Theory of psychedelics. Are they right or wrong?

[love_sex_desire]

I don't believe I said I believed any of this. (Actually I did once, so I edited it to think, as I don't believe anything, just have strong convictions towards some ideas). Al though I might have, what I mean is these are my thoughts. They could be wrong, these are simply ideas, but many think they are relevant. No one created anything, but something created everything. Even if reality never was created and has always been infinite, infinity is something that led to the creation of our reality. I'm just trying to get some speculation out of you as to why there is life if it is meaningless? Do you have any thoughts?

 

[Cloudy]

How can I have speculation on something that doesn't exist? If I knew why life was meaningless than it wouldn't be meaningless.

 

[love_sex_desire]

Then how can you believe that life is meaningless if you see no reason why life would exist if it is meaningless? Your belief can not be proven either, and therefore should only be an idea. Are you suggesting there is no value in speculating on why there is life, whether it is meaningless or purposeful, just cause you can't prove it?

I may be wrong, but if knowing why life was meaningless would make it not meaningless, seems to suggest that it can't be meaningless. These concepts are hard to grasp so if people don't agree, I'd like to know why.

 

[Cloudy]

This is getting back to divinity. With out divinity meaningless things can exist as they are purely reactions, such as life. Life didn't exist before it did. It was formed by chemical reactions taking place, not created, so meaning doesn't have to exist. Once you try and assign meaning you are implying something created it as created, things have a purpose.

 

[love_sex_desire]

I am implying that for simplicities sake, nothing would be created if there was no meaning. There would be nothing. The fact that there is something, not only something, but consciousness aware of something, implies some sort of meaning.

I just don't understand why there would be anything if there was no meaning. Doesn't seem that we can ever know for sure in our lifetime, so I'll have to assume that there is a meaning, as I can't understand why there would be anything without meaning when nothing without meaning is so much simpler.

 

[love_sex_desire]

As an aside, regardless of whether anyone thinks life has a purpose or not, the fact that our reality has naturally led to life, with or without intent, is worth praising if you appreciate life. We can all worship and praise, without being religious. Similar to sun worship. I appreciate the sun, therefore I worship the sun, regardless of it's lack of consciousness or it's lack of awareness of my worship. I think worship is very natural and healthy, and psychedelics have helped me gain a better awareness and appreciation for the complexities of life and reality.

 

[Cloudy]

I disagree, having meaning doesn't imply that these is no existence. I don't understand how that implies that it does. Everything is based on chemical reactions of particles which make up everything. Since chemical reactions have no meaning as they are just reactions based on chemistry and physics, there should be meaning for things based around it, aka living organisms.

Now I can't dispute any sort of creation of the universe as it is something we can never know

I certainly have appreciation for life as I haven't killed myself

 

[Cloudy]

Also I want to say that I'm not saying one can't add meaning or purpose to ones life. I've certainly created some purpose for myself outside of living.

 

[love_sex_desire]

I respect your views and in no way suggest you are absolutely wrong, there is a very good chance you are correct. Personally I just don't understand why chemical properties leading to awareness would exist without meaning. This is all way beyond what any of us can directly know, but I feel that psychedelics have given me a glimpse of the infinite potential of the mind and in a way have suggested that there is meaning. Al though everything is chemical, so you are correct that the mechanism causing everything is purely chemical. I just can't understand why, especially with quantum theories suggesting that all sub-atomic properties of a chemical are in a state of potentiality before consciousness observes and collapses the wave-function. None of this has been proven, but psychedelics and quantum physics have led me to speculate that there is meaning. I'm glad you appreciate life, however meaningless it seems!

 

[Raw Evil]

There is all the more evidence that there is no seat of consciousness, but consciousness is the sum of the parts of nervous electrical activity in concert. Proprioception derived from the senses, parts to make you move, parts that support you actually feeling awake. It's a sliding scale, the more parts working properly and the more active they are the more and wide your consciousness is. DMT may play a role in your construction of the idea of a coherent reality and distorting that produces severe derealization... but that is not the same as consciousness. It's an interconnected web that forms it together but no true absolute single source. It's a sliding scale whether one is conscious or not rather than a property that flips the switch. That is what all the evidence points to.

