Psychedelics alter metaphysical beliefs(nature.com)
nature.com
Psychedelics alter metaphysical beliefs
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-01209-2
252 comments
I can't help but keep rereading this. The statement "I've never done drugs" juxtaposed with "20 and 30 experiments" is kinda funny to me.
"I have been advised to let you know that I have never..."
He ment before that "experiments".
precisely. I should have written "I had never" instead "I have never".
”Doing drugs” evokes images of injecting hard drugs with all the unclean nastiness.
”Experimenting with psychedelics” is really, really far from that reality.
”Experimenting with psychedelics” is really, really far from that reality.
I'm going to just go ahead and inform everyone that experimenting with psychedelics is doing drugs.
I do hope to live in a world someday where informed consent is sacrosanct and legally protected; and people don't feel the need to split hairs like this.
I do hope to live in a world someday where informed consent is sacrosanct and legally protected; and people don't feel the need to split hairs like this.
It was clear to me he meant prior to taking the psychedelics.
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This just confirms why that image people have is completely ridiculous.
Which is silly because like the majority of drinkers the majority of illegal drug users aren’t like that stereotype either.
Sorry, no. Drinking alcohol is "doing drugs." The imagery you're evoking is propaganda. Don't validate it.
So is drinking coffee. “Drugs” as an umbrella term is either too broad or too politicized to have much meaning without referring to specific substances. Even classing them by category can be tricky: caffeine and cocaine are both stimulants, for example.
Classifying drugs is, itself, a problem. For example, fentanyl is used in medical settings. The US has pushed an international categorizations of "no medical use" which paradoxically has prevented research into drugs that would find medical uses (research with a hypothesis that "drugs are bad," however, was allowed). We're finally seeing research into positive effects of what were once seen as recreational drugs. And that's why I dislike OC's statement about not using drugs -- it's playing to the propagandized distinction that drugs are evil (but coffee, nicotine, alcohol, thorazine and gabapentin are all fine)
Yes, exactly. According to both contemporary accounts and traditional usage, cocaine at low doses via brewed or chewed coca leaves is a an all-round better stimulant (meaning it has fewer negative side effects) than caffeine at similar dosage levels via coffee. I’d be interested in trying it. But the specter of being refined into a hard drug prevents coca leaves from being imported or even studied more thoroughly—and cocaine is schedule II with recognized medical use.
What nonsense, is it so much different really? How much experience do you people really have with drugs in america to be making such sweeping statements?
"Unclean nastiness"? And wriggling around on the floor on a big dose of LSD for 12 hours is casual clean fun? Getting psychosis from shrooms is not a big of a deal as getting hooked on heroin?
Romanticizing psychedelics is a good starting point for abuse.
"Unclean nastiness"? And wriggling around on the floor on a big dose of LSD for 12 hours is casual clean fun? Getting psychosis from shrooms is not a big of a deal as getting hooked on heroin?
Romanticizing psychedelics is a good starting point for abuse.
Some subset of people do some subset of drugs in order to have an exciting/fun/heightened experience (e.g. cocaine on a night out to feel more confident and energised)
Some subset of people do some subset of drugs in order to settle addictive pressure (e.g. popping one’s codeine pills for the day)
Some subset of people do some subset of drugs in order to gain psychological or insight or have spiritual experience (e.g. taking psilocybin with an appropriate setting)
While the lines can be blurry, these are distinct use cases each with their own risks and considerations so they’re worth separating out.
Some subset of people do some subset of drugs in order to settle addictive pressure (e.g. popping one’s codeine pills for the day)
Some subset of people do some subset of drugs in order to gain psychological or insight or have spiritual experience (e.g. taking psilocybin with an appropriate setting)
While the lines can be blurry, these are distinct use cases each with their own risks and considerations so they’re worth separating out.
The distinction you're making isn't the drug, it's the purpose, and you left one out: people also take drugs for medical reasons, with or without a prescription (aspirin is a drug).
For example, weed can be used for all five of those purposes. But what's the value you see in separating them?
For example, weed can be used for all five of those purposes. But what's the value you see in separating them?
Yep, exactly. Sure, I've left out medical reasons but principally it's not what most people have in mind when they talk about 'doing drugs' - even replacing aspirin with something psychoactive (e.g. SSRIs or anti-psychotics).
My point was in response to the parent's 'is it so much different really' question - when you insist that all varieties of reasons that people might be ingesting psychoactive substances stay under the same banner it's a fair bit harder to have a useful conversation about it.
My point was in response to the parent's 'is it so much different really' question - when you insist that all varieties of reasons that people might be ingesting psychoactive substances stay under the same banner it's a fair bit harder to have a useful conversation about it.
> wriggling around on the floor on a big dose of LSD for 12 hours is casual clean fun?
Yes.
Yes.
I had a strong Christian upbringing, but abandoned it at a young age. My adult life has been spent in natural sciences - research in physics, chemistry, biology.
Few years back I had my series of experiments with LSD & psilocybin. No enlightment was obtained, but one of the major realizations was that some serious psychotherapy is needed to understand and fix my warped self-image and the way of living originating from it. Been dissecting myself in a psychodynamic setting now, feel better.
I also often find myself using biblical terms in describing my actions and feelings. Sin, hell, heaven. Maybe this is some integration, maybe I watched too much Jordan Peterson videos in my dark days, heh.
One of the major takeaways is this near mystical feeling of awe about life. Having the education to understand things from the most fundamental building blocks just increases this. Protons and electrons, balls and springs, entropy maximization, phase spaces. Wiggling and docking macromolecules, interacting in the realm of low Reynolds number. Machinery using fundamental particles and photons, juggling photons, protons, and electrons to power the infinitely seeming finite complex machinery, molded by evolution. Freaking emergent properties arising from this - life, consciousness. And we have the capabilities to understand and actually fix some fundamental problems with this knowledge - eg. getting cryo-EM structures of covid spike proteins, docking millions of molecules through the computational methods created by the collaborative effort of our advanced cognitions.
This stuff was always cool, but now I look it like the most beautiful work of art, and feel the upmost priviledge to have the ability to pay my bills thinking about these things.
Few years back I had my series of experiments with LSD & psilocybin. No enlightment was obtained, but one of the major realizations was that some serious psychotherapy is needed to understand and fix my warped self-image and the way of living originating from it. Been dissecting myself in a psychodynamic setting now, feel better.
I also often find myself using biblical terms in describing my actions and feelings. Sin, hell, heaven. Maybe this is some integration, maybe I watched too much Jordan Peterson videos in my dark days, heh.
One of the major takeaways is this near mystical feeling of awe about life. Having the education to understand things from the most fundamental building blocks just increases this. Protons and electrons, balls and springs, entropy maximization, phase spaces. Wiggling and docking macromolecules, interacting in the realm of low Reynolds number. Machinery using fundamental particles and photons, juggling photons, protons, and electrons to power the infinitely seeming finite complex machinery, molded by evolution. Freaking emergent properties arising from this - life, consciousness. And we have the capabilities to understand and actually fix some fundamental problems with this knowledge - eg. getting cryo-EM structures of covid spike proteins, docking millions of molecules through the computational methods created by the collaborative effort of our advanced cognitions.
This stuff was always cool, but now I look it like the most beautiful work of art, and feel the upmost priviledge to have the ability to pay my bills thinking about these things.
My experience is like this too. Most spirituality is kind of cornball seeking and trying too hard and missing the point to me, but I sure do find myself a lot more interested in astrophysics lately after certain experiences... Origin of life research too.
I'd say that spirituality and materialism can co-exist. There is a saying that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. I'd say that any sufficiently complex blob of information about nature that you can only partially interpret is indistinguishable from spirituality. 200 ug is around the threshold after which really interesting things start to happen. I'd say that the spirituality part comes from the effect of these psychedelics: you can briefly interpret more from the things around you and it fills you with awe. It is also overwhelming, because you still can't understand most of what you're seeing and your brain struggles to make sense of it, hence the spirituality part. I'd recommend reading the "A New Kind of Science" from Stephen Wolfram, it talks a lot about our disability to fully interpret the information that's around us.
You should try going to an Orthodox Church and see how weird it is. It definitely makes you think of the spiritual meaning of things.
THC alone makes me all spiritual feeling, and often in a good way. I think psychedelics would just take me to a scary spiritual place, not a euphoric one.
THC alone makes me all spiritual feeling, and often in a good way. I think psychedelics would just take me to a scary spiritual place, not a euphoric one.
This truly doesn't work if you grew up going to an Orthodox Church as I did. I knew it was weird compared to, well, everyone else's churches and I absolutely hated that Easter was celebrated on a different day than everyone else. I hated it more when a teacher took me out in the hall to question me about it before concluding that I was too young to understand. (I was 9 and the teacher assumed I was Muslim). I do suggest the Easter service for an experience, though: It'll start late Saturday and into Sunday morning. It will be fairly crowded.
The churches can be difficult to find as well, at least in the US: It isn't unheard of for folks to travel an hour or so to their church of choice.
If you can't get to that, a gnostic mass will probably give a similar experience. It is, of course, Much more occult-theme religion, but it will keep some of the charm (possibly mixed with a bit of catholocism)
The churches can be difficult to find as well, at least in the US: It isn't unheard of for folks to travel an hour or so to their church of choice.
If you can't get to that, a gnostic mass will probably give a similar experience. It is, of course, Much more occult-theme religion, but it will keep some of the charm (possibly mixed with a bit of catholocism)
Specifically one of the old buildings where they use the most traditional music. It's quite literally trippy.
More conveniently, you could just say the words "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner" repeatedly to yourself. This prayer does things.
Repeating many other phrases "does things" too.
Any brief, reflective, perspective-shifting phrase is adequate -- there's no need to invoke any particular mythology.
Any brief, reflective, perspective-shifting phrase is adequate -- there's no need to invoke any particular mythology.
Respectfully I disagree. Different phrases do different stuff. Some are outright dangerous. The above prayer is particularly healthy and helpful.
Equally respectfully, there is no contradiction in your disagreement. :)
Some phrases are more useful than others. Some have negative effects.
Some phrases are more useful than others. Some have negative effects.
Imagine how powerful it would be to be able to alter the setting so bad trips depict hell and good trips depict heaven.
Almost like they could be utilized in a way to provide a religious fervor for your adherents.
Almost like they could be utilized in a way to provide a religious fervor for your adherents.
Isn't there some evidence to suggest earlier, pre-Christian European religions did sometimes make use of psychedelic substances in group rituals?
Even more fun, there's some evidence that one of the ingredients in the frankincense that was burned in the Jewish temple (at least the second temple anyway) was Marijuana
There are cave paintings, found all over the world, of humans with mushroom heads or covered in fungi fruiting bodies.
>The first time I did ... a very close relative to psilocybin,.... It was a 25mg-ish dose.... It was far more intense
You think? Jeebus! Terrance McKenna would call 10mg of psilocybin a heroic dose. Some of the most intense visuals I have ever seen were on 10mg of psilocybin.
So if close relative means that it requires 2.5x more, then okay, but if they are anywhere near 1:1, then that was a freaking monster dose.
You think? Jeebus! Terrance McKenna would call 10mg of psilocybin a heroic dose. Some of the most intense visuals I have ever seen were on 10mg of psilocybin.
So if close relative means that it requires 2.5x more, then okay, but if they are anywhere near 1:1, then that was a freaking monster dose.
According to the psychonaut wiki, 25mg is the boundary between common and strong doses.
https://psychonautwiki.org/wiki/4-AcO-DMT
In writing this message, I went back to my notes and see that I had taken 20mg, not 25mg, that first time.
I abbreviated my history of experiments in my original message, but I had actually had first tried a different tryptamine in a series of ramped experiments a few weeks apart. It was 4-aco-det, aka ethacetin or ethylacybin. 4mg, then 10mg, then 18mg, then 30mg. I chose that one because my reading indicated it was less intense than 4-aco-dmt. All were underwhelming, with little body load, no open eye visuals, and mild, gossamer closed eyed visuals.
When I switched to 4-aco-dmt I should have ramped as well, but the previous experiments led me to believe that I was a low responder to tryptamines, so I started at 20mg. That is when I learned my lesson to not make assumptions: always ramp with a new substance from a very low dose.
https://psychonautwiki.org/wiki/4-AcO-DMT
In writing this message, I went back to my notes and see that I had taken 20mg, not 25mg, that first time.
I abbreviated my history of experiments in my original message, but I had actually had first tried a different tryptamine in a series of ramped experiments a few weeks apart. It was 4-aco-det, aka ethacetin or ethylacybin. 4mg, then 10mg, then 18mg, then 30mg. I chose that one because my reading indicated it was less intense than 4-aco-dmt. All were underwhelming, with little body load, no open eye visuals, and mild, gossamer closed eyed visuals.
When I switched to 4-aco-dmt I should have ramped as well, but the previous experiments led me to believe that I was a low responder to tryptamines, so I started at 20mg. That is when I learned my lesson to not make assumptions: always ramp with a new substance from a very low dose.
If you can ever get your hands on it -- might I recommend you give 5-MeO-MiPT a try.
There's not anything quite like it (and it's cognitively mild), either phenethylamine or tryptamine.
There's not anything quite like it (and it's cognitively mild), either phenethylamine or tryptamine.
25mg of 4-AcO-DMT taken orally is roughly equivalent to ~1/8th ounce of mushrooms.
Potency isn't quite as much as crystalline psilocybin (4-HO-DMT).
Potency isn't quite as much as crystalline psilocybin (4-HO-DMT).
> it confirmed to me that the brain is all just chemistry.
Didn't it also confirm that what you perceive is not reality, but a model of reality?
Didn't it also confirm that what you perceive is not reality, but a model of reality?
I think being familiar with the basics of the standard model of physics (very basic, I don't claim to know much at all) influences one's perception of the experience induced by psychedelics. I would say that I am still more or less a materialist, though with greater appreciation for the idea of panpsychism, but really what I believe is that these ideas are not in conflict. The ephemeral, empty nature of all things is very much in line with our modern understanding of physics. The Standard Model bears surprising resemblence to certain Zen Buddhist ideas.
For me, panpsychism has never landed at all, though it is a fun idea to think about. I tend to see animals/humans as exceedingly complex (and most likely deterministic) systems, of which what we call "consciousness" is an emergent property. From that viewpoint, applying consciousness down the chain to the lower-level building blocks doesn't make a lot of sense.
