[extropy-chat] Wireheading

[Samantha Atkins]

On Oct 2, 2006, at 3:02 AM, Alex Ramonsky wrote:

> Yo Eugen  :  )
> I did LSD for an average of four days per week from 1983-84.  
> [Despite heroic attempts, we couldn't get it to work more often than  
> that].

Hmm.  Every few days was about the max as I remember it from my a lost  
period in my youth long past and then only if you ate reasonably well  
and took vitamins.  No more than once a week for a relatively good  
trip.  Once every two - four weeks was better still.

> I personally felt pretty blissed out in very much the same way I  
> have on heroin.

Bliss is only a small corner of what can/does happen with acid.  It  
usually happens, if it happens, about 2-3 hours in but sometimes on  
the way back down.  With acid a lot depends on "set and setting" and  
of course on dosage.  Never took heroin but as the mechanism is *very*  
different I would expect they aren't that similar generally.  I have  
never heard of heroin having set and setting dependencies either.

> Maybe other people don't.
> I've only ever done heroin a couple of times, and that orally; so  
> that may make a difference too.
> Drugs have very different effects on different people. I can only  
> say what it was like for me. I do have colleagues who have done both  
> and claim a similar experience, but perhaps the real answer here  
> lies in one's personal semantics for the meaning of "blissed out".  
> To me it means "Totally anxiety-free".

That is hardly "bliss" in my book.  Bliss is more than absence of  
anxiety.

> Or these days, perhaps I should say, "Normal".

Bliss is not normal.   Or perhaps I should say that what is generally,  
and the word implies/invokes  generality, "normal"  is not bliss.

- samantha