[ExI] Why stop at glutamate?

efc at swisscows.email efc at swisscows.email
Thu Apr 13 20:43:11 UTC 2023



On Thu, 13 Apr 2023, Giovanni Santostasi via extropy-chat wrote:

> By the way I do know a thing or two about subjective experiences and higher states of consciousness. Notwithstanding my scientific
> and "materialistic" stance (it is a bad name for sticking to reality) I'm interested in spiritual things since I was a child. I
> meditated for most of my life. I also had very powerful spiritual experiences like a full Kundalini awakening that lasted 12 hours. 
I'm very curious, how did you reconcile that with your scientific
training? Do you let it remain a mystery, do you try to transpose it
into your scientific language?

> something that can be studied scientifically and it is my intention to do so eventually. 

Here I think there is a significant barrier of external indicators vs
the personal.

There are techniques and methods that have been used for thousands of
years such as meditation, chanting, mushrooms etc. as well as more
modern ways such as the "god helmet". They can cause deep and very
meaningful experiences, and we can most likely pinpoint what areas
"light up", but at the end of the day, for me, I would have to look at
it from a pragmatic point of view. Does it make me better? Does it add
something to my life? I can talk about it, describe the way, but the
destination and effect is unique for each being.

> the opposite, they are universal. In fact, the entire goal of transcendence and experiencing higher states of consciousness is to
> experience something that is shared by all of us and it is cosmic and universal. It is the opposite idea of qualia.

Well, that is certainly the description by many who had these
experiences, but at the end of the day it is their experience. As long
as no one else confirms, it is me feeling unity with the world.

> So we can have a science of subjective experiences and the Eastern culture has done already a lot of work in this direction. 
> It would be very interesting to merge the Western understanding of the world with the Eastern world. More studies are necessary to

I think transpersonal psychology is a start. I also am very interested
in this topic as well as the therapeutic potential of these types of
experiences.

Best regards, 
Daniel


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