It's an emergent property. The greater the complexity of the network, the more complex behaviour is displayed by that network.

Since consciousness is classically rather difficult to define objectively, I suggest that we consider consciousness as anything that appears to display some level of complex behaviour. At which point, networks like insect colonies, human civilisations, cultures (including that of the Internet), data transfer patterns in computer networks, dog/cat brains, etc - all seem to possess some level of proto-consciousness.

I'm convinced that this emergent property is the reason that we feel more "awake" as time goes by; the same reason that memories of childhood seem somewhat dreamlike. As the brain grows in complexity (by creating more connections between neurons, in the case of building memories or learning skills or behaviours), the capacity for more complex, more abstracted thinking increases. The "sliding scale" depends only on the number of connections between nodes.

 

[obscurus]

Damn this is an interesting read, with many well presented points. But tell me Clouds, you tend to return to the fact that everything is chemical reactions, that no higher power, consciousness or energy is present in this world. I believe i can say with quite a bit of certainty that at least a cosmic law exists. One that is present at quantum physical levels and in complex organisms such as ourselves. What determines when an electron is excited into another orbital for example? There is a system and therefore a meaning.

 

[Delta-9-THC]

WHat makes you think that meaning is relative to us? I agree nature falls into precise patterns and we call this a law although I'm not sure why you used the word cosmic.

We exist for a reason but that reason has very little relevance to what we experience in life. The universe does not care about you. You are a speck of dust in the whole scheme of things.

We just happen to exist in a reality which is configured in such a way that it supports the development of complex structures that we call life. The physical laws make this possible and in an infinite reality anything that can happen WILL happen. There is no deeper reason for our existence than that. Reality in many ways is a novelty generator. Creating an infinite amount of permutations and different configurations of complex parts. In a universe where it is possible, life was bound to happen.

So yes, we exist for a reason, but that reason is an incredibly long chain of physical events that has little to no relevance to your life and is ultimately incomprehensible to us. There is no grand purpose for our existence.

 

[love_sex_desire]

WHat makes you think that meaning is relative to us? I agree nature falls into precise patterns and we call this a law although I'm not sure why you used the word cosmic.

I think he used the word cosmic in reference to universal law throughout the cosmos, assuming chemical and physical laws on Earth would apply throughout the cosmos.

We exist for a reason but that reason has very little relevance to what we experience in life. The universe does not care about you. You are a speck of dust in the whole scheme of things.

We just happen to exist in a reality which is configured in such a way that it supports the development of complex structures that we call life. The physical laws make this possible and in an infinite reality anything that can happen WILL happen.

We are a speck of dust within infinity, yet everything within infinity has equally infinite value. You can not take a fraction out of infinity, therefore everything seems to have no value. Yet without every individual aspect within infinity, it would no longer be infinite, therefore everything has infinite value within infinity. Reality is a paradox, as the yin-yang suggests, so as a Taoist would say there is value to life through no value, or there is meaning to life through no meaning. I think anyone can come to their own conclusion and will be right in their own right when it comes to a finite mind contemplating the infinite.

There is no deeper reason for our existence than that. Reality in many ways is a novelty generator. Creating an infinite amount of permutations and different configurations of complex parts. In universe where it is possible, life was bound to happen.

So yes, we exist for a reason, but that reason is an incredibly long chain of physical events that has little to no relevance to your life. There is no grand purpose for our existence.

