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2020-10-17 21:09:15
Superior Mind
(not macbeth)
+1,755|6931
My suggesting that mushrooms and DMT are similar is admittedly based on the anecdotes from noted psychonauts. That at a certain dosage and with enough experience, one can navigate to the DMT place thru mushrooms. Also, based on trip reports, NN-DMT vs 5MeO-DMT is quite different. My experience with DMT is limited, I did not have a “rupture of plane.” I have had two unmistakable DMT dreams though. Perhaps a real DMT brownie could be dehydrated ayahuasca, mixed into flour etc.

uziq wrote:

i am not ungrateful to science in any way. science is interesting. i chose a different fork in the path at the point in my life when one has to specialize, but i've never dismissed science. i just don't think scientists or engineers are the single-best equipped humans in the universe to solve all of our problems.

too many people fall into a religious frame of mind in their reverence for science.

sup mind will also be able to tell you that a huge amount of knowledge w/r/t drug experiences is anthropological, more than scientific. only in the last 10-15 years have we really started to objectively probe half of these substances. for most of the modern era they were blacklisted and out-of-bounds due to the war on drugs. before that, thousands if not tens of thousands of years of ritual and recreational use.
Pharmacologically, there isn’t a whole lot to say about these tryptamines. They interact with the serotonin receptors. We can see novel brain activity in loaded subjects. The meat and potatoes of coming to grips with these things is in doing them and asking others what they think of their experiences- especially in those cases where their use is a long established cultural tradition. Amazonian societies have told anthropologists that their entire lexicon comes from ayahuasca. There is no way for science as we’re comfortable with practicing it to come to terms with these peoples’ realities.

Last edited by Superior Mind (2020-10-17 21:18:23)

x
2020-10-17 23:56:42
uziq
Member
+495|3690
that’s like saying chocolate and cocaine both affect dopamine receptors so there is no telling them apart. the trip is entirely different. a tryptamine is a very wide class. about as useful as ‘nightshade vegetable’ at meaningfully designating something.

are you familiar with shulgin’s tihkal? how long is that book? it would be 3 pages long if tryptamines were more or less the same experience just because. as it is, tiny changes in the chemistry can have drastically different results. ‘there isn’t a whole lot to say’? the seratonin receptor is one of the most interesting things in pharmacology. only recently have we discovered that they are in the human lower digestive tract. and plants have them too. it’s implicated in the minutest effects of (sub)-perception and consciousness. you’re talking about this thing like it’s lego bricks in a play set.

and yes, the anthropological value and ‘meaning’ of these things will vary widely by culture. that’s not to say that science will never understand their mechanism, though. in fact we’ve inferred and deduced all sorts of things about how neurotransmitters like dopamine and seratonin are involved in motivation, willpower, consciousness, etc, from science. the ‘meaning’ ascribed to drug rituals or tribal cosmogonies are in a different ballpark. what you’re effectively saying is that deadheads understood more about LSD than albert hoffman. which is a bit odd, don’t you think? what you’re getting at there about ‘understanding others realities’ is a bit too epistemological, and goes way deeper than drug rites. i’m sure you know that from anthro 101.

Last edited by uziq (2020-10-18 00:10:11)

2020-10-18 00:19:56
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,815|6344|eXtreme to the maX

SuperJail Warden wrote:

I don't even know why he would want the lockdown to ever end and have to go back to the office. The guy lives in an isolated mini-mansion. He is living my living arraignment dream.
In 10 years Jay will have have three teenage kids.

Not all heros wear capes.
Fuck Israel
2020-10-18 00:49:10
SuperJail Warden
Gone Forever
+641|3957
I have the munchies. There is a 7/11 on the corner but taking a food trip to the store while high is a lot more difficult in the time of COVID.
https://i.imgur.com/xsoGn9X.jpg
2020-10-18 01:14:02
uziq
Member
+495|3690
i haven’t tripped or taken any drug really since covid took off. i’ve been drunk two or three times, i think? over summer when the cities opened up a bit.

you’re right, everyone is in a weird headspace and there’s a lot of latent stress and apprehension. it makes those things hard to enjoy when you’re worrying about touching dirty surfaces or even talking to strangers.
2020-10-18 01:24:20
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,815|6344|eXtreme to the maX
Or touching dirty strangers.

