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Drugs and the Meaning of Life (2011)

samharris.org

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Re: Drugs and the Meaning of Life (2011)

#41

Post by Udo »

cristianpascu wrote: post #11

"Everything we do is for the purpose of altering consciousness." I very much respect Sam Harris for taking the consciousness problem seriously. It poses a real problem to (his) atheism, and he, obviously, rejects the substance dualism, which would logically lead to a religious view on us. However, without a conscious soul, meaning itself loses meaning. What's the ontological support for meaning to rise on? One thing…

> its fierce fight with illusions, hallucinations and misleading spiritual experiences

Only for competitive reasons. To get a stable foothold, Christianity had to either do away with the rampant spiritualism of the largely shamanistic religions it replaced, or in some cases had to embrace and extend them. This is and was a purely strategic consideration.

> It poses a real problem to (his) atheism, and he, obviously, rejects the substance dualism, which would logically lead to a religious view on us.

One of his personal core issues is to "rescue" spiritual experiences and bring them over into a secular world. It is not necessarily a concern of atheism per se. For him, as for most atheists, there is not really a "consciousness problem" comparable to what a religious person might identify. As an atheist myself, there is nothing inherently problematic about consciousness, or intelligence, or feelings.

> However, without a conscious soul, meaning itself loses meaning. What's the ontological support for meaning to rise on?

I think most atheists, myself included, as well as many religious people would agree with you that the mind gives rise to meaning. However, I have no idea what you mean by ontological support? Are you asserting that without an overriding supernatural meaning-giver the mind cannot form a world view? Or that a mind capable of categorizing the world meaningfully cannot arise without supernatural influence?

Re: Drugs and the Meaning of Life (2011)

#42

Post by forklift »

beachstartup wrote: post #3
makeset wrote: post #2

I'd never mess with mind-altering drugs. You don't tweak a Ferrari. EDIT: Guys, relax. It was a joke. You think anyone goes and calls their own mind a Ferrari seriously? Jeez.

worst analogy ever, especially for a post that so thinly veils your misguided feelings of superiority. ferraris were meant to be tweaked, what do you think the entire field of motorsport exists for? from F1 all the way down to the local DE event at the local track, cars are tweaked endlessly, with passion. you won't find any shortage of tweaked exotics at your local autocross, either. if nobody "twaeked" cars, you wo…

Pretty sure dude was joking, but you, sir, win at bitter sanctimony. Bravo.

Re: Drugs and the Meaning of Life (2011)

#43

Post by tunesmith »

Nursie wrote: post #24
tunesmith wrote: post #12

The same complaint he makes about "drugs" can also be applied to terms like "legalization" and "regulation" and "prohibition". People react to the terms without coming to a common understanding of what the terms mean, and the conversation doesn't evolve. For instance, one person can be anti-legalization, and another pro-legalization, and have an argument without realizing that they are both against prison sentences f…

On the subject of biases - do you think perhaps that the selection of people that your medical social worker friends see might, maybe, represent the problem end of the spectrum of users? Rather than a representative cross section? I don't have any doubt some substances are much worse than others for this, meth and crack spring to mind, but the personal experiences of social workers are IMHO useful to see what can hap…

Yeah, I'm making more a "there exists" argument rather than saying that they're representative of all drug users. However, it's common enough that the impact on society is non-negligible, IMO.

It of course invites the question of "how much of that negative impact means that some form of regulation is worthwhile?" I think that's an interesting discussion to have, the ones that admit the problem and try and quantify it. I'm not sure that many people are able to have the conversation outside of policy wonks, though.

Re: Drugs and the Meaning of Life (2011)

#44

Post by vehementi »

makeset wrote: post #31
beachstartup wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

worst analogy ever, especially for a post that so thinly veils your misguided feelings of superiority. ferraris were meant to be tweaked, what do you think the entire field of motorsport exists for? from F1 all the way down to the local DE event at the local track, cars are tweaked endlessly, with passion. you won't find any shortage of tweaked exotics at your local autocross, either. if nobody "twaeked" cars, you wo…

You don't have much of a sense of humor, do you.

If nobody gets your joke, the failure in communication was yours - and probably your own sense of humour.

Re: Drugs and the Meaning of Life (2011)

#45

Post by harshreality »

[deleted] wrote: post #25
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #15

I recommend David Nutt's Drugs Without the Hot Air [1] on the subject. Nutt, a British psychiatrist and neuropsychopharmacologist, headed up the U.K.'s Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (a British DEA/FDA hybrid). He was canned when he suggested that alcohol may be more damaging than many controlled substances. Amongst the goodies from the book are this chart [2], which plots dependence risk against toxicologis…

[deleted]

What about Steve Jobs's similar statement that taking LSD was "one of the two or three most important things [he did] in [his] life."

http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2009/07/09/dr-lsd-to-steve-jobs-...