If you break consciousness down to its most basic element, qualia, I think it's plausible that even very simple systems might be conscious. Not conscious in the way humans or animals are conscious though. Perhaps consciousness is just something that is inherent to information states. The simplest form of consciousness might exist in a switch with an on/off position. If consciousness is indeed innate to information states, then it feels like something to be on or off. There is nothing the switch can do with this information, it's incapable of doing anything. All it can be is on or off. The switch isn't sentient, it just has a subjective experience of on or off.
You don’t have to go down the chain, you can go up, too. E.g., groups, organizations, ecosystems, etc.
It’s not that individual electrons need to be conscious. Instead, for instance, free energy minimizing systems might be conscious— and those are pervasive in the universe at large and small scale.
It’s not that individual electrons need to be conscious. Instead, for instance, free energy minimizing systems might be conscious— and those are pervasive in the universe at large and small scale.
I feel like even that requires a pretty broad definition of consciousness that starts to diverge from what the term usually connotes. This strikes me as similar to the classic question of whether an ant hill could be considered conscious. In the end I guess a lot comes down to semantics/definitions.
Consciousness is qualia, feeing, experience. So, for instance, if the feeling of dissonance and harmony has some universal characteristic of the alignment of differences into a unified flow, then one can postulate that this characteristic may have a qualitative experience that is similarly universal in those systems where it occurs.
At the risk of being "that other guy", psychedelic experiences come in many different categories of experience: ranging from mere distortions of our normal, subjective state of perceiving reality, to emotional processing, ego death, out of body and spiritual experiences. There is no formula for a spiritual experience, but there have been enough accounts of mystical experiences throughout human history that point to them being quite literally "spiritual" - ephemeral, outside of or interacting with this three dimensional space we inhabit in ways difficult to comprehend, a true mystery to this physical instrument through which we filter the universe.
I think it's a mistake to think we have it all figured out just because we've had an experience that either reinforces or contradicts our per-conceived notions of what constitutes reality.
I think it's a mistake to think we have it all figured out just because we've had an experience that either reinforces or contradicts our per-conceived notions of what constitutes reality.
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From what I understand, part of the "point" of using Ayahuasca vs other methods is prolonging the experience long enough to have the ability to integrate insights... I am just going by what others have told me but something about combining the psychedelic with another drug that makes it last longer allows you to remember what you had gone through better than just a short few hour experience
Aya isn't super long lasting. A tab of acid might take you on a journey for 8 hours. Aya might be 3-4 depending on the brew.
The actual chemical is different and the way you take it (orally, by nealing in front of a shaman and drinking about a shot glass of it) has an affect on the duration and intensity (like a lot of drugs).
You can smoke dmt purified or a yagi mix and have different more intense experiences but that might only be 30 minutes.
As for integrating your thoughts, I can definitely put that down to the chemical. It's called "abuelo" by the native people because it's like your grandfather giving you advice. Mushrooms are known as the "ninos" because they're a lower level in comparison.
Understanding the sacredity of plants and developing a respect for native medicine has been a great part of my experience in South America.
The actual chemical is different and the way you take it (orally, by nealing in front of a shaman and drinking about a shot glass of it) has an affect on the duration and intensity (like a lot of drugs).
You can smoke dmt purified or a yagi mix and have different more intense experiences but that might only be 30 minutes.
As for integrating your thoughts, I can definitely put that down to the chemical. It's called "abuelo" by the native people because it's like your grandfather giving you advice. Mushrooms are known as the "ninos" because they're a lower level in comparison.
Understanding the sacredity of plants and developing a respect for native medicine has been a great part of my experience in South America.
I live in Latin America and I am strongly disinterested in that tourist side of things, it gives off smelly fake vibes
Have yet to have anyone indigenous try and sell me on this
Have yet to have anyone indigenous try and sell me on this
I live in Latin America and I feel the same. It's important to pick your facilitator and shaman carefully. There are the yoga instructor turned shaman types that it's best to avoid.
There are also the "passing through want to try it" attendees.
However, given the power of this substance to have a positive effect on someone's life, I'm not going to build walls around it. Also, it's a very challenging experience and anyone that goes through it deserves a bit of respect.
There are also the "passing through want to try it" attendees.
However, given the power of this substance to have a positive effect on someone's life, I'm not going to build walls around it. Also, it's a very challenging experience and anyone that goes through it deserves a bit of respect.
Your brain is all chemistry but your experience is still variable. You can choose to live on matter or orient your brain on other directions.
It's said that some of these drugs can make one more social, more emotional, which imo is a better existence than other paradigms.
It's said that some of these drugs can make one more social, more emotional, which imo is a better existence than other paradigms.
Psychedelics are known for amplifying existing emotions and thought patterns, the "set" in "set and setting."
Your experiment is very personal to your own mindset, and your focus on materialism likely influenced the outcomes.
Your experiment is very personal to your own mindset, and your focus on materialism likely influenced the outcomes.
I believe your experiments have confirmation bias.
Instead of doing your own controlled experiments, you should try doing ayahuasca, peyote or shrooms in their natural setting, with local people leading the way.
I bet you’ll have a completely different experience.
Instead of doing your own controlled experiments, you should try doing ayahuasca, peyote or shrooms in their natural setting, with local people leading the way.
I bet you’ll have a completely different experience.
By that reasoning, doesn't that mean you simply confirm the biases of the "local people leading the way" instead of your own?
99% of the "local" people leading the way are just western charlatans.
I don't think the non-materialist argument is that the 'brain is not just chemistry'.
you've done drugs. the disclaimer isn't useful at this point in time until psychedelics are on par with alcohol and FDA approved substances, where those are separated from "drugs"
A survey? Nature seems intent on tarnishing their brand.
Despite having had the relevant experience, I've always found it hard to understand why this happens.
You know you're taking a drug that reliably induces feelings of "oceanic connectedness". Why should you change your worldview as a result? All kinds of things can change the way you feel temporarily, but most of them don't leave you thinking that you got insight into the way things really are.
Maybe it's that psychedelics also induce feelings of having discovered something important, and a lot of people don't try to double-check whether they actually did.
You know you're taking a drug that reliably induces feelings of "oceanic connectedness". Why should you change your worldview as a result? All kinds of things can change the way you feel temporarily, but most of them don't leave you thinking that you got insight into the way things really are.
Maybe it's that psychedelics also induce feelings of having discovered something important, and a lot of people don't try to double-check whether they actually did.
I believe it's because it shows you that reality is not actually real. It's just a product of your senses.
During a psychedelic trip, one might wonder "if I had been like this all my life, I would consider this to be reality, not what I'm used too".
It fundamentally shows you that what you consider reality might be very, very, very wrong. So how can I trust my own senses and perceptions if they can be so powerfully modified by such a simple molecule? What if the actual reality is what you experience during a trip, and what we consider reality is some kind of trip due to the lack of a molecule that allows you to fully experience reality(in the same way that the lack of nutrients and water can lead to mental confusion/delirium)? It opens up a world of possibilities.
During a psychedelic trip, one might wonder "if I had been like this all my life, I would consider this to be reality, not what I'm used too".
It fundamentally shows you that what you consider reality might be very, very, very wrong. So how can I trust my own senses and perceptions if they can be so powerfully modified by such a simple molecule? What if the actual reality is what you experience during a trip, and what we consider reality is some kind of trip due to the lack of a molecule that allows you to fully experience reality(in the same way that the lack of nutrients and water can lead to mental confusion/delirium)? It opens up a world of possibilities.
> What if the actual reality is what you experience during a trip
Aldous Huxley touched on this idea of the brain acting as a valve or filter, wherein psychedelics loosen it and let through the stream of consciousness that you're alluding to.
Aldous Huxley touched on this idea of the brain acting as a valve or filter, wherein psychedelics loosen it and let through the stream of consciousness that you're alluding to.
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Michael Pollan talks a lot about this in "Changing Your Mind".
During a psychedelic trip, one might wonder "if I had been like this all my life, I would consider this to be reality, not what I'm used too". It fundamentally shows you that what you consider reality might be very, very, very wrong. So how can I trust my own senses and perceptions if they can be so powerfully modified by such a simple molecule? What if the actual reality is what you experience during a trip, and what we consider reality is some kind of trip due to the lack of a molecule that allows you to fully experience reality [...]?
At first glance this might sound like a reasonable thought but I have never been convinced by this idea. The mistake is to think about you in isolation. You alone might be unable to tell whether reality is like your normal perception or like your perception under the influence of psychedelics, but you are not alone, you can compare what different people perceive. You will probably find that normal perception mostly agrees while perception under the influence of psychedelics varies. Why would that be if psychedelics allow you to perceive true reality?
And you do not have to stop there, maybe all humans have the same kind of distortions in their perception of reality anchored deeply in our DNA. But we do not have to rely on human perception, we have invented devices to measure and quantify about everything we know of. You can just point a camera at a wall and figure out if it solid white or if it is covered in moving color-changing fractal patterns.
Sure, it might be possible that our perception is warpend in such a strange way that even devices we build would be unable to make this difference noticeable, but that seems really unlikely to me. So for all the agreement we have between our perception and what our measuring devices report, I would say our perception of reality is pretty accurate, at least within the limits of the capabilities of our senses.
At first glance this might sound like a reasonable thought but I have never been convinced by this idea. The mistake is to think about you in isolation. You alone might be unable to tell whether reality is like your normal perception or like your perception under the influence of psychedelics, but you are not alone, you can compare what different people perceive. You will probably find that normal perception mostly agrees while perception under the influence of psychedelics varies. Why would that be if psychedelics allow you to perceive true reality?
And you do not have to stop there, maybe all humans have the same kind of distortions in their perception of reality anchored deeply in our DNA. But we do not have to rely on human perception, we have invented devices to measure and quantify about everything we know of. You can just point a camera at a wall and figure out if it solid white or if it is covered in moving color-changing fractal patterns.
Sure, it might be possible that our perception is warpend in such a strange way that even devices we build would be unable to make this difference noticeable, but that seems really unlikely to me. So for all the agreement we have between our perception and what our measuring devices report, I would say our perception of reality is pretty accurate, at least within the limits of the capabilities of our senses.
You've got it backwards. Reality does not change due to hallucination, only my perception of it.
I've tripped many times and none of what I saw was real, and everything I saw when I wasn't tripping was real. It's good as therapy, and reveals a lot about perception and thoughts, but nothing else.
I've tripped many times and none of what I saw was real, and everything I saw when I wasn't tripping was real. It's good as therapy, and reveals a lot about perception and thoughts, but nothing else.
I don't think that's what the GP meant. I think they meant your perception of reality can take more than one form. Often people fall into the trap of thinking their current perception of reality must be The One, but clearly what many people believe is very much not reality. It's just their current feeling about what their senses are telling them. In fact, in many cases, said perception is created from very little data. The older I get the more I see this in operation.
Changing perspective, which can be instantaneous, is just shifting your view of reality.
Changing perspective, which can be instantaneous, is just shifting your view of reality.
Sorry, that's not what they mean.
My carpet is not changing color, my mother's face isn't melting. That's not happening on a physical level.
My sober perception is repeatable and verifiable. It exists no matter my state of mind.
It's novel to make yourself see things that are unreal. It's novel to have your emotions fluctuate wildly. But it's just novel, and unreal, and nothing more.
My carpet is not changing color, my mother's face isn't melting. That's not happening on a physical level.
My sober perception is repeatable and verifiable. It exists no matter my state of mind.
It's novel to make yourself see things that are unreal. It's novel to have your emotions fluctuate wildly. But it's just novel, and unreal, and nothing more.
I think the point is that your sober perception exists only in your state of mind. My sober perception of the 'same' experiences you have is almost definitely not going to be the same as yours. So an altered state potentially gives you the realization that your personal experience isn't universal reality. In other words a personal perception of reality is not reality itself. This is why we have philosophy in general. Novel in this instance isn't relevant IMO
Updated for spelling
Updated for spelling
This is such a silly conversation. We have cameras and all sorts of equipment that tracks a constant reality. Who gives a shit if people perceive it with varying levels of accuracy?
What does it matter that introducing substances to the brain can reduce your ability to perceive it?
There is evidence of reality, and childish mind games and semantic debates that it might not.
I drop you off in the Gobi desert with no water (or acid) and let's test the boundaries of reality. Let's see if you can perceive yourself some water.
What does it matter that introducing substances to the brain can reduce your ability to perceive it?
There is evidence of reality, and childish mind games and semantic debates that it might not.
I drop you off in the Gobi desert with no water (or acid) and let's test the boundaries of reality. Let's see if you can perceive yourself some water.
Old cameras recorded in black and white. Did people in the 20s live in B&W? Or maybe the camera is a device that attempts to record a picture of reality at some point in space-time, with lossy compression, to match the perceptions of reality of its creators?
The thing is, you can have a consistent model of reality when you're only looking at it from the inside. This tells you nothing about the outside.
Eg: if you're living in a simulated universe, everything is consistent, your cameras and the dry desert. Still, outside the thing you perceive as reality, there could be anything.
The thing is, you can have a consistent model of reality when you're only looking at it from the inside. This tells you nothing about the outside.
Eg: if you're living in a simulated universe, everything is consistent, your cameras and the dry desert. Still, outside the thing you perceive as reality, there could be anything.
I think it's not a silly conversation at all. It hints to something that is so fundamental about existence.
You seem stuck in circular reasoning. The point is that when in an altered state, your conventional, "sober" model of reality breaks down and no longer applies. I think people "break through" when they realize their model of reality was constructed according to what they perceived through their available sense doors, but it's still just a construction, a model, a simulation, not reality itself. Even though it might be consistent when sober, it's self-referential consistency.
You seem stuck in circular reasoning. The point is that when in an altered state, your conventional, "sober" model of reality breaks down and no longer applies. I think people "break through" when they realize their model of reality was constructed according to what they perceived through their available sense doors, but it's still just a construction, a model, a simulation, not reality itself. Even though it might be consistent when sober, it's self-referential consistency.
> The point is that when in an altered state, your conventional, "sober" model of reality breaks down and no longer applies.
Your sober model of reality 100% still applies. You are simply mis-perceiving what is happening in reality.
The reality your mind is attempting to model is the only one that exists. Inducing chemicals that hinder your ability to perceive it does not indicate that it is a simulation.
It is not a self-referential consistency because it is being tracked by many people, many forms of study, many computers and machines, and is repeatable. Chemically induced states of hallucination are none of the above.
I will leave the undoing of reality to string theorists and super-computers.
Your sober model of reality 100% still applies. You are simply mis-perceiving what is happening in reality.
The reality your mind is attempting to model is the only one that exists. Inducing chemicals that hinder your ability to perceive it does not indicate that it is a simulation.
