The Intelligence of DMT - A Retrospective Analysis.

[Vurtual]

...I don't think it's a moot point. Neither do the "intelligent DMT" crowd. Where our consciousness comes from is an unsolved mystery. My personal belief is that we are all computers. It's in the hardware and the software of our brains. But I'd be the first to admit it's not proven. I think it's the most likely option, based on what I know of science, but I am open to any possibility, given independently repeatable evidence...

Fair point (i just tacked that bit on anyway). I suppose it depends what you mean by computer - some modern physics theories include the idea that reality is computation of some sort (though only a fringe take this literally in a matrix fashion). And biology is exploring the way we can analyse biological systems in terms of computation (though more as organic cellular automata rather than conventional computer/programs - see Melanie Mitchell's complexity: a guided tour for details).

I'm agnostic about consciousness, but i have subjectively experienced what seemed like some sort of brahmanic underlying reality when off my head on drugs, and i sometimes entertain the idea that this isn't entirely fantasy and could be a property of matter/reality in some way; but (while entertaining it) i tend to think of it as underneath most of what's usually associated with consciousness (eg the stuff that obviously derives from brain function/computation like thoughts) and would be the same for us and any inanimate objects - but unlike the rock, our brain provides a mirror for us to contemplate this state of affairs in our thoughts. I know this is my imagination and not science, but the former, carefully cultivated, is often/usually the mother of the latter anyway (and i like sci fi).

When feeling slightly less speculative, i also like the 'autopoietic' (self-making) idea of consciousness/cognition derived from the santiago school of biology - i won't try and define autopoiesis here as it's slippery - fritjof capra's new book 'Systems view of Life' covers it well (some may even call autopoiesis pseudoscience, especially inasmuch as it's associated with fritjof capra, but i don't).

 

[Doldrugs]

Fair point (i just tacked that bit on anyway). I suppose it depends what you mean by computer

I mean our brains are just very complex machines. Technology will eventually catch up and we'll be uploading our consciousnesses and creating new ones. Again, this is my personal speculation based on what I've read. It's also possible consciousness somehow exists outside of our meat bodies. I just think it's less likely.

I know this is my imagination and not science, but the former, carefully cultivated, is often/usually the mother of the latter anyway

The manner of cultivation is both integral to science having any value at all and also highly specific. I think it's misleading to gloss over the details there. Cultivated imagination can also lead to dangerous, irrational beliefs.

When feeling slightly less speculative, i also like the 'autopoietic' (self-making) idea of consciousness/cognition derived from the santiago school of biology

I'm not sure I understand the concept. It seems more like a redefinition of what consciousness is rather than an explanation of consciousness as it's traditionally defined.

 

[Vurtual]

The manner of cultivation is both integral to science having any value at all and also highly specific. I think it's misleading to gloss over the details there. Cultivated imagination can also lead to dangerous, irrational beliefs.

Absolutely, and yet without imagination there is no science (or no scientific progress at least).

I'm not sure I understand the concept. It seems more like a redefinition of what consciousness is rather than an explanation of consciousness as it's traditionally defined.

The consciousness/cognition part is a subset of autopoiesis - i'll let someone else define autopoiesis first:

Theory that living systems are 'self producing' mechanisms which maintain their particular form despite material inflow and outflow, through self-regulation and self-reference. Proposed by Chilean scientists Humberto Maturana (192 and Francisco Varela (1946-2001) in late 1960s or early 1970s, it combines the concepts of homeostasis and systems thinking.

The consciousness part of the idea is that maybe the lowest level 'unit' of cognition is actually the same as the process of autopoiesis - ie that the internal structure of, say, a cell is modified by the matter/information that flows through it, and that this constitues cognition or perception for a cell. Our higher level consciousness is an emergent property of the organisation of many smaller autopoietic units (cells, organs), but is itself an autopoietic unit/whole. Having an underlying cognitive substrate existing in all our cells rings true with some of my subjective experience too, and could probably make a good impression of an underlying universal consciousness from our biologically embedded point of view, when our higher brain functions were switched off/modified.

