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Psychedelics alter metaphysical beliefs

nature.com

191–200 of 258 posts

Re: Psychedelics alter metaphysical beliefs

#191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The brain does have the resources to do so, actually. This is variously called dreaming, psychosis, or similar.

Dreaming is a limited simulation, not on the level of reality.

How do you know? We haven't even established what reality is or whether it exists. For all you know, this entire argument could be a figment of your imagination and so could your perception of the rest of reality.

Re: Psychedelics alter metaphysical beliefs

#192
post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ancient Greek philosophers could not measure anything, so this idea was at least somewhat plausible. Modern philosophers have no such excuse. We can simply measure the temperature of the water buckets and accept that our hands are very poor thermometers. Leaving aside the very difficult issue of the measurement problem in quantum mechanics, the last 200 or so years of science have clearly demonstrated that objective…

>We can simply measure That "simply" is doing a lot of work there. Measurement is never simple, or correct. Yes, it's much, much more precise than it was in the past, but it's never exact. Until May 2019, the magnitude of many of the units composing the SI system of measurement, including most of those used in the measurement of electricity and light, were highly dependent upon the stability of a 142-year-old, golf-b…

Of course measurements are always imperfect. The point is that an objective reality exists that can be measured. Which piece of rock we use to compare other masses to does not change that.

Re: Psychedelics alter metaphysical beliefs

#193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's just FUD. If reality was difficult to discern, we would long be extinct.

Reality is difficult to discern and we are not extinct. Cognitive bias has a long history of existing. For example, attributing personal flaws to harmless mistakes and attributing the flaws of others to malice or incompetence. This is clearly a distortion of reality, because we cannot assume we know the intention or capacity of all other people who aren’t perfect. (A huge number of other evidences that sober people d…

Cognitive bias doesn't exist in perception, it's interpretation, and attributions are even thoretization. Difficulty of classification is not a problem of perception, it's a problem of classification. If we can't name the color, it doesn't mean we don't see the color as it is.

Re: Psychedelics alter metaphysical beliefs

#194
post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>We can simply measure That "simply" is doing a lot of work there. Measurement is never simple, or correct. Yes, it's much, much more precise than it was in the past, but it's never exact. Until May 2019, the magnitude of many of the units composing the SI system of measurement, including most of those used in the measurement of electricity and light, were highly dependent upon the stability of a 142-year-old, golf-b…

Of course measurements are always imperfect. The point is that an objective reality exists that can be measured. Which piece of rock we use to compare other masses to does not change that.

How does that in any way prove your point? What if all the measuring devices, their history, this very conversation, what if all of that was a hallucination?

How would you know? How do you propose we definitely prove it isn't?

Re: Psychedelics alter metaphysical beliefs

#195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dreaming is a limited simulation, not on the level of reality.

How do you know? We haven't even established what reality is or whether it exists. For all you know, this entire argument could be a figment of your imagination and so could your perception of the rest of reality.

We established the magnitude of the avogadro number, objects so complex have no chance to fully fit in imagination.

Re: Psychedelics alter metaphysical beliefs

#196
Psychedelics have been extremely beneficial to me but none of my experiences with them have really changed my beliefs about the metaphysical. I am open to the possibility but I'm also not moved by drug-induced hallucinations alone. That being said, why wouldn't a conscious god or simulation developer include cool easter eggs for their creations to find and play with? Why be a responsible higher power when you could instead throw hallucinogenic mushrooms into the monkey enclosure and watch them freak out?

Re: Psychedelics alter metaphysical beliefs

#197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I can tell you: "I'm conscious and aware", but there's no way I can prove to you I'm not a philosophical zombie(someone that acts like it's conscious, but isn't). You can't prove that to yourself either, because a zombie has the same thoughts as you. You can't differentiate even subjectively whether you're a zombie or not.

If you have thoughts, you can't doubt whether or not you have thoughts. In order to do so you need to doubt yourself, which is a thought.

Did you answer to the right comment? I mean you can't prove you're not a zombie, thoughts don't help with this, because a zombie has all the same thoughts.

Re: Psychedelics alter metaphysical beliefs

#198
post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>We can simply measure That "simply" is doing a lot of work there. Measurement is never simple, or correct. Yes, it's much, much more precise than it was in the past, but it's never exact. Until May 2019, the magnitude of many of the units composing the SI system of measurement, including most of those used in the measurement of electricity and light, were highly dependent upon the stability of a 142-year-old, golf-b…

Of course measurements are always imperfect. The point is that an objective reality exists that can be measured. Which piece of rock we use to compare other masses to does not change that.

I agree that in usual practice, we can assume that there is a measurable, objective reality. However, once you get to the limits of human knowledge, everything starts shifting like quicksand and it becomes less obvious that there's an objective reality that we all share.

Re: Psychedelics alter metaphysical beliefs

#199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you know? We haven't even established what reality is or whether it exists. For all you know, this entire argument could be a figment of your imagination and so could your perception of the rest of reality.

We established the magnitude of the avogadro number, objects so complex have no chance to fully fit in imagination.

So you're saying the fact that your imagination is limited is proof?

I believe in myself more than that, sorry.

[also again, how do you know the Avogadro constant is real?]

Re: Psychedelics alter metaphysical beliefs

#200

At the risk of being "that guy", it has to be said that this kind of study is unreliable. Posting a bunch of messages to r/drugs and r/psychedelics to come take their survey is going to suffer from all sorts of statistical biases. It is still better than the lowest for the study, the sample size of one: "Well this is what I experienced". Yet here I go. I have always been a materialist, and I've also never done drugs…

>The first time I did ... a very close relative to psilocybin,.... It was a 25mg-ish dose.... It was far more intense

You think? Jeebus! Terrance McKenna would call 10mg of psilocybin a heroic dose. Some of the most intense visuals I have ever seen were on 10mg of psilocybin.

So if close relative means that it requires 2.5x more, then okay, but if they are anywhere near 1:1, then that was a freaking monster dose.

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