Thanks, Ashton. It's all so clear to me know.

Post #389,364 by mmoffitt 5/11/14 7:24:07 PM Reply	Thanks, Ashton. It's all so clear to me know. For more than five decades I've believed that truly understanding something required clear-headed thinking. If only I'd read your reply sooner in my life, I would have realized that in order to understand anything, I needed to submerge my brain into a sufficiently strong hallucinogenic state that I was no longer able to perceive clearly that thing under study. Your lesson is so simple: to perceive reality one must first fog one's mind to the point that reality can no longer be perceived. I cannot explain why that "truth" elluded me for so long. For example, in my teenage years when I was an avid scuba diver I cheapened my life experience by preventing myself from truly understanding (feeling) the bends because I took my depth gauge and watch on deep dives. What a fool I've been. If only I had "tuned in, turned on and dropped out" I would know so much more. <Where is that tag?>
Post #389,365 by crazy 5/11/14 9:14:18 PM Reply	Ah, sarcasm First of all, you need to get past this one. http://www.npr.org/b...d-mental-problems 2nd, you conflate all drugs with alcohol and other depressants. The fog you seem to ascribe to them simply doesn't exist. 3rd, in the case of the major psychedelics, the exact opposite occurs. We have a very strong filter system in place to allow us to ignore most of what we experience. It is tuned to allow us to quickly react to life threatening stimuli, and ignore pretty much everything else. Once I was in the garden, and the fluttering of a beetle's wings 30 feet away had the same effect as a low flying helicopter. We tune that stuff out. It is a wonderful survival mechanism, and evolution selected for it, but it it not something that favors deep observation or thought. Psychedelics wipe this filter away, for a while, and allow us to observe way more than we would be able to otherwise. It is shocking and overwhelming at first, until you learn to pick and choose what stimuli to focus on, but it is very real. They also allow you to retrieve deep memories that are typically hidden. Again, they are a distraction and possibly painful, but once you have access to them in a safe environment, they can be dealt with. Once this state of mind is achieved, you may discover far more than you would be able to otherwise. I'm not saying every experience is some wonderful scientific journey, but the possibilities are far greater than without simply because you have access to thought processes that you would not otherwise.
Post #389,369 by mmoffitt 5/12/14 8:38:07 AM Reply	Were you being sarcastic? The study, in brief, says, "We didn't find anything, but you can't conclude anything from our study. Only that we didn't find any evidence." That's a long way from "compelling evidence" in my view. Look, I don't care what people choose to do. I really don't. I don't (any longer) think "it's bad" that people use drugs - provided, of course, they don't harm anyone else while using. Nor do I believe we know very much about how the brain works nor how drugs interact with it - in fact you and I have argued over that very issue before. What I object to is the idea that anyone can achieve "better living through recreational psycho-active drug use." That idea, you and Ashton apparently embrace. We differ and we are not ever going to agree. That doesn't mean I think you and Ashton are lessor people because you do - or did. It is interesting that I'm accused of being lessor for having not. But it doesn't trouble me.
Post #389,371 by crazy 5/12/14 9:13:13 AM Reply	no, but you were Your analogy compared it to a stupid dangerous situation. Which is why I pointed out the article.
Post #389,372 by crazy 5/12/14 9:13:22 AM 5/12/14 9:33:01 AM Reply	dupe Your analogy compared it to a stupid dangerous situation. Which is why I pointed out the article. Edited by crazy May 12, 2014, 09:33:01 AM EDT Expand All History
Post #389,373 by a6l6e6x 5/12/14 9:21:56 AM Reply	"Better Living Through Chemistry" Dupont spent millions of dollars on that message and you choose to ignore it? :) Seriously now, have you ever sovled a real vexing logical problem in your dreams? I have. All of a sudden, you clearly see the answer to what was a illogical puzzle. An aha moment. No drugs involved, but the mind was in a different state. The point is that the mind's "normal" state is a bit too rigid at times to let insight and creativity flow. Alex ÂThere is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.Â -- Isaac Asimov
Post #389,375 by mmoffitt 5/12/14 12:13:58 PM Reply	Yes, I have. Often in grad school I'd wake up with insight into a vexing topology problem. And even earlier, in undergrad I'd sometimes solve a Calculus problem in that same way. I've dreamed of new tunes to play on the banjo and (to my wife's consternation) ran and grabbed the banjo as soon as I awoke to play it for fear that I might lose the melody (which I've also done). I don't have any issue with your statement that, "the mind's "normal" state is a bit too rigid at times to let insight and creativity flow." I'd say that music, for instance, could not exist were it not for the mind's inherent ability to loosen the stranglehold of logic and reason and truly "feel" something. What I am saying is that ability to experience intuition and creativity does not require the introduction of artificial stimulants. Your own posting and mine here, I think, clearly demonstrates that. And it is precisely because we don't understand the real effects of these artificial stimulants on the brain that having these experiences in the absence of artificial methods is, imo, a better (or "more natural" at least) method of experiencing them.
Post #389,378 by Another Scott 5/12/14 1:49:52 PM Reply	Good points, but... Yes, we don't understand enough about what lots chemicals do to the brain. But we could say the same thing about almost anything we ingest. Chocolate, Caffeine, many antibiotics, etc., etc. We're unlikely to have sufficient knowledge about what these things do to ourselves anytime soon. I don't think anyone disputes that. But, the choice isn't between people taking the stuff and not. Some people will ingest things they "shouldn't". The choice is between and among treating individuals and industries involved in the production, distribution, marketing, and regulation of the stuff one way versus a myriad of others. If you don't think people should be thrown in jail for decades for use of some of these things, then at some point you have to let people make their choices even if you think they're stupid (or even dangerous) choices. My $0.02. Cheers, Scott.
