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Psychedelics alter metaphysical beliefs

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Re: Psychedelics alter metaphysical beliefs

#221

Post by toomanydoubts »

GoblinSlayer wrote: post #133
toomanydoubts wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no truth claims. The point is that under the influence of psychedelics, you realize you can't know the truth. I understand you're looking at it from a scientific point of view, but the discussion is not scientific. Consciousness is probably the hardest body of knowledge to integrate with science. Nobody knows where consciousness comes from. Nobody knows how to measure it. I can tell you: "I'm conscious and aw…

>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.

Interesting idea, but I'm not sure I follow completely. Philosophical zombies may have the same "thoughts", but they do not have qualia, they act like they do, but they don't. As for me, I'm pretty sure I have qualia. I've been watching this movie called "my life" ever since I was born. If I were to be a philosophical zombie, it all would have passed in the dark.

I think the phrase "I think, therefore I am" is the essence here. A philosophical zombie does not "think". It looks like they do, but it's just a deterministic result of neurochemichal events going on in a brain that lives in the dark. Something like a neural network for instance. They can exhibit thought-like behavior without experiencing anything(as far as we know).

Re: Psychedelics alter metaphysical beliefs

#222

Post by gavinray »

tasty_freeze wrote: post #208
dylan604 wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

According to the psychonaut wiki, 25mg is the boundary between common and strong doses. https://psychonautwiki.org/wiki/4-AcO-DMT In writing this message, I went back to my notes and see that I had taken 20mg, not 25mg, that first time. I abbreviated my history of experiments in my original message, but I had actually had first tried a different tryptamine in a series of ramped experiments a few weeks apart. It was 4…

If you can ever get your hands on it -- might I recommend you give 5-MeO-MiPT a try.

There's not anything quite like it (and it's cognitively mild), either phenethylamine or tryptamine.

Re: Psychedelics alter metaphysical beliefs

#223

Post by quesera »

srcreigh wrote: post #219
mostertoaster wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should try going to an Orthodox Church and see how weird it is. It definitely makes you think of the spiritual meaning of things. THC alone makes me all spiritual feeling, and often in a good way. I think psychedelics would just take me to a scary spiritual place, not a euphoric one.

More conveniently, you could just say the words "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner" repeatedly to yourself. This prayer does things.

Repeating many other phrases "does things" too.

Any brief, reflective, perspective-shifting phrase is adequate -- there's no need to invoke any particular mythology.

Re: Psychedelics alter metaphysical beliefs

#224

Post by scubakid »

dr_dshiv wrote: post #210
scubakid wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me, panpsychism has never landed at all, though it is a fun idea to think about. I tend to see animals/humans as exceedingly complex (and most likely deterministic) systems, of which what we call "consciousness" is an emergent property. From that viewpoint, applying consciousness down the chain to the lower-level building blocks doesn't make a lot of sense.

You don’t have to go down the chain, you can go up, too. E.g., groups, organizations, ecosystems, etc. It’s not that individual electrons need to be conscious. Instead, for instance, free energy minimizing systems might be conscious— and those are pervasive in the universe at large and small scale.

I feel like even that requires a pretty broad definition of consciousness that starts to diverge from what the term usually connotes. This strikes me as similar to the classic question of whether an ant hill could be considered conscious. In the end I guess a lot comes down to semantics/definitions.

Re: Psychedelics alter metaphysical beliefs

#225

Post by aunty_helen »

jamal-kumar wrote: post #170
tasty_freeze wrote: post #65

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…

From what I understand, part of the "point" of using Ayahuasca vs other methods is prolonging the experience long enough to have the ability to integrate insights... I am just going by what others have told me but something about combining the psychedelic with another drug that makes it last longer allows you to remember what you had gone through better than just a short few hour experience

Aya isn't super long lasting. A tab of acid might take you on a journey for 8 hours. Aya might be 3-4 depending on the brew.

The actual chemical is different and the way you take it (orally, by nealing in front of a shaman and drinking about a shot glass of it) has an affect on the duration and intensity (like a lot of drugs).

You can smoke dmt purified or a yagi mix and have different more intense experiences but that might only be 30 minutes.

As for integrating your thoughts, I can definitely put that down to the chemical. It's called "abuelo" by the native people because it's like your grandfather giving you advice. Mushrooms are known as the "ninos" because they're a lower level in comparison.

Understanding the sacredity of plants and developing a respect for native medicine has been a great part of my experience in South America.

Re: Psychedelics alter metaphysical beliefs

#226

Post by srcreigh »

quesera wrote: post #223
srcreigh wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More conveniently, you could just say the words "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner" repeatedly to yourself. This prayer does things.

Repeating many other phrases "does things" too. Any brief, reflective, perspective-shifting phrase is adequate -- there's no need to invoke any particular mythology.

Respectfully I disagree. Different phrases do different stuff. Some are outright dangerous. The above prayer is particularly healthy and helpful.

Re: Psychedelics alter metaphysical beliefs

#227

Post by quesera »

srcreigh wrote: post #226
quesera wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Repeating many other phrases "does things" too. Any brief, reflective, perspective-shifting phrase is adequate -- there's no need to invoke any particular mythology.

Respectfully I disagree. Different phrases do different stuff. Some are outright dangerous. The above prayer is particularly healthy and helpful.

Equally respectfully, there is no contradiction in your disagreement. :)

Some phrases are more useful than others. Some have negative effects.

Re: Psychedelics alter metaphysical beliefs

#228

Post by jamal-kumar »

aunty_helen wrote: post #225
jamal-kumar wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what I understand, part of the "point" of using Ayahuasca vs other methods is prolonging the experience long enough to have the ability to integrate insights... I am just going by what others have told me but something about combining the psychedelic with another drug that makes it last longer allows you to remember what you had gone through better than just a short few hour experience

Aya isn't super long lasting. A tab of acid might take you on a journey for 8 hours. Aya might be 3-4 depending on the brew. The actual chemical is different and the way you take it (orally, by nealing in front of a shaman and drinking about a shot glass of it) has an affect on the duration and intensity (like a lot of drugs). You can smoke dmt purified or a yagi mix and have different more intense experiences but th…

I live in Latin America and I am strongly disinterested in that tourist side of things, it gives off smelly fake vibes

Have yet to have anyone indigenous try and sell me on this

Re: Psychedelics alter metaphysical beliefs

#229

Post by dang »

mostertoaster wrote: post #93
jklinger410 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, that's not what they mean. My carpet is not changing color, my mother's face isn't melting. That's not happening on a physical level. My sober perception is repeatable and verifiable. It exists no matter my state of mind. It's novel to make yourself see things that are unreal. It's novel to have your emotions fluctuate wildly. But it's just novel, and unreal, and nothing more.

[flagged]

Personal attacks, flamebait, snark, and ideological battle—which I think this manages to be all 4 of!—are not allowed on HN. If you'd please review the rules and not post like that, we'd appreciate it.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Psychedelics alter metaphysical beliefs

#230

Post by AnonMessiah »

emptyfile wrote: post #121
eurasiantiger wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

”Doing drugs” evokes images of injecting hard drugs with all the unclean nastiness. ”Experimenting with psychedelics” is really, really far from that reality.

What nonsense, is it so much different really? How much experience do you people really have with drugs in america to be making such sweeping statements? "Unclean nastiness"? And wriggling around on the floor on a big dose of LSD for 12 hours is casual clean fun? Getting psychosis from shrooms is not a big of a deal as getting hooked on heroin? Romanticizing psychedelics is a good starting point for abuse.

> wriggling around on the floor on a big dose of LSD for 12 hours is casual clean fun?

Yes.

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