 

[murphythecat]

thats where the science of the mind, meditation, would help people.

mind and body are separate. consciousness can be altered so drastically (with drugs or meditation), that its clear that consciousness is mental, not generated by the brain. of course, if you use your eye to see something, you use your brain and that influence your consciousness. but consciousness is immaterial. the observer is not the brain.

but good luck in their life for people waiting to have all the answer they want from science.

for everything that is important in life, like developing happiness, love, peace, calm, science is absolutely useless.

This is ludicrous. Science has achieved immense goals over thousands of years without objective observation. The entire point of science is to account for it. Our ability to account for bias and error has improved greatly and shows no signs of stagnating.



Science is doing fine in those areas. No other way of thinking, no matter how much you might like it, has understood these things any better than science.

http://anathem.wikia.com/wiki/Diax's_Rake

Also, your post contains a quote with my name and something I didn't say as though I did say it. Can you please fix that?



Being a scientist has nothing to do with "trusting our instinct" or believing that our personal experience and illogical interpretation of it is objective reality. You're calling yourself a scientist and in the same breath espousing ideas that are totally opposed to science.

of course science is not doomed for all matter, but for the matters im looking for in life, it is.
Doldrugs, no science hasn't understood love. how can you study love? do you think the study they make is complete and they understand love?
science is about the study of the outer world. like I said, I couldnt care less about the outer world. have you ever smoke dmt. I think you were one of the guys even doubting the experience of ego death back in the days.

life is subjective. I am my own scientist in life as in im trying to find the cause of my happiness and how to develop it, how to repeat the experience of happiness and explain it to people. that makes me a scientist of the mind.

love is a subjective experience that you need to cultivate.
life is a subjective experience and our consciousness is now, in a subjective feeling and experience.
science cannot do anything to help us understand how to cultivate happiness, love, calm.

 

[Bagseed]

consciousness can be altered so drastically (with drugs or meditation), that its clear that consciousness is mental, not generated by the brain.

not so clear at all. why are you sure that this is the truth? not that I'm trying to disprove you, because I very well know that I can't, but neither can you prove what you believe.

also I think your concept of what science is, is a bit off. science wants to determine the laws of the universe as objectively as possible. since things like "love" are purely subjective, it is a bit hard to study..

also, no credible scientist denies the fundamental philosophical questions of our lives.

science cannot do anything to help us understand how to cultivate happiness, love, calm.

but science is very well necessary to provide the people on this planet with an adequate standard of life. who could be happy without food on his table? with the knowledge we have now, every person on this planet could be fed and sheltered, no problem. problem is that greedy people profit from the advances of science but use it in an immoral manner.

 

[ecstacylover]

It seems to me we are spiritual beings undergoing a physical experience. Be as it may that religion is full of fallacies, there is no denying what spirituality can do in people's lives. If it did nothing, organized religion would not still retain the number of followers it does. Some people are less spiritually inclined by nature , and religion becomes a conduit for them to fulfill their spiritual needs. Others see proof of spiritual experiences in everyday life through emotions and experience that religion becomes redundant as they realize the spiritual experience is already within them.

We need science to advance as a race, but science is blind to morality. You learn how to split an atom and hundreds of thousands die. This is why we need spirituality because it serves as a moral compass. But also spirituality needs science, because just as governments will use science in evil ways for financial and political gain; so to will some people seek to take advantage of others through the misrepresentation and categorization of spirituality (often this is what religion is).

So I think we need checks and balances for spirituality and science. And people, at least many, have a hole in their life that spirituality fills. Some people may dismiss this as mysticism, ok. But things are physically experienced in this world even while completely sober for reasons that science could never explain.

As for dmt being intelligent? It cannot be proven or disproven. It is a matter of speculation. But those who have the experience often do believe that it is. Personally I think our world is very old and we never know what intangible qualities a molecule might posess. Just because something cannot be measured, weighed, or experienced by our set of normal human senses, does not mean it doesn't exist. But I know the inability to quantify or explain something troubles science very much , so our viewpoint on intelligence of dmt will often be prematurely dismissed.

 

[murphythecat]

any serious meditator clearly see that mind and body are separate. the body is automatic, a machine, but your mind and consciousness is so malleable.
our experience of life is subjective and different for everybody. what do you expect science to prove. they look outside of themselves to define reality, when its exactly the action of looking outside of oneselves and analysing that defines reality.
if you want to find out, meditate very seriously and you will see how wrong your views are towards what you think is reality.

science is trying to find the laws of the universe. its all good, but I dont think that the material world is all that important really. we need to look into our consciousness and how it sees reality and see that if you change your consciousness, your inner reality changes completely and the way you see the material universe also change.

