Natural vs. Synthetic trips (implications)

[Culpepers]

arthunter888: I think you and I had this exact discussion some time ago:
Our long discussion

 

[Depressicaa]

I'm going to agree with Roger. I have never had a desire to see nature on any psychedelic natural or manmade. It is probably the setting. I do however enjoy showering on 2CE for whatever reason.

 

[Scheduled]

I am an experienced taking 4-AcO-DMT and Psilocybe Cubensis. The former is supposedly indistinguishable from the latter in the blood stream, but the organic mushrooms seemingly produce a much more profound, expansive and spiritual experience. The synthetic tryptamine high is comparatively not introspective or "deep", if you will.

 

[MagickalKat777]

I don't know... I watched as Isis walked out of my wall on DXM... she talked to me and everything... And one of the most spiritual trips I've ever had was on AMT...

I think its all set and setting really. I think that we tend to lock ourselves up when we do synthetics because part of us wants to make sure that we are absolutely safe even though we know the synthetics are generally safe. It prevents you from getting fully immersed in the experience.

 

[Feste]

I am an experienced taking 4-AcO-DMT and Psilocybe Cubensis. The former is supposedly indistinguishable from the latter in the blood stream, but the organic mushrooms seemingly produce a much more profound, expansive and spiritual experience. The synthetic tryptamine high is comparatively not introspective or "deep", if you will.

The thing to remember is mushrooms don't just contain one drug, but a cocktail of them. I think the apparent deepness is just the effect of those drug's different effects.

 

[nopipesdfw]

As strange as it sounds, I think that everything you described probably has more to do with how many molecules of said substance have been through the BBB of human beings on our time line, not some inherent life source that won't hide in your version of "synthetic" molecules too. (This sounds like your psych and your chosen split path expectations from your wall of synthetics versus natural occurance, because synthetic drugs that we now have here on Earth could have very well existed earlier than natural psychedelics that you know of!)

 

[arthunter888]

Seriously. A chemical is a chemical, ie a certain conformation of matter-- there is no distinction between if it was made inside of a laboratory or made inside of a plant.

If there was no distinction between chemicals made by laboratories and those made by plants, then why do they FEEL so different? It's obvious that DMT, psilocybin, and mescaline share certain indescribably qualities that make them feel different than RCs and even LSD, Salvia feels different than synthetic dissociatives, and morphine feels different than synthetic opiates. There is just something about the chemical blueprints/structures nature has produced that set them apart from everything produced by man.

And I certainly do not consider humans to be a part of nature. Do you see any organisms other than humans destroying forests, building nuclear plants, genetically altering food? It's obvious that humans stick out like a sore thumb on this planet. I could agree that at one point, man was apart of nature, and lived symbiotically with nature. But at one point we shifted away and became a foreign entity (in my opinion evolution is the result of non-earth beings tampering with the DNA of apes), actually working against nature now.

Okay think about genetically modified foods. If you fed group 1 only GM foods, and fed group 2 only foods that grew from the ground without human intervention, I guarantee you will see higher instances of health problems/cancer in group 1. Coincidence? Why is it that in Asia, where the diet consists of mainly foods closer to their natural state than in the US (where most diets are highly refined foods) that the frequency of cancer/health problems in Asia is much much lower? Coincidence? This is just one of many examples but I'd like to keep this not ridiculously long.

It's just so obvious that man-made substances in general are not as sustaining/nourishing as their natural counterparts. Natural foods contain and lack certain things that highly-refined foods do not, and refined foods contain and lack certain things that natural foods do not. I don't see how drugs would be any different.

 

[mr.mackey]

They feel different from synthetic drugs because they are different drugs...I think there is as much difference and variety between synthetic drugs as there is between natural drugs. I for one find LSD to be the most "special" or "spiritual" yet it is a man made substance, I also vastly prefer LSD to LSA, which is naturally occuring. Also, I for one prefer heroin to morphine and Im fairly certain most opiate users would agree, yet heroin is synthetic. (I vaguely recall my Brain/behavior professor telling me that addicts prefer heroin and morphine to other opiates in double blind studies, but unfortunately I don't have any citation for this)

Whether you consider humans to be a part of nature or not, we are, were composed of mostly carbon and water, doesn't get more natural than that. Evolution being a result of non earth beings tampering with ape DNA? Huh? I think there is a pretty vast amount of evidence that suggests evolution didn't happen that way, but instead was a process taking millions of years and never-ending genetic mutation, natural selection, the whole shebang, not aliens...

