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2023-11: Warosu is now out of extended maintenance.

/sci/ - Science & Math

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2138811 No.2138811 [Reply] [Original]

What does /sci/ think bout this:
Huxley wrote that the sober mind has a series of filters on it that basically prevent abstract thought (evolution put them there for the sake of survival, since having daydreams about the nature of the universe while driving can cause you to plow into a semi). But Huxley and Crick thought drugs like mescaline and LSD could temporarily remove those filters.
pic semi related

>> No.2138818

>>2138811
Actually, I think it's the notion of letting loose one's inhibitions while intoxicated.

>> No.2138827

>>2138818
My english aint so great can you explain?

>> No.2138830

bullshit bullshit bullshit.

of course there is a book "food of the gods" which makes an interesting case but i am unconvinced. two ping pong balls and sensory deprivation can give you similiar effects and define "abstract thinking"? how about the kind of thinking that results from looking at some random wood and shit and making spears? seems pretty abstract to me if you don't know what you're going to end up with

>> No.2138834

Yes, it as is if a filter is removed because psychedelics tend to facilitate an especially foreign and completely abstract way of thinking - it isn't more valuable than our sober state of consciousness, but it is just as valuable.

>> No.2138837

Dude, FUCK! When I took mushrooms there was no "abstract" thought. I had transcended the quarrels of man. I was in a state where I thought I was observing the universe from outside. I looked down on the human world and laughed at the silly wars and concepts of religions. It was fucking awesome! Though I tripped hard at first and wasn't having a very good time... :(

I wouldn't be able to think about math or science while on that shit... no way in hell man.

>> No.2138838

are they even the same parts of the brain in that pic?

>> No.2138840

>>2138837
i thought my brother was god and imagined i was a dbz character.

>> No.2138846

My hypothesis is that it's the opposite. psychedelic drugs prevent sensory information from being transmitted, or interpreted correctly, so your brain does the best it can and obviously its gonna get some shit wrong.

The feelings of epiphany you often get while high is possibly a byproduct of this effect. Its essentially forcing you to see things *differently*, not necessarily "as they truly are". Obviously when you are looking at things so radically different as when you're high on LSD, you're gonna make some connections you wouldn't otherwise, though of course there are many bunk ideas, as well as good ones.

>> No.2138857

i'd say yea it does remove those filters or it adds another filter its sort of hard to tell

>> No.2138874

>>2138830

Food of the Gods was a great book, but your right, it is not totally convincing although it is interesting to think about - a lot of McKenna's claims should be taken with a grain of salt, but the the most part, I think he's on the right track in most of what he says.

As for the Ganzfeld pehneomenon, I think that's wonderful proof that there is an inherent ability for these kind of out-of-the-ordinary every day mystical experiences, although as far as I know the Ganzfeld effect only produces visuals and does not result in the same kind of mental shift that a psychedelic induces. Even so, I think it's interesting to ponder DMT's role in the body - we know it's there, and that it or at least the basic enzymes need to make it are in every living organism on earth.

Mystical experiences can also be induced by sheer chance or through things like meditation or ritual trance/dance/drumming..

And I'm assuming the OP means abstract in the sense that it is out of the orindary from our common ways of thinking.

>> No.2138879

>>2138838
no, looking at the picture you can see that difference in shape of the bone on the sides of the skull. This indicates they are at different locations. You can also tell by other distinct differences in brain structure, like the medulla and brain stem.

>> No.2138888

>>2138846
Interesting thought... makes me think a lot.. thx for the opinion.. So, I also read a case in which you eyesight is largely improved... and btw this theory here would only help a person with considerably large knowledge about something.. say.. physics so you could get to a part of your brain you coudnt normally access

>> No.2138891

Hey, smoking weed makes my attention span shorter. I get more work done if I smoke rather than not smoke.

>> No.2138908

>>2138846

It isn't possible for sense data to be "transmitted" or interpreted incorrectly - every interpretation of sensory data is subjective. First we should ask why the brain is wired to receive these naturally occuring chemicals and respond accordingly.

Your entire sensory perception is regulated by drugs - disrupt the blance and you would taste, hear, see, and feel things completely differently, so what makes the addition of an outside chemical something that must limit or prevent data? Seems more sensible to conclude that it lets us experience a separate spectrum of data.

>> No.2138914

>>2138874
op here
Can you give me a reference to where can i get that book or somethin?

>> No.2138921

>>2138891

Meant to say longer, what the fuck is wrong with me today.

>> No.2138954

>>2138891
op here
Ive also tried weed and even though Ive thought of new mental operations which work quicker.. I cant concentrate as easy as before

>> No.2138970

>>2138874
I agree with you but i guess the whole division of thinking into different areas gets me. OP's question assumes two methods of thinking

common thinking
everyday kind of stuff which we use to solve math problems, communicate with each other and so on.

abstract thinking: the best explanation i can fathom based on OP's post is that this refers to "creative" thought. writing music and stories. Relating to non material things.

This dichotomy doesn't convince me. certainly taking hallucinogens is fun and visions can give struggling artists new ideas. hell i think crick figued out the helical structure of dna when he was boomed out of his mind. Would he have figured it out if he hadn't used it? eventually sure. He was probably stressed, had a wealth of information to muse over and in his down time figured out the answer. the drug didn't do it. he did.

even so, i do not think widespread usage of these chemicals would be a good thing. Hell read Huxleys "Brave new World" where soma keeps a populace so stoned out of their mind they never want to or need to challenge their environment. several scholars think recorded religious experiences have had hallucinogens play some role. anyway this is a subject i'm interested in so lets talk /sci/

>> No.2138971

>>2138914

Sorry man, I donno, you can probably order it off Amazon or whatever your country's equivalent is - I bought it in a little bookstore in New York.