I don't understand why atheist viewpoints come across so matter-of-fact. It's scientific dogma because science can only show us mechanisms, but can never prove whether there is reason behind the mechanism. You don't know there isn't a grand purpose for our existence, no one can ever *know*. IMO if it is impossible to provide a reason why such complexity would emerge and why reality would exist to begin with if their is no purpose for existence than I must deduct that there probably is a purpose for existence. Why infinity instead of infinitesimal? It's ironic, while you look at the infinite as being the reason why there is no purpose, as life was bound to happen within the infinite, I look at the fact the infinite exists and life was bound to happen as a reason why there may be a point to all of it. I find it hard to grasp that infinite everything would exist rather than infinite nothingness if there was no point.

Is the fact that there is everything rather than nothing not point to a good probability that there is a purpose to life? Why or why not?

 

[romsoccer12]

lovesexdesire hit what i was trying to say in the begining of this thread right on the nail. phschadelic really show lots of people there is something greater than just science, atoms reacting to other atoms... and i think its very special substance that is on this earth for a reason, maybe by luck, maybe by science, or maybe by some higher power. Idk how it got here and idc, because im never gonna know until I die, maybe i still wont know when i die but its not something we should be wondering that much about. Live your life. I think people spending their whole lives trying to figure out the meaning of life are stupid, its wasting what life was supposed to be. We are never going to know because we have like 1/100000 of the information to answer the question, so why keep trying to answer it? Why have wars over it? Destroy human beings just because people say they believe something over something else?
Sorry for my rambling,
great thread, i really got some cool questions answered!

 

[rickolasnice]

Psychedelics can make you think about things differently than you normally would.. see things differently than you normally would.. this can help with say someone with a bit of a personal problem / dilema goin on or say someone looking for the answers in their specialised field of research (or whatever)..

Wether the change it perception leads to good / write ansers is another story..

 

[rickolasnice]

What is the point of expanding out minds? There is none in the general scheme of things. It is only important to us in a superficial way and doesn't deal with our survival of a species nor help with the longevity of the world we live in. We cause more problems than we solve on this earth, hence we are detrimental to this world. Being able to think in a more complex manner means jack shit. It just is the way we've evolved to survive. That is it. Clearly it is more of a disadvantage (IMO) because it is continuing to cause us problems.

If I had the choice I'd resort back to a primitive life style (hunter gather) or just be some other animal. Modern humans aren't worth the air they breath imo.

The population would not be as great as it is + life expendency would be shorter.. so in an evolutionary sense we have helped our species survival ALOT. The know how to correct every genetic fault could lie behind the mind that jus needs a lil expanding.. world leaders might make the right, solid and its a bout god damn time! choices if they jus expanded their minds a little..

I agree with you though.. humans are about to, or have, fucked everything up.. Merry Christmas

 

[rickolasnice]

I think he used the word cosmic in reference to universal law throughout the cosmos, assuming chemical and physical laws on Earth would apply throughout the cosmos.



We are a speck of dust within infinity, yet everything within infinity has equally infinite value. You can not take a fraction out of infinity, therefore everything seems to have no value. Yet without every individual aspect within infinity, it would no longer be infinite, therefore everything has infinite value within infinity. Reality is a paradox, as the yin-yang suggests, so as a Taoist would say there is value to life through no value, or there is meaning to life through no meaning. I think anyone can come to their own conclusion and will be right in their own right when it comes to a finite mind contemplating the infinite.



I don't understand why atheist viewpoints come across so matter-of-fact. It's scientific dogma because science can only show us mechanisms, but can never prove whether there is reason behind the mechanism. You don't know there isn't a grand purpose for our existence, no one can ever *know*. IMO if it is impossible to provide a reason why such complexity would emerge and why reality would exist to begin with if their is no purpose for existence than I must deduct that there probably is a purpose for existence. Why infinity instead of infinitesimal? It's ironic, while you look at the infinite as being the reason why there is no purpose, as life was bound to happen within the infinite, I look at the fact the infinite exists and life was bound to happen as a reason why there may be a point to all of it. I find it hard to grasp that infinite everything would exist rather than infinite nothingness if there was no point.

