I will be attending this in April: https://icpr2020.net/
related to the clinical trials that glen linked to davew On Mon, Feb 24, 2020, at 8:29 PM, uǝlƃ ☣ wrote: > > 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/ > > 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 > archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ > FRIAM-COMIC 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
