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There is evidence that does not agree with (edit: support) this statement: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/08/130819185302.ht...
While this book is only one anecdote with severe extenuating circumstances - it's a pretty good read. http://www.amazon.com/And-Then-Thought-Was-Fish-ebook/dp/B00... It's also online as part of his blog: http://www.stilldrinking.org/the-episode-part-1
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> Eh this sounds like exactly what was wrong with the early LSD promoters. Psychedelics are the mythical "love bomb"? I do not think the evidence supports that. We really don't have that much evidence - at the one Uni they'd done what, 500 trials with mushrooms over 10 years? It's obviously not guaranteed to bring world peace, but I honestly think it could make a huuuuuge portion of the public wake up and start askin…
I think asking questions of their leaders is a small byproduct of asking questions about our society in general. Why do we do what we do? When you realize we're all just organisms in a massive terrarium that we all depend upon, some things we do don't make any sense. The leaders are just a manifestation of these behaviorisms that probably started with either ignorance or selfishness.
True, but the problem is, we'll often never agree which things, even with the help of drugs!
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... There's zero evidence that consciousness exists outside of the physical world. There's plenty of evidence that it does exist as something brains create. There's plenty of evidence that poking it chemically or otherwise causes changes in consciousness. In some cases, scientists have some ideas about how that might sorta happen (like the release of dopamine or serotonin). No one seems to disagree that taking, say,…
Think about the song Amazing Grace: "How sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me; I once was lost but now am found, was blind but now I see". That was written by a guy who had abandoned his career as the captain of a slave-trading ship after having a spiritual awakening. The transcendental, mystical, transformative, touching-infinity experiences that people report from psychedelics go far beyond any philosophical…
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I'm not defending the GP's statement about curing cancer, but could you explain your position that "things that affect the brain/mind" cannot affect "insert body part"? How do you know that? Are you saying that the brain/mind have no effect on the body? Please point to the scientific research that states that psychedelics definitely do not affect your rectum. At that point, your statement will be more valuable to me…
> Please point to the scientific research that states that psychedelics definitely do not affect your rectum. Proving a negative isn't typically the best scientific approach. It'd be on the person making the dramatic claims to offer evidence. There's a lot of evidence about how cancer cells work and little (if any) gives reason to suspect some sort of conscious connection would affect it. Though I think there is some…
Stating an unproven negative as if it were a fact is also not the best scientific approach.
(Also, saying something like "the mind has no affect on the body" is a positive statement of fact. Quibbling about the word "no" or "not" is just semantics IMO.)
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> we'd probably end up with a lot of people thinking they now know the answers. People thinking that they know things that they actually don't is definitely a problem. I find that it happens way more often in people who have never tried LSD though. People use false assumptions and self-lies all the time to survive this world. Here's an example: > It's why a lot of pro-LSD people are simply not taken seriously, becaus…
... There's zero evidence that consciousness exists outside of the physical world. There's plenty of evidence that it does exist as something brains create. There's plenty of evidence that poking it chemically or otherwise causes changes in consciousness. In some cases, scientists have some ideas about how that might sorta happen (like the release of dopamine or serotonin). No one seems to disagree that taking, say,…
Exactly. That's why you can't say things like "it's just messing with your perception" because you really don't know what "it's just" doing.
I didn't say anything about consciousness existing outside of the physical world. All I said is that "you don't really know". But, whenever I say something like that people tend to project some other argument onto me, like I'm here to defend everything any LSD user ever said.
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Think about the song Amazing Grace: "How sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me; I once was lost but now am found, was blind but now I see". That was written by a guy who had abandoned his career as the captain of a slave-trading ship after having a spiritual awakening. The transcendental, mystical, transformative, touching-infinity experiences that people report from psychedelics go far beyond any philosophical…
I'd rate psychedelics on-par, impact-wise, around the same level as the birth and death of one of my children. I just don't see the need to say it goes beyond physical reality - there's just no proof of that. Why can't we be impressed and amazed with what our brains are capable of, with chemistry alone?