As for genetically modified food, I wanna see some evidence for a link between cancer/health problems and genetically modified food. I am personally inclined to think that genetically modified food is not necessarily a good thing, but honestly, humans have been doing it for quite some time, considering people have been selectively breeding plants and animals for more desirable traits, probably since the birth of sedentary agriculture. I'd say that could fit the description of "genetic modification"

Oh and by the way, there are plenty of natural foods/drugs that are carcinogenic and bad for you, take for example tobacco? Or Ethanol?

 

[Ismene]

If there was no distinction between chemicals made by laboratories and those made by plants, then why do they FEEL so different?

Could be the placebomine. If you have the feeling that natural psychedelics are somehow special and closer to nature won't that influence your trip?

It's obvious that DMT, psilocybin, and mescaline share certain indescribably qualities that make them feel different than RCs and even LSD

I must admit I prefer DMT, psilocybin and mescaline to RC's but I have to disagree about LSD. I think LSD is every bit as sacred as any natural psychedelic.

 

[mr.mackey]

Another point that I think has been made but is still relevant, if you had pure synthetic mescaline, and extracted and purified mescaline from a plant, would you be able to tell the difference? Pharmacology tells us no...

 

[arthunter888]

Another point that I think has been made but is still relevant, if you had pure synthetic mescaline, and extracted and purified mescaline from a plant, would you be able to tell the difference? Pharmacology tells us no...

I'm not challenging that synthetic mescaline would feel identical to extracted mescaline. This is no surprise because they are chemically exact.

However, even mescaline that was yielded by human synthesis is not technically a synthetic chemical, because it already exists in nature. Yes, human synthesis was the MEANS by which this batch of mescaline was created, but it's structure was not by any means invented by us. (Keep in mind my definition for synthetic being "substances that exist ONLY as a product of humans.") In this case, it was nature that has already designed the structure or 'chemical blueprint' for mescaline, we are just copying it. Now something like DXM is a chemical whose structure was designed by humans, so this is technically synthetic.

And also to those who mention LSD, I'm NOT arguing that natural chemicals are more enjoyable than synthetics. I myself prefer LSD over shrooms, and prefer oxymorphone over morphine. What I AM arguing, is that synthetic chemicals lack those indescribable qualities in the high (for better or worse) that are noticed with natural substances: the qualities that are in the visuals and especially in the body high. I can almost feel the 'essence' of plant life running through my veins, so to speak, which is not the case with LSD (however spiritual it may be), DXM, etc.

That most other people would be able to notice this difference without the placebo of emotional bias, is an instinct that I have.

The only way to really seek closure with this assertion is with an accurate blind-study that has people who were administered with substances unknown to them (natural and synthetic on separate occasions) to declare which ones felt natural and which ones felt synthetic. This would be very interesting, but I doubt a study like this has been done.

 

[Ralt]

This whole thread will just be people telling you "no" and you going BUT ARE YOU SURE? WHAT ABOUT THIS?

You got high on psychedelics, effects vary, I've never felt anything had an entity behind, hidden, or combined with a psy, and I've taken a fuckton of LSA/n,n,DMT. But I don't have a belief in entities, I bet you do, effects are subjective.

 

[The Hebrew Hammer]

I think that the reason you are noticing this is really personal bias.

I mean, you are starting out with natural psychedelics as your control.

Of course unnatural psychedelics will be different than natural psychedelics, even DMT is drastically different from mescaline....

My point being that all drugs have different effects.

I dont notice any commonality between DMT, mushrooms, and other naturally occurring psychedelics. Nothing common outside of what is common amongst any psychedelic experience.

I really think that this is all in your head.

 

[Roger&Me]

And I certainly do not consider humans to be a part of nature.

We are terrestrial mammals, closely related to chimpanzees and gorillas, who arose by means of natural selection in sub-saharan Africa. How are we not a direct outgrowth of natural processes?

However, even mescaline that was yielded by human synthesis is not technically a synthetic chemical, because it already exists in nature. Yes, human synthesis was the MEANS by which this batch of mescaline was created, but it's structure was not by any means invented by us.

I take very strong exception to this statement. I'm even willing to say that it points towards a fundamental lack of understanding regarding chemical structure. What you are referring to is strictly a matter of semantics, there is no chemical distinction between chemicals that occur without the chemical intervention of man and chemicals that do not.

Chemicals that do not appear without human intervention are not "invented", they are produced. Certain conformations of matter are paired cleverly with ideal kinetic and/or thermodynamic conditions and the matter undergoes a reaction by itself. The process is not performed by a human, it is merely facilitated by a human, and it proceeds according to the laws of nature!

