The apparent magic of the psychedelic experience

[TheAppleCore]

Here is a conjecture attempting to account for the apparently magical or impossible nature of some psychedelic effects on consciousness.

We approach the psychedelic experience as if it were something constructed by the interaction of the drug with our biology. Then, because the trip is so incredibly complex, refined, delicate, and seemingly "intelligent", we cannot possibly believe that the phenomenon is entirely a product of chemicals somewhat randomly binding to serotonin receptors and mucking with our brain function. We would expect the effect of blind stimulation of the brain to be akin to vigorously stirring clear water on a bed of sand: the sand gets kicked up into the water and muddies everything. However, when we chemically prod a healthy brain with psychedelics, what we get is a very counterintuitive and delightful effect of clarifying, sharpening, and expanding perception.

This is because the "psychedelic experience" is not created by psychedelics at all. It is the way that the cosmos naturally experiences itself: as one single, unbroken unity. It is the natural flow of consciousness. It's just that the human ego, very artfully, manages to create the elaborate illusion that it is somehow separate from everything else. Psychedelics allow the abundant, pre-existing conscious energy of the universe to once again flow freely, by simply breaking down the ego, which is the peculiar barrier against this energy, and is responsible for damming up the natural flow of consciousness.

So, in essence, the seeming impossibility of the psychedelic experience comes from the idea that the drugs and human biology themselves bear the burden of having to organize and direct this complex and wondrous phenomenon. Rather, the job of psychedelic drugs is a simple destructive one, which is to simply dissolve the blindfold which prevents us from seeing what was there all along: not a product of your feeble drug-addled mind, but a product of the fundamental laws of nature themselves.

 

[Help?!?!]

Exactly. Psychedelics dissolve the borders that serve to separate certain portions of the mind. The borders may technically need to be there because without those filters, well just imagine what it would be like if the filters were constantly removed. Yes, for some this would be a miracle. It would free them from their tombs in which they slumber, but for others the barriers in the mind keep them safe. It keeps what they cannot fathom or handle separate from other things. This is one of the reasons IMO, that certain people have so much trouble with psychedelics. They simply can't handle the overload or the mixture of one thing with another that normally never would be. When the barriers are eliminated for some its pure and unadulterated freedom that is nearly unknown in regular reality that is normally our tomb but the like stated the opposite will also happen for some, the uninhibited mindset will slaughter or weaken them, then trap them. IMO its also true that these people can learn to live in this new manner but the way were taught normally isn't helpful to this. If we could just understand fear is simply always there and that standing there fearing fear is utterly wasteful and useless, instead they could ease their tense muscles and learn to watch only when needed, the key is staying ever vigilant but not to become a set stone statue. Psychedelics have never been creators, only destroyers, the creation comes from within yourself, the evolution of you under the new light of a barrier free world. Lastly, it always stands that a house seen with walls will always seem small and claustrophobic, but if you simply remove the walls, you'll see that all along the house was the same size, that in the end it was you who was confused because you let what you see be your knowledge instead of letting what you know be it. Its my opinion that we simply hide from the truth, somewhere deep, deep down we all know what psychedelics tell use everytime we research them, the psychedelic experience is so strong that it blares what we already know like a resounding horn. Once you've heard the call, its hard to forget, maybe even impossible if you caught the reverberations strongly enough. A fact from that John Hopkins study always sticks in my mind, it was so powerful to me that 75% of the participants expressed that their psilocybin experiences ranked as one of the most grand of their entire life. How can anyone ignore something like that? That a simple fleck of powder could produce one of the most memorable and life altering things you could ever experience. So astounding.

Eh I suppose thats enough of my crazed ramblings!:D

 

[gymstud]

I often wondered why my vision wasn't distorted like a tv used to get when someone used a hair dryer ....

But I think it's cos the mind (psy) fills in the gaps of infirmation the brain used due to 5th2a interaction hence manifests it self (delia)

 

[IamMe90]

Maybe, maybe not. I think some of this is very, very much conjecture and shouldn't be asserted as fact. I wouldn't be surprised if psychedelia could be reduced to physics if we had a sophisticated enough translational language and knowledge to do so. But I wouldn't be surprised if some of the things said here could be at least in part correct as well.

 

[TheAppleCore]

^ Well, being a materialist, I've always believed that everything, including subjective experience, can be reduced to physics.

