I think you missed my point. Perceiving things that are not real isn't the problem. Perceiving things that are not real, and then thinking they are real, is the problem. If someone watches Moon Knight, that's fine (and also a great show, imho); if someone watches Moon Knight and now believes the Egyptian gods are real and giving people superpowers, that is NOT fine. And no, I don't think religion or propaganda are okay, either, for the same reason.
"And psychedelics give you the ability to re-perceive prior events in different ways. That is a super-important fact for therapeutic purposes."
It is... as long as the new perception aligns with reality. If it doesn't, then regardless of its potential therapeutic properties, it is harmful.
"Personally, it just sounds like we should accept that things which are enjoyable can be useful and vice versa."
Anything can be enjoyable to someone, and many things can be useful. It's about balancing the benefits against the harms and not ignoring either side.
You seem to have a strong belief that reality has objective definition, and that yours is it.
Much of the value of psychedelics is in unseating us from assuming that what we have always thought was real necessarily is. In most cases it mostly is not. Yes, rocks are hard, and fog is soft, but the ways the world works are very different from what we picked up as children. It is extremely rare for people to have rethought everything in light of later experience, so most cling to falsehoods they have not examined.
Psychedelics do not convince you that falsehoods are true. They help you question things that often enough turn out not to be true.
Afterward you still might believe things that are not true, but that was where you started.
"You seem to have a strong belief that reality has objective definition, and that yours is it."
No, I have a strong belief that reality has an objective definition, and that empirical evidence shows what that definition is. Because, though this may come as a surprise to you, empirical evidence is the very definition of looking at what the universe does to figure out what the universe does.
"Much of the value of psychedelics is in unseating us from assuming that what we have always thought was real necessarily is. In most cases it mostly is not. Yes, rocks are hard, and fog is soft, but the ways the world works are very different from what we picked up as children. It is extremely rare for people to have rethought everything in light of later experience, so most cling to falsehoods they have not examined."
This is... well, a vast generalization. While it's true there are some things that turn out to be not quite as we thought, the way to discover those inaccuracies is through empirical evidence. Thinking that hallucinogenics are the way to discover what is not true and what is true is basically saying "my perceptions are more real than everything around me is, and if I just think about things in the right way, I will discover the truth, even if it contradicts the evidence".
You don't find truth by distorting your perceptions and then thinking hard about what you've perceived; you find it by looking at the world outside your own brain and listening to what that world shows you through empirical measurements.
The scientific method is designed specifically to counteract the many ways in which our perceptions already fool us, and it has worked exceptionally well at discovering the truths of the universe (the computer you're using right now is one tiny bit of proof of that). Relying on our perceptions is already problematic, but distorting those perceptions and then relying on them as a source of truth? That's just hubris.
Basic laws of physics, sure. But how to process the loss of your trust in humans because of the specifics of the abuse you received from your abusers at the ages you received it (schoolmates on the playground, older sibling, anonymous assailants on the street) isn't all that well handled yet by science and the few practitioners that exist.
How to refashion your wants to fit within the reality left after someone ran you over on the way to your wedding and you lost your legs? That's personal.
It doesn't seem you have an idea what a trip can do to you. A trip could allow you to dig up memories that you hadn't been able to access for many years.
It could enable you to perceive things things you've never considered, the unknown unknowns. The kind you _couldn't_ have ever considered because they just don't enter the human consciousness in the normal state.
It could teach you how much of what you assumed "facts" is strongly shaped by your emotions, and if those emotions are changed you are able to see things in a different light.
I suppose you wouldn't prove P /= NP when on a trip, but it could show you how narrow, warped and preconceived your your idea had been what "reality" is even about.
Most of the falsehoods that most people believe, yourself most likely included, are things that they had not even noticed that they believed, so would never have thought to "test empirically", or even wonder whether they might not be true.
Your personal offense at the suggestion is characteristic of people who have been disinclined to discover their blind spots, and who stand to benefit most from an experience.
I have not seen people come away believing even more falsehoods than they went in with, although very large numbers can be hard to compare. It can take a long time and hard work to whittle that number down, but the best time to start is usually now.
There does seem to be a population whose mental grounding is flimsy enough to retain the idea that Egyptian gods are real after the experience is over (Moon Knight is an excellent reference point), and to believe they can actually fly during the experience. The latter are the most concerning above the ground floor, immediate bodily harm. I'd really like credible statistics on all of these, and somehow adjusted for the "lizard people" factor (4% or so, of Americans at least, believe in the race or races of lizard people supposedly among us or underground, for example). To balance, we'd want the coefficients.
