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LSD and psilocybin increase the fractal dimension of brain activity

biorxiv.org

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Re: LSD and psilocybin increase the fractal dimension of brain activity

#141

Post by sammalloy »

lostmsu wrote: post #129
sammalloy wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I find this description quite unsettling because it is so common. More importantly, the description isn't just found in trip reports. It's found throughout history, in reports of people who have had what are called peak experiences, sometimes involving trauma. There are many stories of prisoners in the literature, for example, who come to the realization that both the jailer and the jailed are the same. Jack Kornfi…

> ultimate truths OMG man, this is delusional. We are not all the same person. To be specific, you and I are not the same person by any reasonable non-trivial definition of a person. We may only be parts of some larger entity (duh) like humanity, which may or may not be considered a person (separate from us, its parts) depending on definition you choose.

See nondualism.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nondualism

It's considered an "ultimate truth" in those traditions. The question isn't whether or not this is delusional, it's why is this experience widely shared across human history.

Re: LSD and psilocybin increase the fractal dimension of brain activity

#142

Post by lostmsu »

sammalloy wrote: post #141
lostmsu wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ultimate truths OMG man, this is delusional. We are not all the same person. To be specific, you and I are not the same person by any reasonable non-trivial definition of a person. We may only be parts of some larger entity (duh) like humanity, which may or may not be considered a person (separate from us, its parts) depending on definition you choose.

See nondualism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nondualism It's considered an "ultimate truth" in those traditions. The question isn't whether or not this is delusional, it's why is this experience widely shared across human history.

Judging from the page description they make the same mistake of simply ignoring definitions and coming up with their own.

Is there anything special to this experience? Historically, all kinds of delusions were "widely shared". This is true even today. People "talked" to trees everywhere around the world.

Re: LSD and psilocybin increase the fractal dimension of brain activity

#143

Post by atatatat »

jb775 wrote: post #51

There's a company called MindMed that's doing clinical trials with Psilocybin/LSD/MDMA and finding that micro-dosing has really positive benefits on human disorders linked to the brain (depression, PTSD, etc). Could be huge to harness the power of these drugs for the benefit of humanity.

human disorders linked to the brain (realizing things are seriously messed up)

Re: LSD and psilocybin increase the fractal dimension of brain activity

#144

Post by sammalloy »

lostmsu wrote: post #142
sammalloy wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See nondualism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nondualism It's considered an "ultimate truth" in those traditions. The question isn't whether or not this is delusional, it's why is this experience widely shared across human history.

Judging from the page description they make the same mistake of simply ignoring definitions and coming up with their own. Is there anything special to this experience? Historically, all kinds of delusions were "widely shared". This is true even today. People "talked" to trees everywhere around the world.

> Is there anything special to this experience?

Yes, it is plausible, but logically impossible.

Re: LSD and psilocybin increase the fractal dimension of brain activity

#145

Post by 52-6F-62 »

netizen-936824 wrote: post #139
52-6F-62 wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are they? Everywhere I look cannabis use has virtually normalized outside of outdated and contrived legal frameworks, and 1%er business tycoons are micro-dosing on the job for presumed spiritual and/or perceptual advantages. I'm not sure how that counts as marginalized.

You need to consider your informational sphere, considering you are on HN its probably vastly different than 95% of the US. Most of the US still views drug use as a criminal issue, including psychedelics. Psychedelics are still central to large pieces of the counter culture.

I live and operate well outside of the typical sphere of Hacker News. Cannabis has been normalized across my country for decades. It's well known for it.

Re: LSD and psilocybin increase the fractal dimension of brain activity

#146

Post by lostmsu »

sammalloy wrote: post #144
lostmsu wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Judging from the page description they make the same mistake of simply ignoring definitions and coming up with their own. Is there anything special to this experience? Historically, all kinds of delusions were "widely shared". This is true even today. People "talked" to trees everywhere around the world.