 

[<SpaceHead>]

Judging from my subjective experiences with psychedelics, theapplecore's explination seems very self evident. Before I had a strong psychedelic trip I was very nihilistic, I believed my personal conciousness could only percieve the world through my imperfect sensory organs and I was alone in my head, when I died it would all be over. Now I know that I have no fucking idea which is so much more exiting! Althouhg I think the OP undermines the brilliant complexities of the brain and they way psychedelics work.

They are definitely not just randomly muddling things in the brain, thats more of what alcohol does. I mean think of how simple the DMT molecule is and how complex the subjective experience is its ridiuclous. I think that shows how absurdly complex the human brain is. Clearly Shulgins work proves that psychedelics have very specific action in the brain demonstrated through structure activity relationships. I don't think looking at it on a neurochemical level makes it nihilistic and reduces it to a material thing, I think its just one of many levels of whats going on. The creation of new psychedelics and research into what receptor sets they interact with is physicaly mapping out this phenomina, it's extremely interesting.

 

[Thorns Have Roses]

not a product of your feeble drug-addled mind, but a product of the fundamental laws of nature themselves.

I think you've created a false dichotomy. Chemically altering your mind is changing your thinking, some drugs do it in such ways as this, that you find enlightening and subjectively positive. But I wouldn't put on a different level than everything else, though I acknowledge that doing so may be useful from a usage standpoint. And certainly the experience can make me want to exceptionalize them, but I refuse.

They are definitely not just randomly muddling things in the brain, thats more of what alcohol does

As (probably) one of the heavier drinkers of PD, I've got to say I reject with this characterization of alcohol. While there are levels that feel muddled (generally when buzzed), there's a level between there and blackouts where there's a sense of clarity and freedom. You cut out all that superfluous shit with the impairing effects, letting the joy of consciousness and living bubble up and be appreciated.

 

[PandaGun]

Rationally thinking (post drug madness) I would say that the world could be anything and everything. There is not much to stop us from walking through walls apart from the wall itself. < Quantum thingiemajig. However it could be argued indefinitely, which it has been and always will be, that what we perceive as healthy sober human beings is that the wall IS there and white with a shiny finish or the way we are built makes us perceive the wall is there with a shiny finish when in fact it is a fish.. er.
I also think that this kind of look on the world through drugs is a fair point and can be explored further. BUT as a youth worker I have seen a few young people lose their grip on reality. Believing that they are smarter, superior and better than those who have not taken LSD 12fold times. Literally living in their own 'higher' universe. What we experience on drugs is amazing and completely life changing at times but whatever the universe is, a fish, is how we perceive it. You always comedown to reality (most of the time anyway..) and realise that you will have to follow the rules set by morality and life as to gain stability and a foothold in this crazy world. People have to adapt and follow, like sheep, depressing really. To question it all is not a crime nor wrong, to put yourself convincingly out of it all is insanity and even then you cannot walk through walls. <Not as B&W as that but yeah

 

[Fulorange]

This most recent semester I decided to stand up in my Confucianism class and tell them about how LSD cleared my minds lens of "qi". I received some good and bad questions, as well as some, "Just sounds like you like to be high..." (Religious majors... I'm in engineering). Now, "qi" refers to the muddiness of life that some cannot see through. For example, a rock would have a very unclear lens, so unclear it has no perception of the world, a dog has a muddied lens, a dog may see and perceive the world but not to he extent of humans. Even humans have varying muddiness (the sheltered kid v.s. the kid who takes risks and explores). Unfortunately when you try to explain how you see the world people write you off as crazy and "fucked" from drugs. They don't understand I'm not high all the time, these are just from lessons I've learned and integrated into my life. But it's weird sometimes, from having a feeling of being liberated, to feeling like a liberated mind trapped in a robot. Anyone else feel this?

Hmm... my two cents

Edit: Yussssss first post!

 

[huolesoh]

feeling like a liberated mind trapped in a robot

yes i see what you mean

the line between brain chemicals and emotion i find extremely perplexing

yes, the dopamine molecule in essence, moves from A to B, but how can this cause a feeling ??

and then i find myself with similar answers, moving from scientific to spiritual; the creator of these emotions is the infinite universe, oneness and pure magic, or something to that effect

"in the province of the mind, there are no limits. but in the province of the body, there are limits, not to be transcended" - john c lily

in this zelda videogame i use to play as a kid, you can get an object called the "lens of truth" which lets you see things that you previously could not ! what a symbol ................... !