I'm looking forward to this virus thing being over but I think it could be years.

Here there seems to have been a spate of car thefts and chases, people are getting crazy.
Fuck Israel
2020-10-18 01:34:33
SuperJail Warden
Gone Forever
+641|3957
I like wearing facemask. I don't have to feel bad about not shaving. I don't have to smell other people's breath. You are less likely to get a normal cold or flu if everyone is always masked up anyway. It's easy to hide the fact that you are high with a facemask and sunglasses. And people don't bother you when you go out either. You will have to take my facemask from my cold dead hands when this is over.
https://i.imgur.com/xsoGn9X.jpg
2020-10-18 03:46:39
uziq
Member
+495|3690
also, to the above, some really interesting stuff about psychedelic drugs is that they can cause universal effects across cultures (i.e. across time and space).

http://www.hopesandfears.com/hopes/now/ … ucinations
2020-10-18 06:07:26
Superior Mind
(not macbeth)
+1,755|6931
What I meant above was not that each chemical is the same, simply that from a purely mechanistic point of view its hard to say very much about the differences between these chemicals unless you describe them phenomenologically. Yes we’ve determined things about neural pathways, neurogenesis, the gut brain connection- sure. But if you want to really see where the profound differences between each compound play out, it’s in the experience. Albert Hoffman had a lifetime of tripping on top of having an intimate understanding of chemical structure and synthesis. Which was more informative ultimately to society? If all those deadheads had systematized their trip reports it could have amounted to a piece of data which held more weight than even the discoverer of LSD himself. Which still might pale in comparison to half a century of legal therapeutic institutionalization of the experience if not for prohibition. Studying these compounds mechanisms inside the body will and has been shedding light on many things about our biology and psychology- certainly important and groundbreaking work. I still hold the opinion that the stuff to seriously come to grips with is the personal experience of intoxication. The mechanistic science is a good and necessary pathway to eventually get our society to say something about the phenomenon more than “that was far out” or even “that was the most profound experience of my life.”
x
2020-10-18 06:31:41
uziq
Member
+495|3690
yes, i agree with pretty much all you said there. thanks for clarifying.
2020-10-18 06:45:15
Superior Mind
(not macbeth)
+1,755|6931
And in response to the hopes and fears article: I like Sheldrake’s morphic resonance theory. Though I think there’s a serious humbling down the line for western thinkers in terms of being able to take what indigenous people say seriously. Like someone in the article said “we haven’t got a clue.”

Last edited by Superior Mind (2020-10-18 06:45:42)

x
2020-10-18 06:54:32
Pochsy
Artifice of Eternity
+702|5781|Toronto
Ok, but suspicion and mistrust are two distinct things. The scientific method (empiricism) is based on two assumptions:

1.) the knowability of phenomenon
2.) the capacity to measure them

The entire structure of our knowledge base relies on suspicion. We are necessarily suspicious of all described "lived experiences" until they are proven replicable and measurable.

So when we get the indigenous folks describing experiences like "I saw god after drinking this bark juice", what are we to say? Western critical thought is to be discarded in favour of mysticism because these folks are describing something that violates tenet #2 (the capacity to measure it)? I'm all good if you want to live in world without empiricism, but I expect you'll find that it becomes a much more chaotic and confusing place. I think Mac's been into pitching theocracy as an organizing principle for society--you should chat with him sometime.

Last edited by Pochsy (2020-10-18 06:55:41)

The shape of an eye in front of the ocean, digging for stones and throwing them against its window pane. Take it down dreamer, take it down deep. - Other Families
2020-10-18 07:02:43
uziq
Member
+495|3690

Superior Mind wrote:

And in response to the hopes and fears article: I like Sheldrake’s morphic resonance theory. Though I think there’s a serious humbling down the line for western thinkers in terms of being able to take what indigenous people say seriously. Like someone in the article said “we haven’t got a clue.”
i actually find sheldrake one of the least credible thinkers on this subject. he’s like a more scientific jung. makes me feel faintly embarrassed to be honest. ‘morphic resonances’ sounds like something from the 1890s when everyone was into séances, madame blavatsky, and fucking gurdjieff.
2020-10-18 07:07:24
uziq
Member
+495|3690

uziq wrote:

Superior Mind wrote:

And in response to the hopes and fears article: I like Sheldrake’s morphic resonance theory. Though I think there’s a serious humbling down the line for western thinkers in terms of being able to take what indigenous people say seriously. Like someone in the article said “we haven’t got a clue.”
i actually find sheldrake one of the least credible thinkers on this subject. he’s like a more scientific jung. makes me feel faintly embarrassed to be honest. ‘morphic resonances’ sounds like something from the 1890s when everyone was into séances, madame blavatsky, and fucking gurdjieff.
as for ‘humbling’, well, yes and no. the scientific method has serious shortcomings (see pochsy above) but it’s not exactly as if scientists aren’t aware of them. you get ‘scientism’ folks like dilbert who massively overstate science’s reach and turn it into a de facto belief system, but that’s not the mainstream of professional scientists. i would say they are almost always humbled by what they do not know and a sense of vast things yet to be learned.

with that said, i’d temper that humility. science may be limited but we have put man on the moon, created a green-agricultural revolution that lifted billions out of likely famine and death, eradicated deadly diseases, etc. this is why these sentiments, when coming from the macrobiotics crowd or homeopaths or whatever, somewhat gets on ones nerves. there’s a lot to learn from amazonian tribes and their close integration with nature/their biome, but at the end of the day they’re still people clothed in fucking leaves and animal skins and routinely dying in their 30s from routine tooth abscesses or infected wounds. they’re not quite profound gatekeepers of a higher plane of consciousness. let’s be fucking real.
2020-10-18 07:07:42
Superior Mind
(not macbeth)
+1,755|6931
Re: sheldrake. Can’t argue that tbh. I like his work but he is pretty airy fairy.

Our agricultural technology may have fed billions, but ultimately it created that artificial rise in population and is a model which is depleting the soil and polluting the world. I would argue that we wouldn’t need GMO crops, pesticides, etc to feed the world if we didn’t waste so many resources growing and raising luxury foods instead of staples (Cattle vs. wheat).

All I’m saying is, let’s not throw the baby out with the bath water when it comes to people wearing penis sheaths.

Last edited by Superior Mind (2020-10-18 07:14:33)

x
2020-10-18 07:14:50
uziq
Member
+495|3690

Superior Mind wrote:

Re: sheldrake. Can’t argue that tbh. I like his work but he is pretty airy fairy.
there’s a very good hour-long discussion on youtube, originally aired on dutch television i think. it’s a round table with some very good scientists, among them astrophysicists, neurologists, anthropologists, evolutionary biologists ... and sheldrake. i think some of the names are like freeman dyson and oliver sacks. look it up.

all the other scientists there kind of pause in silence whenever sheldrake speaks. it’s like he’s not quite a scientist and they don’t have any idea how to engage with his system. it’s almost certainly untestable and unverifiable. like jung, really. i’m sure it all makes sense but it’s a package deal: you have to ‘buy in’ or it lacks all cogency.
2020-10-18 08:59:37
uziq
Member
+495|3690
for everyone's delectation, as it is a genuinely good discussion.



this is the best of the scientific spirit and ethos, where dilbert is markedly the worst.

it actually stresses me out how sheldrake almost immediately starts out with a misbegotten and wrongheaded notion.

Last edited by uziq (2020-10-18 09:07:20)

2020-10-18 09:28:47
Superior Mind
(not macbeth)
+1,755|6931
You can def sense everyone becomes very uncomfortable.
x
2020-10-18 09:30:31
uziq
Member
+495|3690
freeman dyson is very patient and reticent. sheldrake starts out saying that science has 'assumed that there have been constants for the entire history of the universe', which is literally wrong. even in its basics the inflationary theory of the universe contravenes this idea. it's so wrongheaded that i'm sure dyson couldn't even be bothered to engage with it.

and yet sheldrake wants us to believe that he has a new general theory of everything that has unlocked some new insight into nature (and god, natch). lol. people like this are selling some bullshit.

