A Philosopher on Drugs
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Mhmm.
Genuine question, and maybe it's just something I'd have to experience to really understand, but why is it so common for people to think psychedelics are opening us up to what is ""real"" or some deeper truth, instead of assuming that the experiences are just what happens when you completely overload brain chemistry in a specific way? You wouldn't assume that a sugar high reveals a deep truth about the way humans are supposed to behave, just because people generally react in a similar way after eating a pint of Ben & Jerry's.
It's like how you become more attuned to your hearing when you're denied your vision.
And it’s not just a modern thing or just psychedelics or drugs. Altered states (achieved through all sorts of means) are commonly treated as an opportunity for discovery and practical novelty across quite a lot of history and culture.
Words like “more real” and “deeper truth” are particular and modern concepts, but the broad sense of feeling unusually insightful, confident, enlightened, content, open, inspired, etc seems to be a common human experience after getting your wires crossed for a bit.
> You wouldn't assume that a sugar high reveals a deep truth about the way humans are supposed to behave
I don't know what supposed is supposed to mean, but even a sugar high reveals some things.
A sugar high does reveal a deeper truth about the way we enjoy sweet things, that you would never even know you're missing if you never had sugar.
This is also kinda why people react so dramatically when they try a new food or see colors in different ways - it's a wild experience to find out that the way you've been perceiving the world isn't the way it actually is, it's just a narrow slice of reality. "Narrow slice" is a phrase you could look up to read more about this idea, the book Flatland also does a great job of explaining it, or thinking about how other organisms only see infrared light and we can't see it at all
Because the very changes in brain chemistry you're talking about affect your ability to determine whether something is real or not.
Many psychedelics cause Apophenia, Pareidolia and other disorders. In loose terms, the ability of your brain to determine what information is meaningful or not is affected and you begin to over interpret the meaningfulness of things that happen and your own thoughts. So your idle thought becomes some earth-shattering revelation.
Something similar can happen to people with Schizophrenia. They'll be walking down a street and see a license plate XUE-383 and the function of the brain that tells whether something is meaningful or not misfires, telling them that this is very important. The brain then tries to explain why this is incredibly important, hence hidden messages, spies, all sorts of things.
You can of course be on drugs or schizophrenic and understand this is what is happening but it's hard to override an emotion with logic.
That's a great question.
I think it's that psychedelics can cause profound changes to the way you perceive yourself and the world, and the insights from those experiences can be genuinely useful in practical and measurable ways. I haven't had an experience like that with sugar.
For example, my mom dying was extremely upsetting to me for quite a while. For some reason I was just angry about it. The way it happened, the way her death was drawn out, the suffering, the way people handled it – all of it sat in my mind and body like hot misery whenever I let myself think about it.
Then one day I had some psilocybin. I went for a walk with friends, climbed a tree, and sat and looked at the ocean for a while. In that tree I thought "I wonder what would happen if I thought about something awful?". I thought about my mom. Rather than get upset and angry like I normally would, something in my mind caused to me to recall how funny and playful she was. I started to think about that, how being angry was so different from the way she'd handle it, how that was something I loved about her. It made me intensely happy to realize that was a choice. For half a minute I was kind of ecstatic. I thought, wow, I can feel good. Remembering my mom can feel great.
And since then it always does. I've spoken to friends and acquaintances who lost their moms in the same way, and each time I've had a sort of fear of being a bad friend — what if I let my own loss get in the way of being a good friend? — and somehow that positivity persists and I can just focus on being supportive and empathetic.
None of that is more "real". The way my mom died is still awful. I just learned I didn't need to care anymore, so I don't. That's profound to me. Sugar's most profound effect on me is my brain convincing me that I want it when I arguably don't. That's fascinating in its own right, but a lot less interesting in the scheme of things.
https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/580859
For a broader overview of the global history of psychedelics, "Plants of the Gods" by Schultes, Hofmann, and Ratsch:
https://www.amazon.com/Plants-Gods-Sacred-Healing-Hallucinog...
Fundamentally, I'd say psychedelics explicitly reveal that our sensory-informated reality is really just a somewhat fickle map of reality. This is particularly seen in the visual field, where images from memory can get fed back into normal sensory processing. One of the more accurate pop-culture references to what this is like was seen in this image from the first "Matrix" movie:
https://i.stack.imgur.com/zymAc.gif
Under higher doses one can completely lose grasp of visual perception (a rather dangerous state to be in if one is around say, high cliffs etc., which accounts for all the cautionary advice about safe settings and so on) but in this sort of intermediate state one can still navigate using one's sensory-supplied map of reality, but it really is just a map, and we are really in a similar position to that of a blind person using echolocation to find their way around. That's the 'great insight' of psychedelics IMO (which also makes psychedelics an incredible aid for 3D visualization in the arts and sciences, I think).