I believe that the universe as we know it is only one reality and that the mind is another reality. Happiness is not a function of the brain but a mental function. why? because sometime you are happy and sometime you are not and the only reason we are not happy, besides if you are in real pain, is your mental process. our experience of life is mental first, then we use the body to get those subjective experience.
of course, theres some laws that are stable, I dont deny that and science is useful for a lot of things, but for the most important matter, our inner being, science is useless.
but this is getting OT

not so clear at all. why are you sure that this is the truth? not that I'm trying to disprove you, because I very well know that I can't, but neither can you prove what you believe.

also I think your concept of what science is, is a bit off. science wants to determine the laws of the universe as objectively as possible. since things like "love" are purely subjective, it is a bit hard to study..

also, no credible scientist denies the fundamental philosophical questions of our lives.

 

[Bagseed]

any serious meditator clearly see that mind and body are separate.

again, this is pure opinion. also, if your consciousness had no physical part, how would drugs work?

I personally don't see mind and matter seperated anymore, because (studying a science ) I learned that matter is also only a manifestation of energy. it's all energy, and energy is something, science accepts as a fact...

 

[murphythecat]

a experience is a reality that everyone can attain and so theres some truth to a experience. a opinion is based upon assumption only and can always be false.
when I say mind and body are separate, its a experience one have to go threw to see the reality of it.

your consciousness is energy? the observer is energy? what does it even means in reality?
theres the reality of the mind and the reality of the physical world. they are separated. infinitely connected, but separated non the less.
as long as you dont meditate, you can speculate all you want. its not matter of opinion, but experience.

like, if I were to tell you that im in absolute bliss right now. you would tell me its subjective, but it doesn't take away from the reality of my experience. however, my mind reality doesnt affect the outter reality. they are separated.

every serious meditator comes to the same conclusion hence we call meditation science of the mind. if you follow the step and method, you will get to the same insight about the nature of reality, yourself and what reality si all about.
until then, you can think and speculate all you want, it wont change the truth and the reality of what we need to do to cultivate happiness and how to attain it.

again, this is pure opinion. also, if your consciousness had no physical part, how would drugs work?

I personally don't see mind and matter seperated anymore, because (studying a science ) I learned that matter is also only a manifestation of energy. it's all energy, and energy is something, science accepts as a fact...

 

[Bagseed]

your consciousness is energy? the observer is energy? what does it even means in reality?

that everything at the core is the same. prior to the big bang, all energy was condensed in one tiny point and then started to expand.. (and there is actually much evidence to support this theory). matter started to form when things cooled down. so basically matter itself formed out of a non-physical thing.

I don't doubt that you experience your mind seperated from your body, but this still doesn't make it true. even having an out-of-body-experience while meditating doesn't prove it.

again, I cannot disprove what you say, but neither can you prove it.

 

[Vurtual]

MurphytheCat: I've got some sympathy and subjective experience of what you say about the observer of the thoughts being separate to the actual thoughts - i'm not always prepared to make the leap that that underlying point of view is a whole separate reality akin to the 'outside' world in importance or complexity - the furthest i can usually go to accepting brahman is that all matter in some sense is connected to all other matter through entanglement or something, and that provides the apparent ground of being (but then we're back to argument to quantum physics, so nowhere really). Usually i prefer the slightly more realistic cellular mechanism for a ground of being i mentioned before (in a nutshell, all life is cognition; the ground of being is the collective point of view of all your cells and all bacteria connected to you (and maybe tenuously connects out to the whole web of life). (still imagination/intution, not science). Even more realistic is that the 'thoughts' and the observer are just two bits of the brain, and consciousness is some sort of 'self-loop' hall of mirrors (intuitively i lean toward the first two, but as quantum physics shows, sometimes intuition is dead wrong).