Furthermore, how can one tell whether or not a chemical occurs spontaneously in nature or not? It's not as if we have performed chemical analysis on all matter on the earth, who are we to say whether or not a chemical is "natural" or "man-made". Many reactions we perform in the laboratory occur under conditions that are not mediated by man, for instance the blowfish produces a toxin called tetrodotoxin by a fairly straightforward Diels-Alder reaction of a diene with a dienophile:

Tetrodotoxin

Is tetrodotoxin not natural, then?

It's just so obvious that man-made substances in general are not as sustaining/nourishing as their natural counterparts.

See previous point about tetrodotoxin. It's made in a blowfish, and it will kill you in a few minutes after ingestion. Nature is full of things that are not nourishing.

Natural foods contain and lack certain things that highly-refined foods do not, and refined foods contain and lack certain things that natural foods do not. I don't see how drugs would be any different.

What does this have to do with chemical compounds? Highly refined foods are bad for you because they lack nutrients. That argument is in absolutely no way analogues to an argument about ONE PARTICULAR CONFORMATION OF MATTER that is responsible for psychoactive effects. Food is an amalgamation of very complex biological material, psychoactives are one particular conformation of chemical matter, there is no analogy between food and psychoactives.

If there was no distinction between chemicals made by laboratories and those made by plants, then why do they FEEL so different?

It is your opinion that they "feel different". What does that prove, honestly?

Personally, I don't think there is anything "natural"- feeling about DMT for instance. It feels futuristic, like it is extremely advanced synthetic technology. But its made inside of a mimosa plant...

Also, LSD is produced by man in a laboratory and it feels incredibly "natural" to me.

My point: DMT is not a "natural chemical", DMT is just DMT. LSD is not a "synthetic chemical", LSD is just LSD.


Further Reading: Appeal to Nature Fallacy

 

[surf.shaman]

^this^

stunning argument - well done!

a molecule is molecule! there are no beings hidden in the molecules!

 

[~_Hiss_~]

This debate has always subtly annoyed me, mainly because people are underestimating the "set" part. If your mind believes that natural is better, you may well be more inclined to think that way while tripping. People also severely underestimate the placebo effect.

Also, as Roger mentioned, there are many "bad" chemicals nature produces, such as poisons, and even psychoactives like datura, nutmeg, (and some would argue salvia). The plants usually produce psychoactive chemicals as a defense against being eaten, mainly by insects. Insects have nervous tissue similar to ours, so it is usually made to mess with this.

Most including me think 4-aco-dmt is better than mushrooms, because mushrooms must have some extra chemicals that are unpleasant, some think it is baestyocin (forget exact spelling).

Nature is doing a poor job if it wants to communicate (lol, neohippies, you may be benign but have stupid ideas)... when you ingest a plant you are killing it, or it was already dead.

Then when you get into the ways drugs work, pharmacology, it can easily be realized the only way natural chemicals is different, is that the plant takes the place of a chemist, that is all.

LSD, ketamine, DPT, 4-aco-dmt, 2C-E and 2C-I have all at one time or another made me feel a presence or have contact with an entity. Its not as fun to believe this, but the truth is these "entities" are just the power of our subconscious mind coming to life. Its more interesting anyways to believe in reality, and the way psychedelics unlock the un/sub-conscious into the conscious realm.

 

[mi5]

I find the entire synthetic vs natural argument to be tired and old. Everything is natural, otherwise it would not exist. Synthetic is a useless term, man-made is a bit better, but most people can't even be convinced that man is natural, so it still loses true meaning.

tbh I think its wrong to suggest Shulgin was a mere man

 

[nopipesdfw]

Its not as fun to believe this, but the truth is these "entities" are just the power of our subconscious mind coming to life.

It has now been justified!

Setting theoretical barriers based around science softer than play-doh always help explain the unexplained lol.

Yes, your relevant senses in a negative feedback loop wrapped around your reality in real-time has been explained, we have three main receptors for such in our own brains, duh!

 

[arthunter888]

We are terrestrial mammals, closely related to chimpanzees and gorillas, who arose by means of natural selection in sub-saharan Africa. How are we not a direct outgrowth of natural processes?

My point was that we did come from nature yes, but humans in their present state have detached from nature more-so than any other organisms, and in fact are sort of defying nature (artificial intelligence, life-extension, etc)

Chemicals that do not appear without human intervention are not "invented", they are produced. Certain conformations of matter are paired cleverly with ideal kinetic and/or thermodynamic conditions and the matter undergoes a reaction by itself. The process is not performed by a human, it is merely facilitated by a human, and it proceeds according to the laws of nature!