It is not a self-referential consistency because it is being tracked by many people, many forms of study, many computers and machines, and is repeatable. Chemically induced states of hallucination are none of the above.
I will leave the undoing of reality to string theorists and super-computers.
Sometimes I wonder if the people that claim they don't have an 'internal dialogue' in their head just haven't noticed it because they don't know where to look for it
There are many parts of conscious experience, that might not be noticed, but become extremely obvious in a Psychedelic state. It is like one of those hidden-image patterns. You would never know theres an image there, but once you see it, you can't unsee it - and you are struck by how blind you were to it before.
There are many correct ways to experience reality, operating off of the same source-of-truth data. Someone born with one eye can go their entire lives not knowing what it's like to _experience_ depth perception. You can give them all the cameras in the world, and they can fully understand the spacial relationships of all objects in the room, but they still wont be able to _experience_ depth, in their mental model of the world, like everyone else. They can't even begin to imagine it.
So, the carpet might not actually be swirling with fractal patterns. But It can be insightful to experience love as a fractal. You might notice parts of it that seemed one dimensional to you before.
woh man, that tree is beautiful.
There are many parts of conscious experience, that might not be noticed, but become extremely obvious in a Psychedelic state. It is like one of those hidden-image patterns. You would never know theres an image there, but once you see it, you can't unsee it - and you are struck by how blind you were to it before.
There are many correct ways to experience reality, operating off of the same source-of-truth data. Someone born with one eye can go their entire lives not knowing what it's like to _experience_ depth perception. You can give them all the cameras in the world, and they can fully understand the spacial relationships of all objects in the room, but they still wont be able to _experience_ depth, in their mental model of the world, like everyone else. They can't even begin to imagine it.
So, the carpet might not actually be swirling with fractal patterns. But It can be insightful to experience love as a fractal. You might notice parts of it that seemed one dimensional to you before.
woh man, that tree is beautiful.
For many things, you are right (or close enough for most purposes). For many, many other things, including the some of the things we care about most, the "true reality" is not so easy to discern.
That's just FUD. If reality was difficult to discern, we would long be extinct.
Reality is difficult to discern and we are not extinct. Cognitive bias has a long history of existing. For example, attributing personal flaws to harmless mistakes and attributing the flaws of others to malice or incompetence. This is clearly a distortion of reality, because we cannot assume we know the intention or capacity of all other people who aren’t perfect.
(A huge number of other evidences that sober people don’t have a full grasp of reality also exist: people misremember things all the time. People mishear things all the time. Check out that internet debate about the black-and-blue or gold-and-white dress!)
(A huge number of other evidences that sober people don’t have a full grasp of reality also exist: people misremember things all the time. People mishear things all the time. Check out that internet debate about the black-and-blue or gold-and-white dress!)
Cognitive bias doesn't exist in perception, it's interpretation, and attributions are even thoretization. Difficulty of classification is not a problem of perception, it's a problem of classification. If we can't name the color, it doesn't mean we don't see the color as it is.
Interpretation informs perception and perception isn't some constant in the human experience. A difficulty of classification can absolutely be a problem of perception because none of these things exist in a vacuum. Literally every human interpretation of reality is at best an approximate summary of what we experience of reality because it's impossible to remove bias and, believe it or not, we still don't know everything.
I don't think that's at all accurate.
We have evolved to perceive some aspects of reality (the ones where perceiving them improves survival/reproduction) and to not perceive many other aspects of reality because those aspects of reality do not affect survival/reproduction success enough to make up for the cost of having the more accurate perception.
We have evolved to perceive some aspects of reality (the ones where perceiving them improves survival/reproduction) and to not perceive many other aspects of reality because those aspects of reality do not affect survival/reproduction success enough to make up for the cost of having the more accurate perception.
The aspects that improve survival are pretty big and their perception is accurate and that's how we study nature - by augmenting our perception with tools.
You would do well to steel man this line of thought.
"Reality" can mean the physical patterns of atoms and electromagnetic radiation, which nobody suggests psychedelics change (although it's worth noting that you cannot completely eliminate subjectivity from your measurements even here, thanks to quantum physics). However we don't perceive atoms and radiation directly - we filter our senses through countless layers of filtering, interpretation, and abstraction. "Reality" for us encompasses a lot of concepts that are not so clear cut as "this pixel is that color". The clarity with which you perceive the world when sober is illusory, as evidenced by the widespread perception of paranormal phenomena by sober people - or even simple optical illusions.
"Reality" can mean the physical patterns of atoms and electromagnetic radiation, which nobody suggests psychedelics change (although it's worth noting that you cannot completely eliminate subjectivity from your measurements even here, thanks to quantum physics). However we don't perceive atoms and radiation directly - we filter our senses through countless layers of filtering, interpretation, and abstraction. "Reality" for us encompasses a lot of concepts that are not so clear cut as "this pixel is that color". The clarity with which you perceive the world when sober is illusory, as evidenced by the widespread perception of paranormal phenomena by sober people - or even simple optical illusions.
Let me source OP to clarify where my statements are coming from.
> What if the actual reality is what you experience during a trip, and what we consider reality is some kind of trip due to the lack of a molecule that allows you to fully experience reality?
So, keeping our conversation on-topic, sober reality is a place of scientific validation. The leaves on a tree are not breathing, they are simply blowing in the wind. We know this because photosynthesis does not require movement.
The edges of your door may be fuzzy on a molecular level, but they are not expanding and contracting every few seconds, we know this because wooden doors do not have those transitive properties.
Acid, and therefore a hallucination, is altering your ability to perceive reality. It is not "unlocking" any form of reality that you cannot normally perceive. It might be fun to think about a ton of "what-ifs" but it is not as metaphysical as it is made out to be.
The one profound aspect of tripping is to identify that your perception can be altered. This has a litany of positive mental affects that should be studied and prescribed.
> What if the actual reality is what you experience during a trip, and what we consider reality is some kind of trip due to the lack of a molecule that allows you to fully experience reality?
So, keeping our conversation on-topic, sober reality is a place of scientific validation. The leaves on a tree are not breathing, they are simply blowing in the wind. We know this because photosynthesis does not require movement.
The edges of your door may be fuzzy on a molecular level, but they are not expanding and contracting every few seconds, we know this because wooden doors do not have those transitive properties.
Acid, and therefore a hallucination, is altering your ability to perceive reality. It is not "unlocking" any form of reality that you cannot normally perceive. It might be fun to think about a ton of "what-ifs" but it is not as metaphysical as it is made out to be.
The one profound aspect of tripping is to identify that your perception can be altered. This has a litany of positive mental affects that should be studied and prescribed.
> The leaves on a tree are not breathing,
Actually, leaves are the primary method that trees use to breathe.
> Acid, and therefore a hallucination, is altering your ability to perceive reality. It is not "unlocking" any form of reality that you cannot normally perceive.
Every new type way of seeing the world unlocks a new form of reality. I would disagree with the "fully experience reality", but it can definitly provide new experiences with time, space, perception, identity and causality. Those are the very topics covered by metaphysics and this it seems entirely likely that same/many people change their metaphysical views as a result.
Actually, leaves are the primary method that trees use to breathe.
> Acid, and therefore a hallucination, is altering your ability to perceive reality. It is not "unlocking" any form of reality that you cannot normally perceive.
Every new type way of seeing the world unlocks a new form of reality. I would disagree with the "fully experience reality", but it can definitly provide new experiences with time, space, perception, identity and causality. Those are the very topics covered by metaphysics and this it seems entirely likely that same/many people change their metaphysical views as a result.
Interestingly vision science has shown there is some sort of transfer function that takes the same data we get from cameras to build perception. This is why there are some optical illusions that only humans can see, esp. in regards to colors of a given type being surrounded by different colors and appearing different even in reality they computer doesn’t experience the color change.
Your carpet will change colors are if you wear colored glasses. If everyone had colored eye lenses, we wouldn't be able to agree what color the carpet really is. We would still agree that it's a 500nm wavelength that gets reflected from the carpet, because that number is objective, while our senses aren't. It just so happens that we perceive the numbers in a more or less the sane way. I guess that mushrooms change your perceptual "reference frame", you notice that the two reference frames have equal standing and thus neither is true.
Psychedelic perception is also repeatable. And sober perception is not reliable.
Same drug, same effects. Cameras can't see your wall melting, but they exactly match what we see in reality
Huh, weird.
Huh, weird.
Cameras were designed to work just like our own eyes.
Design a camera to work like flies eyes, and suddenly you will get an image that does not match your perception.
That's the whole point, we don't know reality. We only know a model of reality that we can perceive with the senses we have.
Show a picture to a fly and it will tell you: "you're tripping, this is not what reality looks like".
Show a picture to a fly and it will tell you: "you're tripping, this is not what reality looks like".
The physical reality seen by a fly and myself are the same consistent reality. Regardless of our differences in perspective.
You are correct, we only know a model of reality that we can piece together. And we piece that reality together, bit by bit, with instruments and math and studying.
Regardless of how much you dream that there is an oasis in the desert, it is simply not there. No one else can see it, no instruments can detect it, you can't drink its water, it is unreal.
You can "what if" and "woah dude" until you are blue in the face, but you will never be able to drink that water.
So what is more real? The sun and the sand and your dehydration? Or an oasis that exists only in your mind? Many don't like the answer, but it is clear as day.
You are correct, we only know a model of reality that we can piece together. And we piece that reality together, bit by bit, with instruments and math and studying.
Regardless of how much you dream that there is an oasis in the desert, it is simply not there. No one else can see it, no instruments can detect it, you can't drink its water, it is unreal.
You can "what if" and "woah dude" until you are blue in the face, but you will never be able to drink that water.
So what is more real? The sun and the sand and your dehydration? Or an oasis that exists only in your mind? Many don't like the answer, but it is clear as day.
We’re at the allegory of the cave level here. You gotta pass that point to understand this. But you also don’t have to understand this. It’s okay to not understand it.
What if like, we're just in a raindrop in some cloud in another universe? Woah. It's like the allegory of the cave man.
Have fun with that!
Have fun with that!
Cameras don't see colors, a wall or a texture on that wall. Cameras merely capture a grid of values. All color perception, object recognition and figure segmentation happens in the brain.
But you only see the recordings from those cameras with the same eyes you're trying to verify, so this isn't actually giving you anything useful.
You only have one input and no way of testing how reliable it is.
You only have one input and no way of testing how reliable it is.
X ray vision, heat vision, electron microscopes all exist and translate things outside of our visual ranges into something we can perceive.
None of those validate LSD induced hallucinations. If you have some ideas that those technologies are wrong, go enter the field and prove it! Until then this conjecture is intellectually lazy.
None of those validate LSD induced hallucinations. If you have some ideas that those technologies are wrong, go enter the field and prove it! Until then this conjecture is intellectually lazy.
All of those readings enter your mind through your senses.
All the x-ray, heat, whatever readings all have to pass through your audiovisual senses before you know about them. If your eyes and ears deceive you, all the fancy technology outside your eyes and ears can't help you.
All the x-ray, heat, whatever readings all have to pass through your audiovisual senses before you know about them. If your eyes and ears deceive you, all the fancy technology outside your eyes and ears can't help you.
We can know things outside of what the mind can process with results such as: if this thing is hot and you touch it you will catch on fire and die. The brain cannot incorrectly perceive that.
You are trying to find data to prove your theory, not simply study what is observed. It's not science. It's just conjecture.
You are trying to find data to prove your theory, not simply study what is observed. It's not science. It's just conjecture.
Suppose for a moment that you and the people talking to you in this thread are talking past each other. What do you imagine the other people are trying to communicate to you, in their own terms?
They are positing a that all reality is unknowable because our senses can be fooled, and our brain is an unreliable narrator (if you will).
No matter what evidence I bring to the table, they will simply say "but what if you are being fooled?"
No matter what evidence I bring to the table, they will simply say "but what if you are being fooled?"
I just wanted to give you props for actually understanding the point being made.
You don't need to agree with it, but at least you can see where I'm coming from!
I understand your frustration with there not really being an objective argument that would be able to deal with this thought experiment - I myself argued your case for a long time!
For all practical uses, the distinction is mostly pointless anyways, but it does make for some fun philosophical thought experiments! :-)
You don't need to agree with it, but at least you can see where I'm coming from!
I understand your frustration with there not really being an objective argument that would be able to deal with this thought experiment - I myself argued your case for a long time!
For all practical uses, the distinction is mostly pointless anyways, but it does make for some fun philosophical thought experiments! :-)
Yeah I'm not them, but I think that's close.
What I would say is that our sensory data + mental models of that data are abstractions over whatever reality actually is, which I am guessing you agree with. On top of that I think something else that I am guessing you don't agree with: I think those abstractions are pretty arbitrary and hide important "implementation details" of reality that could turn out to have a big impact on what anything is or what we might do with it.
I am guessing the crux here is about how much those abstract models are constrained by the underlying reality. It seems like you believe that because sensory information/models converge in a repeatable and consistent way, that it must be close to accurate and complete, where by complete I don't mean we, eg, can "see" the whole EM spectrum, but that there being such a thing as an EM spectrum that we can only see part of gives us a reliable way to infer that our senses aren't missing any substantial chunks of conception space.
What I remain open to is that the abstractions are sort of self referential in that we're in a self constrained region of "potential sensory space," that we can sense and verify the things we can sense and verify, but that raw reality is deceptively huge and complex and a radically different sensory+model configuration might give us a qualitatively different picture of raw reality, even if it overlaps quite a bit with our current sensory bubble.
My main reason for being open to this is that it seems like QFT is an existence proof of our subjective awareness of reality being fundamentally askew from how raw reality actually works, and in fact we ended up narrowly optimized to experience things as we do and act as we do because of replication/evolution not because of correctness or how well our sensory abstraction carve reality at the actual joints.
I am guessing our disagreement is how much extra/unknown space there is, or how useful fundamentally different abstractions could be in interacting with raw reality stuff.
What I would say is that our sensory data + mental models of that data are abstractions over whatever reality actually is, which I am guessing you agree with. On top of that I think something else that I am guessing you don't agree with: I think those abstractions are pretty arbitrary and hide important "implementation details" of reality that could turn out to have a big impact on what anything is or what we might do with it.
I am guessing the crux here is about how much those abstract models are constrained by the underlying reality. It seems like you believe that because sensory information/models converge in a repeatable and consistent way, that it must be close to accurate and complete, where by complete I don't mean we, eg, can "see" the whole EM spectrum, but that there being such a thing as an EM spectrum that we can only see part of gives us a reliable way to infer that our senses aren't missing any substantial chunks of conception space.
