[ExI] video which changed my perspective

[Mike Dougherty]

On Mon, Mar 28, 2022, 1:16 PM Will Steinberg via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

> .
> I think it is a TRAVESTY that intelligent people have been scared away
> from psychedelics.  You guys being so against them is insane to me.
>

Thank you for saying this.

Brains process chemicals.  You can try all you want to "make do" (make
due?) with endogenous chemicals; using breathing and meditation to get a
glimmer of opening windows and doors... but psychedelics have the
additional effectiveness to 'spring clean' with the full breeze and sounds
of outside blowing freshness and novelty through the whole house.  I
understand that fear of losing psychedelic virginity, but you must admit
that you have no idea what opportunity you are waiving in much the same way
that a nun might claim no interest or need for sex.

Taking a psychedelic is like visiting the most unbelievable museum, using
> your brain in ways you did not think possible.  They are some of the most
> learning-oriented experiences I have ever had.  They do not remind me of
> drugs like alcohol or opiates or speed.  They remind me of museums, school,
> symphonies, great works of art and literature.  That is the category they
> belong in.
>

Set and Setting - i suspect you [Will] have a mind naturally drawn to
museums and learning,  so expanded consciousness highlights this nature.
 Not all people tend toward enlightenment.   I won't elaborate because
anyone capable of understanding already knows and those who are/do not will
be offended.

That you seem to categorize them along something like alcohol is, to me,
> merely a testament to the absolute degree of success of the brainwashing
> campaigns by our government to convince people (including smart people)
> that psychedelics are bad drugs that have bad effects.
>

Tetrachromats are just making shit up so they can feel superior to 'normal'
trichromats.  Those normals pity the colorblind, so of course an additional
dimension of color leaves trichromats feeling FOMO and inadequate.
Psychedelics give a similar increase in palette and vibrancy for thinking.

Really, they are tools that can bring out power and intelligence you never
> knew you had.  There's a reason so many successful humans (including
> scientists, btw) have used psychedelics.  Crick himself was on LSD when he
> was able to visualize the double-helix structure when mulling Franklin's
> x-ray crystallography images.  That expansive, lateral, visual,
> multi-thread thinking enabled by psychedelics led to the discovery of the
> structure of DNA itself.
>

No doubt it was a moment to experience a gestalt of many things at once
that took weeks/months to unravel afterwards.  If Sagan was exploring while
high, he was exploiting/explaining that insight once he came down enough to
serialize what he had experienced.

I recieved some good advice on the topic of discussing "drugs":  speak only
to those with ears to listen.   If we need to convince you to try mind
expansions,  then we shouldn't and you shouldn't.  For those willing
psychonauts, we must provide ample support - both for harm reduction and
for community
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