I think you're a bit unfair on the whole sweep of science - as consciousness study develops in the future, it's certainly got potential to make inroads into the sort of territory buddhism and the like seem more suited to (eg subjectivity), and not necessarily in some sort of cold clinical heartless way that is the usual cliched strawman of science (albeit justified by much 20th century extreme reductionism) - look at fritjof capra's systems view of life for an example of what non-reductionist, holistic science might look like.

 

[Bagseed]

I think you're a bit unfair on the whole sweep of science - as consciousness study increases in the future, it's certainly got potential to make inroads into the sort of territory buddhism and the like seem more suited to (eg subjectivity).

through science, we found the neurological ways how drugs work. a 5HT-2A receptor agonist will produce some sort of psychedelic effect. this is also reproducable. giving such a drug in a blind study will produce psychedelic effects. I think that attributing "intelligence" to a drug is a relic from times when we had no clue how this stuff is working at all.

I'm also very excited about what neuroscience will find in the coming decades

 

[murphythecat]

care to explain how to provide proof of your happiness, of the love you generate, of the compassion you feel? life is a experience that happens now. how can science study the now? the now is so deep that only your mind can attain the reality of now. thats why we meditate, to remove the delusions thoughts which takes us away from the now and tune ourselves to now.

Id guess you have had bliss experience in life with psychadelic, when you feel your whole body is in orgasm for hours? can someone prove it? no, do you need for someone to prove it to know it was really blissful? no, your experience is enough for you to believe in that blissful sensation.

consciousness is not your brain. you can choose upon what you will be conscious on. your big toe, then your mouth, then love, then compassion. you choose where to put your consciousness. if you were really your brain, you couldn't choose and change the content of your consciousness as easily. of course, the brain have a effect on your consciousness if you use the bodily function (5 senses) to be conscious of something. but once you do this, you already remove yourself a bit from reality. when you look at something, the reality is that you want to look at something. then you look. the absolute reality is not what you see, but the desire to see. like physic quantic said, reality is infinitely related to the observant and the observant change the nature of reality as soon as he observe.

as long as you depend upon the 5 sense to experience reality, sight, smell, ect (which comes from the brain), you will not understand what I mean when mind and body is separate.
but once you begin meditation and see clearly that when you concentrate on the present moment, theres another reality you can attain which is even realer then what your sense tells you of reality.

mind is not related to the body, and the more you meditate, the more you realize how much different reality can feel when you bypass the effect of the brain on your consciousness.
im not english, its hard to explain what I mean here. but meditate seriously, and within a month of 2 hour practice, you will have no doubt that your consciousness is running the show, not the body.

.

that everything at the core is the same. prior to the big bang, all energy was condensed in one tiny point and then started to expand.. (and there is actually much evidence to support this theory). matter started to form when things cooled down. so basically matter itself formed out of a non-physical thing.

I don't doubt that you experience your mind seperated from your body, but this still doesn't make it true. even having an out-of-body-experience while meditating doesn't prove it.

again, I cannot disprove what you say, but neither can you prove it.

 

[Bagseed]

I never said that love and bliss don't exist, as I have experienced both as well... there is still more evidence that it (read: emotions) is (at least partially caused/influenced) by physical processes than the other way round. (giving somebody a dopamine/serotonin antagonist is very likely to make them feel depressed, empty, etc). doesn't make it less meaningful in my opinion.

but well, I think I am done with this discussion, I guess we agree to disagree or something

 

[swilow]

but good luck in their life for people waiting to have all the answer they want from science.

for everything that is important in life, like developing happiness, love, peace, calm, science is absolutely useless.

Just as seeking to gain objective truth about the physical world using religious practise is pointless. In truth, I think humans need both spirituality and science equally. One seeks subjective truth and clarity, one seeks objective truth and clarity. Neither can do the others job.

The duality of science and spirit should remain in place as long as we are willing to open our eyes to both. Science cannot describe or quanitify love, spirituality cannot measure magnetic fields. They are both a singular path to discovering truth- aren't they?

 

[Doldrugs]

life is a experience that happens now. how can science study the now? the now is so deep that only your mind can attain the reality of now.

According to who? There's no actual evidence this is true. Science "studies the now" just fine. I have no idea what that means.

if you were really your brain, you couldn't choose and change the content of your consciousness as easily.

Why not? According to who?

like physic quantic said, reality is infinitely related to the observant and the observant change the nature of reality as soon as he observe.