What I remain open to is that the abstractions are sort of self referential in that we're in a self constrained region of "potential sensory space," that we can sense and verify the things we can sense and verify, but that raw reality is deceptively huge and complex and a radically different sensory+model configuration might give us a qualitatively different picture of raw reality, even if it overlaps quite a bit with our current sensory bubble.
My main reason for being open to this is that it seems like QFT is an existence proof of our subjective awareness of reality being fundamentally askew from how raw reality actually works, and in fact we ended up narrowly optimized to experience things as we do and act as we do because of replication/evolution not because of correctness or how well our sensory abstraction carve reality at the actual joints.
I am guessing our disagreement is how much extra/unknown space there is, or how useful fundamentally different abstractions could be in interacting with raw reality stuff.
[deleted]
> I've tripped many times and none of what I saw was real, and everything I saw when I wasn't tripping was real.
How would you possibly verify this claim?
What is reality if not your perception of it? Does objective reality exist? How do you know anything is objectively real and not a product of some brain process?
All of those are long-standing philosophical questions.
Here's [1] a quick intro on the problem space I found.
[1] https://iep.utm.edu/objectiv/#SH2a
How would you possibly verify this claim?
What is reality if not your perception of it? Does objective reality exist? How do you know anything is objectively real and not a product of some brain process?
All of those are long-standing philosophical questions.
Here's [1] a quick intro on the problem space I found.
[1] https://iep.utm.edu/objectiv/#SH2a
Ancient Greek philosophers could not measure anything, so this idea was at least somewhat plausible. Modern philosophers have no such excuse. We can simply measure the temperature of the water buckets and accept that our hands are very poor thermometers. Leaving aside the very difficult issue of the measurement problem in quantum mechanics, the last 200 or so years of science have clearly demonstrated that objective reality exists.
>We can simply measure
That "simply" is doing a lot of work there. Measurement is never simple, or correct. Yes, it's much, much more precise than it was in the past, but it's never exact. Until May 2019, the magnitude of many of the units composing the SI system of measurement, including most of those used in the measurement of electricity and light, were highly dependent upon the stability of a 142-year-old, golf-ball-sized cylinder of metal stored in a vault in France. The mass of this cylinder drifts when compared to copies, and nobody knows why. Yeah, the effect is super tiny, but the measurements are demonstrably _not precise_
That "simply" is doing a lot of work there. Measurement is never simple, or correct. Yes, it's much, much more precise than it was in the past, but it's never exact. Until May 2019, the magnitude of many of the units composing the SI system of measurement, including most of those used in the measurement of electricity and light, were highly dependent upon the stability of a 142-year-old, golf-ball-sized cylinder of metal stored in a vault in France. The mass of this cylinder drifts when compared to copies, and nobody knows why. Yeah, the effect is super tiny, but the measurements are demonstrably _not precise_
Of course measurements are always imperfect. The point is that an objective reality exists that can be measured. Which piece of rock we use to compare other masses to does not change that.
I agree that in usual practice, we can assume that there is a measurable, objective reality. However, once you get to the limits of human knowledge, everything starts shifting like quicksand and it becomes less obvious that there's an objective reality that we all share.
How does that in any way prove your point? What if all the measuring devices, their history, this very conversation, what if all of that was a hallucination?
How would you know? How do you propose we definitely prove it isn't?
How would you know? How do you propose we definitely prove it isn't?
Ancient greek's could surely measure some things, how else did they build those buildings?
You've declared we can measure everything important so reality is objective, but quantum physics suggests the things we can't measure may be astronomically large. The physicists who subscribe to the many world's theory believe there's a near infinite assortment of humans we cannot percieve or effectively measure, for example, and our own experience of self is inaccurate as we don't percieve ourselves to be branching in time.
I don't think measurements solve the problem of the uncertainty of reality.
You've declared we can measure everything important so reality is objective, but quantum physics suggests the things we can't measure may be astronomically large. The physicists who subscribe to the many world's theory believe there's a near infinite assortment of humans we cannot percieve or effectively measure, for example, and our own experience of self is inaccurate as we don't percieve ourselves to be branching in time.
I don't think measurements solve the problem of the uncertainty of reality.
Oh really? So you mean things like the no-cloning theorem, no-copying theorem, the whole idea of quantum indeterminacy, and the fact that actual randomness exists gives you evidence for objective reality? Actually, it's exactly the opposite. A =/= A. Even if there was objective reality, it's not available to us.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/No-cloning_theorem
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_indeterminacy
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell%27s_theorem
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/No-cloning_theorem
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_indeterminacy
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell%27s_theorem
You've got mounds and mounds of evidence for an objective and constant reality, and a few conundrums to unravel, and you then say "we don't know anything!" That's completely irrational. It sounds to me like you are looking to find data to fit your theory, you are HOPING we are in a simulation, and throwing out the baby with the bathwater.
I find this whole conversation so incredibly funny. Go tell a person serving a life-time jail sentence that what they are experiencing is not an objective reality. Day in and day out, the same cell, the same 24 hour cycle. A gazelle being eaten alive by a group of hyenas. A person jumping off a building to commit suicide. All of these things are simply illusions created by something, who knows what. Even though we don't know anything about THAT part, you are certain of it.
You've seen some goofy particles and have some fun mental puzzles to unlock so yeah, none of it is real!
I find this whole conversation so incredibly funny. Go tell a person serving a life-time jail sentence that what they are experiencing is not an objective reality. Day in and day out, the same cell, the same 24 hour cycle. A gazelle being eaten alive by a group of hyenas. A person jumping off a building to commit suicide. All of these things are simply illusions created by something, who knows what. Even though we don't know anything about THAT part, you are certain of it.
You've seen some goofy particles and have some fun mental puzzles to unlock so yeah, none of it is real!
There's undoubtedly shared aspects of reality and I don't think anyone seriously thinks psychedelics can produce water in a desert. I think the main benefit is psychedelics show you a different mental perspective on objective/shared reality and can shift your ego/identity in a radical way temporarily. Reality is "subjective" in the sense that your beliefs/identity/ego/brain-chemistry make up a huge part of your experience and those aspects can be altered dramatically. Telling someone serving a life sentence that could actually be useful to them. You see a lot of them turn to religion. That being said I eyeroll as well when someone says we're probably living in a simulation, but there is a lot we still don't know lol
The measurement problem is indeed profoundly weird and nobody has a good explanation for it. However, I doubt that you are going to be able to resolve quantum effects when discussing the temperature of two buckets of water.
[deleted]
>How do you know anything is objectively real and not a product of some brain process?
If that's true, then I know that brain processes are real.
If that's true, then I know that brain processes are real.
Brain doesn't have resources to simulate reality all the way down.
The brain does have the resources to do so, actually. This is variously called dreaming, psychosis, or similar.
Dreaming is a limited simulation, not on the level of reality.
How do you know? We haven't even established what reality is or whether it exists. For all you know, this entire argument could be a figment of your imagination and so could your perception of the rest of reality.
We established the magnitude of the avogadro number, objects so complex have no chance to fully fit in imagination.
So you're saying the fact that your imagination is limited is proof?
I believe in myself more than that, sorry.
[also again, how do you know the Avogadro constant is real?]
I believe in myself more than that, sorry.
[also again, how do you know the Avogadro constant is real?]
Beliefs have no effect on reality, sorry.
Not sure what you mean by real there, the Avogadro number expresses precision at which you need to simulate reality to get something believable and a brain simply isn't big enough for this in purely quantitative terms.
Not sure what you mean by real there, the Avogadro number expresses precision at which you need to simulate reality to get something believable and a brain simply isn't big enough for this in purely quantitative terms.
Beliefs are reality.
> a brain simply isn't big enough for this in purely quantitative terms [quotation needed].
And again, what if all of this, avogadro numbers, hacker news, your conception of reality all were a hallucination? How would you know? How can you definitely prove it is not?
> a brain simply isn't big enough for this in purely quantitative terms [quotation needed].
And again, what if all of this, avogadro numbers, hacker news, your conception of reality all were a hallucination? How would you know? How can you definitely prove it is not?
This resonates with me. A massive change in perspective. A second reason. Supposedly under very strong doses, psychedelics can result in massive reduction of the ego-centric systems in your brain, so you can experience life / nature “beyond” yourself and feel more connection. Some people can do this naturally and thus maybe don’t psychedelics. For others it’s very insightful.
How is the self-defeating skepticism lost on you? What reality? What molecules?
The only explanation that doesn't lead to absurdity is that drugs corrupt your perception. They interfere with and frustrate the healthy and proper operation of the brain and in doing so distort perception.
The only explanation that doesn't lead to absurdity is that drugs corrupt your perception. They interfere with and frustrate the healthy and proper operation of the brain and in doing so distort perception.
I guess one question I'd have is why you think your brain is "operating properly". It's definitely perceiving and constructing a narrative out of those perceptions, but that happens differently for every brain and it really doesn't seem like there's a perfect version of it that's "correct".
If you're willing to accept that you can't really rank or judge modes of mental experience quantitatively on some kind of non-relative scale (which would require access to a "reality" outside yourself), then it shouldn't be too much of a leap to say messing with how it functions within tolerable bounds could be more of an optimization (or equal but just different) to your experience.
If you're willing to accept that you can't really rank or judge modes of mental experience quantitatively on some kind of non-relative scale (which would require access to a "reality" outside yourself), then it shouldn't be too much of a leap to say messing with how it functions within tolerable bounds could be more of an optimization (or equal but just different) to your experience.
You're still not seeing the contradiction between making truth claims and having beliefs and the skeptical position you're entertaining. By your own standards, I could ask how you know there's something called a brain, that it has something to do with perception, etc. Maybe you hallucinated the brain? Maybe it's just some weird belief you have? Maybe hallucinations aren't a thing? How do you know what other brains do or don't do differently? And why can't some of them be wrong?
Attaching doubt to things "just because" isn't rational and cannot be resolved rationally precisely because such doubts are not rationally motivated. If I say to you "I doubt that you are here", for no reason other than some arbitrary skepticism about my perceptual faculties, then there is no way that that doubt can rationally be resolved. The very idea of hallucination presumes a normative perception. That we can know that we can misperceive or be subject to illusions itself presumes that we can tell the difference. Otherwise, we are just positing idle and detached possibilities while tacitly, and paradoxically, drawing on various convictions about the real.
Attaching doubt to things "just because" isn't rational and cannot be resolved rationally precisely because such doubts are not rationally motivated. If I say to you "I doubt that you are here", for no reason other than some arbitrary skepticism about my perceptual faculties, then there is no way that that doubt can rationally be resolved. The very idea of hallucination presumes a normative perception. That we can know that we can misperceive or be subject to illusions itself presumes that we can tell the difference. Otherwise, we are just positing idle and detached possibilities while tacitly, and paradoxically, drawing on various convictions about the real.
There's no truth claims. The point is that under the influence of psychedelics, you realize you can't know the truth.
I understand you're looking at it from a scientific point of view, but the discussion is not scientific. Consciousness is probably the hardest body of knowledge to integrate with science. Nobody knows where consciousness comes from. Nobody knows how to measure it.
I can tell you: "I'm conscious and aware", but there's no way I can prove to you I'm not a philosophical zombie(someone that acts like it's conscious, but isn't). Currently, there's no way to measure consciousness.
>By your own standards, I could ask how you know there's something called a brain, that it has something to do with perception, etc. Maybe you hallucinated the brain? Maybe it's just some weird belief you have? Maybe hallucinations aren't a thing? How do you know what other brains do or don't do differently? And why can't some of them be wrong?
I think you nailed it. I don't know whether there's a brain, or if there is something else, and this something else is hallucinating this reality where there is a brain, or maybe something else entirely. Sure, we can make scientific claims about stuff when analyzing the reality within the bounds of our perception, but if you try to go beyondg that, you're own your own.
I understand you're looking at it from a scientific point of view, but the discussion is not scientific. Consciousness is probably the hardest body of knowledge to integrate with science. Nobody knows where consciousness comes from. Nobody knows how to measure it.
I can tell you: "I'm conscious and aware", but there's no way I can prove to you I'm not a philosophical zombie(someone that acts like it's conscious, but isn't). Currently, there's no way to measure consciousness.
>By your own standards, I could ask how you know there's something called a brain, that it has something to do with perception, etc. Maybe you hallucinated the brain? Maybe it's just some weird belief you have? Maybe hallucinations aren't a thing? How do you know what other brains do or don't do differently? And why can't some of them be wrong?
I think you nailed it. I don't know whether there's a brain, or if there is something else, and this something else is hallucinating this reality where there is a brain, or maybe something else entirely. Sure, we can make scientific claims about stuff when analyzing the reality within the bounds of our perception, but if you try to go beyondg that, you're own your own.
>I can tell you: "I'm conscious and aware", but there's no way I can prove to you I'm not a philosophical zombie(someone that acts like it's conscious, but isn't).
You can't prove that to yourself either, because a zombie has the same thoughts as you. You can't differentiate even subjectively whether you're a zombie or not.
You can't prove that to yourself either, because a zombie has the same thoughts as you. You can't differentiate even subjectively whether you're a zombie or not.
Interesting idea, but I'm not sure I follow completely. Philosophical zombies may have the same "thoughts", but they do not have qualia, they act like they do, but they don't.
As for me, I'm pretty sure I have qualia. I've been watching this movie called "my life" ever since I was born. If I were to be a philosophical zombie, it all would have passed in the dark.
I think the phrase "I think, therefore I am" is the essence here. A philosophical zombie does not "think". It looks like they do, but it's just a deterministic result of neurochemichal events going on in a brain that lives in the dark. Something like a neural network for instance. They can exhibit thought-like behavior without experiencing anything(as far as we know).
I think the phrase "I think, therefore I am" is the essence here. A philosophical zombie does not "think". It looks like they do, but it's just a deterministic result of neurochemichal events going on in a brain that lives in the dark. Something like a neural network for instance. They can exhibit thought-like behavior without experiencing anything(as far as we know).
If a zombie could detect it doesn't have thoughts, it would report about it. This can be done with reflection. If a zombie can't do reflection, that would be an observable functional difference from human, which is not allowed by definition. Therefore a zombie knows it has thoughts the same way a human knows it. A zombie only doesn't have qualia based on the assumption that it's possible to think without qualia.
If you have thoughts, you can't doubt whether or not you have thoughts. In order to do so you need to doubt yourself, which is a thought.
Did you answer to the right comment? I mean you can't prove you're not a zombie, thoughts don't help with this, because a zombie has all the same thoughts.
A zombie has no thoughts, that's the point.