>> No.2138985

>>2138908
Probably just that the natural chemicals in our brains are the ones that do the best job at accurately conveying reality, from you know, millions of years of evolution. I think its pretty retarded to say that just because serotonin is a chemical, and LSD is a chemical, that the experiences each provide are equally valid.

And by "correct interpretation" i just mean that experience which most resembles reality, which we obviously don't get while high.

>> No.2139017

This is probably worth a look:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20122742
>>2138985
The point is you're not getting anything near "reality" from your senses. Your brain basically makes up a story to make sense of a whole bunch of data, and that story is what you experience, whether high or sober.

>> No.2139030
File: 55 KB, 563x659, 1281108751055.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
2139030

>>2138985
So say you can learn in a complete different way dependin on the chemicals workin on ur brain?

>> No.2139053

>>2138970

Creativity is definitely part of what I think would be considered "abstract thought" but I think there's far more to it than that - most people that have actually taken a psychedelic like psilocybin or mescaline or LSD will relate that much of the experience is beyond words - it cannot realistically be articulated in a way that even comes close to elucidating what a modicum of a fraction of what the experience actually was.

But abstract thinking can be achieved without the introduction of any foreign substance - psychedelics are just particularly good at facilitating it - something like a breakthrough dose of DMT however would probably defy any kind of interpretation through normal frameworks of understanding.

I don't think there's a risk at keeping people hooked on psychedelics either, since tolerance usually builds quickly and dissipates fairly slowly.. also, since the experiences tend to be so intense, people often don't want to repeat them to excess, although obvously there are always exceptions.

Besides, I think the perfect drug for 'numbing' people is alcohol - we can use other drugs to stimulate and others to cure.

>> No.2139057

>>2139017
Article makes sense so theory provided is..?

>> No.2139069

>>2139017
absolutely but the sober interpretation of reality is more valid than the intoxicated one. while truths are all subjective, not all are created equal as the ones that come closest to an objective truth are the most valid.

>> No.2139077

>>2139017
>The point is you're not getting anything near "reality" from your senses.

Sure, we don't get ALL the information, however it IS accurate, accurate enough for me to go about my day without getting hit by trains or driving myself off a cliff. the claim that the LSD experience is more or even as real as sobriety is laughable. It honestly makes me think you've never been high, or hell, even drunk. Anyone who's done these things can attest to seeing things or feeling things that simply aren't there.

Last time I tripped balls I saw the clouds turn into clowns and devour whole buildings and leaves on a tree turn into a hundred blinking eyes. You gonna tell me they actually exist but I can only see them when I'm high?

>> No.2139099

>Huxley wrote that the sober mind has a series of filters on it that basically prevent abstract thought
Huxley doesn't know shit.

>> No.2139164

I believe, like everything else, it depends on the person. Some people don't think at all one way or the other.

Some need to be put in odd situations before they can do any real observing.

I think if you gave intelligent (I.E. brilliant) people these drugs, people who otherwise are only capable of looking at the world in a mathematical sense, they would apply that brain power to see things in ways no one is really capable of

>> No.2139235

Ive heard a lot about the ability of LSD to make the mind more impressionable. I heard of an experiment where Timothy Leary(before he became a counter-culture figure and academic pariah) took several groups of violent criminals and did LSD therapy with them. He gave them LSD and then had them listen to classical music and buddhist scriptures and other stuff like that. The result was that those prisoners had an extremely lower rate of re-incarceration.

Another more anecdotal story is of a friend of mine who I used to shoot pool with every once in awhile during high school. He was ok but he wasnt amazing.
Then about a year after our senior year I met him again and played pool with him. He was amazing, he was getting all these trick shots and weird angles and stuff.

He explained to me that he was tripping on LSD one day while playing pool and all of the sudden everything just "clicked". He could see the trajectories of the balls in his mind clear as day.

Then of course there are the CIA mind control experiments involving LSD.

>> No.2139244

OP is basing his conclusion on 2 pictures,
one trial.
This is /sci/,
so troll on /b/

>> No.2139246

protip

this only applies to LSD.. other psychedelic drugs dont have the same effect as acid does.

>> No.2139251

>>2139244
>OP is basing his conclusion on 2 pictures,
>pic semi related

>> No.2139266

>>2139069

This is based on a very Western conception that all things must work towards some kind of purpose - very rarely do we admit that things can be purposeful in and of themselves, and a state of being that favours rational thought is no more valuable that a state that doesn't - although of course it's all subjectives - some of us will find benefits in certain states altered states and some of us won't.

But, there's still no reason ot believe that what we perceive sober is any more "real" than what we perceive in any other state - you'll actually find that 'real' is a very empty word anyway and you'd be pressed to define it coherently. Is a dream real? It could be argued that is isn't but I think this is easily dismissed since a dream takes place in reality and is just as 'real' - it is an interpretation only experienced during sleep.

There's no reason to believe that evolution has equipped us with the optimal senses with which to perceive reality - are you really under the impression that you see things as they 'really' are? Again, remember how empty the world 'real' actually is - I'll suppose you just mean it as to distinguish something that 'exists' from something that doesn't, but again, the only things that 'exist' are interpretations of sense data.

Most hallucinations can be distinguished from reality, and only deliriants really preoduce a truly delirious state (duh) in which hallucinations are indistinguishable form reality and you will probably end up doing something without actually knowing what you are doing - on the other hand, lsd and mescaline and psilocybin trips are much more lucid - you cna distinguish what is 'real' from what you are simply 'seeing'. Whatever epiphanies you have while tripping can also be examined after the fact - yes, the mind tends to make a lot of irrelevent connections, but it also makes many more relevent ones that may have remain hidden for much longer without the introduction of a psychedelic.

>> No.2139329

>>2139246

Obviously not exactly the same but they are comparable.