Well, 'invented' is just the word I used loosely to convey this concept. I'm not challenging that matter reacts automatically which is only facilitated by us, what I'm saying is that some synthetic products of laboratories are the result of such highly specific and controlled environmental conditions (extreme temps, and/or extreme atmospheric pressures, and/or the right amount of specific catalysts) that these chemicals could not conceivable exist in nature simply because ^those environmental conditions cannot or are highly unlikely to be present/co-present in nature to allow the reaction to happen. Now I'm no chemistry major (so correct me if wrong) but doesn't the fact that 'LSD synthesis is extremely difficult and should only be performed by advanced chemists' suggest that the formation of LSD is most likely the result of highly precise/controlled chemical-and-atmospheric interactions?

Furthermore, how can one tell whether or not a chemical occurs spontaneously in nature or not? It's not as if we have performed chemical analysis on all matter on the earth, who are we to say whether or not a chemical is "natural" or "man-made".

Same as above: based on how likely the chemical-atmospheric requirements for the formation of a given chemical are to occur in nature, we can make an educated guess that certain chemicals cannot conceivable exist without human facilitation because of those requirements.

Many reactions we perform in the laboratory occur under conditions that are not mediated by man.

True, but also there are many that ARE mediated by man.


See previous point about tetrodotoxin. It's made in a blowfish, and it will kill you in a few minutes after ingestion. Nature is full of things that are not nourishing.

Misinterpretation of my logic... I never said that nature does not produce many dangerous substances. I said [most safe/nourishing substances are natural,] NOT [most natural substances are safe/nourishing], there's a difference between these: I'm saying that of the substances that are know to be highly safe and nourishing most are those that occur in nature without human intervention. Picture a circle diagram, like the one used in the logic portion of math class. Set-A = [substances that are nourishing/safe]. A subset of set-A is Subset-B (B = substances that exist naturally). Another subset of Set-A is Subset-C (C = substances that exist only with human facilitation). The super set (A) being a circle and the subsets (B, C) being separate smaller circles within it. I'm saying circle B is larger than C.

What does this have to do with chemical compounds? Highly refined foods are bad for you because they lack nutrients. That argument is in absolutely no way analogues to an argument about ONE PARTICULAR CONFORMATION OF MATTER that is responsible for psychoactive effects. Food is an amalgamation of very complex biological material, psychoactives are one particular conformation of chemical matter, there is no analogy between food and psychoactives.

refined foods are not only unhealthy because of what they lack, they are also unhealthy because of what they HAVE. Example: you can make almost any food unhealthy with the addition of oil from a deep fryer. Not only does this bad type of oil lack nutrients, it HAS high levels of hydrogenated oils, which clog your arteries. Also, certain bottled drinks have added to them high fructose corn syrup during refinement. No need to explain that this is unhealthy. So tell me, high fructose corn syrup added by humans, PCP synthesized by humans, both are unhealthy due to having a negative effect on your internal biochemistry (albeit to varying extents/ways), both a conformation of matter, so what is the difference other than one not being psychoactive? Seems like an okay analogy to me.

It is your opinion that they "feel different". What does that prove, honestly?

It doesn't prove anything, but it shows that there are people who notice this (not just me).

Personally, I don't think there is anything "natural"- feeling about DMT for instance. It feels futuristic, like it is extremely advanced synthetic technology. But its made inside of a mimosa plant
Also, LSD is produced by man in a laboratory and it feels incredibly "natural" to me.

Okay, so the content of the trip doesn't seem natural to you with DMT, but does with LSD. This does not negate the obvious trend in trip reports describing (with consistency) LSD visuals with adjectives 'artificial', 'computerized' and synonyms thereof, and describing DMT/shroom/mescaline visuals as 'organic', 'natural', and synonyms thereof. Not to mention trip reports that describe an element of the body-high that feels like an 'edge' (or grinding of the nerves), most of the time refering to a synthetic drug (very rare with DMT, psilocybin, mescaline, very common with LSD, 2C-x, DXM), categorizing the 'synthetic edge'.

My point: DMT is not a "natural chemical", DMT is just DMT. LSD is not a "synthetic chemical", LSD is just LSD.

Maybe by your definition--but by the definition of existing in nature vs. not existing without human intervention--not the case. These are the most commonly used definitions in science AFAIK.

____

 

[nopipesdfw]

"My point was that we did come from nature yes, but humans in their present state have detached from nature more-so than any other organisms, and in fact are sort of defying nature (artificial intelligence, life-extension, etc)"


There is no way to defy mother nature, the nature of the universe is really just insane variance.