Negative connotations of psychedelic pseudo-science

[Roger&Me]

^Yeah, I think its cool as well. I didn't mean to sound pejorative. BUT-- not science. At least not yet; as of now its simply philosophy penned in the language of mathematics. Which is cool, too.

 

[Pegasus]

Oh, and that example is a little unfair as calories and celsius are relative to water.

Lol!

 

[swilow]

Is there any way we can 'reform' psychedelic thought to be more accepted by others?

Yeah. Tell them that LSD will give you a million orgasms at once....

People reject psychedelic notions because they appear unverifiable; but if I can see a tree right now, and also see a band of undulating colours constructing a staircase into hyperspace, then theres no reason to think that either perception is right or wrong. If what I think and see and feel and etc. is "real" when sober then so is everything I think and see and fell and etc. when tripping. Or none of its real.

Whereas, in truth, its probably both. I need my brain to perceive the external; I need the external to allow perception. Duality-crush-fukk.

i have experienced certain feelings (entity contact, telepathy, time travel etc) during intense trips that i swore were more real than reality. however these things cannot be brought back OUT of the rabbit hole, and offer zero predictive capability in the land of the living.

That doesn't change the fact that you experienced them. The psychedcelic state IS dependant on psychedelics (its true!!) altering 'normal' perception, but, seeing as there is no definition for normal, then seeing entities and riding ufocycles (as part of perception) is real. Or not. It doesn't actually matter.

One thing: if you alter your mindstate without drugs, your still altering it. BUT- try meditating or chanting and your mindstate will change. I've seen and felt weirder things through various rituals then I have with psychedelics....Theres more to it then we know; the rabbit hole goes up and down, and all the way around. Our brains are infinite in the ability to perceive and receive.

I don't think its neccesary to verify anything, personally. If something is "real" ie. matter, then good. If something doesn't have properties of matter or other physical attributes, it doesn't make it less real, or the material world more real. It just has a different quality of "real".

"Nothing is true, everything is permitted"

 

[RGB]

^ Heartily agreed.

I'm tempted to believe that the problem these tweaker/dopehead types have with psychedelic users is their staggeringly dull propensity to think. It's not so much the aliens and time travel and trees talking that seems to bother them, but the entertainment of though experiments that they consider superfluous.

And yes, this is an awfully high horse. 8)

 

[SpiritualHealing]

Unfortunately I believe my english isn´t good enough to talk with you on this matter but I just wanted to say that this thread is developing to a very recommendable one because it´s showing both sides of the psychedelic coin.

 

[mr.mackey]

Ive always been a bit put off with the whole blending of pseudoscience and psychedelics, in particular the idea of DMT being associated with a "water spirit" or the idea that peyote is "the father ancestor spirit". In general I tend to be almost embarrased that psychedelics are associated with the "new age Gaian" types. I don't actually have a problem with those ideas, I just think it's important to remember that natural or synthetic, these chemicals are interacting in an extremely complicated way with the brain, that perceptions of spirits, entities or the like are a result of this complex interaction.

To me, this does not mean that those things are not real, because as mentioned above, those perceptions are accurate in the sense that they are produced by the same neurological processes that everyday perception is, in the sense that they are caused by signals sent from one sensory perception area of the brain to another, the brain doesn't differentiate the type of perceptions.

 

[Delta-9-THC]

^I'm not sure I would say they work in exactly the same way. Normal everyday perception requires sense organs but I the think psychedelic experience can cause the brain to produce its own signals that are separate from- though may interact with- signals/perceptual code originating and being translated from stimuli working on sense organs. Of course, that's if you believe in material reality

Nice thread by the way

 

[tBirdee]

^Lol I was just coming in here to say how much I enjoy this thread!

 

[Roger&Me]

In general I tend to be almost embarrased that psychedelics are associated with the "new age Gaian" types.

In a way, I agree. I like discussing far-out ideas. Its cool to be able to entertain those concepts, but keeping perspective is very important. You can enjoy an idea, and think its a cool idea, without accepting it dogmatically. For instance, I really enjoy listening to to Terence McKenna; he's an enthralling orator, and he's got plenty of cool ideas and perspectives. But on the flipside, a lot of his ideas are just plain bullshit/showmanship. Whenever I hear people spouting that stuff dogmatically, it makes me facepalm.

There's a slew of these "pet theories" that are passed around like a joint, but nobody ever does anything with them. The whole point of formulating any type of theory is to hit it with a hammer as hard as you can to see where/how it breaks, because that's how you learn from it.

Throwing around wacky ideas is a very admirable way to spend ones time, but its only half the equation; you also need some type of system for discriminating which ideas are useful and which ones aren't, or else it's just intellectual masturbation.

 

[mr.mackey]

LOL, what kind of losers actually believe in material reality?

Anywho, I think you cleared it up a bit Delta, what I was saying is that although the source of sensory information is different for everyday perception and psychedelic perception, the way the brain treats the neural information is more or less the same, or at least that is what Ive picked up in the grand total of one neuroscience class I have taken.