What physical reality are you talking about? To the best we can ascertain, we only have subjective experiences of perceptions of electromagnetic phenomena. We don't get to perceive physical reality, only our own interpretation of what is postulated as an image of the physical reality.
It appears that there can be no proof either way whether a physical reality actually exists or not. All we can know is that we have a subjective experience. We can hypothesize that it arises from some other "thing", but there is no way we can know.
Also, I'm not sure anyone in this thread chain has claimed that consciousness goes beyond physical reality. I think you are the only who has assumed a physical reality (also, with no "proof").
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I've known about thirty people who have used Lsd routinely for years, and I have to agree with you. The only significant difference is that some of them talk like it drammatically changes them. The effect doesn't seem much different from the people I know who really like a hobby and exxagerate its effects. I of course know lsd is something serious and psychedelically powerful, and agree it should be studied.
I am pro drugs. I actually feel most drugs, except antiboiotics, should be available over the counter. That said, the one drug I have seem people injest, and come back slightly different people is LSD. I have never taken the drug, but I had two close, intelligent friends in high school go off to U.C. Santa Cruz and literally come back different people. We were all so young, and still finding ourselfs, but the differe…
Maybe this is the problem? He probably didn't view the things he said as weird or hurtful. If you never told him you viewed them that way, how would he know?
What was so weird about thing things he said?
They can trigger a paradigm shift in many other areas, not just mental health care. Except it's so hard to explain this to a 'normal' person, who's never taken any. "If God were to permit you a brief voyage into the divine process, let you whirl for a second into the atomic nucleus or spin you out on a light-year trip through the galaxies, how on earth would you describe what you saw when you got back, breathless, to…
I swear, one of the most import pieces of research that needs to be done on them is their capability to induce a false sense of the profound, and make people believe psychedelics will fix everything about the world. Yes, they can be useful, they can make you see yourself differently and see people differently. But they can equally be a pretty blinkenlight show that makes you giggle for hours with friends. Or be distr…
Not only should that be studied, but it should be more generally studied in regard to anything. How often does a politician, company, or product make similar claims? How many people then believe those claims to be true, even if they can be demonstrably shown to be false?
There's a reason the majority of civilizations failed.
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I'm not defending the GP's statement about curing cancer, but could you explain your position that "things that affect the brain/mind" cannot affect "insert body part"? How do you know that? Are you saying that the brain/mind have no effect on the body? Please point to the scientific research that states that psychedelics definitely do not affect your rectum. At that point, your statement will be more valuable to me…
> Please point to the scientific research that states that psychedelics definitely do not affect your rectum. Proving a negative isn't typically the best scientific approach. It'd be on the person making the dramatic claims to offer evidence. There's a lot of evidence about how cancer cells work and little (if any) gives reason to suspect some sort of conscious connection would affect it. Though I think there is some…
Cancer is not a binary category. In the natural course of a human life it can be observed that some "cancerous" cells cease to exist / be problems, not from some external intervention, but merely through other signals and interactions within the body. Maybe some process detected something was wrong and set in motion another process that corrected it.
What controls these processes? Likely complex electro-chemical reactions that can only occur in certain environments. If a suitable environment does not exist, the reaction does not occur (how can it?).
Now, consider that the human consciousness can be observed to seemingly create complex changes throughout the body, including numerous electro-chemical reactions, and even changes of local environments (e.g. release of neurotransmitters and more general hormones).
If the appropriate environment is created for the appropriate reactions in the appropriate places to "resolve a cancer", then it will happen.
Yes, you can argue about how much fine control a consciousness can have over it's body. You can also argue about what reactions happen in which environments.
>There's a lot of evidence about how cancer cells work and little (if any) gives reason to suspect some sort of conscious connection would affect it.
Such as? You can only find something if you look for it. You would never expect to suspect a consciousness at work if you weren't looking for it.
The man made the "unreliable narrator" his main device, but I think "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" should put to rest any idea that such trendy chemical amusement aids have much therapeutic value in the general case. It least puts such ideas in a position of having to work a lot harder to make their case.
Have I mistaken your purpose, and if not, can you clarify the reasoning?