They can, however, also be emotionally and psychologically disturbing (fear, panic, paranoia, etc. are not unheard of responses).
The snootier mediation folks will dismiss psychedelics as a shortcut while still agreeing about the experience and outcome. As other replies have pointed out, the similarity is that both options enable an individual to examine and even change their perceptions. The meditation method is slower and gives the brain a lot of time and support for adjusting to this new perception. The drugs may or may not.
False sense of security right here. This is a necessary but not sufficient condition, Speaking from experience.
I tried both, I still meditate. I feel psilocybin is definitely more dangerous but the insanity that meditation can bring can be very dangerous as well (in my case flared up narcissism that was about to express itself as very deep painful comments to my closest family, thankfully I kept my mouth shut. And not recognizing myself in the mirror). This was after a retreat and 3 hours of practice for one month, while also not being able to embed meditation in my philosophical framework. So I experimented with not thinking at all and just experiencing sensations on my body. I got so good at both that it got me crazy. I use more common sense nowadays :)
Though truffles takes the cake: seeing your SO believing you’re gonna end her life and me running after her to keep her safe and hugging her for 10 minutes straight saying “I love you” until she finally believed me, that was scary as hell. In the end it was a positive experience, but that moment wasn’t riskless and showed me the importance of a tripsitter
If no useful or transformative ideas stuck around after the trip was over, then it would be just a sugar high.
This is why I cringe everytime some illiterate moron in the West steals something that piques his interest (vipassana, yoga, tantra, kamasutra etc.) and runs with it after divorcing everything that the practice was originally situated in.
Ultimately, the outputs of occidental philosophers these days aren't even that interesting. It's mostly just justifying whatever is in vogue, and nothing more. Very cringey social-climbing.
But it’s still a hallucination.
On the other hand it could enable new strong feelings towards things that before didn’t elicit those feelings. And you get a new perspective on those things. Which could be a good thing if you are depressed for example.
Not to undermine your point, which is fine, but hallucinations are rare. Pseudo-hallucinations are pretty common, but usually what it is that is experienced, which you describe accurately, is technically delusion, i.e. thinking something that feels very real, an irresistible self-deception, as opposed to literally seeing and/or hearing it.
1. Brain scan shows that the brain activity is acutally decreasing on psychedelics.
2. Most people hold a hidden assumption that the sober state is more truthful, which really can't be proven.
In contrast, if you believe that e.g. the machine elves some people see on DMT are real, there are all sorts of experiments you could do to test that. But not many people bother to try, because at some level they know they’re not real.
Of course, you can speculate that these mental realms are a different aspect of reality and not subject to the same constraints, etc., to which the obvious answer is that’s right, they’re called fantasies or delusions.
Well you can't even proof that any human you encounter in a sober state is "real". Scienctific theories are predictions and don't tell you anything about metaphysical truth. For all you know you could be plugged into the matrix, right?
As Phillip K. Dick put it, “Reality is that which, when you stop believing it, doesn't go away.”
> Scientific theories are predictions
No. If you’re not familiar with philosophy of science at all, Kuhn’s Structure of Scientific Revolutions is a good starting point, although keep in mind it’s only a starting point.
Why do you think this as an xor?
Imagine losing your sight. You would likely gain some insight due to having a new perspective on the world, due to a change of focus (for want of a better word).
I'm not suggesting that this is all that is involved, but I think it's a simple enough idea to relate to.
Another example might be that you 'forget' many of the typical human conceptual abstractions that we use to view things as discrete, giving you a stronger sense of connection or relatedness. This can spark insights that you otherwise might not have.
>Specifically, the psychologist felt that LSD gave her insight into how young children perceive the world. Kids’ perceptions are not mediated by expectations and conventions in the been-there, done-that way that adult perception is; as adults, she explained, our minds don’t simply take in the world as it is so much as they make educated guesses about it. Relying on these guesses, which are based on past experience, saves the mind time and energy, as when, say, it’s trying to figure out what that fractal pattern of green dots in its visual field might be. (The leaves on a tree, probably.) LSD appears to disable such conventionalized, shorthand modes of perception and, by doing so, restores a childlike immediacy, and sense of wonder, to our experience of reality, as if we were seeing everything for the first time. (Leaves!)
It's like talking about alcohol and assuming you shoot 2 bottles of vodka in your throat.
I am happy the microdosing community is changing this somewhat.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Default_mode_network#Modulatio...
People think all kinds of weird things, and if you've got some delusions, when you take these kinds of drugs you'll either get more delusions, or you'll get shaken out of the delusion, but they aren't ever going to validate them, because they're delusions!
In doing so it gives a perspective about these things, it shows us that they are variable in a way.
They show us that they are variables in a computer program rather than part of the framework that cannot be changed. (The variables are still mostly constants however in the real world!)
