Brain scans reveal how LSD affects consciousness • Hacker News Board

Re: Brain scans reveal how LSD affects consciousness

#181

Post by martin1975 » Tue, Apr 12, 2016, 7:11 PM UTC

darkclarity wrote: post #83

lsd_throwaway wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without going too far off topic into a boring argument that won't go anywhere - I should say my religion comment includes the idea of a god/faith or supernatural creator etc.

I experienced a similar (but non-drug related) shock to you several years ago and it changed how I think. I came to the conclusion that religion is just an old fashioned, and highly specialised, way of treating mental health. Without going into details, it gives people an ultimate dose of peace of mind.

well people have tried excessive orgasms for treating mental health... or drugs... or workaholism... or some other addiction. It never pans out. So I guess surrendering to a higher power isn't so bad. Just gotta choose that power wisely, no?

Re: Brain scans reveal how LSD affects consciousness

#182

Post by errl » Tue, Apr 12, 2016, 7:11 PM UTC

ars wrote: post #77

cstrahan wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You make it sound like this is a positive thing Meaning only exists between our ears -- it's not some intrinsic attribute of reality. I, for example, experience bouts of depression, where nothing about the world around me has changed, and yet my perception of (and feelings about) it becomes melancholic and devoid of purpose or meaning. If you walk away from an experience with a renewed sense of meaning or purpose,…

No, because it's not real. He felt a connection between himself and the snail. There is no actual connection, but he felt it. If he believes that connection to be real he will act on it, but those actions will not be the right ones because their basis is false. The problem is that it's actually possible to have a real connection, even between a person and a snail, but instead of a real connection you have the feeling…

What is the "real experience" you are talking about? You don't seem to understand what said "connection" is even referring to, it's not a physical fishing line.

Re: Brain scans reveal how LSD affects consciousness

#183

Post by stuxnet79 » Tue, Apr 12, 2016, 7:56 PM UTC

Balgair wrote: post #153

mettamage wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I forgot where I read the idea but some neuroscientists proposed that consciousness in the brain is more a measure of interconnectivity of activated brain regions. Basically, whatever brain region communicates with each other allows for mixed matching, whatever that brain region does (synesthetic people are very concrete examples of this). What do you think? Could this be true? I find it interesting to consider but h…

Continue your passion! Neuro is so cool and we need comp-sci people, at the least to process the data and help out with connecting VGA cables (I shudder at bio people's hard-coding). Interconnectivity in the brain is very stereotyped. Certain areas typically only talk to certain others. The 'connectome' in the brain is being mapped these days and there is a lot to learn, but I think we can say that the connectome is…

> Continue your passion! Neuro is so cool and we need comp-sci people, at the least to process the data and help out with connecting VGA cables (I shudder at bio people's hard-coding).

What do you mean by the connectome is stereotypical? I was reading up on connectomes and was pleasantly surprised to find out that model organisms like C Elegans have been fully mapped but I haven't heard of any large insights being derived from this.

In general what are the computational stumbling blocks in Neurosci at the moment? (I have a genomics background)

I'd like to do a Phd in Cog Sci or Neurosci (computational) but I've been so stress free ever since moving to industry (from academia) 10 months ago I can't really see myself going back for the long haul.

Re: Brain scans reveal how LSD affects consciousness

#184

Post by stuxnet79 » Tue, Apr 12, 2016, 8:13 PM UTC

deciplex wrote: post #96

billmalarky wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Drugs like LSD and psilocybin put your mind in a state where you perceive knowledge that you don't actually have. I'm not sure altered perception is by definition "false" or "untrue." It's hard to be objective about experiences that by their nature are outside our objective reality.

Nothing is outside our objective reality that I'm aware. You know when you're learning some new maths, or some other difficult abstract concept, and it just sort of "clicks" eventually and you understand, in whole and all at once? Something like that feeling you can get from drugs like LSD or psilocybin, but you don't actually "learn" anything in the usual sense. You just have a sensation of "getting it" for whatever…

Thanks a lot for this comment, my thoughts regarding LSD's effect on the brain were plodding towards what you just articulated. I've said this before, not in the context of LSD but in the context of mathematics, that's why your post really resonated with me. That whole sensation of some difficult, abstract concept "clicking" is useful but incredibly deceptive. That's why I love the rigor of mathematics. It draws you from whatever snake pits your intuition might have led you to. Even though your understanding of a concept might be wishy washy you know that by following the steps piecemeal they will lead you to the correct conclusion.

Which leads me to one of my favorite math quotes ever:

"In mathematics you don't understand things. You just get used to them." - Von Neumann

Re: Brain scans reveal how LSD affects consciousness

#185

Post by nefitty » Tue, Apr 12, 2016, 8:16 PM UTC

zby wrote: post #134

lsd_throwaway wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For a counterpoint to this - I decided to do 150 micrograms of LSD after reading a lot about it on HN, talking with many friends that had tried it or do it fairly regularly and reading as much as I could find (Sam Harris, Huxley, What the Dormouse said etc.). Nothing can really prepare you for it - the dream like state, the visuals and just the capacity of how different things can be. When looking at things I saw the…

I recently tried to read 'The denial of death' ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Denial_of_Death ). I did not manage to go too far - but one of their theses, maybe the main one, was that we are basically crazy not to fear death, that in the childhood we learn how to ignore the objective reality which is too much for us to bear.

