Hi, Glen,
I don't think Eric is talking about the reliability of what happens when one get's drunk; I think he is talking about the applicability of lessons one might learn while being drunk to life when one is NOT drunk. I suppose one might ask why am I privileging sobriety? Isn't it also the case that the lessons I learn while NOT drunk have limited applicability to life while drunk? Why not focus on that? I like the plainness of what Glen writes below: Even if you're as frightened as Nick by such, you can still consider donations. E.g. https://maps.org/ Indeed, I am frightened by these drugs. Frightened for myself, frightened more for my grand children, etc. Yes I think it goes back to that Hegelian thing, Apollonians and Dionysians. Dionysians see life as a bunch of opportunities; Apollonians see life itself as the opportunity, and anything that threatens it as a hazard. The Dionysian nightmare is confinement; the Apollonian nightmare is of being lost and never getting back. Does this explain why so many of the Dionysians I know had strict religious backgrounds? They were members of a congregation, once. For me, FRIAM is my first. Nick Nicholas Thompson Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology Clark University thompnicks...@gmail.com https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/ -----Original Message----- From: Friam <friam-boun...@redfish.com> On Behalf Of u?l? ? Sent: Monday, February 24, 2020 12:30 PM To: FriAM <friam@redfish.com> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] A longer response to Dave's question <https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/results?cond=&term=psilocybin&cntry=&state=&city=&dist=> https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/results?cond=&term=psilocybin&cntry=&state=&city=&dist= Eric is relying on ambiguity in the term "reliable" and the phrase "what is experienced under altered states" when he appeals to common sense with "Come on guys ...". If what one experiences after drinking alcohol were unreliable, it wouldn't be addictive. The experiences under alcohol, opiates, and recreational use of *some* hallucinogens are reliable almost by definition. But if you take a super-specific meaning of the term "reliable", then you can wiggle your way into Eric's not-so-common sense. Similarly, "what is experienced" comes in so many forms and layers, it's not only a common sense fallacy, it's also an over-generalization. Sure, even if you get in a bar fight 90% of the time you get drunk, with high reliability, the triggers for that fight probably exhibit high variation. So, really, some experiences are reliable and some are not. The task is to figure out which ones are and which one's are not. Our whole discussion seems rife with such errors, probably because we're insisting on talking about things in general, with few particulars. I'd argue the above listed clinical trials are doing a good job of developing a method/discipline for altered states. And I'd encourage anyone hunting for such a method/discipline to participate in the effort. Even if you're as frightened as Nick by such, you can still consider donations. E.g. <https://maps.org/> https://maps.org/ On 2/24/20 7:56 AM, Prof David West wrote: > I would argue that it is possible to "direct" or "contextualize" a > hallucinogen induced altered state such that the experience is more reliable > than typically acknowledged. > > It is my belief, but as yet this is just a belief, that it is possible to > develop a "discipline" a "method" by which we might "make sense" of the > altered state experience(s) in a more or less direct manner. Not, just as > insights or metaphors to be exploited in the realm of the "normal." > On Mon, Feb 24, 2020, at 4:32 PM, Eric Charles wrote: >> Come on guys.... >> >> We all consider most of what is experienced under altered states >> unreliable, EVEN when we associate great insight with those same >> experience. Yes, the apocryphal dream lead to the (now confirmed) belief >> that benzene is a ring, but NOT to the belief that benzene was made up of >> snakes. >> >> So we have a condition that generates insights that would not >> otherwise have been gotten (or, which would have taken much longer to get), >> but it also generates a lot of things that aren't insights. After all that >> generation has happened, we sort through the experiences by various methods >> and decide what to keep and what not to. >> >> "Are there conditions that more reliably generate insights?" is a >> straightforward question for experimental investigation. William James was >> super interested in that type of question, but the field didn't like his >> inquiries in that direction, so we still don't know much in the way of >> answers. >> >> "How do we, in practice, determine which experiences were insights? >> is an anthropological / sociological / qualitative-psychology question. The >> answer, in most domains, is that people decide what to believe mostly >> using heuristic judgments, often with maintenance of social congruence >> weighing heavily. I have no answers to offer specific to this context. >> "Abduction" should be discussed much more in this context, but hardly >> anyone has any idea what that is. >> >> "How SHOULD we determine which experiences were insightful?" is a >> philosophical question, of great interest to Peirce who, I think, is cool >> with any initial source of such beliefs. >> >> Peirce does have occasional mystic/transcendent leanings, especially later >> in life, but I have trouble deciphering those writings, so can't really >> help with illuminating them. He definitely thinks those leanings are >> compatible with everything else here is saying, but I can't see it. -- ☣ uǝlƃ ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe <http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com> http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com archives back to 2003: <http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/> http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ FRIAM-COMIC <http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/> http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