If astronauts can have their worldview changed by going to space why can't a psychedelic experience do the same. Both are just a new perspective.
100%. To abstract it even further, I have some defining moments from my teens that are monumental to me and uneventful at best to everyone else. Gaining perspective is largely an individual experience, it's just that some things seem to have more influence in sparking a change in perspective than others
I think one thing it can do is allow you to view things with fewer of the biases, assumptions and other mental stuff you've accumulated over the years. Having a fresh (childlike?) view of things can give you a newfound appreciation for many things (e.g. the environment).
> You know you're taking a drug that reliably induces feelings of "oceanic connectedness". Why should you change your worldview as a result?
Isn't that a little bit like saying that you shouldn't change your views after reading a book, if you are aware that the book commonly changes views?
> You know you're taking a drug that reliably induces feelings of "oceanic connectedness". Why should you change your worldview as a result?
Isn't that a little bit like saying that you shouldn't change your views after reading a book, if you are aware that the book commonly changes views?
> Isn't that a little bit like saying that you shouldn't change your views after reading a book, if you are aware that the book commonly changes views?
No, it's closer to changing your belief from "chocolate is bad for you" to "chocolate is good for you" after having a particularly good-tasting piece of chocolate. Unlike reading a book on the health benefits of chocolate, your change in belief does not logically follow from your experiences, at least not in an obvious way. Since drugs aren't going to alter your priors, it seems as though the change in belief is purely emotionally driven. Which is odd.
No, it's closer to changing your belief from "chocolate is bad for you" to "chocolate is good for you" after having a particularly good-tasting piece of chocolate. Unlike reading a book on the health benefits of chocolate, your change in belief does not logically follow from your experiences, at least not in an obvious way. Since drugs aren't going to alter your priors, it seems as though the change in belief is purely emotionally driven. Which is odd.
experiences and emotions are relevant evidence which can change your beliefs
Not only that, but the fact that consuming a chemical can make your consciousness feel so different always felt to me like pretty good evidence that consciousness is material.
I do think there are rational realizations that rational people can come to under the influence of psychedelics, that they might not otherwise, though.
I do think there are rational realizations that rational people can come to under the influence of psychedelics, that they might not otherwise, though.
Why can't consciousness be from both the material and the immaterial?
If a chemical alters perception, that just shows that consciousness is strongly affected by the material, but other non-contradictory hypotheses aren't thus disproven.
If a chemical alters perception, that just shows that consciousness is strongly affected by the material, but other non-contradictory hypotheses aren't thus disproven.
Sure, it could be. I never said otherwise.
However, I am unsure what good evidence for a corresponding immaterial part might look like.
However, I am unsure what good evidence for a corresponding immaterial part might look like.
If you're looking for physical evidence, perhaps brain signals that don't have a material origin? But that would be very difficult to establish.
I think a better approach is philosophical, by considering the nature of thought and the spoken word.
I think a better approach is philosophical, by considering the nature of thought and the spoken word.
I'm not sure I see why. Dreams tend to be unstable, but if a dream were particularly stable, and a certain behavior in the dream reliably triggered a certain insight (say, a dream sign that triggered lucidity), would that be evidence that consciousness was produced by the "material" in the dream?
In the same way, if this is a dream of sorts, the fact that certain dream behaviors can trigger certain changes in experience is also internally consistent. Of course, this "dream" has much greater stability to it, but the basic idea holds.
In the same way, if this is a dream of sorts, the fact that certain dream behaviors can trigger certain changes in experience is also internally consistent. Of course, this "dream" has much greater stability to it, but the basic idea holds.
If you can develop a robust system of testable explanations for the material reality of your dream world that hold consistently true where/when this is all happening then maybe your question would be useful.
There is complex physiology going on producing a consciousness (so it seems to me) that can be altered when that physiology is altered. We can see at least some of this physiology. Suggesting all that physiology in our world is actually happening in the dream world of some other being doesn't seem very interesting as it still leaves us here in the same material (as we can measure it) reality that science is... still pretty damn good at describing. So why even bring it up? If there's evidence that points us that way, cool, otherwise, Occam's razor seems better.
There is complex physiology going on producing a consciousness (so it seems to me) that can be altered when that physiology is altered. We can see at least some of this physiology. Suggesting all that physiology in our world is actually happening in the dream world of some other being doesn't seem very interesting as it still leaves us here in the same material (as we can measure it) reality that science is... still pretty damn good at describing. So why even bring it up? If there's evidence that points us that way, cool, otherwise, Occam's razor seems better.
Why do you believe in rational people?
I thought it was a useful label to describe a set of people who would make an effort not to settle for supernatural explanations
We only use a minute amount of our brain. Supernatural is a state of dystopia set out by the Religious zealots to rationalise their inability to understand anything not fed to them by their sacred books.
Rational rediscovered the power of psychedelics that aboriginal cultures all over the world have been using since the dawn of time to bring clarity to nature, ones place in it, and the universe.
https://maps.org/2004/08/08/nobel-prize-genius-crick-was-hig...
Simple put, psychedelics are used throughout the animal kingdom by all species for this same type of enlightnement. Arguments can be made that mushrooms brought about human evolution by waking us up to our own conciseness. We are the first generation of people to be tainted by the War On Drugs. And we will be the last to have forgotten it.
https://www.inverse.com/article/34186-stoned-ape-hypothesis
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/dolphins-seem-to-u...
Unfortunately, our generation has grown up being fed properganda about how Drugs are bad and religious is the saviour and the only pure way to live.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caesar%27s_Messiah
One just needs to look at MDMAs effectiveness on treating PSTD with Gods version of treatment that covers up the trauma with religion instead of unwinding it from the mind.
https://adf.org.au/insights/mdma-ptsd/ Source from gods chrous themselves where they claim MDMA and ecstasy arn't the same thing now because science is showing its "positive uses" - even though every "Just Say No" ad i saw as a child insisted they were both going to fry my brain into an egg.
These substances will not produce profound effects when taken recreationally - no healer from any aboriginal culture will claim that. They are to be taken with intent, with specific settings under specific conditions in a variety of doses for you to gain a better understand of oneself.
https://maps.org/2004/08/08/nobel-prize-genius-crick-was-hig...
Simple put, psychedelics are used throughout the animal kingdom by all species for this same type of enlightnement. Arguments can be made that mushrooms brought about human evolution by waking us up to our own conciseness. We are the first generation of people to be tainted by the War On Drugs. And we will be the last to have forgotten it.
https://www.inverse.com/article/34186-stoned-ape-hypothesis
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/dolphins-seem-to-u...
Unfortunately, our generation has grown up being fed properganda about how Drugs are bad and religious is the saviour and the only pure way to live.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caesar%27s_Messiah
One just needs to look at MDMAs effectiveness on treating PSTD with Gods version of treatment that covers up the trauma with religion instead of unwinding it from the mind.
https://adf.org.au/insights/mdma-ptsd/ Source from gods chrous themselves where they claim MDMA and ecstasy arn't the same thing now because science is showing its "positive uses" - even though every "Just Say No" ad i saw as a child insisted they were both going to fry my brain into an egg.
These substances will not produce profound effects when taken recreationally - no healer from any aboriginal culture will claim that. They are to be taken with intent, with specific settings under specific conditions in a variety of doses for you to gain a better understand of oneself.
> These substances will not produce profound effects when taken recreationally
This claim, at the very least, is false.
This claim, at the very least, is false.
There is some interesting research[1] accounting for this via analogy to annealing: essentially that while using psychedelics (or a variety of other situations), a kind of disordering occurs that opens up an alternate phase of neural behavior where it's more possible to change course; then, after the trip (or whatever caused you to enter this more disordered state where free energy is higher), there is a "cooling" phase and some new order is arrived at.
[1] https://www.qualiaresearchinstitute.org/blog/neural-annealin...
[1] https://www.qualiaresearchinstitute.org/blog/neural-annealin...
I think it’s because it opens up the narrative part of our brains.
Why are stories powerful?
The material world is the facts. It could be intoxicated man driving his car dies crashing into telephone pole. If the other facts could be he had just finished robbing someone and being abusive to a woman and then got in his car, your mind tells a story about “justice”.
Maybe the facts were he was a gay man who just came out to his conservative parents and they disowned him and he got drunk and drove into the pole out of sorrow. The story becomes “injustice”, “tragedy”.
But justice, tragedy, injustice aren’t material things. Psychedelics tend to set your mind on these things, and give meaning to what we’re just material facts. The meaning of them may or may not be true, but pondering on them and thinking about their meaning is sure to change your worldview (ie the root of meaning or how you “perceive” the world.)
Why are stories powerful?
The material world is the facts. It could be intoxicated man driving his car dies crashing into telephone pole. If the other facts could be he had just finished robbing someone and being abusive to a woman and then got in his car, your mind tells a story about “justice”.
Maybe the facts were he was a gay man who just came out to his conservative parents and they disowned him and he got drunk and drove into the pole out of sorrow. The story becomes “injustice”, “tragedy”.
But justice, tragedy, injustice aren’t material things. Psychedelics tend to set your mind on these things, and give meaning to what we’re just material facts. The meaning of them may or may not be true, but pondering on them and thinking about their meaning is sure to change your worldview (ie the root of meaning or how you “perceive” the world.)
I had the same view until I tried dmt. With dmt, you can easily find a "break through" dose. This is the point where your consciousness stops being a disinterested spectator and gets sucked into the experience. The moment your consciousness gets pulled in is extremely disconcerting, I'd never felt anything like it (including other psychedelics).
The resulting experiences are basically religious visions (I'm an atheist). Often, an entity appears and reveals a vision.
> Maybe it's that psychedelics also induce feelings of having discovered something important, and a lot of people don't try to double-check whether they actually did.
I think psychedelics solidify or clarify feelings or ideas that you previously had. Lots of people take them as evidence of their superstitious feelings. For me, not being superstitious, they did not have that effect but they did clarify my worldview.
The resulting experiences are basically religious visions (I'm an atheist). Often, an entity appears and reveals a vision.
> Maybe it's that psychedelics also induce feelings of having discovered something important, and a lot of people don't try to double-check whether they actually did.
I think psychedelics solidify or clarify feelings or ideas that you previously had. Lots of people take them as evidence of their superstitious feelings. For me, not being superstitious, they did not have that effect but they did clarify my worldview.
I can only imagine how deeply connected your spiritual upbringing would be to the trip experience. So many shamanistic traditions have guides that are there to teach you the lore to prime you so you understand/have the right experience.
We don't qualify experiences by consistency with convention so much as intensity. Call it unreasonable but there you go.
So if you have a strange and intense experience then your ideas about stuff are appropriately modified. Even if the experience and ideas don't align with convention/consensus/etc.
So if you have a strange and intense experience then your ideas about stuff are appropriately modified. Even if the experience and ideas don't align with convention/consensus/etc.
Many people are naive realists. For them a trip is truth, not a chemically induced hallucination. And they always describe trips as truth.
Is it a surprise that drugs induce chemical changes that affect perception, sometimes permanently? I've always wondered what is it isn't that it shows you something that makes people almost universally come to the same conclusions about reality.. what if it just flips a switch?
The similarity in thought I see among different users of psychedelics is just so big. Why should it be a surprise that it's chemical? Opiates can flip a switch in your brain that makes you way more habituated than a natural stimulus with the same level of pleasure(ie heroin users will say they don't like it any more they like spending time with their kids, but still will neglect their kids to do heroin because they can't say no). Marijuana can trigger latent psychological issues in those who are at risk. Maybe psychedelics pushes some switch that makes people think differently, even if they're aware of it and trying to convince themselves otherwise?
The similarity in thought I see among different users of psychedelics is just so big. Why should it be a surprise that it's chemical? Opiates can flip a switch in your brain that makes you way more habituated than a natural stimulus with the same level of pleasure(ie heroin users will say they don't like it any more they like spending time with their kids, but still will neglect their kids to do heroin because they can't say no). Marijuana can trigger latent psychological issues in those who are at risk. Maybe psychedelics pushes some switch that makes people think differently, even if they're aware of it and trying to convince themselves otherwise?
Try getting there without the drugs, it's not difficult. It might require a weekend workshop or two, but it's quite doable.
Of course, this will also open up new horizons for doubt, too. Ymmv.
Of course, this will also open up new horizons for doubt, too. Ymmv.
Psychedelics don't just give you certain insights/thoughts/ideas, they do so while causing a very intense euphoric experience. I think that's what actually makes it stick. Not that different from religious prayer/meditation, which is strongly euphoric as well.
Intense dreams have toppled empires.
Knowing the experience was triggered by a known substance doesn't mean you should throw out the entirety as some sort of manufactured sensation separated from reality.
Knowing the experience was triggered by a known substance doesn't mean you should throw out the entirety as some sort of manufactured sensation separated from reality.
Or it produces such severe distortions that it leads people to bizarre conclusions.
You seem to think a persons worldview is under their control
The important discovery people make is lucid awareness a chemical did this to them
Unlike booze where you black out
Whether the brain gives rise to us it’s a medium that exists and it can’t be discounted it has a lot to do with our awareness
That we can be just chemistry is the shift in metaphysical belief I came away with
The oceanic connectedness being we’re all just a few micrograms of this or that from being the same. That perception of uniqueness is not uniqueness
The important discovery people make is lucid awareness a chemical did this to them
Unlike booze where you black out
Whether the brain gives rise to us it’s a medium that exists and it can’t be discounted it has a lot to do with our awareness
That we can be just chemistry is the shift in metaphysical belief I came away with
The oceanic connectedness being we’re all just a few micrograms of this or that from being the same. That perception of uniqueness is not uniqueness
I used to be a pretty frequent psychedelic user. These results sound right to me.
I would've considered panpsychism to be totally absurd before I discovered LSD, for instance. Now it's my daily driver.
I would've considered panpsychism to be totally absurd before I discovered LSD, for instance. Now it's my daily driver.
I've had the same experience. Can't shake the idea that `consciousness == god` and we are all tiny manifestations of this "essence", after some psychedelic trips.
My rational mind always goes back to atheism when sober, but the idea is always there in the back of my mind.
My rational mind always goes back to atheism when sober, but the idea is always there in the back of my mind.
Alan Watts is an excellent writer and speaker, absolutely worth reading and listening to. I can't help but feeling that the video wraps his speech into a pathos of melancholic, "full of emotions" song married to a meaningless set of disjointed clips.
I'd recommend reading his books, The Way of Zen was excellent.
I'd recommend reading his books, The Way of Zen was excellent.