No. This is nonsense. It's already been stated multiple times by multiple people in this thread that this isn't consistent with quantum physics. This is a common and oft mocked misconception. You cannot use the science of how very tiny things interact to explain how very large things interact. You can't just say "quantum physics" and snap your fingers and expect it to strengthen your argument. No physicist versed in quantum mechanics would agree with anything you're saying. Tacking the phrase onto your posts without taking the time to understand it is disingenuous.

once you begin meditation and see clearly that when you concentrate on the present moment, theres another reality you can attain which is even realer then what your sense tells you of reality.

This is really interesting and something I agree with to a certain extent. You can separate yourself from some of the biases of your mind and body through meditation. Science has tools to measure reality with much more precision than even the most mindful person, though.

Meditation is interesting. It arose before science, but was developed scientifically, albeit with very poor execution due to unscientific contemporary philosophies and beliefs. But the process, while not entirely intentional, proceeded scientifically: test a hypothesis, revise, repeat until you achieve repeatable results. People developed a powerful mindhack that can be confirmed by modern science. They improved it over time. It's really astounding. It came about very organically. Which means it's still burdened by superstition and mysticism. But it's probably the most spectacular "prescientific" human achievement.

If it did nothing, organized religion would not still retain the number of followers it does.

Not logical. Just because something exists doesn't mean it's ultimately positive. We have vestigial organs, social tendencies, etc. Plenty of negative things exist despite being awful. Parasites, viruses, etc.

We need science to advance as a race, but science is blind to morality. You learn how to split an atom and hundreds of thousands die. This is why we need spirituality because it serves as a moral compass. But also spirituality needs science, because just as governments will use science in evil ways for financial and political gain; so to will some people seek to take advantage of others through the misrepresentation and categorization of spirituality (often this is what religion is).

This is a caricature of science. Science isn't amoral and robotic. Ethics can be logical and scientific. Science is not an aggressive menace that needs to be tamed with spirituality.

But I know the inability to quantify or explain something troubles science very much

This is another straw man. Science is not "troubled" by gaps in knowledge. It is fucking PSYCHED. It loves that shit! To explore the unknown, unravel the mysterious, etc is what gets scientists super excited. But it sounds better for your argument if scientists are oppressive tyrants, illogically dismissing your ideas.

 

[murphythecat]

how can science study the now? the now happens so fast, only your mind can tune into it.
now is unstable and always changing if you have a unstable mind. you cannot even be now if you think.
science is based upon observing material things. of course, it can be helpful, but its all subjective reality.

theres a reality underneath the material world which is objective and the same for everyone. however, to attain it, we must train our mind.

mysticism and meditation. meditation is science badly applied. jeez, talk about some misinformation you said here.

reality is now and only your mind can experiment it. but to experiment it, you have to still and calm the mind. science as we know it observe the material reality. if you think the material world is all there is, I dont know what to say

 

[Doldrugs]

I'm talking about the religions and mystical concepts that are attached to meditation in almost all instances. They range from believing in other universes where people who meditate better get to go, to believing that meditation practices are absolute truths rather than approximations that can be improved.

 

[Vurtual]

...No. This is nonsense. It's already been stated multiple times by multiple people in this thread that this isn't consistent with quantum physics. This is a common and oft mocked misconception. You cannot use the science of how very tiny things interact to explain how very large things interact. You can't just say "quantum physics" and snap your fingers and expect it to strengthen your argument. No physicist versed in quantum mechanics would agree with anything you're saying. Tacking the phrase onto your posts without taking the time to understand it is disingenuous...

^^^Good post, though i think it may be a bit strong to suggest that no physicists think consciousness is involved in quantum physics - schrodinger was a bit cosmic from memory, there's von Neumann–Wigner interpretation (consciousness collapses the waveform), Bohm, and Pensrose in more recent times likes to look into consciousness (though not in terms of waveform collapse if i remember) - i'm sure there's others too (and not all deepak chopra) - they're all interpretations of the same data; granted they seem less popular these days, but it depends what type of physicist you ask really (i guess most experimental physicists stick to the shut up and calculate philosophy and don't think about it much).

 

[Doldrugs]

Schrödinger famously mocked the "scaling up" fallacy.