I've taken LSD and 'shrooms a few times, and while I can understand what Jobs is saying, I think he was wrong. I had mystical experiences where I thought I understood that the whole world was connected together, and I was connected to the world, and other deep insights. I think this was just brain-addled delusion, not any insight into how things really are.
That said, I fully support these things being legal, and (for people who aren't naturally anxious) trying them with a good "set" and "setting".
I think you may be missing the forest for the trees. My personal insight from psychedelics was that what I perceived as "reality" was simply wetware converting signals from my senses into perception. When something changes that perception (sometimes dramatically, like patterns on solid objects moving fluidly behind my hands or gazing at shimmering geometric rainbows etched into the walls) one understands that reality is just in your head. IMHO that's a powerful construct, especially for an optimist: it's easier to imagine changing the world when the world is so easily changeable in your head.
I think it's a mistake to focus too much on the mystical "revelation" angle that some people use to frame the benefits of psychedelics. I have no trouble believing that the positive outcomes people get from psychadelics are real while rejecting the notion that there's some obscure mystical reality that's being tapped into.
I think the "brain-addled delusions" you describe can be appreciated as rare and useful shifts of your own perspective even if that's all they are. Sure, there's nothing supernatural about it, but you may still have valid insights which you wouldn't necessarily have arrived at during your morning commute.
Our mundane, day-to-day perspective on the world, on some level, is only distinguishable from "brain-addled delusion" because we're desensitized to it.
I don't disagree at all. As I said I think it may be worthwhile for some people to take LSD. It would be so much better if it were legal and we could take a serious look at how to reduce the harmful part of taking it, and also look at perhaps genetic or other factors which mean that some people really shouldn't be taking it.
I too have taken LSD. Microdots were prevalent circa 1995 in South Yorkshire, which were strong to the point of not being funny. However, I did manage to get my grubby little junkie mitts on a few paper trips which were a lot more pleasant.
My own personal view that it did change the way I look at the world in some strange and indescribable ways and the experiences made a large contribution to the person I am today, for better and for worse. I never had any grand epiphanies though, but I had some really good times.
I also had some truly horrible times which resulted in some pretty strange phobias that I'm only just starting to get over, but I wouldn't say they've had any noticeable affect on my life.
The moral of the story? There is no moral to this story.
It is understandable to discard insight on psychedelics as being 'brain-addled delusion' if the materialistic supposition is already implanted. Furthermore, such insight is usually overwhelming with assimilation into baseline consciousness being difficult.
However, the same mystical states have been achieved by many without the use of drugs - a gradual onset over a lifetime of discipline.
I'd actually say that the most important consequence of materialism is that everything is connected. There's no sharp boundary between mind and body or self and other, only atoms interacting.
how is it irrational to say everything is connected?
if you can show me two things that AREN'T connected, you'll have proven him wrong. but you can't, because you just connected the two things you named by putting them into the same sentence.
It's not particularly irrational or mystic. That experience he describes is quite common for people who use mushrooms a few times. What is the difference between you and a chair? What makes your brain so special, and why is it so important that it continue to exist? Why shouldn't a stick held in your hand be considered part of your body (in fact, one of the big differences between humans and most animals is that, unconsciously, we do think that). And why stop there?
And so on.
They sound like stupid questions to dwell on, and they sort of are. They don't have concrete answers, but it's the asking that's important. The drug merely helps a person to honestly take them seriously.
I'm not against philosophical questions. I myself had them while on shrooms.
Still, there is no reason whatsoever to refuse materialism due to a mushroom experience, that is why I called it mysticism. The fact that your brain state alters because you consumed a tiny amount of a certain chemical should be proof of materialism.
The statement that "everything is connected" is meaningless without defining what you mean by "connected". In some quantum-physics way your brain atoms are connected to the atoms on the Jupiter, which is fascinating to think about, but without any real consequence. This fact doesn't change when you are high on shrooms.
Now this post is one that will definitely warrant down-votes.
Modern science, understandably, does not know that the human constitution is comprised of more than the physical body.
They don't know this because they don't have the instruments to detect the other bodies (such as the astral or etheric).
So, all of their efforts in research are pointed to determine the effects in the physical body. Actually, when taking psychedelics it is the astral and etheric body that is being stimulated (the cause) with effects seen in the physical body.
If you truly care to learn more about this I suggest Astral Dynamics by Robert Bruce. You can learn conscious separation of the astral body from the physical body. There's even an exercise that will allow you to determine if the whole experience is objective or subjective - you go into one room to project and in another room someone writes a number on a paper and tapes it against the wall. You quickly project into the room, read the number, come back to your body and go see if you were right.
