Impressions from Basel

[illuminati boy]

Brief Tucson Sidebar

Indeed... You been to that conferences? What's it like?

One has caught several of the conferences in Tucson since one first went in 2000. The presentations (even those on ASC) are usually very rigorous. While very neuroscience and physics heavy, there is a good helping of philosophical discussion on the nature of consciousness (intentionality, bottom-up vs top-down causality, etc.) from the Western Analytic and Continental traditions as well as Eastern and Aboriginal perspectives. The highlights were probably getting a sloppy kiss from Sue Blackmore, Dave Chalmers’ ‘End of Consciousness Party’, arguing machine intelligence with Searle & Kurzweil, lunching with the folks from Vollenweider’s lab, listening to V.S. Ramachandran give a very fun and plausible neuroscience explanation of cubist art, various brain scans of meditative states and drug induced states, possible candidates for a NCC, hanging out with the guys from MAPS, listening to Jon Hanna give talks on psychedelic art… etc. etc. etc.

Tucson is really worth the trip.

I B

 

[BilZ0r]

Well maybe when I'm richer I might go.

 

[fastandbulbous]

listening to V.S. Ramachandran give a very fun and plausible neuroscience explanation of cubist art

Would have been worth it for him alone. He has a gift for making the most complex and abstract of neurological explanations interesting and easy to follow (I hate anatomy & esp that of the brain!).

 

[J. Alfred Prufrock]

These were taken at the conference...

 

[5-HT2]

Would have been worth it for him alone. He has a gift for making the most complex and abstract of neurological explanations interesting and easy to follow (I hate anatomy & esp that of the brain!).

Yeah, he is the man. I met him and talked to him a lot at Mind States 2003 in Berkeley. The last night of the conference, he was stoned off his ass, as anybody could tell from his heavy-lidded, bloodshot eyes, yet he managed to carry on just as well as when he was sober.

 

[fastandbulbous]

^ His lectures are always fascinating (as are any TV progs he appears in) due to his style of delivery; also the books he's written don't end up being too bogged down in the piddly details of what hes explaining (that's what papers are for, after all!). He also has a very dry sense of humour from what I've seen/heard of him being interviewed

Consider me green with envy as I'd love to be able to talk to somebody with a good understanding of the mechanisms behind phantom limb pain (for personal reasons); GP's don't know much at all and consultant neurologists rarely have the time to stand and natter if you bump into them in a hospital setting

 

[who mE?]

3. Some compounds he investigated cause seizures. When he feels the seizure coming, he takes a phenobarb and developed a strategy to prevent the seizure until the phenobarb does his job. (20 min) He says, it’s important to bring none of your thoughts to an end. When this happens, the seizure will come. So, when you feel that your thoughts on one topic comes near to an end, switch to any other thing, you think about. This works very effectively, in his opinion. (We all hope that we will never come in such situation!!)

Sounds scary... I can hardly imagine such an intelligent man as Shulgin willingly injesting chemicals capable of causing seizures, as he should know very well of the Kindling phenomenon where each seizure one has increases the likelyhood and severity of future seizures.

And while the primary risk of seizures is of having one in a dangerous circumstance (driving for example), they do increase the chances of major health problems (including death) significantly:

Mortality/Morbidity: The incidence of sudden death is 24 times higher in persons with epilepsy than in the general population. Some of the risk factors for sudden death in epilepsy (SUDEP) include high seizure frequency (specifically tonic-clonic type), younger age, mental retardation, and polytherapy.

http://www.emedicine.com/neuro/topic376.htm
(yes I know seizures and epilepsy are 2 different things, but I'm in a hurry and that's not my main point!) My main point is, I would do everything I could possibly do to avoid getting a seizure in the first place... And for the doctor to suggest some mind-over-matter tactics to a bunch of psychonauts (including dirty hippies as Eric Cartman would call them) in a potential life or death situation seems a tad irresponsile.