I have to admit I might have been influenced by "The Egg" before. I hadn't seen the Alan Watts poem before, but that somehow has just put me to tears. Thanks for sharing.
Perhaps this is self-delusion on my part, but I've had no trouble integrating materialism/atheism with what you're describing — that kind of psychedelic panpsychism. They don't feel like competing claims.
I don't mean the usual anthropomorphic god. It's just that once you accept that consciousness is a fundamental property of the universe, it's not a big leap to think that it's god(not in the sense of "god, the creator", but in the sense of "god, the consciousness that is and that experiences the universe").
The big leap is that consciousness is a fundamental property of the universe.
Per your description below ("god, the consciousness that is and that experiences the universe") I would have pegged you as an idealist (god is and dreams the universe), not a panpsychist.
To be honest, I'm don't know much about philosophy of the mind. From the very little I've read right know, probably my current view is closer to cosmopsychism, maybe?
This is what I just read: "but the difference is that for the analytic idealist the universal mind is a reality which underlies the physical world, whereas for the cosmopsychist the universal mind is the physical universe."
This is what I just read: "but the difference is that for the analytic idealist the universal mind is a reality which underlies the physical world, whereas for the cosmopsychist the universal mind is the physical universe."
I think panpsychism just needs to be explained well and probably most people would be onboard with the idea or at least comfortable accepting it. I thought it was a little wild at first but after reading "Galileo's Error" by Phillip Goff it seems ok. Panspychism it self covers so many theories too.
In my personal experience psychedelic use seemed to almost solidify materialism for me. The idea that reality, your self and soul is nothing but an illusion is uncomfortable but I think tripping can reinforce that idea.
In my personal experience psychedelic use seemed to almost solidify materialism for me. The idea that reality, your self and soul is nothing but an illusion is uncomfortable but I think tripping can reinforce that idea.
how does it reinforce/solidity materialism for you?
During my first lsd trip, I was sitting on a rock in the park, and I'm not sure what happened or why, but suddenly my entire reality fell apart, disintegrated into a bright light and small pieces, and I became intensely aware of how we are seemingly are just built up from particles that came together. I think those pieces were the atoms and molecules that came together to create my experience of the world.
Less about the psychedelic experience itself. I also think that the existence of these drugs show that someone's reality is constructed from chemicals and cells doing what they do. Psychedelics are like throwing a wrench in a machine. The chemicals and mechanics are working differently now and the conscious experience changes with it. Depending on the drug introduced the perception changes, or consider some drugs like anesthetics where you can be awake and responsive but not have any personal awareness of whats going on.
On DMT trips I felt abstract thought fall apart along with the idea of my self(Ego death maybe?). I couldn't form ideas, and there was no longer an idea of self. "I" didn't exist. But this happens because a chemical is introduced into a system that is generating a conscious experience and it changes because of it. A typical brain creates these abstract ideas, your self identity, interprets senses in a certain way. That's the illusion created.
Since drugs being introduced into the system can turn off that sense of self, I, your soul(anesthesia, ego death) I don't think dualism is really applicable, the mind seems to be generated by the brain/body and its chemicals.
Hope i explained my self alright, not a topic I get to talk or think about much
Less about the psychedelic experience itself. I also think that the existence of these drugs show that someone's reality is constructed from chemicals and cells doing what they do. Psychedelics are like throwing a wrench in a machine. The chemicals and mechanics are working differently now and the conscious experience changes with it. Depending on the drug introduced the perception changes, or consider some drugs like anesthetics where you can be awake and responsive but not have any personal awareness of whats going on.
On DMT trips I felt abstract thought fall apart along with the idea of my self(Ego death maybe?). I couldn't form ideas, and there was no longer an idea of self. "I" didn't exist. But this happens because a chemical is introduced into a system that is generating a conscious experience and it changes because of it. A typical brain creates these abstract ideas, your self identity, interprets senses in a certain way. That's the illusion created.
Since drugs being introduced into the system can turn off that sense of self, I, your soul(anesthesia, ego death) I don't think dualism is really applicable, the mind seems to be generated by the brain/body and its chemicals.
Hope i explained my self alright, not a topic I get to talk or think about much
I think my psychedelic experiences mirror yours quite well, and it has led to me reaching much the same conclusion, though you've put it into words much better than I've ever been able to.
Have you ever experienced your sense of time becoming immaterial? I've had one such trip where I genuinely believed that time stopped, and I was present in some eternal plane, though my ego no longer was present. I can definitely see how such an experience could lead someone down a path of panpsychism.
Have you ever experienced your sense of time becoming immaterial? I've had one such trip where I genuinely believed that time stopped, and I was present in some eternal plane, though my ego no longer was present. I can definitely see how such an experience could lead someone down a path of panpsychism.
Thanks! And no I actually haven't, the only time changes I experienced was those moments where your like wow it's only been 20 minutes
Can you elaborate on panpsychism being your daily driver? Wikipedia article suggests it has something to do with minds being present throughout the universe. Are we talking animals? Rocks? Everything? Computers?
Sure.
I once wrote a paper for epistemology class (https://github.com/MatrixManAtYrService/Righting/blob/master...). In it I argue that there is a category of propositions that are knowably unknowable. These are things that we know that we will never be able to know. One example of such a proposition is:
> We're living in a simulation that's too complete for us to escape
You can believe it, or you can disbelieve it, and neither stance is more rational than the other. Beliefs in such a space can't be motivated by evidence, so they have to be motivated by something else--like whether they cause you to live the kind of life that you want to be living, or maybe you just think it's fun. My beliefs re: panpsychism are like this. I don't anticipate ever being able to prove them, nor do I expect to run into evidence that disproves them. They go something like this:
I like to imagine that there is more than one temporal dimension. When we humans have cause to believe that a certain part of the universe has a mind, it's because that part of the universe is doing something that creates an arrow of time that is parallel to our own. Its future is also our future. This lets us communicate with it (maybe).
By contrast, when we encounter a rock or a lightning bolt or something that you'd generally call dead. Well, whatever machinations that part of the universe is having towards supporting its experience--they create an arrow of time that is orthogonal to ours, so we can't communicate with them. It's not so much that each rock is alive, or each lightning bolt, but that the whole universe is alive. The part of the universe that I get go call myself has come up with names for the other parts, but those names are just part of the story that I tell myself. Other perspectives might group things into entities worth naming in other ways. Maybe what I call "my" behavior is functioning like a neuron in something... else.
I like to mess with people who are having arguments about abortion: I believe that life begins not at conception, not at birth, but at the big bang. There are very few ways that this belief affects my life, but it does occasionally motivate me to meditate. If I can get my own thoughts to settle down for a while I feel like I can tap into a bigger awareness. It's not having any thoughts that I can decipher, but it feels nice anyhow.
I once wrote a paper for epistemology class (https://github.com/MatrixManAtYrService/Righting/blob/master...). In it I argue that there is a category of propositions that are knowably unknowable. These are things that we know that we will never be able to know. One example of such a proposition is:
> We're living in a simulation that's too complete for us to escape
You can believe it, or you can disbelieve it, and neither stance is more rational than the other. Beliefs in such a space can't be motivated by evidence, so they have to be motivated by something else--like whether they cause you to live the kind of life that you want to be living, or maybe you just think it's fun. My beliefs re: panpsychism are like this. I don't anticipate ever being able to prove them, nor do I expect to run into evidence that disproves them. They go something like this:
I like to imagine that there is more than one temporal dimension. When we humans have cause to believe that a certain part of the universe has a mind, it's because that part of the universe is doing something that creates an arrow of time that is parallel to our own. Its future is also our future. This lets us communicate with it (maybe).
By contrast, when we encounter a rock or a lightning bolt or something that you'd generally call dead. Well, whatever machinations that part of the universe is having towards supporting its experience--they create an arrow of time that is orthogonal to ours, so we can't communicate with them. It's not so much that each rock is alive, or each lightning bolt, but that the whole universe is alive. The part of the universe that I get go call myself has come up with names for the other parts, but those names are just part of the story that I tell myself. Other perspectives might group things into entities worth naming in other ways. Maybe what I call "my" behavior is functioning like a neuron in something... else.
I like to mess with people who are having arguments about abortion: I believe that life begins not at conception, not at birth, but at the big bang. There are very few ways that this belief affects my life, but it does occasionally motivate me to meditate. If I can get my own thoughts to settle down for a while I feel like I can tap into a bigger awareness. It's not having any thoughts that I can decipher, but it feels nice anyhow.
This might sound strangely obvious, but some report that somehow they obtain much deeper insight into motivations and intent of others.
a different, fresh point of view, a heightened sense of empathy?
a different, fresh point of view, a heightened sense of empathy?
Same. A trip answered all my questions.
Psilocybin has been a profound catalyst for change in my life. Macro + micro dosing both offer distinct benefits.
Can’t imagine life without it now. I feel enlightened and awakened. Alive for the first time in a long time.
Can’t imagine life without it now. I feel enlightened and awakened. Alive for the first time in a long time.
How has microdosing helped? Or I should say, what benefits does microdosing confer that macrodosing doesn't?
I was surprised by this - but microdosing has had a more profound effect on my daily life than macrodosing. After a very long and arduous journey with therapist(s), psychiatrist(s), counseling, etc… I finally decided to trust myself and take my own well-being into my own hands: cultivating my own medicine at home. During the entire process I was convinced macrodosing would be the most helpful and microdosing would just be a nice fun thing to try. I was wrong.
Microdosing helps me every day in my everyday encounters - I don’t have a negative voice in my mind, I can think about things from a more logical vantage point versus getting caught up in emotions or triggers.
Macrodosing to me can best be describes as getting a UART debug port to your brain. It’s also helped me develop (or perhaps in my case: expose/identify/become aware of) my mind-body connection. Sometimes for an entire trip I’ll just foam roll, meditate and try and unwind years of abuse and trauma on my body. I got into a lot of accidents in my youth and my conditioning led me to ignore the needs of my body to recover properly.
One downside to macrodosing (for me) has been the vasoconstrictive effect of psilocybin. Long story short, I’m particularly susceptible to this and it can crush me. A big 5g Terrence McKenna ego-death dose can basically put me right to sleep due to the way my neck and muscles will get so tight that I can’t breath and essentially chokehold myself. Benadryl has been a helpful tool in this scenario.
All this being said - I haven’t measured this stuff scientifically so who really knows. But I do feel more compassion for everyone and I am able to observe things in others that used to bother me tremendously from a place of non-judgement. I see the journey that I am on, and I can see the journey that everyone else is on too. I can hold those in my mind without judgement, and it gives me strength where before I would have been perturbed.
If anyone has questions please don’t hesitate to email me privately. This medicine can and will change the world.
Microdosing helps me every day in my everyday encounters - I don’t have a negative voice in my mind, I can think about things from a more logical vantage point versus getting caught up in emotions or triggers.
Macrodosing to me can best be describes as getting a UART debug port to your brain. It’s also helped me develop (or perhaps in my case: expose/identify/become aware of) my mind-body connection. Sometimes for an entire trip I’ll just foam roll, meditate and try and unwind years of abuse and trauma on my body. I got into a lot of accidents in my youth and my conditioning led me to ignore the needs of my body to recover properly.
One downside to macrodosing (for me) has been the vasoconstrictive effect of psilocybin. Long story short, I’m particularly susceptible to this and it can crush me. A big 5g Terrence McKenna ego-death dose can basically put me right to sleep due to the way my neck and muscles will get so tight that I can’t breath and essentially chokehold myself. Benadryl has been a helpful tool in this scenario.
All this being said - I haven’t measured this stuff scientifically so who really knows. But I do feel more compassion for everyone and I am able to observe things in others that used to bother me tremendously from a place of non-judgement. I see the journey that I am on, and I can see the journey that everyone else is on too. I can hold those in my mind without judgement, and it gives me strength where before I would have been perturbed.
If anyone has questions please don’t hesitate to email me privately. This medicine can and will change the world.
I really enjoy practicing breathing and going for hikes to connect with the plants and landscape (and in many ways with my cells too which are finally in their natural habitats) when I'm on lsd.
I feel like a key distinguishing factor between microdosing and macrodosing appears to be the crossing into a certain boundary of uncontrolablity (both physiologically and in terms of the mental anatomy of the processes) in the spectrum of conscious control (from a cybernetic perspective?)
I’m caffeine-sensitive so microdosing is definitely a better alternative to cope with city life. I'm still practicing not to lose my narrative and get carried away by noises, bright lights, odor and unintended emotions.
Macrodosing-wise, I find being mathematically minded, etc, to be immensely useful. I've been in a quest to formalise the effect of thc (eg as performing a natural transformation to the attention mechanism in the brain) though I feel like this is only touching the surface as lsd/psilocybin/etc would always demonstrate how the world of qualia is much stranger than one can imagine.
I feel like a key distinguishing factor between microdosing and macrodosing appears to be the crossing into a certain boundary of uncontrolablity (both physiologically and in terms of the mental anatomy of the processes) in the spectrum of conscious control (from a cybernetic perspective?)
I’m caffeine-sensitive so microdosing is definitely a better alternative to cope with city life. I'm still practicing not to lose my narrative and get carried away by noises, bright lights, odor and unintended emotions.
Macrodosing-wise, I find being mathematically minded, etc, to be immensely useful. I've been in a quest to formalise the effect of thc (eg as performing a natural transformation to the attention mechanism in the brain) though I feel like this is only touching the surface as lsd/psilocybin/etc would always demonstrate how the world of qualia is much stranger than one can imagine.
Astute observations… I’ve heard similar from someone who microdoses and pole dances for hours on end. She’s an interesting gal to say the least but incredibly tapped into the fungal experience and that trajectory of personal growth.
Really appreciate this comment, thank you.
Really appreciate this comment, thank you.
Not OP, but I dabbled in shroom microdosing for a month years ago. One effect I noticed was the resurfacing of long forgotten mental notes/tasks which not only were bubbling up to the surface, but also became impossible to ignore, forcing them to take priority and get done, for better or worse.
“To most people who are even moderately experienced with entheogens, concepts such as awe, sacredness, eternity, grace, agape, transcendence, transfiguration, dark night of the soul, born-again, heaven and hell are more than theological ideas; they are experiences.” - Thomas Roberts
This phrase is quoted in "Sacred Knowledge: Psychedelics and Religious Experiences" by William A. Richards (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28121728-sacred-knowledg...), yet I find it the most suitable summary of this overview of scientific research on psychedelics and religion.