Re: Drugs and the Meaning of Life (2011)

#46

Post by md224 »

_yosefk wrote: post #35

"Everything we do is for the purpose of altering consciousness. We form friendships so that we can feel certain emotions, like love, and avoid others, like loneliness. We eat specific foods to enjoy their fleeting presence on our tongues." We study and work for the purpose of altering the bits representing our bank account balances. Is that equivalent to hacking the bank and altering the bits directly? We make friend…

You seem to be making the case that taking drugs is in some sense "cheating" your way to a psychological experience, and therefore somewhat immoral or superficial. That's a valid perspective, but consider this: do you consider drinking coffee to be cheating? Do you consider the ingestion of caffeine to reduce fatigue and aid in cognitive performance as a bad thing?

There's certainly a difference between being more alert and having a psychedelic experience, but they're both a manipulation of the mind via psychoactive substances.

Re: Drugs and the Meaning of Life (2011)

#47

Post by Nursie »

tunesmith wrote: post #43
Nursie wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the subject of biases - do you think perhaps that the selection of people that your medical social worker friends see might, maybe, represent the problem end of the spectrum of users? Rather than a representative cross section? I don't have any doubt some substances are much worse than others for this, meth and crack spring to mind, but the personal experiences of social workers are IMHO useful to see what can hap…

Yeah, I'm making more a "there exists" argument rather than saying that they're representative of all drug users. However, it's common enough that the impact on society is non-negligible, IMO. It of course invites the question of "how much of that negative impact means that some form of regulation is worthwhile?" I think that's an interesting discussion to have, the ones that admit the problem and try and quantify it…

I've no idea what the appropriate amount of regulation is.

One of the interesting things that David Nutt said in his book was that perhaps, if we didn't have the puritan attitude, we could research substances that gave people the effects they want without as much harm. What if we had an alcohol alternative that was non addictive and could be switched off at the end of the night with an antidote? Or a recreational stimulant that didn't cause heart strain?

If we approached the question of drugs from a libertine but harm-reducing viewpoint, I wonder what we could achieve.

Also of course, who would get hooked on meth if they had a choice of cheaper, safer, legal alternatives? Some still would but I bet it would be less.

Re: Drugs and the Meaning of Life (2011)

#48

Post by lovemenot »

cle wrote: post #20
tunesmith wrote: post #12

The same complaint he makes about "drugs" can also be applied to terms like "legalization" and "regulation" and "prohibition". People react to the terms without coming to a common understanding of what the terms mean, and the conversation doesn't evolve. For instance, one person can be anti-legalization, and another pro-legalization, and have an argument without realizing that they are both against prison sentences f…

I agree, there can be a lot of negative externalities from drug use. At the same time, there can be positive externalities. Everyone knows what these are. I would like to see more nuanced drug policy. Let's try to discourage the kind of drug use that leads to negative externalities, without discouraging the kind of drug use that can lead to positive ones. For example, treatment instead of imprisonment. If we take a l…

>> Of course, it's hard to come up with campaign slogans or appeal to emotions by making cogent, nuanced arguments.

Just say "it depends".

Re: Drugs and the Meaning of Life (2011)

#49

Post by ritchiea »

[deleted] wrote: post #32
glhaynes wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Go on… actually make your case…

[deleted]

Are you honestly arguing against doing something because intellectuals that inspire you advocate it? That's a fantastic reason to seek out a new experience.

Re: Drugs and the Meaning of Life (2011)

#50

Post by JumpCrisscross »

[deleted] wrote: post #25
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #15

I recommend David Nutt's Drugs Without the Hot Air [1] on the subject. Nutt, a British psychiatrist and neuropsychopharmacologist, headed up the U.K.'s Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (a British DEA/FDA hybrid). He was canned when he suggested that alcohol may be more damaging than many controlled substances. Amongst the goodies from the book are this chart [2], which plots dependence risk against toxicologis…

[deleted]

The Crick anecdote is not to encourage people to try LSD so they can gain a connection to Francis Crick. Instead, it prompts a sense of dissonance between popular mentalities towards the substance and a luminary's position on it. Nutt's over-arching point is that society should pivot away from prohibition to harm reduction, which rests on people being informed about the realistic risks surrounding various substances.
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