[ExI] Religious Idiocy Triumphs Over Science Yet Again

Thu Dec 17 08:51:39 UTC 2015

I am quite familiar with attribution theory and state-dependent memory (and
have been for years or decades).

On Tue, Dec 15, 2015 at 8:34 AM, William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com>
wrote:

> 
>
>
> On Tue, Dec 15, 2015 at 4:40 AM, Max More <max at maxmore.com> wrote:
>
>> Adrian: It's hard for me to assess your dismissive claim about insights
>> while under the influence of drugs, partly because it's not clear to me
>> whether you are talking about one or two drugs that you are most familiar
>> with, or all drugs. (There are *hundreds* of mind-altering drugs, if not
>> thousands, that we already know of.)
>>
>> These days, I have too many and too consistent and persistent
>> responsibilities to experiment with major mind-altering substances. In my
>> 20s and early 30s, however, I became very "experienced" (in the Jim
>> Morrison sense). Back in April 1989, I wrote a (now) slightly embarrassing
>> and over-enthusiastic piece called "Psychedelics and Mind Expansion",
>> published in *Extropy *#3. (Good luck googling that. Pre-Web!) I'm
>> pretty sure that you are *mostly* correct. I do recall two separate LSD
>> experiences. In one, I "realized" that the core of reality is unity. In
>> another, I "realized" that the core of reality is duality.
>>
>> On the other hand, I can say for sure that LSD enabled me to experience
>> things (music, interactions with people, and interactions with nature) in
>> ways I never had before, and that have continued to have (positive if
>> occasional) effects since. For instance, I found myself (contrary to my
>> then-highly reserved nature) talking to and *seeing* people like the
>> postman and a grocery store clerk in ways that I never had before. In
>> addition, while I would not recommend over-indulgence with THC, I have no
>> doubt that it enabled me to overcome some deep-rooted emotional blockages
>> that led me to talk to someone very close to me about a critical issue that
>> I never been able to broach before. (Again, this was late-1980s/early 90s.)
>> That opening up has had long-lasting benefits.
>>
>> So, I think your comments are mostly but not entirely true. We may be
>> able to gain more value (apart from simple enjoyment/joy/engagement -- also
>> worthy outcomes) from mind-altering drugs if we (a) could design them with
>> greater specificity, and (b) had a much better understanding of how they
>> would affect any specific individual.
>>
>> On the latter: Many people apparently have wonderfully enjoyable
>> experiences on MDMA (unless they overdose or combine in stupid ways). I did
>> not. In fact, I had some truly emotionally horrible experiences on the few
>> occasions that I tried it. (Was it the substance? Was it the time in my
>> life? I don't know.) That's interesting, because my LSD experiences were
>> almost all good to fantastically great, with only one or two not-good (but
>> not bad) occasions. (I think the least enjoyable was going to a Grateful
>> Dead concert in LA -- I was not familiar with their music -- at a time when
>> I really wasn't in a good mood.)
>>
>> I'm surprised I'm commenting at this length... The topic takes me back.
>> [Not a flashback!]
>>
>> --Max
>>
>
> If you have not had any experience with Attribution Theory, in my area of
> social psychology, look into it a bit.  There appear to be numerous ways in
> which we can go wrong in assessing the personalities and intentions of
> other people we observe.
>
>   Then there's self-attribution: the many ways in which what we attribute
> our own actions and thoughts to can become irrational or just plain wrong.
> We look for causes for our own behaviors as well as the behaviors of others
> and can make the same mistakes. Also look into state-dependent memory:
> the ability to recall correctly a memory can heavily depend on the chemical
> state of your brain when the memory was implanted.  Example:  the best time
> to remember a dream is either immediately when you wake up, or when you are
> going to sleep the next night - your brain is returning to the state when
> the experience happened.  Can't remember what happened when you were
> drunk?  Get drunk again and try.
>
> So - trying to recall just what you thought or even did when your brain is
> in a very different state than normal, becomes a problem at the very
> least.  You are adding to the usual problems of memory recall, which are
> legion.  (I won't ask you to
> Google these, as they are just too numerous to take in)
> Now I am not contradicting Max or anyone else.  I am just saying that
> there are huge problems here of making sense of everyday experience, much
> less experiences on drugs (or even 'normal' highs), and even more
> problematic when you try to piece together events of years past.  The
> memory changes every time you recall it.  Ever go to a high school reunion
> and argue about who did what to whom and why?  It's a laugh.
>
> All of these things are proved in hundreds of studies.
>
>
> Could it have been?  Yes.  It also could have been something entirely
> different.
>
> bill w
>
> On Tue, Dec 15, 2015 at 12:26 AM, Adrian Tymes <atymes at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> On Fri, Dec 11, 2015 at 8:08 AM, William Flynn Wallace <
>>> foozler83 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> I don't think that is anything invalid about these, except that
>>>> insights regarding understanding of the universe usually turn out to be as
>>>> Adrian says:  nothing brilliant.
>>>> Often wacky.  Disappointing compared to our feelings for them when
>>>> stoned.
>>>>
>>>
>>> Exactly right.  And I'm not suggesting they're invalid: the sensory
>>> impressions are indeed more vivid.  Just...they don't actually produce
>>> better results for anything you want to matter to anyone outside your own
>>> mind.
>>>
>>> Assuming radiotelepathy (brain to brain communication at some level
>>> deeper than language, via electronics wired to the brain and linked via
>>> radio/wire/whatever electronic bridge) was a thing, what would happen if
>>> one of a pair of linked minds were to trip while the other did not,
>>> assuming they are sharing full sensory impressions with each other and
>>> started the experiment already used to this connection?
>>>
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>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>>
>> Max More, PhD
>> Strategic Philosopher
>> Co-editor, *The Transhumanist Reader*
>>
>> http://www.amazon.com/Transhumanist-Reader-Contemporary-Technology-Philosophy/dp/1118334310/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1372225570&sr=1-1&keywords=the+transhumanist+reader
>> President & CEO, Alcor Life Extension Foundation
>>
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>>
>
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>

-- 

Max More, PhD
Strategic Philosopher
Co-editor, *The Transhumanist Reader*
http://www.amazon.com/Transhumanist-Reader-Contemporary-Technology-Philosophy/dp/1118334310/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1372225570&sr=1-1&keywords=the+transhumanist+reader
President & CEO, Alcor Life Extension Foundation
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