We hear about mystical visions from LSD ("acid"), psilocybin ("shrooms"), and DMT from many "spiritual but not religious" people and self-proclaimed shamans. But how does it relate to vision by ordinary people (ones who never tired, and wouldn't try if it weren't for legal, scientific research)? And how does it relate to prayer, mediation, and mystical visions by Christians, Jews, Buddhists, and Hinduists? How do monks and priests compare their psychedelic experience with their regular practice? Do they all turn to Zen Buddhism, or entrench in their religious background?
Regardless if you are deeply religious, or a non-spiritual atheist, I believe you will reconsider a few things after reading this book.
This phrase is quoted in "Sacred Knowledge: Psychedelics and Religious Experiences" by William A. Richards (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28121728-sacred-knowledg...), yet I find it the most suitable summary of this overview of scientific research on psychedelics and religion.
We hear about mystical visions from LSD ("acid"), psilocybin ("shrooms"), and DMT from many "spiritual but not religious" people and self-proclaimed shamans. But how does it relate to vision by ordinary people (ones who never tired, and wouldn't try if it weren't for legal, scientific research)? And how does it relate to prayer, mediation, and mystical visions by Christians, Jews, Buddhists, and Hinduists? How do monks and priests compare their psychedelic experience with their regular practice? Do they all turn to Zen Buddhism, or entrench in their religious background?
Regardless if you are deeply religious, or a non-spiritual atheist, I believe you will reconsider a few things after reading this book.
My experience has been that just as fast as the walls come down, the mind builds them back up.
Reminds me of this section from a fantastic trip report:
"My hardcore materialist atheism was beginning to be challenged. But my identity was so solidly based on my materialist atheism that I soon attributed the entire experience to merely a "drug trip" with no meaning for my life!
Perhaps the greatest lesson here is that. No matter what you experience, your identity can write it off as unreal if it conflicts with who you think you are."
http://tafkajestdr.blogspot.com/2013/01/intro-to-tafka-jestd...
"My hardcore materialist atheism was beginning to be challenged. But my identity was so solidly based on my materialist atheism that I soon attributed the entire experience to merely a "drug trip" with no meaning for my life!
Perhaps the greatest lesson here is that. No matter what you experience, your identity can write it off as unreal if it conflicts with who you think you are."
http://tafkajestdr.blogspot.com/2013/01/intro-to-tafka-jestd...
Isn’t it Bayesian? If you experience a few trips here and there, the sum amount of time spent in that version of reality is dwarfed by that of sober experience. So while those experiences do contribute to your understanding of reality, it’s unlikely to be dominated by it.
I think experiences should be weighted by their perceived importance -- and a large number of psychedelic users have reported a trip as being one of the most important events of their lives. However, I can't find the citation for this right now.
Huh, sounds like Dana Scully.
That’s an interesting take about the walls. I’ve always thought of it more like pathways. There are certain pathways of thought and action that I tend to take on a daily basis. Those pathways get pretty well worn in which makes it all the more easier to continue taking those pathways even if they aren’t serving me well. Experimenting with psychedelics has been a great way of showing me that there are other pathways or even that I can pave my own, but in order to actually not go back to my old habits entirely afterwards and ways of thinking after the trip, I have to make a conscious effort into choosing to take the new pathways that I discovered on the trip. It’s not usually some big profound change, but I think that following some of those new paths and wearing them in has had a positive influence in my life in ways that can continue.
With some of my more profound psychedelic experiences, I’ve found that there’s a little bit of an afterglow effect where for a couple days, I feel like the trip I had, that has since worn off, is still totally valid and profound and meaningful. That, I’d say, is the best time to start incorporating some new habits or practices (or maybe getting rid of some old baggage), before the walls start to go back up.
You're absolutely right. And I did take some positive steps forward. It's just that for a brief moment after the trip, everything seemed manageable and any question seemed answerable. But then the feeling faded and my old being immediately clouded everything. To use your words, the old paths appeared.
sometimes, you can build different walls
and sometimes, when the walls came down, so did the roof, which ripped out the electrical supply, destroyed the plumbing and ruined all the floors. you don't have a house anymore, just a pile of disorganized raw material and you realize you don't know anything about house construction.
Those can take a while to come back from, and are not always comfortable, but I've never regretted having gone through the exercise.
That was intense.
Increase your dosage. Try climbing the ladder to a stronger experience. If you get to Bufo and your opinions are still in tact then settle on this.
[deleted]
Ladders and hallucinogens do not mix
Ha ha. You just need to tear them down better. And psychedelics definitely have their limits.
I recommend meditation.
http://fleen.org/howto
I recommend meditation.
http://fleen.org/howto
I know of three spiritual teachers who describe psychedelics as a door to the spiritual world.
Ram Dass the Jewish Psychology Professor at Harvard/Hippie/Hindu. See his famous book Be Here Now. [1] He passed away last year
Fr. Stephen De Young and Fr. Stephen Damick (PhD), Eastern Orthodox Christian priests. Psychedelics are mentioned near the end of episode 2 of their podcast. [2]
[1]: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/41580312-be-here-now
[2]: https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/lordofspirits
Ram Dass the Jewish Psychology Professor at Harvard/Hippie/Hindu. See his famous book Be Here Now. [1] He passed away last year
Fr. Stephen De Young and Fr. Stephen Damick (PhD), Eastern Orthodox Christian priests. Psychedelics are mentioned near the end of episode 2 of their podcast. [2]
[1]: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/41580312-be-here-now
[2]: https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/lordofspirits
I found a copy of Be Here Now for sale at a thrift store and bought it as a curio.
A few days later I opened it to read it and a dried, pressed cannabis leaf (not the flower) fell out.
The book did not disappoint, but it was definitely odd.
A few days later I opened it to read it and a dried, pressed cannabis leaf (not the flower) fell out.
The book did not disappoint, but it was definitely odd.
Beliefs are derived from experiences (ideally...more or less...)
Psychedelics deliver strange experiences.
Thus psychedelics affect your beliefs, make them strange or whatever.
Seems perfectly reasonable.
Psychedelics deliver strange experiences.
Thus psychedelics affect your beliefs, make them strange or whatever.
Seems perfectly reasonable.
It's quite a bit more than that.
Loss of ego and a sense of interconnectedness are some of the main effects from mushrooms and MDMA... Meditation does the same.
There's a lot of evidence, if you look around, that us WEIRD people (Western, educated, industrialized, rich and democratic) are rather estranged from the base state of humanity (which psychonauts and meditators explore).
There's a lot of evidence, if you care to accept it, that psychedelics can dramatically help us to better realign with ourselves, and even with fundamental reality.
In short, these strange experiences can actually reduce our own strangeness, while increasing our well-being, in quite specific and important ways.
Loss of ego and a sense of interconnectedness are some of the main effects from mushrooms and MDMA... Meditation does the same.
There's a lot of evidence, if you look around, that us WEIRD people (Western, educated, industrialized, rich and democratic) are rather estranged from the base state of humanity (which psychonauts and meditators explore).
There's a lot of evidence, if you care to accept it, that psychedelics can dramatically help us to better realign with ourselves, and even with fundamental reality.
In short, these strange experiences can actually reduce our own strangeness, while increasing our well-being, in quite specific and important ways.
The overall result does not surprise me, but two things in particular did:
1. That materialism is much less popular than I expected. I wonder how much is due to selection bias.
2. That idealism didn't enjoy a bigger bump than it did. I predict that dose size would correlate with increase in idealist views, as larger doses are more frequently nondual, and nondual experiences tend to inspire idealist beliefs.
I myself think there are various strong reasons to believe in idealism. I've written about them here: https://www.essentiafoundation.org/reading/on-the-self-valid...
1. That materialism is much less popular than I expected. I wonder how much is due to selection bias.
2. That idealism didn't enjoy a bigger bump than it did. I predict that dose size would correlate with increase in idealist views, as larger doses are more frequently nondual, and nondual experiences tend to inspire idealist beliefs.
I myself think there are various strong reasons to believe in idealism. I've written about them here: https://www.essentiafoundation.org/reading/on-the-self-valid...
> That materialism is much less popular than I expected. I wonder how much is due to selection bias
The overwhelming majority of human beings both now and historically are dualists, so this isn't surprising to me at all.
Materialists always lose me when they start trying to explain things like how exactly inanimate matter started thinking. I've never seen any recourse other than handwaving of the highest order. Usually it's something along the lines of emergent behavior, but no mechanism is ever given for how or why said emergence occurs.
The overwhelming majority of human beings both now and historically are dualists, so this isn't surprising to me at all.
Materialists always lose me when they start trying to explain things like how exactly inanimate matter started thinking. I've never seen any recourse other than handwaving of the highest order. Usually it's something along the lines of emergent behavior, but no mechanism is ever given for how or why said emergence occurs.
There is no "mechanism for how [ ... ] emergence occurs". Emergence is the mechanism. This is even more true of qualia, which are definitionally subjective, and thus do not exist as phenomena in the world.
We could talk a bit about the mechanism behind the process where aggregating sufficient water molecules creates a liquid. But we can't talk at all about how that same process could ever be responsible for the experience of "wet", because the experience of wet is wholly subjective.
Similarly, even if we were to be able to fully describe the materialist processes taking place in a system that has qualia, nothing in the description can ever explain the experience of having experiences, beyond saying "well look here - see all this stuff going on? that's how qualia are possible", which is not tautological, but not a mechanism for qualia.
Speaking of "thinking" more generally is even worse than focusing on qualia. It's not hard to agree on what qualia are - that it is like something to be something, in Nagel's words - but agreeing on what would count as "thinking" and what wouldn't is not likely to see any agreement at all.
We could talk a bit about the mechanism behind the process where aggregating sufficient water molecules creates a liquid. But we can't talk at all about how that same process could ever be responsible for the experience of "wet", because the experience of wet is wholly subjective.
Similarly, even if we were to be able to fully describe the materialist processes taking place in a system that has qualia, nothing in the description can ever explain the experience of having experiences, beyond saying "well look here - see all this stuff going on? that's how qualia are possible", which is not tautological, but not a mechanism for qualia.
Speaking of "thinking" more generally is even worse than focusing on qualia. It's not hard to agree on what qualia are - that it is like something to be something, in Nagel's words - but agreeing on what would count as "thinking" and what wouldn't is not likely to see any agreement at all.
The argument breaks down for me here:
> because the experience of wet is wholly subjective.
I can't distinguish this from "wetness is a quale." In which case the analogy water : wetness :: brain : qualia reduces to water : qualia :: brain : qualia.
Also:
> the experience of having experiences
The fact that we sometimes slip up and use recursive language like this is a suggestive sign to me. We intuit that experience is somehow "already present," or fundamental, as idealism claims. If idealism is true, then you _are_ consciousness, and already know it at some level.
> because the experience of wet is wholly subjective.
I can't distinguish this from "wetness is a quale." In which case the analogy water : wetness :: brain : qualia reduces to water : qualia :: brain : qualia.
Also:
> the experience of having experiences
The fact that we sometimes slip up and use recursive language like this is a suggestive sign to me. We intuit that experience is somehow "already present," or fundamental, as idealism claims. If idealism is true, then you _are_ consciousness, and already know it at some level.
> the experience of having experiences
this is not recursive, really. It is not written to imply that experience is universal, in fact quite the opposite. Most of us generally posit that rocks do not have experiences. Most of us posit that humans do, and likewise (famously) so do bats. But what the experiences that a bat has? It's not unreasonable to assume that they are quite different from the ones a human has.
Ergo, we cannot really compare the experiences of a bat with those of a human. But we can note that they both have experiences, and that is the magical part. I was just being flowery by using "experience" twice in a row, but in another sense I was trying to differentiate between the questions of "why are our experiences as they are?" and "why do we have any experience at all?" This is something that I think Dennett in particular fails spectacularly at (and he agreed with me, once :)
As for the "wetness is a qualia" point, yes, that is good summary of my point, but I am sorry, I do not understand the notation you are using after that.
this is not recursive, really. It is not written to imply that experience is universal, in fact quite the opposite. Most of us generally posit that rocks do not have experiences. Most of us posit that humans do, and likewise (famously) so do bats. But what the experiences that a bat has? It's not unreasonable to assume that they are quite different from the ones a human has.
Ergo, we cannot really compare the experiences of a bat with those of a human. But we can note that they both have experiences, and that is the magical part. I was just being flowery by using "experience" twice in a row, but in another sense I was trying to differentiate between the questions of "why are our experiences as they are?" and "why do we have any experience at all?" This is something that I think Dennett in particular fails spectacularly at (and he agreed with me, once :)
As for the "wetness is a qualia" point, yes, that is good summary of my point, but I am sorry, I do not understand the notation you are using after that.
I agree that people have experiences, but I don't understand why they must be magical or non-existent in the physical world. Why can't the word "experience" simply be referring to the physical processes that happen when our mind/body is in some particular environment?
Certainly physically ingesting a small amount of certain psychedelic chemicals can have profound effects on subjective experience, so it can't be too disconnected from physical processes.
The whole issue of qualia / experiences seems like it is an extension of the dualist/materialist perspectives rather than something that sheds light on it one way or another - dualists will view qualia as something non-material and so something that materialism can't explain, and materialists will view qualia as something material along with consciousness itself.
Certainly physically ingesting a small amount of certain psychedelic chemicals can have profound effects on subjective experience, so it can't be too disconnected from physical processes.
The whole issue of qualia / experiences seems like it is an extension of the dualist/materialist perspectives rather than something that sheds light on it one way or another - dualists will view qualia as something non-material and so something that materialism can't explain, and materialists will view qualia as something material along with consciousness itself.
Sorry, didn't realize it's not standard notation. In English:
"Water is to wetness as brains are to qualia" reduces to "water is to qualia as brains are to qualia."
"Water is to wetness as brains are to qualia" reduces to "water is to qualia as brains are to qualia."
I say this in all sincerity: thank you for providing a much better example of the kind of hand-waving flim-flam I was referring to than I was able to.
I imagine that you are making some kind of point here, but this is just exactly what loses me every time. Is that some kind of mental deficiency on my part? I suppose it could be, but if it is then I don't think it's one I want to correct.
I imagine that you are making some kind of point here, but this is just exactly what loses me every time. Is that some kind of mental deficiency on my part? I suppose it could be, but if it is then I don't think it's one I want to correct.
This sounds like you might be able to gain something from the “Do chairs exist?” video by vsauce.[1] Basically, he goes through the different philosophical reasonings of the past and then explores where each one of those fall apart. He goes explicitly into how small things can create something larger but why philosophers have struggled to make the leaps to change definition. He ends on the latest philosophical reasoning, which I think thoroughly explains your conundrum.