Last edited by uziq (2020-10-18 09:31:05)

2020-10-18 09:32:02
Finray
Hup! Dos, Tres, Cuatro
+2,629|6026|Catherine Black
is C not the universal constant? or am I misunderstanding
https://i.imgur.com/qwWEP9F.png
2020-10-18 09:35:15
uziq
Member
+495|3690
there are lots of universal constants. 'c' is the speed of light in vacuum. which has not necessarily been the same everywhere and throughout the entire history of the universe (even einstein wrote about this). there are other constants, like planck's constant. what he's getting at is the misbegotten idea that the universe started out with 'laws' and is just unfolding according to those 'rules'. but no scientist seriously thinks this; even a biologist or a chemist working on a very particular problem realizes that everything occurs within a 'reference frame', relative to being on Earth, etc. and especially an astrophysicist like freeman dyson who spent his entire career thinking about the long-view of the universe's history, i.e. its very beginnings and its eventual late end.

Last edited by uziq (2020-10-18 09:37:08)

2020-10-18 09:45:27
Finray
Hup! Dos, Tres, Cuatro
+2,629|6026|Catherine Black

uziq wrote:

'c' is the speed of light in vacuum. which has not necessarily been the same everywhere and throughout the entire history of the universe (even einstein wrote about this).
this is counter to my understanding then. I was under the impression that massless particles move at C in a vacuum, regardless of what time in the universe. You can slow it down, make it travel through air or water etc, but a vacuum is a vacuum whether just after the big bang or just before the heat death, no?

uziq wrote:

there are other constants, like planck's constant. what he's getting at is the misbegotten idea that the universe started out with 'laws' and is just unfolding according to those 'rules'.
This reminds me of something I saw explaining that the laws we deal with, are the way they are because they're at the bottom of a hill. They may have come down another hill to rest, but to change them would require extra energy. Something like this:

https://i.imgur.com/7O3dCFl.png

So therefore before what we call the universe existed, the laws may have been at the higher state, and rolled down to rest where they are now. Is this what you're referring to?

uziq wrote:

but no scientist seriously thinks this; even a biologist or a chemistry working in a lab on very particular problems now realizes that everything occurs within a 'reference frame', relative to being on Earth, etc. and especially an astrophysicist like freeman dyson who spent his entire career thinking about the long-view of the universe's history, i.e. its very beginnings and its eventual late end.
Feels like you're kicking the can down the road? I know about reference frames, but it feels a bit pedantic to say "yes, light moves at 300km/s, unless you're moving away from it at 300km/s". From the observer in that scenario, the speed of light would be 0, but from our reference, they would both be moving at C..

I'm aware you're not an expert on the topic but I have a kinda passive hobby like interest in physics and watch quite a bit of content on it, and this is so counter to my understanding. Maybe it's a definition thing, or a timescale thing.
https://i.imgur.com/qwWEP9F.png
2020-10-18 09:48:42
Finray
Hup! Dos, Tres, Cuatro
+2,629|6026|Catherine Black
That is to say, constants are not constant outside of our universe. Which I would possibly agree with, but for anything relevent to us, they are constant.
https://i.imgur.com/qwWEP9F.png
2020-10-18 10:42:46
uziq
Member
+495|3690
what do you mean 'outside of our universe?' parallel universes?

his point in error was making out that scientists think the 'universal constants' have been that way since the big bang until now, like fixed iron laws. but that isn't the case. the 'constants' of the universe were likely different, 50 nanoseconds after the big bang, to what they are now. that is what i'm saying.

i'm obviously not academically qualified to talk about this but sheldrake's dismissal of scientists for their 'wrong thinking' is in-itself a ridiculously fundamental error. and the guy pontificates endlessly about very grand-sounding ideas like 'morphic resonances', sure that the scientists 'have it wrong'. well, maybe they do; but at least grasp the scientist's version of things first before you dismiss it.
2020-10-18 13:47:39
Finray
Hup! Dos, Tres, Cuatro
+2,629|6026|Catherine Black

uziq wrote:

what do you mean 'outside of our universe?' parallel universes?
before the big bang or after the heat death, if such a dimension exists.

uziq wrote:

the 'constants' of the universe were likely different, 50 nanoseconds after the big bang, to what they are now. that is what i'm saying
Right this is what I thought you were saying. I wasn't aware this was the case. Or maybe I was? Electromagnetism used to be two seperate forces at one point?

ughhh idk I need to go back and watch some PBS space time
https://i.imgur.com/qwWEP9F.png

 

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