 

[DwayneHoover]

^ Well, being a materialist, I've always believed that everything, including subjective experience, can be reduced to physics.

Tell us how or why "physics" results in inner subjective experiences, and the phenomenon of "qualia"? Well you may try to guess "OK some electrons go thru some nerve fibers". OK then WHAT is "experiencing" those events in the brain tissue? Itself? Other tissues? What gives it the ability to have "inner experiences" Then what is becoming "self-aware" of THEM? There is NO ANSWER to this, unless one posits that some kind of awareness is a basic property intrinsic to all matter/energy to some degree (which just becomes more organized/concentrated in brains).

Also, there is ZERO explanation or even conjecture as why *WHY* SHOULD ELECTRICAL IMPULSES IN BRAIN TISSUE GENERATE A SUBJECTIVE CONSCIOUS EXPERIENCE IN THE FIRST PLACE? The hard-core materialists have attempted some feeble claims that amount to nonsense and just sweeping the issue under the rug.

Google "hard problem of consciousness" (which has not even begun to be effectively answered), "qualia", and "David Chalmers"

I know it is reassuring to adopt a belief that "everything is totally physical" but this approach just totally avoids these very real philosophical problems. I suggest you read http://consc.net/papers/facing.html Facing Up to the Problem of Consciousness, by David J. Chalmers, Department of Philosophy, University of Arizona, and also the other paper that is referenced in the first paragraph that extends and deepens to discussion.

Then get back to us on "WHY SHOULD IT FEEL LIKE ANYTHING to ~be~ a network of brain tissue with electrical currents flowing in it? It just does NOT appear to have any answer!

 

[RobotRipping]

^agreed.

blah materialism.

this is going to end up being a philosophical battle which has already taken place (in history). Suffice to say, we know nothing.

 

[swilow]

This is because the "psychedelic experience" is not created by psychedelics at all. It is the way that the cosmos naturally experiences itself: as one single, unbroken unity

Well, ignoring the tautology at the end there, I can't really see how you came to this conclusion. To explain the apparent 'magic' of tripping by saying the above statement doesn't make much sense because the statement itself relies, to a large degree, on acceptance of the same 'magic'. I can accept the effects of psychedelics, not because of anything unknowable such as the consciiousness of the cosmos, but because the effects of psychedelics are largely expansions and extentsions of existing senses and, whilst unusual, can feel perfeclty normal when tripping. In that sense, I think I understand when you say that the oddness of tripping is not 'magical', but I have a different opinion as to why...

 

[Tranced]

Here is a conjecture attempting to account for the apparently magical or impossible nature of some psychedelic effects on consciousness.

We approach the psychedelic experience as if it were something constructed by the interaction of the drug with our biology. Then, because the trip is so incredibly complex, refined, delicate, and seemingly "intelligent", we cannot possibly believe that the phenomenon is entirely a product of chemicals somewhat randomly binding to serotonin receptors and mucking with our brain function. We would expect the effect of blind stimulation of the brain to be akin to vigorously stirring clear water on a bed of sand: the sand gets kicked up into the water and muddies everything. However, when we chemically prod a healthy brain with psychedelics, what we get is a very counterintuitive and delightful effect of clarifying, sharpening, and expanding perception.

This is because the "psychedelic experience" is not created by psychedelics at all. It is the way that the cosmos naturally experiences itself: as one single, unbroken unity. It is the natural flow of consciousness. It's just that the human ego, very artfully, manages to create the elaborate illusion that it is somehow separate from everything else. Psychedelics allow the abundant, pre-existing conscious energy of the universe to once again flow freely, by simply breaking down the ego, which is the peculiar barrier against this energy, and is responsible for damming up the natural flow of consciousness.

So, in essence, the seeming impossibility of the psychedelic experience comes from the idea that the drugs and human biology themselves bear the burden of having to organize and direct this complex and wondrous phenomenon. Rather, the job of psychedelic drugs is a simple destructive one, which is to simply dissolve the blindfold which prevents us from seeing what was there all along: not a product of your feeble drug-addled mind, but a product of the fundamental laws of nature themselves.

