[HN Gopher] Mysticism and Empiricism
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Mysticism and Empiricism
Author : Anon84
Score : 60 points
Date : 2024-01-12 09:57 UTC (13 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (asteriskmag.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (asteriskmag.com)
| scooke wrote:
| One problem with the experiment mentioned at the beginning of the
| article is that the participants still knew that a drug was being
| administered, which by itself would be enough to precipitate a
| reaction. Another aspect that I'd be curious about is who these
| religious people were... What denomination. No Christians I know
| would agree to doing this - Drugs? No. Partly out of a sense of
| morals, but more so because they wouldn't want their experience
| with God tainted by chemicals. There probably are other
| experiments out there where religious ppl were administered drugs
| _but did not know it_... Those results would be interesting to
| read about, including subsequent beliefs or positions about one
| 's standing with God.
| RationalDino wrote:
| The experiment in question happened over 60 years ago. This was
| before the War on Drugs, before the hippies, and before most
| people had any familiarity with these drugs.
|
| Public attitudes were very different. And the attitudes of
| Christians today are largely shaped by political battles that
| had not yet happened. Thus your current experience is not a
| good predictor of how easy it was to find Christians back then
| who would have been willing.
|
| In fact I used to know some very conservative people who were
| exposed to LSD back in that early era. (They were old back when
| I knew them, and are dead now.) And based on what they told me,
| I would predict no resistance to such an experiment in 1962.
| pixl97 wrote:
| Currently Christianity is associated with conservatism, hence
| more anti-drug behavior. And this isn't exactly incorrect
| these days either. As the population of self identifying
| Christians in the US shrinks, those that remain are apt to be
| those with a very strong ideological base.
| RationalDino wrote:
| That is true. But in the early 60s, before the rise of the
| Religious Right, no such association existed. For example
| https://www.pbs.org/thisfarbyfaith/journey_4/p_2.html shows
| the strong Christian support for the Civil Rights Movement.
|
| Also it wouldn't have mattered back then. In the early 60s,
| drugs were associated with neither conservativism or
| liberalism.
|
| Anecdote time. My ex's grandfather was a very conservative,
| very Christian lawyer. He happened to also be a lawyer for
| some people who were involved with LSD in the early days,
| and hence actually tried LSD in the time frame of the
| research article in question. He used to laugh about how he
| was someone that nobody would think had taken LSD.
|
| It was a different time.
| hprotagonist wrote:
| >Another aspect that I'd be curious about is who these
| religious people were... What denomination. No Christians I
| know would agree to doing this .
|
| The study participants were all Christian seminary and theology
| students, of mainline protestant denominations. The study was
| run by an ordained minister (and doctor!) who was pursuing his
| PhD. Permission was granted to use marsh chapel by howard
| thurman, who (i hope) needs no introduction.
|
| A statistically unlikely high percentage of study participants
| were subsequently ordained, and described the experiment as a
| spiritually significant / formative experience. (see
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marsh_Chapel_Experiment#Doblin...
| and linked citations )
|
| I don't think your objections hold water.
| washadjeffmad wrote:
| In my (American) experience, there is a world of difference
| between the parishioner and the theologian. I don't know any
| theologian who could resist an offer of an experience that
| might give them insight into the mind of their creator.
|
| Also, this took place in the 1960s. Post-"War on Drugs"
| indoctrination wasn't in effect, and consciousness expansion -
| the understanding that reality is greater than our limited and
| incomplete human senses can perceive, but that they can be
| enhanced - was popular. If you're interested in the range (and
| similarity) of entheogen experiences, there are many accounts
| from people across the world recorded on the web going back
| decades. It makes for very interesting history.
|
| There's a very modern fear at play here, but it's fear of the
| state, not of gods. Substance use as a ritual aid aligns with
| both religious-historic accounts and evidence found in early
| Abrahamic temples. For example:
| https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/cannabis-found-alt...
| dfxm12 wrote:
| _No Christians I know would agree to doing this - Drugs? No._
|
| There are _a lot_ of Christians out there. I suggest not trying
| generalize them based on the relatively insignificant number
| you know.
| srcreigh wrote:
| > In 2021, Yaden and Griffiths proposed an experiment, the only
| definitive study that could disprove the importance of subjective
| effects: the administration of psychedelics to individuals
| rendered fully unconscious via deep anesthesia, and who
| subsequently reported no memory of the psychedelic experience. If
| full and lasting therapeutic efficacy remains under these
| conditions, the subjective effects -- importantly, not limited to
| the mystical experience -- would be proven irrelevant. The RECAP
| study, currently underway at the University of Wisconsin, is
| investigating a variant of this: whether the coadministration of
| midazolam, an amnesiac sedative, can effectively wipe
| participant's memories of the subjective effects. Results are
| still forthcoming.
|
| Wonder when they're going to get published. It's been over 2
| years by now.
| broscillator wrote:
| I find this to be pretty odd reasoning, it definitely seems far
| from "definitive" for me unless you make _a lot_ of assumptions
| about how the mind works.
| mistermann wrote:
| Clever use of language can get around most any problem, as it
| is anyways.