That is one of my favorite books of all time. If the book is too big there was film made that was highly influenced by Becker's ideas. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_from_Death

Re: Brain scans reveal how LSD affects consciousness

#186

Post by stuxnet79 » Tue, Apr 12, 2016, 8:18 PM UTC

deciplex wrote: post #96

billmalarky wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Drugs like LSD and psilocybin put your mind in a state where you perceive knowledge that you don't actually have. I'm not sure altered perception is by definition "false" or "untrue." It's hard to be objective about experiences that by their nature are outside our objective reality.

Nothing is outside our objective reality that I'm aware. You know when you're learning some new maths, or some other difficult abstract concept, and it just sort of "clicks" eventually and you understand, in whole and all at once? Something like that feeling you can get from drugs like LSD or psilocybin, but you don't actually "learn" anything in the usual sense. You just have a sensation of "getting it" for whatever…

> You just have a sensation of "getting it" for whatever problem happens to be on your mind, even if asking you to articulate it right then would result in nonsense because the sensation is actually backed by nothing at all.

Another example of this is when you are drifting towards sleep and thoughts start careening through your head. At some point you might have observed that you had a wonderful "aha" moment where it all just "clicked". But when you attempt to backtrack to check what it is that suddenly made so much sense, you grasp at straws (worst feeling ever) ...

Feynman wrote about this in his bio and I remember bookmarking it because I totally understood what he was talking about. Let me see if I can find it right now.

EDIT:

"One thing that often happened was that as the hallucination was coming on, what you might describe as "garbage" would come: there were simply chaotic images complete, random junk. I tried to remember some of the items of the junk in order to be able to characterize it again, but it was particularly difficult to remember. I think I was getting close to the kind of thing that happens when you begin to fall asleep: There are apparent logical connections, but when you try to remember what made you think of what you're thinking about, you can't remember. As a matter of fact, you soon forget what it is that you're trying to remember" - Richard P Feynman (Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman)

Re: Brain scans reveal how LSD affects consciousness

#187

Post by colordrops » Tue, Apr 12, 2016, 9:09 PM UTC

lovemenot wrote: post #143

superswordfish wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But we're humans and our foremost means of communication is language. Who cares if it's clumsy and imprecise? Try us, it's the best we've got. Saying it's ineffable is lazy. Unless you're talking about the centerpiece of your religion, I suppose, so I thought parent was suggesting that this person had stumbled upon the Tao. Edit: My comments are getting hammered into oblivion, forbid somebody should try to hold somet…

Whilst we're on the subject of language it would be a little enlightening if you'd tell me the meaning of "woo". It is not a word I see often, but whenever I have seen it (never yet heard) it seems like someone wishes to push ideas they cannot or will not grasp into an objective category such as "things I and other straight thinking individuals like Feynmann know to be empirically bullshit". Was this the way you inte…

Seems he's just resorting to insults in his response:

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Woo

Re: Brain scans reveal how LSD affects consciousness

#188

Post by kayoone » Tue, Apr 12, 2016, 9:14 PM UTC

lsd_throwaway wrote: post #61

martin1975 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm gonna bet you're not addicted to any external substance and that in your case, this was purely a mind expanding experience. One could also say LSD might have unlocked what was already there in the background (i.e. "subconscious") of your mind. I would not consider this a bad trip. More like a rude awakening. Had you gone through something else in real life, major trauma of sorts, you may have experienced exactly…

I'm a fairly introspective person and I wouldn't say that it shook my world view - in the sense that I went in with a scientific world view and came out with one. I do have a better empathetic appreciation for mental illness and psychosis though (read And Then I Thought I was a Fish if you want to scare yourself). A trip makes you realize how incredible differently someone else's mind can perceive the world. The chal…

I can really relate to what you are saying. I share many of your fears and have general anxiety about dying too early and death or not existing anymore in general. But i never took drugs. For me it started with a traumatic event (passed out one morning 3 years ago when i was ill and did not drink) and even after doctors checked everything countless times i developed fears, especially related to my heart and premature death scenarios. I have it under control and can live normally, but these thoughts are basically is always somewhere in my mind. I also have slight visual disturbances (like visual snow) that are persistent for 3 years now and started in the time when i had most of the anxiety and panic attacks.

Re: Brain scans reveal how LSD affects consciousness

#189

Post by kayoone » Tue, Apr 12, 2016, 9:17 PM UTC

codebolt wrote: post #156

Mahn wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> an eternalistic view of (space-)time is more likely correct, as seems to be implied by the theory of relativity, I know that my life here on earth won't disappear as a consequence of death Can you expand on this? Do you mean to say that your life won't disappear because you'll always exist at a specific point in time space?

Yes, personally I believe that the past, present and future states of the universe exist as a kind of eternal structure. This is commonly known as the "block universe" view. In that context my life is but a small (but nonetheless eternally existing) pocket within space-time. In particular, I think that the relativistic concept of simultaneity is a strong argument in favor of this kind of view.

Thanks for this, that's inspiring. I suffer from fear about death as well, and will look into this as what i crave most is a way to just be comfortable with the reality of dying.

Re: Brain scans reveal how LSD affects consciousness

#190

Post by is_this_tinder » Tue, Apr 12, 2016, 9:50 PM UTC

omginternets wrote: post #125

I'm a Ph.D student in Cognitive Science and I'm currently writing my dissertation on the topic of conscious perception. I think this study is pretty damn interesting because the cingulate cortex (ACC & PCC) along with the thalamus are implicated in states of consciousness (i.e. wake/sleep/coma/vegetation/etc) and also in "access consciousness" (i.e.: “consciousness” in the sense of “I am conscious of such and suc…

yeah but Joe Rogan says...