I’ll try to explain even if it seems less profound here than in the video. Basically, all concepts are emergent behavior of “stuff.” There really isn’t a chair, but “stuff” arranged chair-wise. And humans decide what that boundary is for both chairs and consciousness as they are concepts we apply to stuff that is “chairing” or “being conscious.” A collection of neurons may or may not be conscious by defining how they behave. And the details on where we draw the line for consciousness is no different than where we draw the line for how many atoms we can scrape away from a chair and it still be a chair.
[1] https://youtu.be/fXW-QjBsruE
I’ll try to explain even if it seems less profound here than in the video. Basically, all concepts are emergent behavior of “stuff.” There really isn’t a chair, but “stuff” arranged chair-wise. And humans decide what that boundary is for both chairs and consciousness as they are concepts we apply to stuff that is “chairing” or “being conscious.” A collection of neurons may or may not be conscious by defining how they behave. And the details on where we draw the line for consciousness is no different than where we draw the line for how many atoms we can scrape away from a chair and it still be a chair.
[1] https://youtu.be/fXW-QjBsruE
Maybe you experience qualia, but I’m just a configuration of matter. I can’t know what it’s like to experience qualia, because I don’t experience them. Instead, my configurations change according to input and internal processes. I am purely phenomenological.
No worries. You're not part of the discussion, then.
Who is included in the discussion? Is there anyone we can agree has subjective experiences which are not phenomenological?
We can agree that anyone who reports having no subjective experience is not a part of the discussion, i think.
That’s a profoundly unsatisfying answer. I really am interested in who you consider to be a part of the discussion. If qualia are not phenomena, how can we talk about them besides in the hypothetical, since conversations are phenomena? If someone claims to not experience qualia, why would you take that claim any more or less seriously than the claim that someone does experience qualia, or the claim that qualia exist at all?
…or is it possible that qualia are phenomenological?
…or is it possible that qualia are phenomenological?
> Materialists always lose me when they start trying to explain things like how exactly inanimate matter started thinking. I've never seen any recourse other than handwaving of the highest order. Usually it's something along the lines of emergent behavior, but no mechanism is ever given for how or why said emergence occurs
This seems pretty bad faith, I'd imagine you're getting lost for other reasons.
For one, inanimate matter probably needs to be animate before it can think.
Secondly, perhaps the difficulty in explaining the mechanism comes from the fact that materialists are honest about the uncertainties of this (extremely difficult) problem and are burdened with an epistemology that requires evidence from the actual world, unlike other approaches.
This seems pretty bad faith, I'd imagine you're getting lost for other reasons.
For one, inanimate matter probably needs to be animate before it can think.
Secondly, perhaps the difficulty in explaining the mechanism comes from the fact that materialists are honest about the uncertainties of this (extremely difficult) problem and are burdened with an epistemology that requires evidence from the actual world, unlike other approaches.
There are a lot of levels of "thinking" across the animal / insect / even plant kingdoms. The simplest levels of stimulus response (like a venus fly trap closing its mouth) don't seem to require a metaphysical explanation. But insect behavior is more complex and mammal and human behavior even more so.
At which level do the existing rules of the material world start to seem less plausible to you than a second unseen world with different rules, that interacts with this one under specific circumstances (if that's what you mean by dualism)?
As we can presently see with computers and machine learning, pretty complex behavior is possible through systems that operate via known physical processes.
At which level do the existing rules of the material world start to seem less plausible to you than a second unseen world with different rules, that interacts with this one under specific circumstances (if that's what you mean by dualism)?
As we can presently see with computers and machine learning, pretty complex behavior is possible through systems that operate via known physical processes.
> Materialists always lose me when they start trying to explain things like how exactly inanimate matter started thinking.
Define "thinking." Is an ecoli deciding to move towards or away from a chemical signal "thinking?"
> I've never seen any recourse other than handwaving of the highest order.
How much have you read from people researching consciousness, vs reading half-baked layman ideas about materialism on web forums?
Do you find "souls" to require less handwaving than materialism? Because if not, I have a lot of questions about souls that I'd love you to answer. Here are a few.
- when you were a wee child, was your soul also unable to think sophisticated thoughts and was also afraid of monsters under the bed?
- does your soul sleep when you are asleep, or is it just waiting for you to wake up?
- how does a soul manifest its influence on the physical body? Do you posit that it violates physical laws to make the material body do something other than follow the physical laws, or is there some undiscovered force of nature that allows a soul to "tunnel" into the physical world?
- at what point does the soul attach itself to the physical body? That is, does a blastomere have a soul? If so, what happens when a blastomere cleves fully in two, making identical twins -- does another soul pop into existence? Does the original soul split into two as well?
- when a person develops dementia, does the soul suffer from it too? or does the soul get frustrated that it can no longer communicate with its associated body?
- is there one soul that everyone taps into, or does each person have their own soul?
- do souls get one "life", or do they get recycled? if they are recycled, do souls specialize in one type of creature, or can a soul be a worm in one life and a physicist in the next?
Define "thinking." Is an ecoli deciding to move towards or away from a chemical signal "thinking?"
> I've never seen any recourse other than handwaving of the highest order.
How much have you read from people researching consciousness, vs reading half-baked layman ideas about materialism on web forums?
Do you find "souls" to require less handwaving than materialism? Because if not, I have a lot of questions about souls that I'd love you to answer. Here are a few.
- when you were a wee child, was your soul also unable to think sophisticated thoughts and was also afraid of monsters under the bed?
- does your soul sleep when you are asleep, or is it just waiting for you to wake up?
- how does a soul manifest its influence on the physical body? Do you posit that it violates physical laws to make the material body do something other than follow the physical laws, or is there some undiscovered force of nature that allows a soul to "tunnel" into the physical world?
- at what point does the soul attach itself to the physical body? That is, does a blastomere have a soul? If so, what happens when a blastomere cleves fully in two, making identical twins -- does another soul pop into existence? Does the original soul split into two as well?
- when a person develops dementia, does the soul suffer from it too? or does the soul get frustrated that it can no longer communicate with its associated body?
- is there one soul that everyone taps into, or does each person have their own soul?
- do souls get one "life", or do they get recycled? if they are recycled, do souls specialize in one type of creature, or can a soul be a worm in one life and a physicist in the next?
> Define "thinking." Is an ecoli deciding to move towards or away from a chemical signal "thinking?"
Define "defining". Is a definition the thing that is being defined?
> How much have you read from people researching consciousness, vs reading half-baked layman ideas about materialism on web forums?
Will I not learn anything from dialog with you because it's on a web forum?
> Do you find "souls" to require less handwaving than materialism?
Do you find "materialism" to require less handwaving than dualism?
> Do you find "souls" to require less handwaving than materialism? Because if not, I have a lot of questions about souls that I'd love you to answer. Here are a few.
Did I somehow give you the impression that I'm an apologist? I'm here to talk about how conscious intelligence could arise from dumb matter, not about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin and other such nonsense.
Define "defining". Is a definition the thing that is being defined?
> How much have you read from people researching consciousness, vs reading half-baked layman ideas about materialism on web forums?
Will I not learn anything from dialog with you because it's on a web forum?
> Do you find "souls" to require less handwaving than materialism?
Do you find "materialism" to require less handwaving than dualism?
> Do you find "souls" to require less handwaving than materialism? Because if not, I have a lot of questions about souls that I'd love you to answer. Here are a few.
Did I somehow give you the impression that I'm an apologist? I'm here to talk about how conscious intelligence could arise from dumb matter, not about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin and other such nonsense.
>Do you find "materialism" to require less handwaving than dualism?
The upside to materialism is that the gap in our knowledge, namely why networks of neurons cause consciousness, is something we can acknowledge we don't know and try to understand. Resorting to an explaination relying on objects we can't observse seems... inelegant.
The upside to materialism is that the gap in our knowledge, namely why networks of neurons cause consciousness, is something we can acknowledge we don't know and try to understand. Resorting to an explaination relying on objects we can't observse seems... inelegant.
> Resorting to an explaination relying on objects we can't observse seems... inelegant.
Does your objection hold for dark matter and dark energy too?
Does your objection hold for dark matter and dark energy too?
Dark Matter and Dark Energy are just catchall terms for "the force that causes more gravitation than we'd expect" and "the force that causes the universe to accelerate in expansion" respectively. Those two phenomena definitely exist, and physicists are obviously not content with concluding our understanding at that, which is why hypothesis about what they are abound.
Psychedelics and the absurdity of the possibility life itself alter metaphysical beliefs.
Slightly off topic, but: Jesus turning water into wine makes a lot more sense when he has access to some kind of potent hallucinogen. It also might explain everything else that went on back in Palestine 2000 years ago.
I don't think you need a strong hallucinogen for it. People were extremely superstitious; I wouldn't be surprised if we could explain some events with something like second-hand cannabis smoke and a strong drive to believe.
Many physicists I know are not materialists— closer to Pythagorean-Platonism, where math is more real than “stuff“
Maybe, but on the other hand drug induced psychosis may end in heaven, hell or elsewhere, depending on what the sweet, demanding or commanding voice from the beautiful light whispered, howled or growled.
And how deep it burned itself into the brain chemistry.
Psychedelics have been extremely beneficial to me but none of my experiences with them have really changed my beliefs about the metaphysical. I am open to the possibility but I'm also not moved by drug-induced hallucinations alone. That being said, why wouldn't a conscious god or simulation developer include cool easter eggs for their creations to find and play with? Why be a responsible higher power when you could instead throw hallucinogenic mushrooms into the monkey enclosure and watch them freak out?
It may alter beliefs in general. Just like anything else. Nothing to see here, really.
I started looking into Alan Watts and Terence McKenna because of psychedelics, and I did not even consume psychedelics. They may alter metaphysical beliefs without consumption, too! :)
I started looking into Alan Watts and Terence McKenna because of psychedelics, and I did not even consume psychedelics. They may alter metaphysical beliefs without consumption, too! :)
I get the impression that there is some moral lesson to come from this. Something about the non-existence of self and the impermanence of even our most deeply held beliefs.
This reminds me of "Waking Up" by Sam Harris where he talks about split brains, brain trauma, and other acute changes to people's personalities.
This reminds me of "Waking Up" by Sam Harris where he talks about split brains, brain trauma, and other acute changes to people's personalities.
Firstly, it's based on an online survey,so take that however you want... i can't say that i can take it very highly.
Secondly...I don't think beliefs(as in the proper sense) themselves are that easily altered by psychedelics.Psychedelics can and more often than not do induce a very profound spiritual & metaphysical experience, but beliefs are deeper than that,more glued to the "gut" & unconscious: they're constructed in combination to previous experiences usually not by the "self".I guess this study's conclusion comes as a result of the fact that spirituality and belief is still probably at the lowest levels in the west.Thus you have such "conclusions" where people think they believe in something in a spiritual and metaphysical manner just because of stronger trips.From what i recall upon studying this subject, granted about 10 years ago(though that was still when the biggest boom of research about brain & cognition happened), belief is even deeper than cognition, so that's why i'm reluctant to this theory: i think it's universally true that we're aware when we take psychedelics, it affects our unconscious as far as in the cognition we do during the trip triggers it mainly as a way to either glue memories or as a defense mechanism.
Then again i'm probably in the minority to say that belief is in big part mostly unconscious,and predates cognition in the "traditional" sense: i.e thoughts of the usual self. I base this on the fact that memory "indexing & glueing" happens unconsciously, and also that for me anecdotally psychedelics (and very rarely nootropics) usually either reinforced a belief or completed a belief through a new experience.
Secondly...I don't think beliefs(as in the proper sense) themselves are that easily altered by psychedelics.Psychedelics can and more often than not do induce a very profound spiritual & metaphysical experience, but beliefs are deeper than that,more glued to the "gut" & unconscious: they're constructed in combination to previous experiences usually not by the "self".I guess this study's conclusion comes as a result of the fact that spirituality and belief is still probably at the lowest levels in the west.Thus you have such "conclusions" where people think they believe in something in a spiritual and metaphysical manner just because of stronger trips.From what i recall upon studying this subject, granted about 10 years ago(though that was still when the biggest boom of research about brain & cognition happened), belief is even deeper than cognition, so that's why i'm reluctant to this theory: i think it's universally true that we're aware when we take psychedelics, it affects our unconscious as far as in the cognition we do during the trip triggers it mainly as a way to either glue memories or as a defense mechanism.
Then again i'm probably in the minority to say that belief is in big part mostly unconscious,and predates cognition in the "traditional" sense: i.e thoughts of the usual self. I base this on the fact that memory "indexing & glueing" happens unconsciously, and also that for me anecdotally psychedelics (and very rarely nootropics) usually either reinforced a belief or completed a belief through a new experience.
Why some people are so eager to alter their mind/brain?
Imaging you're depressed. Or suffering from PTSD/CPTSD. Generally unhappy. Have deep echoes of misery to wade through as the background of your daily life.
And then, there's a chance that taking a drug might just shake things up a bit. Maybe you'll get a new start.
Worst case, you'll have a little fun.
How long has it been since that happened?
That is how people become eager to alter their mind. Their minds are a sucky place to be. If it were a house it would be condemned.
And then, there's a chance that taking a drug might just shake things up a bit. Maybe you'll get a new start.
Worst case, you'll have a little fun.
How long has it been since that happened?
That is how people become eager to alter their mind. Their minds are a sucky place to be. If it were a house it would be condemned.
Because people like enjoyable experiences.
It is still better than the lowest for the study, the sample size of one: "Well this is what I experienced". Yet here I go.
I have always been a materialist, and I've also never done drugs (I'm in my 50s). A few years back I bought some lysergamides and tryptamines online, and over the course of two years did between 20 and 30 experiments, though never of high doses (at most, 200 ug LSD). I found the LSD to be quite interesting, but not the least bit spiritual.
The first time I did 4-aco-dmt (aka psilacetin), a very close relative to psilocybin, was a different story. It was a 25mg-ish dose, taken orally. It was far more intense, and dreamy, and soporific than LSD (for me), and it gave me a glimpse of what something I was hoping to experience: spirituality. It was unfortunately fleeting -- I was lost in "the light" but then became aware that I was actually lying in a bed, and without thinking, opened my eyes for a moment to confirm. I closed my eyes but that moment in the light was gone for good.
I've tried a few more times, but it has mostly been uncomfortable and confusing way to spend a couple hours.
Anyway, I came away from those experiments even more of a materialist than I was before. If a hundred micrograms or a few milligrams of small molecule can so disrupt one's mind, if it can profoundly change your perceptions, if it can induce a feeling of being in a divine presence, it confirmed to me that the brain is all just chemistry.