You'll be happy to know that I had this exact same thought whilst sitting on the toilet earlier, and as soon as I started reading your post I knew what it was going to be out.

This often happens when I have any significant realisation of this nature... such is our way of remembering, I suppose.

 

[TheAppleCore]

You'll be happy to know that I had this exact same thought whilst sitting on the toilet earlier, and as soon as I started reading your post I knew what it was going to be out.

Hmmm... I am a bit puzzled. Is this some way of belittling my idea? :D

 

[huolesoh]

I know it is reassuring to adopt a belief that "everything is totally physics" but this approach just totally avoids these very real philosophical problems.

yes i think you might be right here. the whole "this is how this works and that is how that works and there's nothing more to it" is very professor yaffle or thomas gradgrind - characters who represent the desperate approach of perceiving everything as logically and black and white as they can, displaying the inherent flaws this can bring

WHY SHOULD IT FEEL LIKE ANYTHING to ~be~ a network of brain tissue with electrical currents flowing in it?

yes when you start throwing facts like 'humans are over 95% water' and 'we are essentially just miniscule things made of matter on the corner of a universe' it seems that there is more to this reality then physics

 

[MattPsy]

People continually mistake failures in imagination for physical impossibilities.

Why SHOULDN'T it feel like anything to be a network of brain tissue with electrical currents in it? Meaning is encoded into the world in a very wide variety of ways.

I know it is very reassuring and/or tempting to ascribe phenomena that are hard to understand to essentially unknowable processes, but this is no way to approach anything.
The 'hard' problem of consciousness is a red herring, IMO. I'm not sure that the question even means anything. "what is it like to be a bat?" - you cannot reconcile the two viewpoints.

The materialist philosophy very neatly makes sense of why subjective experience changes more or less (more as time goes on) predictably when the signalling modes are altered with drugs or external electrical impulses.

 

[DwayneHoover]

^Balderdash. "Materialist philosopy" (which one, which theorem, exactly???) has no such "very neat explanation" for even WHAT SUBJECTIVE EXPERIENCE *IS* IN THE FIRST PLACE, you are making huge incorrect assumptions here.

It doesn't sound like to me like you actually read any of the literature. Don't rely on my fumbling attempts to phrase the concept. In the link above (http://consc.net/papers/facing.html) Chalmers lays out the case very simply and far better than I could ever hope. And replies meticulously to numerous critques. And identifies several possibilities at coming up with a scientific conjecture to explain the central issue of EXPERIENCE.

Here are some other starting points for your edification:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_problem_of_consciousness
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Chalmers
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_penrose
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panpsychism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended_mind
http://consc.net/papers/extended.html

Why SHOULDN'T it feel like anything...

Hold it right there... you are immediately glossing over. What, exactly, is this "IT" that "feels like" something? Describe "it", what "it" consists of. And what kind of process is "feeling like"... where does the experience aspect of the phenomenon arise from, why does it exist, what is it exactly?

To just say "why shouldn't it..." amounts to a totally vacuous evasion, that is a more a child's verbal ploy, without meaning, with no explanatory content, akin to saying "nuh-uh."

If I take that seriously, it can only imply that you believe all matter as part of its intrinsic nature inherently has "something that it feels like to be", that some level of primordial "awareness" is a basic property of everything, so thus everything "feels like something", leading you to object "why SHOULDNT it 'feel like something'", right?

Well on a philosophical level, that is quite an amazing thing to suggest, for which there is zero scientific backing or theories about of any kind. You donot seem to understand the implications of something that you apparently intuitively believe. It leads to an entirely other extra-scientific realm of ideas. What IS this stuff that has an internal sensation of "being", that has subjective experiences of ineffable process like "redness" or "pain" or "joy" or "touch", WHAT exactly is having these experiences? WHERE does the "experience" aspect reside/exist?

And in fact I agree that is the only possible explanation, and that is what Chalmers suggests at the end of the 2nd paper linked to by the above link, that there must be some basic axiomatic property (all science begins from sets of axioms and assumptions for which no "explanations" are provided, the things that "we hold as self-evident") of matter/energy/space-time that it has some quality of EXPERIENCE. [And I believe it probably explains the aspects of "consciousness" like wave-function collapse that are a central part of quantum theory, as well as still totally mysterious aspects for which there is NO explanation like "entanglement", the "spooky instantaneous action at a distance" that so bothered Einstein but that he could not disprove (and which has been concretely measured many times in many ways and absolutely shown to physically exist... look up "Bells Theorem").]

