind are high-level operations done by experts
- It is not possible to implant a memory
- It is possible for people to lie (spouse, parents)
- It is possible for people to forget (parents)
- it is possible to demolish a building and plant a field in short order
- It's not paranoia if they really are out to get you

1) I conclude the building was demolished, my parents have dementia. The effort taken to remove traces of the building is peculiar. I try to take photos of the empty lot from the same angle as the ones I stored and superimpose those. I check google maps and historic aerial maps. The peculiar missing building becomes something of a small obsession of mine.

2) Extended case of 1. The party that is responsible for the removal of the building is also taking extensive action to erase all traces of it from history, for reasons unknown. The blog entries and logs were removed on purpose. I fear that speaking about this matter openly could bring repercussions against me and my family. I instruct my wife not to speak about it and use technical means to hide my activity in further investigating this event. I make sure I'm stocked up on rolls of tin foil.

3) It is probably a prank. I treat it as such while probing my parents and spouse for signs of it being a prank. I use an unwitting friend or fake online identity as a proxy to explore this further. Nontheless I backup the photos and check for anything odd. If the prank persists I inconspicuously place the photos somewhere (like in a photo album) and observe my wife's reaction as she glosses over the photos she claims not to remember.

4) Extended case of 2. I write a note that gets auto-published from a tor hidden service in the event of my death, sent to news outlets, forums and friends and make arrangements to permanently leave the country under the auspice of business negotiations. I reluctantly leave my family behind and start a new life.

The root of all scenarios is conflicting evidence, from various parties that are not independent. To eliminate personal confirmation bias (and a lot of other bias as well), I would use a double blind test to resolve the problem (hire or ask someone I don't know to provide me information without telling them exactly what I'm looking for). What I would do next depends on the result of that test.

My course of action in each case is to get at least 2 diverse forms of evidence of the location of the Dairy Queen. For each scenario, if I find evidence I am correct, or evidence I am in the wrong location, I am done and do not continue with the rest of the options. If it turns out the DQ here has been closed/demolished, I would, however, probably do (c) anyway because now I am curious what happened to the DQ.

For Scenario 1: My spouse and I have essentially the same memories of the Dairy Queen, so that only counts as 1 form. As I am currently in my car with (presumably) my smartphone, I would find evidence on the internet of the Dairy Queen's location, in the following order:

a. check Google Maps, determine my current location, and search for Dairy Queen.

b. go to the Dairy Queen website and perform a location search to see nearby locations.

c. Google search Dairy Queen followed by some keywords regarding the location to see if there is any news, blog posts, or anything mentioning a Dairy Queen in the area moving, closing, etc.

d. Check my photos online. I only check these past because they are a less diverse form on evidence than the others. I am the one who took the photos, so presumably my memories are of the same times these photos were taken.

For Scenario 2: same as 1 except d would be:

d. Question my sanity as I have memories of visiting this Dairy Queen, memories of taking pictures of the DQ, and memories of writing blog posts about the DQ. Hope that you and your spouse are simply wrong about the location.

For Scenario 3: same as 1. My memories are always going to be better evidence to me than my spouces memories anyway simply because they are in my head. (That is not to say I don't believe what you say or think Ashly, don't take it that way please 🙂 )

For Scenario 4: same as 1 except d would be:

d. Go home, go to bed, get up in the morning and see if I am thinking more clearly. If not, seriously question my mental status.

1) Find out my current location from my phone; then find the nearest ice cream place (because I still want ice cream). I would suspect that I took a wrong turn or exit off the highway and that the Dairy Queen still does exist. I don't think this would change my behavior in the future.

2) Same as #1, but I'd be less sure that it was a Dairy Queen. Maybe it was some other similar place, or maybe it was actually McDonald's or Sonic or something and I just remembered it incorrectly. I'd be a bit concerned about my memory, but I don't think this changes my behavior. Maybe I'd try to pay more attention to things and autopilot less.

3) Assuming that this means "your spouse does not share your recollections", I'd probably try to search my mind for more details. I'd suspect I misremembered both the place and the person I was with at the time. Maybe it was a Dairy Queen I used to go to often with a friend, so later I might call some friends that I might have gone to Dairy Queen a lot with.

4) I don't know, but this is the most troubling. Now I'm not sure if the Dairy Queen ever existed (whether it was a Dairy Queen or some other similar place) or if my memories were real. I'd try to remember and see if I read any articles or watched any TV (although I don't watch TV) about Dairy Queens or had any weird dreams where I might be confusing with reality. I'd try to find out if there was ever any Dairy Queen or anything else at that location. I'd think about whether there's anything weird and pay more attention to things - I've watched enough movies like Dark City and Blade Runner and Total Recall so that the idea of implanted memories isn't an unfamiliar idea. Or maybe I just completely misremembered. Or maybe there's something really wrong with me. I'd consider seeing a doctor and getting checked out.

This may be too simplistic, but...Occam's razor, you simply got off the wrong exit on the highway, didn't realize it and are confused. Everything makes sense, including your family's responses. I'm not sure how to handle the disappearing pictures, though. That might be a bit more of a probabalistic stretch (both getting off the wrong exit, AND having your pictures disappear), though the pictures could have been wiped a long time ago and it just took you this long to realize it? Joshua?

Obviously a glitch in the matrix.

Wake up Neo

Scenario 1: I remember it, my blog remembers it, my spouse remembers it, but it is not there and my family does not think that there ever was a Dairy Queen at this particular location. I would come to the conclusion that I got lost. I would get back on the highway and look for a McDonalds. If I had a GPS then I could put Dairy Queen in the GPS and find the nearest one that way. Next time I'll have directions.

Scenario 2: I remember it, my spouse remembers it, but my blog and my family doesn't remember it. I get in the car and go to Taco Bell. That's a good place to discuss crap. I'd like to know how we made this Dairy Queen memory up, or if some of the details were being altered in our minds. Like maybe it was a Taco Bell not a Dairy Queen that we used to go to 5 years ago.

Scenario 3: I remember it, my blog remembers it, my spouse doesn't remember it, my family doesn't remember it, and the field doesn't remember it. Guess I just never took my spouse there. Nothing in the post indicates that I took my spouse there, or that the conversations of what is wrong with the Dairy Queen were with my spouse. I just got lost again, and look like an idiot in front of my spouse. Let's go to Burger King.

Scenario 4: I remember it, but neither my blog, spouse, family, or field remembers it.

I'm going to be very honest here. I often hear things that aren't actually said. Then sometime later I'll "snap to" and question if something actually happened. In most if not all cases the people will tell me they didn't say whatever I remember them saying. So if my memories of Dairy Queen are "auditory memories" then I"m going to assume that my brain is once again lying to me and making stuff up. However if my memories are "visual memories" kind of like Deja Vu then I'll assume that I must be remembering a dream or something like that. What I would do is take my spouse out to a buffet because I would want to eat a bunch of food after another one of these episodes. Life goes on, its not like I can afford a doctor anyways.