> Is there anything special to this experience? Yes, it is plausible, but logically impossible.

What do you mean by "impossible"? I just described exactly how people get that experience: they mess up definitions. It is a perfectly logical description.

Under influence people think peeing in public is OK is plausible, though logically it is not the best action to take. So that is not unique either.

Re: LSD and psilocybin increase the fractal dimension of brain activity

#147

Post by IIAOPSW »

int_19h wrote: post #131
IIAOPSW wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm very nodding-along with this interpretation, but only because when I closed my eyes I realized that what I saw looked like the normal after image of staring at a lightbulb but shoved through some form of Fourier space filter. I came to this revelation that the entire experience, the sense of time, the visual distortions, the losing trains of thought, all of it could be explained if brain waves are representations…

There's plenty of accidental patterns in purely random stuff. So the thing that the pattern corresponds to, according to your brain, isn't really there - but the pattern itself can very well be. You know how trees sometimes look like they have faces, for example? They objectively do, according to our pattern recognition algorithm for faces, in a sense that people will find the same tree more or less anthropomorphic.…

Trees are not accidental. They very much have a pattern. Namely they are in the shape of a tree.

TV static is pure randomness. Looking at any pixel has no correlation with looking at any other pixel. Any pattern you see in static must therefore be an artifact of the way your brain encodes patterns rather than something that is actually there.

Re: LSD and psilocybin increase the fractal dimension of brain activity

#148

Post by sammalloy »

lostmsu wrote: post #146
sammalloy wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is there anything special to this experience? Yes, it is plausible, but logically impossible.

What do you mean by "impossible"? I just described exactly how people get that experience: they mess up definitions. It is a perfectly logical description. Under influence people think peeing in public is OK is plausible, though logically it is not the best action to take. So that is not unique either.

Use the concept of paradoxes in Taoism as a metaphor for nondualism:

> The paradox is that by talking about the Tao, and by attempting to define the Tao, we ensure that the reader does not actually grasp the concept. At its heart, the Tao is nonverbal in its essence, beyond the confines of language. The Tao is an experience rather than definition.

Each tradition has their own version. For the west, it's the coincidentia oppositorum of Nicholas of Cusa. This goes beyond definitions because language can't describe it. This is not a failing, this is the essence of its impossibility.

Re: LSD and psilocybin increase the fractal dimension of brain activity

#149

Post by lostmsu »

sammalloy wrote: post #148
lostmsu wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean by "impossible"? I just described exactly how people get that experience: they mess up definitions. It is a perfectly logical description. Under influence people think peeing in public is OK is plausible, though logically it is not the best action to take. So that is not unique either.

Use the concept of paradoxes in Taoism as a metaphor for nondualism: > The paradox is that by talking about the Tao, and by attempting to define the Tao, we ensure that the reader does not actually grasp the concept. At its heart, the Tao is nonverbal in its essence, beyond the confines of language. The Tao is an experience rather than definition. Each tradition has their own version. For the west, it's the coinciden…

What you just described makes about as much sense as Seado - a word that I just came up with - e.g. no sense at all.

Re: LSD and psilocybin increase the fractal dimension of brain activity

#150

Post by sammalloy »

lostmsu wrote: post #149
sammalloy wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Use the concept of paradoxes in Taoism as a metaphor for nondualism: > The paradox is that by talking about the Tao, and by attempting to define the Tao, we ensure that the reader does not actually grasp the concept. At its heart, the Tao is nonverbal in its essence, beyond the confines of language. The Tao is an experience rather than definition. Each tradition has their own version. For the west, it's the coinciden…

What you just described makes about as much sense as Seado - a word that I just came up with - e.g. no sense at all.

You're starting to get it. Paradoxes, contradictions, and nonsense is how these traditions attempt to get the practitioner to overcome dualism. The problem is that you think you can use either-or logic to understand it when the practice is designed to destroy it.
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