Comments
I think you missed my point. Perceiving things that are not real isn't the problem. Perceiving things that are not real, and then thinking they are real, is the problem. If someone watches Moon Knight, that's fine (and also a great show, imho); if someone watches Moon Knight and now believes the Egyptian gods are real and giving people superpowers, that is NOT fine. And no, I don't think religion or propaganda are okay, either, for the same reason.
"And psychedelics give you the ability to re-perceive prior events in different ways. That is a super-important fact for therapeutic purposes."
It is... as long as the new perception aligns with reality. If it doesn't, then regardless of its potential therapeutic properties, it is harmful.
"Personally, it just sounds like we should accept that things which are enjoyable can be useful and vice versa."
Anything can be enjoyable to someone, and many things can be useful. It's about balancing the benefits against the harms and not ignoring either side.
You seem to have a strong belief that reality has objective definition, and that yours is it.
Much of the value of psychedelics is in unseating us from assuming that what we have always thought was real necessarily is. In most cases it mostly is not. Yes, rocks are hard, and fog is soft, but the ways the world works are very different from what we picked up as children. It is extremely rare for people to have rethought everything in light of later experience, so most cling to falsehoods they have not examined.
Psychedelics do not convince you that falsehoods are true. They help you question things that often enough turn out not to be true.
Afterward you still might believe things that are not true, but that was where you started.
"You seem to have a strong belief that reality has objective definition, and that yours is it."
No, I have a strong belief that reality has an objective definition, and that empirical evidence shows what that definition is. Because, though this may come as a surprise to you, empirical evidence is the very definition of looking at what the universe does to figure out what the universe does.
"Much of the value of psychedelics is in unseating us from assuming that what we have always thought was real necessarily is. In most cases it mostly is not. Yes, rocks are hard, and fog is soft, but the ways the world works are very different from what we picked up as children. It is extremely rare for people to have rethought everything in light of later experience, so most cling to falsehoods they have not examined."
This is... well, a vast generalization. While it's true there are some things that turn out to be not quite as we thought, the way to discover those inaccuracies is through empirical evidence. Thinking that hallucinogenics are the way to discover what is not true and what is true is basically saying "my perceptions are more real than everything around me is, and if I just think about things in the right way, I will discover the truth, even if it contradicts the evidence".
You don't find truth by distorting your perceptions and then thinking hard about what you've perceived; you find it by looking at the world outside your own brain and listening to what that world shows you through empirical measurements.
The scientific method is designed specifically to counteract the many ways in which our perceptions already fool us, and it has worked exceptionally well at discovering the truths of the universe (the computer you're using right now is one tiny bit of proof of that). Relying on our perceptions is already problematic, but distorting those perceptions and then relying on them as a source of truth? That's just hubris.
Basic laws of physics, sure. But how to process the loss of your trust in humans because of the specifics of the abuse you received from your abusers at the ages you received it (schoolmates on the playground, older sibling, anonymous assailants on the street) isn't all that well handled yet by science and the few practitioners that exist.
How to refashion your wants to fit within the reality left after someone ran you over on the way to your wedding and you lost your legs? That's personal.
It doesn't seem you have an idea what a trip can do to you. A trip could allow you to dig up memories that you hadn't been able to access for many years.
It could enable you to perceive things things you've never considered, the unknown unknowns. The kind you _couldn't_ have ever considered because they just don't enter the human consciousness in the normal state.
It could teach you how much of what you assumed "facts" is strongly shaped by your emotions, and if those emotions are changed you are able to see things in a different light.
I suppose you wouldn't prove P /= NP when on a trip, but it could show you how narrow, warped and preconceived your your idea had been what "reality" is even about.
Have you actualy tried magic mushrooms? I don't get the impression that you quite get what a psychedelic experience is really like.
Most of the falsehoods that most people believe, yourself most likely included, are things that they had not even noticed that they believed, so would never have thought to "test empirically", or even wonder whether they might not be true.
Your personal offense at the suggestion is characteristic of people who have been disinclined to discover their blind spots, and who stand to benefit most from an experience.
I have not seen people come away believing even more falsehoods than they went in with, although very large numbers can be hard to compare. It can take a long time and hard work to whittle that number down, but the best time to start is usually now.
There does seem to be a population whose mental grounding is flimsy enough to retain the idea that Egyptian gods are real after the experience is over (Moon Knight is an excellent reference point), and to believe they can actually fly during the experience. The latter are the most concerning above the ground floor, immediate bodily harm. I'd really like credible statistics on all of these, and somehow adjusted for the "lizard people" factor (4% or so, of Americans at least, believe in the race or races of lizard people supposedly among us or underground, for example). To balance, we'd want the coefficients.