I love listening to terence too because of his great ability to articulate the psychedelic experience, even if it is not an experience I have had (I have yet to meet any bejeweled basketballs in my DMT trips). however, I think it is paramount to keep perspective, im pretty sure there is an interview video where he talks about how the point of theories is to prove them wrong. Here is a correspondence between Mckenna and a mathematician who claims to have more or less proven timewave zero theory wrong:

http://www.timestar.org/pipermail/earthtimes_timestar.org/2004/000039.html

 

[xikito]

I think the fist question should be "what is real ?"
We consider something real if our senses capture it and translates them for us (via image, feeling, etc). We normally measure our "reality" with instruments, let them be organic or human made. So, our notion of reality is flawled, or limited, by the instruments we have in our posssession and how this instruments translates things to us.

When you trip out, you change the way those instruments work and you capture different things in different ways... this doesn't make those things less real than the things we normally perceive as "reality"; it is just a different viewpoint.

 

[Xorkoth]

Personally I will do almost anything but psychedelics and their users are starting to get a bit over the top, when I go into PD they put fucked up ideas/thoughts in my head which arent real but feel so real while tripping. I used to love acid and psych's but I cant handle them anymore.

This just in: PD users force fucked up ideas into the heads of innocents! In a process akin to rape, several regulars of the forum forcibly insert nonstandard thoughts into the minds of passersby who preferred to remain unexposed to aberrant theories! Are our children next!? Someone stop these freaks from spreading their faggotry PLUR shit, preferably with a meth-fueled crowbar through the eye!

 

[any major dude]

Call me a hippy or whatever but isn't love and respecting your fellow man something that was around before altered states?

Doubtful, as altered states seem to have been around longer than man

This just in: PD users force fucked up ideas into the heads of innocents! In a process akin to rape, several regulars of the forum forcibly insert nonstandard thoughts into the minds of passersby who preferred to remain unexposed to aberrant theories! Are our children next!? Someone stop these freaks from spreading their faggotry PLUR shit, preferably with a meth-fueled crowbar through the eye!

lol, I think one of them said get your mind pussy ready for this science cock just before the brain rape.... and also good to see you around again Xorkoth.

I agree that psychedelia and science are difficult to reconcile, but I don't think it's because they're inherently different. Both science and psychedelic experiences rely on observation of reality, and an underlying assumption that we as human beings witness things in roughly the same way. If you could find some common ground between people's psychedelic experiences and repeatedly produce the same phenomena, I imagine that you could build a science out of it.

The problem in my opinion is that psychedelia is rife with confounding factors. Everything about a person and their environment contributes to the experience, making the result extremely chaotic. You may be able to pull out common threads, but you simply can't approach the rigor of examining a single subject (e.g. reality) and controlling your variables in the way that you can with more traditional sciences. Psychology's a great example of a field with similar difficulties and also a similarly negative popular opinion.

Psychedelics are a bit unpredictable, but many things that are studied scientifically are unpredictable and/or have many potential confounds. Psychology does have a lot of similar problems, and that's not surprising given that they both deal in not only the brain, but also the mind, which notoriously more difficult to study.

At the moment I think one of the best ways to study psychedelics, or rather the subjective experiences they induce, is in psychology. Particularly psychology of religion, and within that field, the study of mystical experience. Mystical experience has been difficult to study because these experiences are very difficult to induce in a laboratory setting. Some success has been had with monks and nuns performing various spiritual practices, but the most reliable way (oddly enough) to induce a mystical experience is via psychedelic drugs. While I don't subscribe to any religion or have much confidence in an after-life, people's experience of religion and things spiritual is very real. There does seem to be some benefit to mystical experience as well since such experiences are correlated with both various anxiolytic effects as well as enhancement in creative problem solving. This seems to suggest that there is some value to these experiences (outside of keeping various deities from killing us with thunderbolts, floods, and the like) and that further research into both our ability to have and tendency to seek out these experiences is warranted.

 

[The Smoking Man]

At the moment I think one of the best ways to study psychedelics, or rather the subjective experiences they induce, is in psychology. Particularly psychology of religion, and within that field, the study of mystical experience. Mystical experience has been difficult to study because these experiences are very difficult to induce in a laboratory setting.

This is why fieldwork anthropology can be good. (Has some practically inherent problems with it that make it imperfect, though. An anthropologist living among a group of people for study just isn't encultured the same way the people he's studying are, which makes for a not totally ideal perspective, and this also compounds with the group seeing you as an outsider, again affecting perspective.)

 

[aussieblues]

The fact of the matter is that some people use drugs to escape reality and, therefore, they'll be closed to the otherworldly experiences that psychedelics can present. Different drugs have very different effects, therefore, it's common sense that they'd draw people with different personalities. Those of us who choose psychedelics for their mind expanding nature are open to the experiences they bring, be they good or bad, and the new ideas that they present; whereas, say, a meth head or a heroin junky is simply chasing that one feeling that they enjoy and probably doesn't care to better understand the universe around them. The fact of the matter is, if a person isn't open to new ideas, they won't accept them from anyone, the fact that the idea came from another drug user won't make a difference.