| red_admiral wrote:
| The other day there was a topic on HN about how the internet is
| full of AI-generated crap. Asterisk mag, thankfully, is still one
| of the exceptions.
| photochemsyn wrote:
| Poincare in his 1902 book Science and Hypothesis breaks down our
| sensory experience of reality into visual, tactile (which
| includes auditory) and motor (muscular) representations of that
| reality. We use these sensations to construct a map of reality
| (or of the simulation, if you like). Here's what motor space
| means, according to Poincare:
|
| > "The corresponding framework constitutes what may be called
| motor space. Each muscle gives rise to a special sensation which
| may be increased or diminished so that the aggregate of our
| muscular sensations will depend upon as many variables as we have
| muscles. From this point of view motor space would have as many
| dimen- sions as we have muscles."
|
| While Poincare uses this as a launch point into non-Euclidean and
| higher-dimension geometry, this visual-tactile-motor
| representation of reality is what psychedelics mess with, and at
| a biomolecular level it seems to involve nerve cell receptors
| that manage sensory input within the brain, such that memory can
| leak over into the sensory channels. Thus looking at clouds in
| the sky under a large dose of psychedelics results in
| hallucinations of whatever is on your mind at the time, while a
| sober person may creatively struggle to see images in clouds.
|
| People with religious backgrounds who think about religion all
| the time will therefore tend to see religious iconography, which
| brings us to the so-called 'Captain Trips' character of Al
| Hubbard, who promoted this kind of thing in the late 1950s/early
| 1960s:
|
| > "Whereas many LSD practitioners were content to strap their
| patients onto a 3' x 6' cot and have them attempt to perform a
| battery of mathematical formulae with a head full of LSD, Hubbard
| believed in a comfortable couch and throw pillows. He also
| employed icons and symbols to send the experience into a variety
| of different directions: someone uptight may be asked to look at
| a photo of a glacier, which would soon melt into blissful
| relaxation; a person seeking the spiritual would be directed to a
| picture of Jesus, and enter into a one-on-one relationship with
| the Savior."
|
| https://www.trippingly.net/lsd-studies/2018/5/20/al-hubbard-...
|
| The libertarian view is that 'if people want to ingest
| psychedelics, as responsible adults, they should be allowed to
| without suffering state persecution', and it really doesn't
| matter if their motivation is to improve their 3D visualization
| capabilities for the enjoyment of higher abstract mathematics, or
| if they're only interested in spiritual experiences and
| therapeutic potentials, or microdosing so they can write more
| code per day (YMMV).
|
| Unfortunately, people indoctrinated with the consumer mentality
| of 'more is better' often have disastrous outcomes when they
| ingest psychedelics, which is why the warning labels are
| necessary - and saying "less is more" is almost a heresy in a
| consumerist society.
| temp0826 wrote:
| That's super interesting, will be taking a look at Poincare
| soon. I work at an ayahuasca retreat and have drank about 300
| times; IMO it seems to put you in an extreme state of
| synesthesia, a mixing of all the senses, including
| thoughts/intuitions/memories.
| empath-nirvana wrote:
| I'm a strict materialist in terms of like 'where consciousness
| comes from', but a strictly "bottom up" model, I think, is the
| wrong way to think about mind, because while yes, mental states
| are caused by physical changes in the brain, but you can very
| well reverse it and show that mental states cause physical change
| in the brain in return. When you learn how to add 2+2, that
| surely corresponds to physical changes in the brain, but it would
| be very weird to think about that as the physical changes causing
| the learning of 2+2, rather than the other way around.
|
| In computer terms, while yes, everything that happens in a
| computer is a result of the physical activity of its components,
| if you try to understand the activity of the computer while
| completely ignoring _the code_, you are going to have a very
| incomplete model of what the computer is doing and what it's
| going to do in response to changes.
|
| The idea of trying to reduce "what psychedelics do" to strictly
| the action of chemicals causing physical changes in neurons and
| the pursuit of psychedelics that don't cause a subjective
| experience seems to very much misunderstand what the mind is.
| Surely you can cause physical changes in the brain with a
| chemical change, but it's the subjective experience itself and
| the mind that drives a _particular beneficial change_.
|
| It's like trying to teach someone math without cracking a
| textbook or something. The fundamental thing the mind does is
| _learn_, and I don't think that you can learn anything beneficial
| from the psychedelic experience without the actual, you know,
| psychedelic experience.
|
| For me, the big thing I took away from psychedelics was a new
| understanding about the nature of how I perceive things and the
| nature of reality and my place in it. It was like a conscious
| learning process based on experience. If you take away the
| experience, what are you learning?
| simonh wrote:
| As physicalists there is no bottom up or top down. The mental
| process of learning 2+2=4 doesn't cause the physical process or
| vice versa. They are different ways of talking about the exact
| same thing. Mental processes don't 'have Physical effects',
| they just flat out are physical processes.
|
| So of course ideas and thoughts can 'cause changes in our
| bodies', they are changes in our bodies.
