On 08/02/2013, at 9:09 AM, Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:
>
> On 07 Feb 2013, at 10:57, Kim Jones wrote:
>
>> Graham Hancock's experiences with Ayahuasca
>>
>> Of course some will immediately denounce this post as irrelevant to the
>> search for a TOE. But, recall that CONSCIOUSNESS is the ultimate final
>> frontier in science and that voyagers in consciousness-altering substances
>> have a perspective to contribute here. This blog I find to be one of the
>> more convincingly serious and thought-provoking essays on the use of DMT
>> that I have yet encountered. In many ways, the experience of Ayahuasca seems
>> to dovetail with the experience of Salvia Divinorum, as I'm sure Bruno will
>> agree. I have tried neither, but would leap at the opportunity were it to
>> present itself to me.
>
> Yes, Plant teacher might be not completely out of topic, if we want study
> consciousness. Dale Pendell, the chemist and expert in psychedelic wrote,
> provocatively, I think, that humans and animals have no consciousness, and
> that only plants have it, and that animal are conscious by eating plant.
That's a very nice provocation. I love it when people provoke me to look at
things differently. Most scientists hate it. I mean, we think we know what
consciousness is, but that is because we are trapped IN it, or whatever we have
that we refer to as consciousness. In order to know what anything really IS,
you have to be SEPARATE from it; don't you? (Sorry about capitals, peeps; I'm
not yelling - think italics)
> About DMT and salvia comparison, this is the object of a lasting debate among
> those who appreciate them for spiritual purpose. My own experience, perhaps
> not successful for having not well done the extraction, is that DMT is just
> like some strong mushrooms. Interesting but not so "incredible" compared to
> salvia, about the nature of consciousness and reality.
So, I take it you would prefer a Salvia experience to a DMT experience on the
grounds of its being more…….what, exactly? I think you are about to tell me…..
>
> Salvia, like Ketamine, (but quite less dangerous, and anti-addictive) has a
> dissociative effect which might illustrate the "Galois connection" between
> 1p-mind (consciousness) and its 3p local handlings (the 3p-brains). By making
> a peculiar dissociation at some place in the brain, one are left with the
> feeling that we are *less* than we are used to think, and that we are
> consequently in front of *more* possibilities. That "Galois connection"
> occurs in many place in math: less equations = more solutions, or less axioms
> = more interpretations/models. Somehow less brain = more experience, or more
> intense and richer feeling of experience. This would make the brain being
> more a filter of consciousness than a producer of consciousness.
Hmmmmmmm……"less is more". Another of my favourite expressions. Please explain
the "Gallic connection" (connection galoise à laquelle tu pointe). I am
currently convinced that the brain "receives" the mind, much as a radio
receiver receives signal, so this makes INTUITIVE sense to me.
>
> Technically, I still have no real clue if this really follows from comp, but
> the relation between G and Z suggests that there might be some truth there.
> There is something similar already between the box [] and the diamond <> in
> all modal logics, but to apply it to the brain, we need this between G and Z,
> and this is partially confirmed (for example <>t is true and non provable in
> G, and it is []t which becomes true but not provable in Z (with the intuitive
> meanings that self-consistency is not provable by the correct machines, and
> that truth is not an observable for the self-observing machine. There might
> be a partial Galois connection here.
According to Ray Kurzweil (everyone's favourite physicalist/materialist) the
structure of the neocortex reflects the hierarchy of the evolution of language.
(see Kurzweil, R {2012} "How to Create a Mind"). According to Edward de Bono,
the evolution of language has been the biggest stumbling block of all in the
evolution of COMMUNICATION. I see a profound link here in your notion that the
"lesser brain" experiences more experience of reality. Are we on the same page
with this?
>
> Now, if it is obvious that altered conscious states can be a gold mine for
> the researcher in consciousness, there is the obvious problem that they
> concern 1p experiences, which are not communicable.
Except via poetry, music, painting, film etc. Even then, the experience is only
partially encoded for safe teleportation into other "receiving stations".
> Statistics can be done on many reports, but the texts are usually hard to
> interpret, and the texts can get influences by each others, etc.
Which is a profound problem that we can lay right at the door of LANGUAGE.
Language is indeed a self-serving thing. A description of something is a dance
of language, not a dance of PERCEPTION. Perception is often throttled by the
processes of language. We need to move beyond words. This is the importance of
math and music (which is audible math IMO.)
> So extreme cautiousness is asked before jumping on conclusion. Especially
> with salvia which lead to experience that you can hardly describe to
> yourself, and from which you get amnesic in some systematic way.
But I'm interested to know whether altered states of consciousness support
notions such as Sheldrake's "morphic fields" etc. Don't laugh; I think
Sheldrake has a point.
>
> But words, here too, are not so important, at least for its most peculiar and
> easy aspects.
Merci pour ça!
> When the Mexican Mazatec get christianized, they probably did not understand
> what the Spanish were talking about when they mentioned the Mother of God, or
> the Virgin Mary, until some exclaimed "Ah but that must be the lady we met
> when we use salvia", and everything was clear, then .... :)
YES!!!! That explains the importance of PERCEPTION in all thinking. (Perception
= seeing with the mind.) The mind is a pattern generating and a pattern-reading
mechanism. Any input to the mind (as I recently said) will instantly mate up
with already embedded patterns based on "fit" ( dans le sens d'être à la
taille). The mind will INSTANTLY construct a theory like your Mazatecs which
"explains" what something is, where it comes from etc. It doesn't matter that
it is almost certainly wrong in the ontological sense. What matters is that the
signal that "fits" an already embedded pattern in the mind of a receiver has
allowed that mind to bolster (soutenir) their theory of reality by seeing a
continuity of meaning across differing contexts. This is perhaps another
application of "less is more" in Henri Cartier-Bresson's famous phrase.
Kim
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> Bruno
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>>
>> Fascinating, Captain, fascinating.
>>
>> Kim Jones.
>>
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>
> http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
>
>
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