"Why not 'explore all the modes of consciousness available to us'? What might they tell us about 'the relationship between mind and world?'... A specialist in the history and philosophy of science whose next book is a scholarly study of Leibniz, he stressed that he wrote 'On Drugs' stone sober and broke no laws to obtain the substances he ingested for his research.... On a dose 'far more than is recommended,' he experienced an intense 'interpersonal exchange' with Marilyn Monroe, who loomed from a poster on his hotel room wall, and, via YouTube clips... 'Mama Cass suddenly appeared to me as "Mama" in the fullest sense: the fount of my being and the origin of my world.' On yet another trip, he understood that he was no longer any kind of being at all."
From
"Psychedelics Blew His Mind. He Wants Other Philosophers to Open Theirs. An intense exchange with Marilyn Monroe sounds silly. But in a new book, Justin Smith-Ruiu is dead serious about what we might learn from altered states" (NYT).
It was all I hoped it would be....
पोस्ट्स
५० टिप्पण्या:
Our brains in their natural state were built with systems like the Reticular Activation System that allows us to filter most information out so that we can focus on the lion sneaking up in the bushes.
Our neurotransmitters and biochemical decision making systems were calibrated over thousands of years to deal with constant hunger and danger. We get so much dopamine now that many people can barely function. Porn addiction is a perfect example.
Modern Society is a dangerous place for these systems.
That picture is not a real person is it?
I made the picture
Ann Althouse said...
I made the picture
Did you upload any base pictures to build around?
"Why assume that our minds, in their sober 'default state,' are naturally designed to grasp reality as it really is? Smith-Ruiu asks."
Ahh, you were talking to your Marilyn Monroe poster.
I just asked for Mama Cass in the form the philosopher says he saw her
Was she eating a ham sammich in the vision?
A philosopher takes psychedelic drugs and then does what we hippies did on drugs in the 1960s — look at our posters.
See what you can get with a request for Mama Cass seen as the fount of one's being and the origin of one's world
Modern society actually produces a complete low levels of dopamine:
Yes, repeated and intense artificial spikes in dopamine can lead to a long-term reduction in the brain's natural dopamine function. Your brain, in an effort to maintain balance, adapts to excessive stimulation by reducing its sensitivity to dopamine.
"It was all I hoped it would be...."
Makes me think of the '60s "drug, set, and setting": Your experience will be different depending on what drug you take, what you expect to happen, and the circumstances under which you take it.
His "set" was "this is going to be good."
You know if mama Cass would have shared her ham sandwich with Karen Carpenter they’d both be alive today.
I don’t trust academics with hyphenated last names.
Those of us born with ADHD of a natural low dopamine level. This is why we are more susceptible to drug abuse and thrill seeking. The solution is by maintaining very high levels of physical activity and embracing the useful skills that require are intense level of hyper focus.
In this way we're able to naturally increase our dopamine levels without producing the insensitivity rebound associated with drugs and sugary foods.
Psychedelics are a lot of fun especially because you just take them very rarely. The last time I did mushrooms, I spent the day with friends doing heavy clearing of brush surrounding a spring box in the foothills of the Eastern Sierra Nevada. After doubling down at lunch I decided to quit using the chainsaw, lol
My experience with LSD was that it turned the waking world into one that looked like a normal dream state to me. What bothered me the most was that I couldn't focus on anything for more than a few seconds. I don't think I imagined anything that wasn't actually there- certainly not dead singers and actresses. Maybe I am more grounded to my everyday senses and needed a larger dose. I wasn't brave enough double or triple the quantity used.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altered_States
Classic horror movie directed by the ultimate weirdo Ken Russell based on a Paddy Chayefsky novel starring William Hurt
"What bothered me the most was that I couldn't focus on anything for more than a few seconds. "
But it felt like hours.
that was a crazy film, he physically regressed to a more primitive organism, well that seems to be happening without sense deprivation, alternate imput
take the tiktok dancers, who might have well been hallucinating what's their excuse,
In "Altered States," William Hurt turned into some kind of semi-monster and two wolves (dogs?) IIRC.
well that was Ken Russell, the man was a maniac,
"Classic horror movie directed by the ultimate weirdo Ken Russell based on a Paddy Chayefsky novel starring William Hurt"
Whatever you do, don't get into a sensory isolation tank. It makes evolution go backwards.
Just barely enough shrooms are a fun way to spend an evening laughing and bonding with friends. I draw the line though when the trees around the campfire start walking about.
9/21/25, 11:46 AM
but its too late at that point,
Psychedelics have a lot in common with Schizophrenia. Schizophrenics believe in what they see and hear while druggies usually know what they are seeing is a distortion.
Hallucinogens distort perception like tracers on real objects, and seeing geometric fields and patterns overlaid on surfaces. It’s a holodeck where you see funny things, but like the old saying, what you see in the cave is what you bring with you, applies.
A physics grad student may think that drugs remove filters that help us survive in a wild quantum universe by only letting us see a 3d linearized version of it, but they are trained to deal with cognitive dissonance.
So either the world is very weird and we only see a sane part of it, or the world is sane, and drugs and mental illness make our senses see it as very weird.
De Quincey Confessions of an English Opium Eater is worthwhile. It's an example of nice prose. I'm told it used to show up in English Lit classes in fact.
All we needed to know about, "Altered states," and what a waste of brain cells they are, was figured out by 1972. It might not have enlightened us at all.
