Comment by gnosis | Hacker News Reader

Comment by gnosis | Hacker News Reader

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"So were the notes worth anything?"

You mean were the worth anything when considered from the perspective of the ordinary state of consciousness?

Clearly in one particular altered state of consciousness they were considered worth something.

So the question becomes which state of consciousness trumps which other state of consciousness? Or which one gets to decide what's worthy and what's not?

Often, people who see themselves as "hard headed realists" think it's obvious that the sober, oridinary state of consciousness is the one and only legitimate state of consciousness, and the rest are mere delusions, and not worthy of being trusted or relied upon for important decisions and the business of life.

On the other hand, there are people who think that while in an altered state of consciousness, they can see through the bullshit of consensus reality and the ordinary state of consciousness. To them, it is the ordinary state of consciousness that is deluded, or even pathological or psychotic.

Which one is right? And how are the products of and insights from these various states of consciousness to be judged? Can an insight gained in state of consciousness X be legitimately evaluated in state of consciousness Y? Do such evaluations even make sense?

I'm not sure there are any easy answers to these questions.

This kind of philosophy just muddies the waters. This article is recommending using drugs for entrepreneurs. Most human beings spend >99% of the time in their normal state of consciousness rather than a mushroom state of consciousness. So from a practical perspective, the question whether the insights actually produced something tangible in the real world is perfectly legitimate. At least to me, the (obvious) question of whether perhaps in some altered state of consciousness we would evaluate the results of the high differently is quite theoretical and uninteresting, since I do not want to spend my life on a high.

A couple of years ago I went a few days without sleeping, and I had hallucinations and I felt like my mind was ultra-sharp. Just like the author of this article with his 9 mile walk, certain things had happened that I had no memory of. Later when I'd gotten some sleep, it turned out that the sleep deprived state of mind wasn't so sharp after all, it was just an illusion. This is why I'm always a bit skeptical of these kind of claims.

"Most human beings spend >99% of the time in their normal state of consciousness rather than a mushroom state of consciousness. So from a practical perspective, the question whether the insights actually produced something tangible in the real world is perfectly legitimate."

But the very question of "whether the insights actually produced something tangible in the real world" can itself be evaluated from many different perspectives and states of consciousness.

Sure, the question itself is perfectly legitimate. I'm just not sure how to evaluate the answers.

If you put on a pair of polarizing sunglasses, things look different, and you'll notice things that you might not notice otherwise. Some thinngs are just artifacts of teh polarization, other things are actual characteristics of what you're looking at that were always there but weren't as easy to see. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polarizing_filter_(photography)

It's not so much a question of being sharp or not - whether from lack of sleep or drugs, if you're tripping you may feel great but your actual performance on any objective measurement is probably going to be well below optimal. I mean, take a look at this art: http://flyeschool.com/content/repetition-rhythm-and-pattern Very little of this addresses reality, but that doesn't mean it's not interesting.

Just to play devil's advocate here, I can claim that our ordinary state of consciousness is the most legitimate one (the one that is closest to reality, if there is such thing as objective reality), or at the very least the most useful one - otherwise we would have evolved for the different state of consciousness. The burden of proof would be on you to justify that the altered state of consciousness is indeed more in line with reality.

Of course, this comes with the premise that consciousness is a necessity. And indeed, our needs nowadays might require a different state of consciousness, now that the very basic survival needs are generally fulfilled.

"I can claim that our ordinary state of consciousness is the most legitimate one (the one that is closest to reality, if there is such thing as objective reality), or at the very least the most useful one - otherwise we would have evolved for the different state of consciousness."

Is your view that that we have evolved for the ordinary state of consciousness a view that was made and evaluated in an ordinary state of consciousness? Should its worth be evaluated in an ordinary state of consciousness? How should we decide if it's valid? Why should something that is considered "most useful" be more valid than something that is considered "less useful"?

An ant's view of the a human city may be very useful to it in terms of its own survival and that of its colony, but few would argue that it understands a human city on as profound and deep a level as a human would. Now, which of these views are "right" or "valid"?

As for what's "in line with reality", would you consider a Picasso painting to be worthless compared to a photograph because the former is not very realistic compared to the latter? What about a song? Is the "in line with reality" standard applicable to a joke? (Sure, there are some jokes with are "funny because they're true", but that standard does not really apply to puns or jokes that rely on surprise for their effect. Are they worthless?) What about poetry? What about the value of a kiss?

Finally, speaking of evolution, Terrence McKenna conjectured that human intelligence and evolution may have been influenced by an encouter with psychedelic mushrooms, whose spores were hardy enough to survive a long interstellar journey to earth, and whose consumption gave human ancestors an enormous amount of novel information.

"Is your view that that we have evolved for the ordinary state of consciousness a view that was made and evaluated in an ordinary state of consciousness? Should its worth be evaluated in an ordinary state of consciousness? How should we decide if it's valid? Why should something that is considered "most useful" be more valid than something that is considered "less useful"?"

Because the other states of consciousness, for one reason or another, had disappeared. Though it's entirely possible that many different states of consciousness exist in the human population now.

I interpreted the original post of yours as saying "altered consciousness helps us to see through the smoke of our normal/ordinary consciousness, and help us to perceive reality as it is (or at least, with less smoke)". Hence the reply was concerned with the similar idea. And with this interpretation, the Picasso's analogy doesn't hold: indeed, Picasso painting is great not because it's an accurate depiction of reality, but because it's a different one (in a great way). The value of his works lies in his interpretation of reality, and not the accuracy in replicate reality.

Now, if you meant that no state of consciousness necessary perceives reality objectively better than the others, just merely different, and they would have different values on their own - I certainly can't disagree on this.

Re. Terrece McKenna, Interstellar spores & evolution.

This is a pretty clear indication to me that psychedelic inspired insights are merely the concatenation by the mind of unrelated concepts where the result is definitely not more than the sum of the parts.

Some simple refutations that spring easily to mind:

- mushrooms have the same type of DNA as the rest of earth's living creatures, no?

- information cannot be transmitted in a chemical compound. You can have a trip by ingesting the psychoactive compound extracted from magic mushrooms.

- no other animals were enlightened or had their evolution enhanced, why only us?

While it is attractive and intriguing to believe that hallucinogens open the doors to perception and reveal a larger reality, I believe that it is much more likely that the modeling/simulating machine that is your brain is conjuring that impression in a way that is, by definition, seamlessly undetectable and wholly convincing to that same brain.

The ordinary state of consciousness is definitely the most useful one, subject to a certain amount of path-dependency. But equally the fact that your ordinary routine of eating, sleeping, going to work etc. is the most useful one doesn't mean that fasting, staying up all night, or taking a vacation are lacking in value. You were dead right with your other comment about how a Picasso picture is an interpretation of reality rather than a depiction of it, while recognizing that we can learn a lot from considering other interpretations.

You should read a book called The origin of consciousness in the breakdown of the bicameral mind by Julian Jaynes, I think you'd like it a good deal.

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