And the effect can cascade as well, because while the perspective shift is going to apply directly only to some pretty direct stimuli, when you build the habit of questioning your first impressions, or things you've heard repeated or repeated to yourself ad infinitum, it can have some far reaching effects.
So no, psychedelics don't reveal the truth. They just sometimes encourage people to actually look for it. There are plenty of non-chemical stimuli that can do the same thing of course (or at least, non-external chemical stimuli), such as some vacations, feats of athleticism (marathons, thru hikes, perhaps even sky-diving). Really anywhere where you step outside your usual routine, set aside preconceived notions, and just allow a bit of novelty in.
I’m sure strict materialists will find his characterization of them unsatisfying, and maybe he should have railed against the other extreme (psychedelic woo woo mystics) a bit more to balance it out — he has one quick comment at the end warning against that side — but he ends in a non-committal, I dare say humble spot.
It really is remarkable how little — or at all — we allow ourselves to feel the cosmic dread at our unexplained and unexplainable existence. It is the central mystery and (possibly?) horror of our lives, and yet we barely wrestle with it. Or worse we dismiss it out of hand, because we think science has answered enough to make us feel we know reality.
But Roger Penrose has a great quote in a interview I saw - he says something like “It’s all well and good to call yourself a materialist, like I do, but honesty then compels you to admit that you’re saying far less than you wish… because we understand almost nothing about what matter is, or what we are, or what ‘knowing’ means…”
So what are you left with? Maybe the plants know something we don’t… :)
Personally, being on mushrooms for me was a simple reminder that we are the Universe experiencing itself, and that it's a very vast place, and a reminder that we live in Infinity itself. On psilocybin, time has no meaning, it's just a construct of society.
One idea I've always had that if we are going to be a space-faring species exploring the Universe, then psilocybin would be a useful tool for doing that, similar to the Spice Melange in Dune. Psilocybin opens up the senses and personally (for me) doesn't impair my motor skills. I've always had the fantasy of exploring the galaxy whilst tripping.
https://www.openculture.com/2017/08/artist-draws-a-series-po...
Maybe because both activities are illegal in almost all over the world? So sad that we are being ruled by not philosophers.
Interpreted through a lens where the "above" corresponds to the mental, ideal, immaterial, the rational and the irrational, what can be very loosely referred to as "the psyche;" and the "below" corresponds to the physical world, governed by the laws of nature; this maxim can be understood to mean, "as exists in the psyche, so in the physical world; as exists in the physical world, so in the psyche."
Our psychological state influences our course of action in the physical world, and the response we get from the physical world in turn influences our psychological state in a mutually reciprocal relationship. What is more significant than just one or the other is the relationship between the psychological and the physical; how thoughts can precede actions, and how actions can cause reactions within the psyche (this is how I understand what Daniel M. Ingram refers to as "Cause and Effect" in his text, "Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha" [0]).
Reality exists between these two poles, in that we interpolate between the discrete, moment-to-moment perceptual data we receive from the five sensory organs, as well as the intellectual, intuitive, & psychological data we receive from the sixth "sense door" of mind, in order to construct a continuous view of the world. Thus, I would hazard to claim, if we wish to alter (at least our subjective, or "microcosmic" lens on) our reality, we have the option of either perturbing our psychological state (the way of the Jungian analyst, the mystic, the Yogi, the devotee, and so on), or our physical state (by altering our mundane life circumstance, diet, lifestyle, and so on).
I view psychedelics as instrumental in probing the boundary between these two poles of this mutually reciprocal relationship between mind and body, being chemical (physical) agents that induce immediately apparent effects within the psyche; they allow one to explore the ways in which perception and our internal, psychological reactions to that perceptual data are related. Psychedelics are a unique tool that allow one to alter (however crudely, imprecisely, and quantifiable only in the loosest of senses) their psychological parameters in such a way that allows for, at the very least, the base realization that:
there is more than one way to think about and perceive the world.
To the extent that our thoughts and perceptions about the world influence our actions within it, and the feedback we receive from it, it is at least interesting to temporarily inhabit different ways of apprehending it, to come to a more diverse view of reality that has appreciated it, if only briefly, from multiple different angles. The insights we may or may not arrive at, having contemplated our view of reality from a different vantage point, may reconfigure our internal psychological state in a way that influences future action.
The alchemical goal of the transmutation of base metal into gold was more than a physical pursuit; it was a spiritual one, whose object was the reconfiguration of the base psyche, victim to the whims and vicissitudes of the urges and desires of the animal self, into "enlightened" consciousness, continuously aware, present, and able to choose on a moment-to-moment basis the next course of action, however subtle. Through the reconfiguration of one's psyche in a permanent and lasting manner (the "magnum opus"), by the Hermetic axiom aforementioned, one is able to forever reconfigure their relationship to the physical world and (purportedly) act within it in a manner that more closely coheres with one's personal view of "what is right."
[0] https://www.mctb.org/mctb2/table-of-contents/part-iv-insight...