Can you elaborate? As it stands, the leeway you have left in your posts is such that it may support people who are so open-minded that the wind whistles between their ears (to borrow T. McKenna's turn of phrase).
I mean, you haven't said anything I disagree with. OTOH, if we're talking psycho-social or economic issues, the stuff we, the psychedelically inclined, are wont to spout is without utility to the average person, even if they'd be willing to acknowledge it as technically true.
Well for example, a friend of mine (whom I've grown tired of due to reasons relevant to this thread - basically chronic miscommunication / mismatch between us rather than just me being merely judgemental about him (or am I?
) has a habit of magical thinking. He is (also) on a steady diet of logical fallacies / all sorts of cognitive biases.
When something happens that has meaningful symbolism to him, he readily dreams up associations and pseudo-profound explanations - not accounting for all the times when such things do not happen. I forget the name for that fallacy but it is a classic.
He is also very quick to believe in the possibility of chemicals having a memory of the intentions of people or the source (lab synthed vs extracted DMT). He is not concerned with utter absence of empirical proof for such theories or the huge amounts of evidence we have that psychological reasons work very well to explain phenomena like say subjectively experienced differences between DMT samples.
He seems persistent that such beliefs carry just as much value / right to be believed in as polished scientifical theories or even laws, apparently just because he likes to believe those things are true.
Also, I think that he possibly believes that adopting skepticism implies becoming chronically desillusioned and "losing the magic" of life. Is it black and white like that and is it even true? Well I think it is still possible to be frivolous, even if that frivolity is not being confused with truth and reality. And it seems like his limited capacity (he has not enjoyed much education) to understand intricate workings behind things causes him to conveniently reject what he cannot easily have anyway. Sorry if that sounds inconsiderate of his feelings, I just believe it to be true and I have empathy issues as well - so what should I concede?
I do not necessarily wish to deny him his beliefs, but chronic failure or even unwillingness to understand elegant and logical ideas combined with a tendency to pretend that something frivolous he just came up with (which is admittedly creative or fantastical at times) can actually participate in a scientific / skeptical debate... over time that instilled desperate feelings in me. I'm just not into being a stoner and sharing stoner ideas anymore, I admit that. If he is, then much between is just ends up being a waste.
When I think about what I was like when I tripped just about every week, I was also much too absorbed by how appealing ideas, theories, associations / links were rather than how valid. I was interested to see shit like "what the bleep do we know" and didn't mind how a lot of it is vague, incorrect or taking things like quantum mechanics too far out of context.
Later I just had to admit that I do know have the proper understanding and know-how of fields like quantum mechanics, psychology, metaphysics to attempt to hook them all up like I did. Sure, I am not unfamiliar with such studies, but what I had was vague dreams about the fundamental workings of reality and of our minds, and I was not subjecting them to skepticism properly.
It is just important to keep track of what we actually know and understand at a given point, otherwise it is just easy to delude yourself. Regarding some things, I was a little late to admit it, but I took some steps back.
My point in my previous post was mostly that I recommend others take a few steps back as well when it is the right time to do so, lest they get lost.
Definitely not everyone should be hyperrational and logic-loving like I may be, it is probably most worthwhile to have a healthily balanced marriage between serial thought patterns of logic and parrallel thought patterns of creative dreams, induction and deduction, rational and irrational, etc.
But if he have the best interests of other people at heart, shouldn't we remind each other to maintain that balance when someone is showing signs of deficiency? IMHO Ideally a person is then not corrected by others, but just supported to make such realisations himself, so that balance is restored naturally.
In that light, I think it would be missing the point if we were to compare examples and have people here point out their own opinion about for example the natural vs. synthetic debate. It is about the structural dynamics of the thinking underneath - mainly a disregard of one perspective.
When I meet that friend, I continue to listen to his arguments for his perspective but what happens is that his point fails to arrive. When a theory remains vague and cannot be explained, that seems like a sign to me. Sure it can happen once or twice, but when it continues happening until it is basically the only thing happening - then clearly something is the matter. When a belief cannot be communicated or verified, does it not deserve to be categorized as a phantasy, OR - and this is important to acknowledge mysticism and parts of religious world views like moral values... we can see if it has some value regardless of whether there is empirical truth behind it.
And indeed, sometimes such ideas that cannot be consolidated are still beautiful and even important or meaningful to the point of being profound.
If you would like an example, think some of the natural science (as opposed to social science) types you know, they probably accept the vast majority of that lil' box of ideas our society presents us with as a priori assumptions. They would probably roll their eyes at our typical narratives regarding identity, ethics, and a hundred other things that are not even wrong, because these shifts would be purposeless for them (why would they care about what should or shouldn't be included in identity, beyond the aspects necessary for meritocracy? Why should non-users care about prohibition, or unlearning all the lil' subjective things that enable you to fit in with the *insert country here* average?). And while I have spent a lot of time questioning morality itself (as someone with an innate nihilistic streak), how much time should we expect the average person to put to questioning whether murder is inherently wrong, or theft, or what have you ('cause they're not gonna differentiate between social taboo and ethics most of the time)?
Ack! How many darned druggie types do you know, psychedelic users in particular (caveat: IME that overlaps with pothead)? Because of the ones I've met in real life, 0% of them would be reliable for this purpose, they prefer folklore to verifiable fact. Consider selection bias and its relationship to one's group of friends.
Sure, there are moments when my philosophical mentality and ideas about / criticisms of the world fall on deaf ears of friends and family... but honestly a lot of the time I have people around me who are willing to indulge me, even if they are not all willing to go as far or deep into conversations.
I don't know dozens of druggies but I do have some very good friends who share enough interests to have nice talks and whom I can exchange appreciation and fascination with. But I actually don't really have serious tripper friends IRL. Instead there are some people who either used to be well into that, or have always limited themselves to the theoretical side / or like say the chemistry side of things.
If I am missing some of your points, please, lend me a hand with that.
Before I forget: in conclusion the problem I have with the premise of this thread is not that I deny the TS his beliefs off the bat (from what little I know of magick I imagine there can be some real basis in it, just like rituals sometimes have practical usefulness on top of being tradition / superstition). The problem I have is that it is claimed to have an empirical basis, that it can in fact be checked.
That is what prompts me to say: well have someone check it then! Get someone who can be considered independent, to avoid folie a deux or folie en familie type situations - phenomena which indeed do happen for example with multiple people ingesting BZ or other deliriants.
I just dare you to convince me the explanation does not lie with those delirium-related ones. Which is undoubtedly basically the reason why Roger said stop taking acid and start taking risperdal.
But a pinch of oxy also always brings me into my own a bit, at least it feels that way. Does it read like rant or only look like the likes?