Post #389,381 by mmoffitt 5/12/14 2:53:50 PM Reply	I'm obviously content to allow people to be stupid. I've lived in Indiana for the past 28 years! ;0)
Post #389,390 by Ashton 5/12/14 6:00:19 PM Reply	Guess my points went Zooooom, then. Likely here, too. We have stumbled well-into meta- Territory aka epistemology http://faculty.educa...-cziko/wm/06.html Play? or Resign if your comfort-level got?/gets exceeded. Here, later, you acknowledge your own experience of emotional-states via music, {meditation? inner-spawned chemicals? or outer-added ones??} facilitating..? maybe even permitting-at-all?? solutions to what you thought/still-think? were purely-intellectual, self-assigned Problems. Simultaneously you hold-in-'mind(s!)' the contradiction that, having experienced the strait-jacket of the mechanistic-logic of intellect--verily having failed to solve {some problem,} You conclude that (in your mind) it's too-dangerous--if not stupid-by-your-lights even to acknowledge that: What crazy was talking about (much of which obv. went Zooom, too) and I chimed-in on, from my experience and lore--was no mere dilettante 'recreational'-employment lark: employing our mentations to pursue experiments in an area acknowledged to be impoverished/filled with as much wrongth?/dumbth? ... as was Physics* pre-Boltzmann ET AL.* (How generous of you to forthrightly tolerate our gawd-given Right ..to act stupid; your empathy is, surely well-validated: you know the exact dictionary definition of the word. What more might a one need than that?) Sorry that, my view of your insight-module is: of someone smugly content to hold strong opinions about matters you have not even logically investigated, never mind.. attempted to Reason about. You're fun to agree-with/argue-with on a number of topics; alas, on My jury, I'd have to go for a peremptory challenge: on grounds that "candidate's response to circumstantial evidence is seen to be prejudiced by casual 'opinions' untested by experiment/yet taken for some sort of personal-Certainty." (Recall the thread on poor Boltzmann?) His arguments were dismissed ["with-prejudice", goes that court-phrase] by the near-consensus then, of entrenched beliefs about.. er PHYSICS'--its Main-Principles (like say, "atoms" and such?) Oh. and. more recently: Hawking's presentation upon (what next==soon came to be called Hawking-radiation in black holes/Singularities.. was momentarily met with dumbfounded ridicule-like noises, within that gaggle of fully-credentialed scientistsÂ er, fellow club members? Welcome to the club. ;^> Carrion.. we're all just composed of those atom-things, 99.999999%-of-which volume is [just chock-full-of Dark-energy and Dark-matter--which are the same 'thing' and maybe even tiny-Universes] ..but-we-call-it, 'empty-space'. Still. Dark: euphemism (like an MD's, 'non-specific vaginitis') for, We don't know Shit about that 'empty-space' Either. The "open-minded" Are aware that 'open' does not mean.. that there's no keeping anything IN or OUT of that mind (via my definition, anyway.) Our minds appear to be quite apart <--from--> that entire mechanical/physics-al Model of the material 'universe'; perhaps even.. quite-apart-from the body(??) no wonder so many people are afraid to really Use theirs? it just.. so.. M y s t i c a l *(..and boy-howdy does THAT word scare lots of 'creative-accountants', bankers and, just-plain folks.* Eh?)**
Post #389,393 by crazy 5/12/14 7:25:34 PM Reply	Backwards as usual But we are used to that. http://m.jech.bmj.co...1-200252.abstract Conclusion High childhood IQ may increase the risk of illegal drug use in adolescence and adulthood.Conclusion High childhood IQ may increase the risk of illegal drug use in adolescence and adulthood.
Post #389,394 by Ashton 5/12/14 8:30:39 PM Reply	Love. It. succinct, scientific, satisfying-- almost becoming er, sarcastically?-so Heh.. Grad HS at 15.5; IQ--one of those silly high-enough-numbers.. twice, maybe 3x. (A Princess(!)--fiancé of a physicist administered one of those: her ~vocation. Heh.) Never remotely tempted near alcoholic dependency==depressant; pot, only quite rarely (a couple Wowie grades--as a verification) --largely depresses Inquisitiveness, at least in this sack-ful of chem-bio--soups. Ditto, hardly-any (of the demon-Âearing category), though some pure Owsley was one of those. No epiphany there, but Interesting. My Other experiments re the esoteric, pretty-much trumped the above re. 'enlightenment' efforts. (Though the entire Coca-leaf, as chewed by the locals--has more Interesting, thought-provoking substances than ever have been separated-out, let alone honestly-Investigated.) How Puritan-Murican-to-a-Tee, that fact. So, seems I'm an outlier, even amidst this test-collection of just-such. Guess I'm just fuckin-Lucky to be, still, shufflin around, given the hugely-scary nature of these experiences (not-to-mention Vincent Black Shadows or steering-around a light aircraft.. as amused friend disparaged my efforts to create er, sinusoidal-depeleneration in-the-sky. Ooooh: wavicles!) Seems that one person's scary-Bugaboo is another's raison d'etre.. or in some cases.. even salvation-from? ... a tribe or Nation of primitives and scaredy-cats of all stripes. Now.. if there Be such things as, The Bardos.. in some 'next'.. ... maybe a One gets to pick One's next nano-universe to Play In. I no words. Law above fear, justice above law, mercy above justice, love above all.

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