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Psychedelics alter metaphysical beliefs

nature.com

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Re: Psychedelics alter metaphysical beliefs

#251

Post by BizarroLand »

wdroz wrote: post #102

Why some people are so eager to alter their mind/brain?

Imaging you're depressed. Or suffering from PTSD/CPTSD. Generally unhappy. Have deep echoes of misery to wade through as the background of your daily life.

And then, there's a chance that taking a drug might just shake things up a bit. Maybe you'll get a new start.

Worst case, you'll have a little fun.

How long has it been since that happened?

That is how people become eager to alter their mind. Their minds are a sucky place to be. If it were a house it would be condemned.

Re: Psychedelics alter metaphysical beliefs

#252

Post by malermeister »

GoblinSlayer wrote: post #245
malermeister wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?]

Beliefs have no effect on reality, sorry. Not sure what you mean by real there, the Avogadro number expresses precision at which you need to simulate reality to get something believable and a brain simply isn't big enough for this in purely quantitative terms.

Beliefs are reality.

> a brain simply isn't big enough for this in purely quantitative terms [quotation needed].

And again, what if all of this, avogadro numbers, hacker news, your conception of reality all were a hallucination? How would you know? How can you definitely prove it is not?

Re: Psychedelics alter metaphysical beliefs

#253

Post by GoblinSlayer »

malermeister wrote: post #252
GoblinSlayer wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Beliefs have no effect on reality, sorry. Not sure what you mean by real there, the Avogadro number expresses precision at which you need to simulate reality to get something believable and a brain simply isn't big enough for this in purely quantitative terms.

Beliefs are reality. > a brain simply isn't big enough for this in purely quantitative terms [quotation needed]. And again, what if all of this, avogadro numbers, hacker news, your conception of reality all were a hallucination? How would you know? How can you definitely prove it is not?

Hallucination with such details is not a mere hallucination, but a conspiracy. If the conspiracy is flawless, it's meaningless to differentiate it from reality, it's literally precise equivalence. It's a more complex theory than realism too.

Re: Psychedelics alter metaphysical beliefs

#254

Post by GoblinSlayer »

Elof wrote: post #249
GoblinSlayer wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don't know everything, but we discern reality just fine. Those are two different claims.

Sure, we discern reality, but that doesn't mean our perception isn't biased or correct.

Seemingly you talk about interpretation and theoretization, not perception. We have problem with building far reaching theories based on perception, but an error in a theory is not a bias in perception, see the color example above.

Re: Psychedelics alter metaphysical beliefs

#255

Post by TchoBeer »

User23 wrote: post #233
TchoBeer wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Do you find "materialism" to require less handwaving than dualism? The upside to materialism is that the gap in our knowledge, namely why networks of neurons cause consciousness, is something we can acknowledge we don't know and try to understand. Resorting to an explaination relying on objects we can't observse seems... inelegant.

> Resorting to an explaination relying on objects we can't observse seems... inelegant. Does your objection hold for dark matter and dark energy too?

Dark Matter and Dark Energy are just catchall terms for "the force that causes more gravitation than we'd expect" and "the force that causes the universe to accelerate in expansion" respectively. Those two phenomena definitely exist, and physicists are obviously not content with concluding our understanding at that, which is why hypothesis about what they are abound.

Re: Psychedelics alter metaphysical beliefs

#256

Post by TchoBeer »

GoblinSlayer wrote: post #197
TchoBeer wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

A zombie has no thoughts, that's the point.

Re: Psychedelics alter metaphysical beliefs

#257

Post by bluSCALE4 »

sysalphUS wrote: post #19
bluSCALE4 wrote: post #3

My experience has been that just as fast as the walls come down, the mind builds them back up.

That’s an interesting take about the walls. I’ve always thought of it more like pathways. There are certain pathways of thought and action that I tend to take on a daily basis. Those pathways get pretty well worn in which makes it all the more easier to continue taking those pathways even if they aren’t serving me well. Experimenting with psychedelics has been a great way of showing me that there are other pathways o…

You're absolutely right. And I did take some positive steps forward. It's just that for a brief moment after the trip, everything seemed manageable and any question seemed answerable. But then the feeling faded and my old being immediately clouded everything. To use your words, the old paths appeared.

Re: Psychedelics alter metaphysical beliefs

#258

Post by TimTheTinker »

guythedudebro wrote: post #86
TimTheTinker wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why can't consciousness be from both the material and the immaterial? If a chemical alters perception, that just shows that consciousness is strongly affected by the material, but other non-contradictory hypotheses aren't thus disproven.

Sure, it could be. I never said otherwise. However, I am unsure what good evidence for a corresponding immaterial part might look like.

If you're looking for physical evidence, perhaps brain signals that don't have a material origin? But that would be very difficult to establish.

I think a better approach is philosophical, by considering the nature of thought and the spoken word.

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