|
| Similarly when you talk about computers and software, bear in
| mind that software is a physical phenomenon. It exists in the
| computer as a physical pattern of electrical charges in memory
| circuits. It has physical effects in the system because it is
| physical.
| altruios wrote:
| That hypothesis is exactly what they are testing though, no?
| What happens when you take away that experience. So the best
| way to think about it is to wait and see.
|
| I think I generally agree with your prediction, but I think
| it's because (less than 100% of) the physical changes simply
| don't taking place when put into a coma... I.E. the conscious
| process cascades more physical changes.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| Are the laws of physics material?
| corry wrote:
| Three interesting (I hope) comments:
|
| 1) There is so much cultural baggage around psychedelics at this
| point. We're still talking about the Marsh Chapel experiment?
| We're still writing articles that MUST include a Leary reference?
| There is a HUGE wave of psychedelic research coming to fruition
| now and in the coming 2 - 3 years that will hopefully help change
| the conversation from hippies, the 1960s, and even
| religious/spiritual metaphor.
|
| 2) Without a more concrete understanding of consciousness (and
| the 'hard problem' of it), our understanding of psychedelics is
| built on shaky foundations. Sure, psychedelic research may help
| us discover new insights that help solve the consciousness
| crisis... but that seems like a very speculative hope.
|
| 3) I'm curious why N,N-DMT isn't being studied as much as
| psilocybin in this current wave of research. Much of the
| challenge with contemporary psychedelic therapy has to do with
| logistics - trips take too long to fit a clinical setting. DMT is
| over in 20 minutes, and while (I've heard) extremely intense,
| people seem to anecdotally benefit in similar ways to longer-
| acting psychedelics.
| temp0826 wrote:
| (Smoking) DMT is a huge wildcard. I've had a couple of good
| experiences but the vast majority left me very off-base and
| ungrounded, weirded out. I really don't think it has the
| therapeutic potential of ayahuasca.
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| Clock time DMT is quick but in perceived time it is millennia.
| Whatever other effects you get are after you grapple with that
| The Jaunt shit on the way out.
| MeImCounting wrote:
| Personally I think a big reason psychedelics are helpful to
| people is because of the process of an experience taking a full
| day, forcing you to integrate what youve experienced in a way
| that just wont ever be possible in a brief 20 minute
| experience. The trip is about the individual journey and not
| about some magical effect on the brain. This is just my opinion
| but I really think as we do more research we will find this to
| be the case
| horsethrow wrote:
| Throwaway account for obvious reasons. I've done DMT once and
| magic mushrooms a few times. DMT is by far the crazier trip
| that will take me a year to properly integrate. Since I have
| to practice a few things, the DMT being that I met gave me
| homework, ha! I'm going for a "check up" in 8 months.
|
| Everyone has different experiences but when you subjectively
| feel your mind is at least 10 to 100 times faster (that even
| has some residu effect after the trip) then that's enough
| "time" to learn anything. Others may not have that
| experience.
|
| What I learned:
|
| - Feel free to feel free. No need to be so uptight.
|
| - If anything, _if anything_, it's about love. A good place
| to start is [1].
|
| - Seeking for the truth is amazing. However, when you speak,
| be warm and loving while speaking the truth. A human is not
| an object. A human isn't only nourished by truth. Just like a
| well-balanced diet. It's nourished by more things.
|
| - You're blind to how many people love you. Also, they don't
| dare to say it given the culture you're in.
|
| - It doesn't matter whether the DMT being is real or not. It
| felt real at the time, but I knew it is probably an illusion
| going in. The DMT being laughed and told me it doesn't
| matter. What matters is the lessons that I get from this
| trip. Given that I'm an atheist, I can also apply this to
| religion. I don't need to believe in (a) god to understand
| religious vocabulary (concepts I can use) or to get
| inspiration from it. Obviously this applies to many more
| things. Gods and demons exist in the conceptual/symbolic
| realm (as more or less anything conceivable in a thought
| does). They're not real. But anything in our imagination has
| the capability of influencing us for real (self-fulfilling
| prophecies, etc.).
|
| My DMT trip lasted 30 seconds according to my trip sitter
| (who was sober). In those 30 seconds, I saw my life flashing
| by.
|
| Mushrooms on the other hand almost always gave me bad trips.
| They were insightful though. However, DMT was far more
| therapeutical for me.
|
| [1] https://ritanaomi.com/the-practice-of-metta-or-loving-
| kindne...
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| > My DMT trip lasted 30 seconds
|
| 30 seconds? How long did it appear to you to last? Does DMT
| have such a short half-life after you ingest it that the
| trip only lasts a short time?
| kjqgqkejbfefn wrote:
| https://pasteboard.co/KsZv33kqo5ed.jpg
| 65 wrote:
| I like magic mushrooms. They help me try to figure out the
| existence of God (or, really, some kind of higher entity or
| observer). I believe. I came to the hypothesis that nothing
| doesn't exist, that nothing = infinity. Time, 3D shape, plane,
| line, point... then infinity.
|
| Higher dimensions would be the most probable reason for the
| existence of our universe. And even that humans making our own
| computer simulated universe, with little AI generated automatons,
| would further prove the existence of a higher entity.
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