Great revelations produced by a religious epiphany or ingestion of drugs might well feel like an unveiling of the universe to the individual. But to extrapolate as a universal truth that will apply to all people is incredibly self centered. (Although "click bait" is never off the table as motive in today's world.) Now if a sufficient percentage of, say, people who ingest magic mushroom had nearly identical experiences... give me a call and I'll listen.
Like a hydrophobic slick on water, these are the psycho-delics of our hazy condition.
A schizophrenic out for a walk is a better model than a neurotic lying on the analyst's couch. A breath of fresh air, a relationship with the outside world. Lenz's stroll, for example, as reconstructed by Buchner. This walk outdoors is different from the moments when Lenz finds himself closeted with his pastor, who forces him to situate himself socially, in relationship to the God of established religion, in relationship to his father, to his mother. While taking a stroll outdoors, on the other hand, he is in the mountains, amid falling snowflakes, with other gods or without any gods at all, without a family, without a father or a mother, with nature. "What does my father want? Can he offer me more than that? Impossible. Leave me in peace." Everything is a machine. Celestial machines, the stars or rainbows in the sky, alpine machines- all of them connected to those of his body. The continual whirr of machines. "He thought that it must be a feeling of endless bliss to be in contact with the profound life of every form, to have a soul for rocks, metals, water, and plants, to take into himself, as in a dream, every element of nature, like flowers that breathe with the waxing and waning of the moon." To be a chlorophyll- or a photosynthesis-machine, or at least slip his body into such machines as one part among the others. Lenz has projected himself back to a time before the man-nature dichotomy, before all the co-ordinates based on this fundamental dichotomy have been laid down. He does not live nature as nature, but as a process of production. There is no such thing as either man or nature now, only a process that produces the one within the other and couples the machines together. Producing-machines, desiring-machines everywhere, schizophrenic machines, all of species life: the self and the non-self, outside and inside, no longer have any meaning whatsoever.
Anti-Oedipus Deleuze and Guattari,
I went into a sort of cheapo sensory deprivation thing at a Spa in Santa Fe. No rubber suit or air hose like James Bond. It was a big tub of fluid that was the same temp and density as your body so you barely floated and there was no light or music. I was in for an hour and it felt like 5 min, but I did not go insane or see God. Pretty peaceful.
At least I did not go insane to a degree that I am aware of.
So my Vietnam Vet helicopter pilot brother has retired from 45 years post Army commercial flying helicopters, most of it dangerous mountain construction, firefighting and search and rescue. So not only did he have PTSD from his experiences in Vietnam but he also had PTSD from the 45 years of very dangerous flying in which many of his coworkers and colleagues were killed in crashes that he was responsible for flying into and picking up the remains.
He was recently divorced and has started indulging in pot, alcohol and cigarettes while cutting back on exercise and socializing. I managed to secure an ounce of magic mushrooms when I was visiting him in California. This was two and a half years ago. After one dose, he decided that he needed to straighten his life around gave up all the substances started exercising re-engage with all of his friends and expanded his social group started meditating and now is living his absolute best life.
That was the last time he took any psychedelics. He has plenty of psychedelics in storage at his house but he has no desire to take them again he says one day maybe when the conditions are right you would like to do another trip but until then it's just living life everyday with purpose and joy.
It's a tool not a toy
Our culture romanticizes the link between drug use and artistic genius. It is obvious that drug damage creativity by disconnecting and dulling our minds. Maybe RFK Jr. needs to look into this.
I remember reading A Child's Garden of Grass while in college. A very entertaining read as I recall.
It was all he hoped it would be.
But Monday Evening, Cass would still be there with him.
I would’ve asked Mama Cass about that ham sammich.
“ Producing-machines, desiring-machines everywhere, schizophrenic machines, all of species life: the self and the non-self, outside and inside, no longer have any meaning whatsoever.”
But then, what would be the value of Economics?
Didn’t Mama Cass exhort listeners to “dream a little dream” of her?
So the meaning of the universe is stereotypes of big titted women....
Ils ont change' ma chanson, mama....CC, JSM
Accuracy and fidelity are inversely proportional to distance in time and space from the observer.
Science cannot discern origin and expression.
Faith is a logical domain, an integral aspect of human existence.
As babies, we suckle from our mother's teat for life. As adults, we imbibe for a gay old time.
narciso said...
take the tiktok dancers, who might have well been hallucinating what's their excuse,
********
Back when, I did some serious hallucinating watching the "Solid Gold Dancers" babes.
An image that begs for 'below the fold...' status.
Why assume that our minds are designed to grasp reality as it really is? I dunno. Maybe evolution eliminating bad things that lower our survivability?
It depends on how real is reality. Most people have reached a consensus that is highly correlated with observation in the near domain and note a separation of logical domains for normalization, inspiration, and other purposes.
I think more airline pilots and long distance haulers should get into this. An altered state of consciousness relieves the tedium of a long journey.
Howard said...
He was recently divorced and has started indulging in pot, alcohol and cigarettes while cutting back on exercise and socializing. I managed to secure an ounce of magic mushrooms when I was visiting him in California. This was two and a half years ago. After one dose, he decided that he needed to straighten his life around gave up all the substances started exercising re-engage with all of his friends and expanded his social group started meditating and now is living his absolute best life.
There are a lot of anecdotes I have read and observed from people who used low dose psychedelics to rewire and re-balance there ability to focus and executive decision making.
Enough that I am looking into doing it myself.
There are also compounds like methylene blue that act as MOA inhibitors that people are experimenting with.
Hopefully over the next several years the pace with which we can manipulate our biological neurotransmitter systems can keep up with the companies that are addicting us to social media, porn, and tribal silos.
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