All other explanations end up merely being technical descriptions of processes, with NO model or idea about where the EXPERIENCE attribute comes from, what it even is, in what ontological space it exists. One famous scientist said "eliminate the impossible and you are left with the truth" which in this case is some kind of fundamental pan-universal "awareness" that suffuses everything at a basic level. Your question quoted above revealed that you already believe in "it."

That is something that I think the majority of people who have have extremely strong trips have felt and know intimately. It is a HUGE DEAL and NOT something to be glossed over as if it is some insignificant quibble.

 

[MattPsy]

Heh. You might be surprised to discover just how much I DO know about this .
Computational theory of mind is more than enough when viewed through the lens of strange loops (paradoxical level crossing hierachies), as it describes how meaning emerges spontaneously from non-meaning from casual association.

You have already made your mind up about these things so i'm not even going to bother. I used to do this on internet forums, but then realised it was a waste of my time. I understand this sounds weak, but I don't really give a fuck, really.

I subscribe roughly to a philosophy made up from computational theory of mind, global workspace theory, cellular automata, various aspects of Dennett, and Hofstadter (heavy emphasis of self-reference), to make a gross approximation. Research them if you will, but if you're already an adherent of Chalmers, it's unlikely to cut much ice with you if you're taken with the qualia delusion.

Oh, and quantum phenomena are by no means incompatible with the computational theory of mind. They may very well provide many orders of magnitude speedup for certain subsets of problems within the global problem space. Are you familiar with computational complexity classes?

I have plenty of experience wioth tripping, and all my experience has done is reaffirm my beliefs in what i've just briefly described. Perhaps the feelings you describe i.r.t. experiential ineffability are not nearly as universal as you think.

p.s. Not a famous scientist it was Sherlock Holmes that said that. "It is an old maxim of mine that when you have excluded the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."

 

[DwayneHoover]

Well that's a neat little way of brushing me (and the ideas I am discussing) under the carpet... very typical of you fundamentalist materialists, totally convinced of the correctness of your own stunted ideas before a discussion even starts.

Hofstader is not the guru his fans make him out to be. He writes some very interesting things, but all his chatter about "self-representing loops" is ultimately and ironically circular in its reasoning and provides NO explanation of the nature and origin of "experience" whatsoever, although he claims it does, there is no "meat" there, just his assertion that it is an explanation, without any concrete reasoning as to HOW it explains it, only his empty CLAIM that it is an explanation. FAIL, imho.

I fact I've read Hofstadter (the Godel Escher Bach book, and others) and that in no way is any theory that "explains" how "subjective experience" arises, what it actually IS. In fact, it illustrates how Godel's theorem proves that there are FACTS THAT ARE TRUE THAT ARE NECESSARILY BEYOND THE REALM OF ANY REPRESENTATIONAL SYMBOLIC SYSTEM (i.e., math, language, and science) AND THAT CAN NOT BE PROVEN OR EVEN REPRESENTED BY SUCH MEANS. In other words "there are things that are part of what we call 'truth' that are nonetheless outside of the realm of science and mathematics." All of which would seem to fully support some kind of "extended mind" concept if you ask me.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gödel's_incompleteness_theorems

Gödel's incompleteness theorems are two theorems of mathematical logic that establish inherent limitations of all but the most trivial axiomatic systems capable of doing arithmetic. The theorems, proven by Kurt Gödel in 1931, are important both in mathematical logic and in the philosophy of mathematics. The two results are widely, but not universally, interpreted as showing that Hilbert's program to find a complete and consistent set of axioms for all mathematics is impossible, giving a negative answer to Hilbert's second problem.

The first incompleteness theorem states that no consistent system of axioms whose theorems can be listed by an "effective procedure" (e.g., a computer program, but it could be any sort of algorithm) is capable of proving all truths about the relations of the natural numbers (arithmetic). For any such system, there will always be statements about the natural numbers that are true, but that are unprovable within the system. The second incompleteness theorem, a corollary of the first, shows that such a system cannot demonstrate its own consistency.​