 

[JackARoe]

Those of us who choose psychedelics for their mind expanding nature are open to the experiences they bring, be they good or bad, and the new ideas that they present; whereas, say, a meth head or a heroin junky is simply chasing that one feeling that they enjoy and probably doesn't care to better understand the universe around them. The fact of the matter is, if a person isn't open to new ideas, they won't accept them from anyone, the fact that the idea came from another drug user won't make a difference.

This is true, however the title of this thread has the word science in it. And as stated in previous posts the predictable outcome of scientific facts can not measure new ideas about ones relation of Self to the Universe. In fact someone who has never used a psychedelic would probably say someone that uses them is just trying to escape reality, as crazy as that sounds to others who have used them.

No, science and mind manifesting drugs can not even be used in the same sentence. There is nothing provable about insight. One man's insight is another man's crazy thought. Yet somewhere in between we believe there is a truth.

Psychedelics seem to be the antidote to science. Science is limited though when it comes to consciousness. Like I was stating in the other thread about what makes a drug psychedelic there really is no answer. Yet some very intelligent and even scientific users will tell you the insights provided are valuable. But none (or almost none)of the insightful thoughts can be put into real scientific terms. Maybe if science evolves to include the terms mysticism and consciousness. But at this point science makes us think (and maybe so) that consciousness forms out of matter. Yet on a psychedelic, as we have seen in many users, it's almost as if consciousness creates the matter or at the very least matter needs consciousness to exist. When we step back from that though we insist that reality exists even without consciousness (or does it?).

But take the word psychedelic out of the equation. We as humans can not touch "yesterday". We may hear in the news, truthfully or untruthfully, of what may have happened yesterday but it's not a tangible thing anymore. Unless one is onmipresent, yesterday was many different things to many different people. But nothing is really provable unless one is omnipresent. We have peoples interpretation of what happened yesterday. We know as scientific facts is the Earth did in fact revolve around the sun yesterday. Humans breathed air yesterday, and all the other constants we can pretty much say as fact happened. But that's about. And that would show how limiting science is in explaining what happened yesterday.

Ok, I've babbled enough. These were just random thought that have nothing to do with science. Philosophy maybe, but no need to get the scientific community all worked up by trying to explain things.

 

[Listening]

No, science and mind manifesting drugs can not even be used in the same sentence. There is nothing provable about insight. One man's insight is another man's crazy thought.

I don't think this is true. For the history of science is full of intuitive insights (say, from thought experiments) that were then systematically disproven (or not!). An insight received on a psychedelic drug may be suspect, but ultimately it's no different from any other human insight. It's either a reflection of reality or it's not, and science can be used to explore this.

Psychedelics seem to be the antidote to science. Science is limited though when it comes to consciousness. Like I was stating in the other thread about what makes a drug psychedelic there really is no answer. Yet some very intelligent and even scientific users will tell you the insights provided are valuable. But none (or almost none)of the insightful thoughts can be put into real scientific terms. Maybe if science evolves to include the terms mysticism and consciousness.

Why must conciousness and mysticism be tied together in that way? The science of conciousness is extremely young. But just because we have such a rudimentary understanding of consciousness, doesn't mean we won't be able to do better in the future (think Rutherford's naive but insightful understanding of the atom's internal structure, vs. the far more precise quantum mechanical model [and everything in between]). Indeed, as the field heats up, new and interesting things are coming to light all the time (via real experiments, not just wild speculation).

I think psychedelics are an amazing tool to explore consciousness. Can they give us any answers? No, but they can help us explore internally and give us insights that may lead to answers when experimented with in the real world.

 

[any major dude]

Maybe if science evolves to include the terms mysticism and consciousness. But at this point science makes us think (and maybe so) that consciousness forms out of matter. Yet on a psychedelic, as we have seen in many users, it's almost as if consciousness creates the matter or at the very least matter needs consciousness to exist.

Science does include those terms. See the work of Hood, Spilka, and check out some of Dr. Andrew Newberg's stuff. Its all quite interesting

And in as far as matter and consciousness, we know that matter had to exist before human consciousness, and while it seems that consciousness doesn't create matter, what it does create is our perception of matter, which for all we know, could differ radically from reality

 

[Busty St Clare]

Psychedelic "scientists" are like the religious right trying to cram the story of the bible into true science by means of intelligent design. I have have profound thoughts and experiences under the influence but I see these as more the stirring of the chemistry of an already complex biological system called the human brain. This is the same organic instrument that has been responsible for all of humanities greatest achievements from engineering feats to beautiful works of art to political science. Lsd is just another chemical that can be used to lever and manipulate the mind so is it any surprise that great things can be revealed?

 

[asplinteredfawn]

People who don't appreciate psychedelics are just afraid of who they really are and what the universe really means. I wont get into it, but it's either that or pure ignorance.