Is the fact that there is everything rather than nothing not point to a good probability that there is a purpose to life? Why or why not?

Our universe is artificial and extremely simple to the higher beings.. It's one big research project for their infant offspring. (btw.. time to them is alot different to us.. from the big bang to now has only been what we would assume was around 23 days.. but they manage to take everything in and recrod it with perfect detail). They've played around a little since the big bang.. tweaking the universe an what not.

But that doesn't mean life isn't worth living. It doesn't mean we aren't real.

And btw there is no purpose to life / reality.. it just is.

 

[solistus]

I don't believe things were put here with a purpose focused on our humanistic interpretation. Reality simply is. What psychedelics do, in my mind, is reveal some of the areas where our seemingly complete, simple, objective experience of reality ceases to be complete, simple or objective. As a Lacanian, I believe the very concept of meaning or that things 'make sense' implies human interpretation through language. The relationship of consciousness to language is the defining tension of the human experience. Psychedelics severely distort the usual processes by which we make sense of the world and can help realise that beliefs we took for granted are not necessarily fact.

I may be rambling a bit, but the point is that psychedelics are not some magical conduit to a higher form of spiritual knowledge. They force us to confront existing knowledge, which is probably why individual responses can differ so wildly, but any ideas that come to you during a trip are ultimately the product of your own mind; it's simply given very weird and unusual operating conditions and therefore produces some very weird and unusual results. Psychedelics force us to confront an irrationality at the heart of subjectivity.

 

[Delta-9-THC]

I think he used the word cosmic in reference to universal law throughout the cosmos, assuming chemical and physical laws on Earth would apply throughout the cosmos.



We are a speck of dust within infinity, yet everything within infinity has equally infinite value. You can not take a fraction out of infinity, therefore everything seems to have no value. Yet without every individual aspect within infinity, it would no longer be infinite, therefore everything has infinite value within infinity. Reality is a paradox, as the yin-yang suggests, so as a Taoist would say there is value to life through no value, or there is meaning to life through no meaning. I think anyone can come to their own conclusion and will be right in their own right when it comes to a finite mind contemplating the infinite.



I don't understand why atheist viewpoints come across so matter-of-fact. It's scientific dogma because science can only show us mechanisms, but can never prove whether there is reason behind the mechanism. You don't know there isn't a grand purpose for our existence, no one can ever *know*. IMO if it is impossible to provide a reason why such complexity would emerge and why reality would exist to begin with if their is no purpose for existence than I must deduct that there probably is a purpose for existence. Why infinity instead of infinitesimal? It's ironic, while you look at the infinite as being the reason why there is no purpose, as life was bound to happen within the infinite, I look at the fact the infinite exists and life was bound to happen as a reason why there may be a point to all of it. I find it hard to grasp that infinite everything would exist rather than infinite nothingness if there was no point.

Is the fact that there is everything rather than nothing not point to a good probability that there is a purpose to life? Why or why not?

I agree we cannot know the true nature of reality. It is impossible for us because we have a very limited perspective. All we know is what we can perceive and conceive and there is much that we cannot. Science won't ever give us complete answers just little insights by reducing complex events into smaller more basic ones. The point I was trying to make is there is no apparent reason to believe that the universe works in a way that is relative to us. I didn't say reality had no point I just said it doesn't appear to revolve around us. I agree that you can't know such things for sure but there is no reason to believe it does. I don't claim to know why reality is the way it is.

 

[romsoccer12]

Our universe is artificial and extremely simple to the higher beings.. It's one big research project for their infant offspring. (btw.. time to them is alot different to us.. from the big bang to now has only been what we would assume was around 23 days.. but they manage to take everything in and recrod it with perfect detail). They've played around a little since the big bang.. tweaking the universe an what not.

But that doesn't mean life isn't worth living. It doesn't mean we aren't real.

And btw there is no purpose to life / reality.. it just is.

so your saying there is an alien race, much smarter than us, that has had 23 days, since our big bang