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Psychedelics in problem-solving experiment

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Re: Psychedelics in problem-solving experiment

#31

Post by poke53281 »

notastartup wrote: post #24
poke53281 wrote: post #9

Myself, I used LSD to learn calculus -- or rather, to overcome a lifelong crippling phobia/anxiety of mathematics, which allowed me to rapidly learn calculus. When I was 21, I encountered John Lilly's theories of cognitive metaprogramming with psychedelics, and I designed a trip to convince myself -- at a really primal level -- of the fundamental beauty, power, and accessibility of math. 12 hours after dosing, my fea…

having same phobia of math (just about blanked on any midterm or final in university) this is intriguing. can you describe your experience more in detail? what in particular did you discover during the process how to overcome fear of math?

See here for the details of the trip: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8247965

The critical thing is to understand that the opposite of fear, hate, and indifference is love. If you truly love something, you'll gladly do whatever it takes to become good at it. So I needed to rewire my brain to be madly in love with mathematics; once that was accomplished, the rest was easy.

Re: Psychedelics in problem-solving experiment

#32

Post by poke53281 »

userbinator wrote: post #27
poke53281 wrote: post #9

Myself, I used LSD to learn calculus -- or rather, to overcome a lifelong crippling phobia/anxiety of mathematics, which allowed me to rapidly learn calculus. When I was 21, I encountered John Lilly's theories of cognitive metaprogramming with psychedelics, and I designed a trip to convince myself -- at a really primal level -- of the fundamental beauty, power, and accessibility of math. 12 hours after dosing, my fea…

While I also believe that they can have beneficial effects, and that research shouldn't be stopped, at the same time it's worth keeping in mind the side-effects: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LSD#Potential_adverse_effects Have you experienced any?

I personally haven't had any adverse effects aside from a sore jaw and a mild ~36-hour serotonin depression following a trip. In the company I took it -- fellow "psychonauts" who always made a serious effort to control the quality of the environment, the quality of the drug, and the quality of their own mental state -- I've never seen anybody else have serious adverse affects, either. We all benefitted from it to varying degrees.

That said, I don't want to dismiss the potential for adverse effects! LSD is a serious tool. It basically gives you the ability to bypass and/or rewrite elements of your brain's BIOS, which is just as powerful and potentially dangerous as it sounds. I can appreciate the possibility for harm if your environment, mental state, or chemistry go awry. It is dangerous to take LSD in a potentially hostile environment where you don't have adequate support, or if you are prone to certain types of anxiety or confusion. There are plenty of people who should probably never take it; personally, I don't recommend it to anyone who isn't already fairly comfortable with observing and controlling their own mind through introspection and/or meditation.

Re: Psychedelics in problem-solving experiment

#33

Post by pyre »

lutusp wrote: post #30
pyre wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With respect to psychedelics, they actually do affect your brain. You'd be hard-pressed to tease apart what portion of the outcome was unaffected by the drug when claiming that the results were all due to the Placebo Effect.

That's true, but there's no chance to have a control group. No one having an acid trip can possibly compare his subjective experience to someone who's taken a sugar pill. And without control groups and other strict controls, human studies are next to useless. The above means that the Placebo Effect cannot be realistically guarded against or dismissed.

> The above means that the Placebo Effect cannot be realistically guarded against or dismissed.

This is a little different than the parent's statement (which I was responding to):

> I tend to view them mostly as analogous to Dumbo's magic feather.

Re: Psychedelics in problem-solving experiment

#34

Post by Ideka »

poke53281 wrote: post #9

Myself, I used LSD to learn calculus -- or rather, to overcome a lifelong crippling phobia/anxiety of mathematics, which allowed me to rapidly learn calculus. When I was 21, I encountered John Lilly's theories of cognitive metaprogramming with psychedelics, and I designed a trip to convince myself -- at a really primal level -- of the fundamental beauty, power, and accessibility of math. 12 hours after dosing, my fea…

Can you explain in detail how you achieved this? How is it that you "designed" the trip?

Re: Psychedelics in problem-solving experiment

#35

Post by [deleted] »

Ideka wrote: post #34
poke53281 wrote: post #9

Myself, I used LSD to learn calculus -- or rather, to overcome a lifelong crippling phobia/anxiety of mathematics, which allowed me to rapidly learn calculus. When I was 21, I encountered John Lilly's theories of cognitive metaprogramming with psychedelics, and I designed a trip to convince myself -- at a really primal level -- of the fundamental beauty, power, and accessibility of math. 12 hours after dosing, my fea…

Can you explain in detail how you achieved this? How is it that you "designed" the trip?

[deleted]

Re: Psychedelics in problem-solving experiment

#36

Post by codeshaman »

Here is a very interesting talk about this study (and on the subject), by James Fadiman, one of the researches on the team:

Scientific Problem Solving with Psychedelics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtL5fafpRKc&list=SP4F0vNNToz...

From the talk:

"It's not 'take psychedelics and you can understand quantum mechanics'. But if you understand quantum mechanics and you take a psychedelic, you may really understand quantum mechanics"

Re: Psychedelics in problem-solving experiment

#37

Post by [deleted] »

Ideka wrote: post #34
poke53281 wrote: post #9

Myself, I used LSD to learn calculus -- or rather, to overcome a lifelong crippling phobia/anxiety of mathematics, which allowed me to rapidly learn calculus. When I was 21, I encountered John Lilly's theories of cognitive metaprogramming with psychedelics, and I designed a trip to convince myself -- at a really primal level -- of the fundamental beauty, power, and accessibility of math. 12 hours after dosing, my fea…

Can you explain in detail how you achieved this? How is it that you "designed" the trip?

[deleted]

Re: Psychedelics in problem-solving experiment

#38

Post by atom-morgan »

poke53281 wrote: post #19
natdempk wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you go into more detail about the trip? I would love to hear about the design of it and how you convinced yourself to love math.

Well, I'd always had a love of fractals, without ever truly comprehending how the underlying maths worked. Same goes for cosmology -- utterly fascinated by the outputs, but didn't really understand the actual mechanisms thereof. So during the trip, I used fractal and cosmology images and videos as an emotional "anchor" -- grounding the trip in material I already loved and was comfortable with / fascinated by. I then…

Good choice with Baraka. I'm sure that was fascinating to watch.

Re: Psychedelics in problem-solving experiment

#39

Post by Energy1 »

poke53281 wrote: post #32
userbinator wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I also believe that they can have beneficial effects, and that research shouldn't be stopped, at the same time it's worth keeping in mind the side-effects: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LSD#Potential_adverse_effects Have you experienced any?

I personally haven't had any adverse effects aside from a sore jaw and a mild ~36-hour serotonin depression following a trip. In the company I took it -- fellow "psychonauts" who always made a serious effort to control the quality of the environment, the quality of the drug, and the quality of their own mental state -- I've never seen anybody else have serious adverse affects, either. We all benefitted from it to var…

> It basically gives you the ability to bypass and/or rewrite elements of your brain's BIOS, which is just as powerful and potentially dangerous as it sounds.

What does it mean? Is it possible to convince your brain to "choose" different sexuality, for example, while high on psycs?

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