> They don't know this because they don't have the instruments to detect the other bodies (such as the astral or etheric).
If there is no way to demonstrate the objective reality of those things, they are by definition in the realm of mysticism.
> You go into one room to project and in another room someone writes a number on a paper and tapes it against the wall. You quickly project into the room, read the number, come back to your body and go see if you were right.
"If there is no way to demonstrate the objective reality of those things, they are by definition in the realm of mysticism."
Sure, that is your classification of concepts. However, know that your classification using semantics does not negate whether or not the actual reality exists. Furthermore, they cannot be demonstrated with current tools. Electrons were not able to be detected thousands of years ago, but now we have the tools to prove their existence. This does not mean electrons did not exist prior to our development of tools to detect them.
The Randi challenge is a great point and I have already thought of reaching out to Robert Bruce on his forum to ask him why he himself does not submit a proposal to the institution, seeing as how he is an advanced projector.
Personally, I am in the beginning states of consciously projecting and controlling the astral body, my fear usually gets in the way of completely separating, though I have floated out of my body and into the ceiling, numerous times.
> Furthermore, they cannot be demonstrated with current tools.
I don't know what you mean by they? It is you who fails to objectively demonstrate the phenomena and claims knowledge. This is called mysticism, plain and simple.
> The Randi challenge is a great point and I have already thought of reaching out to Robert Bruce on his forum to ask him why he himself does not submit a proposal to the institution, seeing as how he is an advanced projector.
I can answer this for you: because there is no such thing as an advanced projector.
I agree with you, but I don't think the so-called 'mystic' interpretation of the experience is that different from the materialistic one.
Consider Ptolemaic astronomy versus Copernican and later. Copernican astronomy is more accurate sure, and simpler in its construction, and just a better theory. However Ptolemaic astronomy was around for over a thousand years before it and worked quite well, despite being 'wrong' in just about every sense, far moreso than the model of Copernicus. Likewise while I consider 'mystic' interpretations of an experience on mushrooms to be rubbish, I have to admit that most of what they would take from it is not too dissimilar from myself.
If functioning GPS or transistors that worked depended on how most people modeled their experience on mushrooms, I'd probably be more inclined to persuade people toward a more sensible approach, but since for the time being it remains a deeply personal thing, and since it is a rather poor predictor of how they approach the rest of their life, I don't think it really matters.
And to be honest, I initially approached the experience from a mystic or even religious angle (despite being an atheist) but eventually discarded it as unworkable.
Well stated. It always turns me off when people use mysticism as a comforting hand-wave for things which can readily be be stated more plainly, as if shedding some rationality on a subject makes it any less awesome.
Goethe was the king of that sort of irrationality.
You might find the essays in Richard Dawkins's book, Unweaving the Rainbow interesting since the thread drawing them together is that understanding something scientifically does not make it less fascinating, if anything it makes everything even more interesting.
It is actually a trichotomy: close-minded, open-minded, and so-open-minded-that-all-your-critical-thinking-ability-has-run-out-your-ears. At least a third of HN commenters fall into the third group.
> I had mystical experiences where I thought I understood that the whole world was connected together, and I was connected to the world, and other deep insights. I think this was just brain-addled delusion, not any insight into how things really are.
Hasn't this view been borne out by modern science? The fact that we are made of the same stuff as the dirt and the stars, and that there really is no dividing line between us and the universe, and by extension each other is, I think, a supremely important revelation. I'm curious as to why you dismissed this as a delusion?
It's delusional in the same way that someone else telling me they had a religious experience is delusional.
I cannot prove [to myself!] after the fact that what I experienced under the drug was real. I obviously believed it at the moment I was under the effect of the drug, but afterwards I couldn't recall exactly why I believed that. In other words, there was no way to prove or explain it. So it's delusional -- an event is supposed to have happened but there is no proof of it.
There's simply no reason for me (now) to believe that what I experienced under the drug was real.
(As I said above, I still think LSD should be legal so we can scientifically look at reducing harms from people taking it)
Well when you're going at it from that angle, how can you prove to yourself that anything you experience is real? There are centuries of thought surrounding epistemology, I don't see why problems of how and to what degree we know what we know should apply to drug induced experiences and not regular experiences.
But then again, I don't know what you experienced. The most profound insights I had make perfect sense to me now, and they mesh with current scientific understanding as far as I can tell, so I have no reason to doubt them.
That said, I fully support these things being legal, and (for people who aren't naturally anxious) trying them with a good "set" and "setting".