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Comment by nerd_stuff | Hacker News Reader

By all accounts NASA's getting ready to announce they've found an earth-like planet and you guys are like "yeah but I'm sure it won't compare the experience of taking my favorite drug." That's a sad and closed-minded way of looking at things.

It reminds me of Jon Stewart's character in Half Baked who thought everything was better "on weeeeed!" If your drug of choice prevents you from enjoying other experiences, like staring in wonder at the mysteries of the universe, that's like being in an abusive relationship.

There's no good reason the existence of a drug should prevent you from enjoying an announcement like this. There's definitely no good reason to assume that in this 16 billion year old universe which you've been part of for a negligible amount of time, which you've physically experienced only a negligible amount of, that you've already found the weirdest or most interesting thing ever.

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This is a ludicrous reduction of the point McKenna was making. You're acting like he didn't directly address this fallacy. Go read The Invisible Landscape, listen to one of the lectures that covers this material (such as Eros and the Eschaton and / or his address to the Jung Society), and then address the whole of what he was saying.

If you don't think that human neurochemistry is astonishing, I think that's weird. But don't sit here and straw man his research; that doesn't help anyone.

Neurochemistry and the experience of consciousness are very astonishing, I just think it's a bit egocentric to assume they're the most astonishing things in the universe.

Nobody said they were the "most astonishing things in the universe" - I'm not sure where you get this stuff. It's another straw man.

McKenna says that neurochemistry, and its material application called "the psychedelic experience," is the most astonishing thing you can personally suppose, or in some cases, even that you can't suppose. But that doesn't say anything about the (real or imagined) notion of a totality of "things in the universe."

The psychedelic experience is the most intense experience anyone can have on this planet, and it cannot be compared or described by anything else one has experienced in his/her life. Surely there's no good reason to assume anything but you do assume and in the most cliche way. Maybe first you should chuck 5 gramms of dried mushrooms with some lemonade and come back and tells us what you think after that.

I'm not sure if the parent was advocating or saying this. It was in reference to Terrence Mckenna's view of the present assumptions that mankind has about what aliens should look like and how one should go about contacting them (and that DMT and mushrooms are probably an alien artifact).

And certainly one can lose the plot and spend his entire life tripping. Noone is saying thats a good thing.

> ...and it cannot be compared or described by anything else one has experienced in his/her life

Many long-term meditators who have previous experience with psychedelics would disagree with you.

I'm only making the assumption of agnosticism, that it's fundamentally impossible for you to know that something already within your realm of experience will trump all that exists in the unknown.

Because I'm tired of arguing with nerds talking theory over matters that ultimately are experiential, I'll say the following two points and I don't mind being downvoted.

1) Whomever says the experiences of meditation are akin to those of psychedelics is plainly full of shit. I've done psychedelics for about 4 years, and western ceremonial magic which involved plenty of meditation daily and consistently for about a decade. Apples and oranges. And thats including all the freaky spectacular shit I've experienced.

2) Practically, how much of "all that exists in the unknown" you think you will or can experience living a basic run of the mill western life in a human body? As I said, ingest 5 dried gramms, then come to talk to me about what will get trumped in your realm of experience. Until then, its only thinking you understand sex because you read dirty magazines, only for something that is several orders of magnitudes out there.

From a glance I wouldn't expect this "western ceremonial magic" to bring anything but confusion and maybe the illusion of not-confusion. But if it works for you do your thing.

I've been around enough to reject the notion that an amalgamation of 1001 chemicals is fundamentally different from an amalgamation of 1000. With that goes the illusion of being "deep" while tripping balls. I'm not rejecting the intensity of the psychedelic experience, I'm rejecting the ideas that it's wholly unique in intensity, that it brings unique insight and that it reliably brings insight.

As far as meditation vs psychedelics I defer to people who have done enough of both to have informed opinions on the matter.

> Many long-term meditators who have previous experience with psychedelics would disagree with you.

See, the problem here is that you are debating an argument you haven't bothered to fully read.

Terence McKenna has literally volumes to say about this argument. So now that we've moved beyond this simpleton back-and-forth, what say you about his position vis a vis meditation?

Specifically, what do you say about his argument that, without being willing to ingest a drug, you haven't humbled yourself to the basic notion that your brain is physical and its operations electrical and chemical?

> Terence McKenna has literally volumes to say about this argument. So now that we've moved beyond this simpleton back-and-forth, what say you about his position vis a vis meditation?

If somebody makes a living telling people things like aliens brought us mushrooms and that's why evolution happened they aren't worth my time. They're too far gone. I responded to a comment on a message board encouraging people to not get excited about space exploration and instead focus on the wonders of DMT.

I simply don't care what he says about meditation.

> Specifically, what do you say about his argument that, without being willing to ingest a drug, you haven't humbled yourself to the basic notion that your brain is physical and its operations electrical and chemical?

Narcissistic, egocentric, closed-minded, a little horrifying. I don't understand why he thinks doing drugs is not only the best path but the only path to understanding the realities of being a human. That's how cult-leaders operate, they teach their followers there is no other way and everybody on the outside of their bubble just doesn't get it. Then when people try to help them get out they say "You just don't understand how great our leader is! He even said this would happen!"

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