... There's zero evidence that consciousness exists outside of the physical world. There's plenty of evidence that it does exist as something brains create. There's plenty of evidence that poking it chemically or otherwise causes changes in consciousness. In some cases, scientists have some ideas about how that might sorta happen (like the release of dopamine or serotonin). No one seems to disagree that taking, say, Xanax, does something to brain chemistry and causes e.g. less anxiety.

LSD is certainly a physical chemical that goes into physical brains. Yet all of a sudden folks want to introduce a separate magisterium and insist that despite having every appearance of acting on the brain somehow, LSD is special and really does something more. And not because of any extraordinary evidence, but because, while they were tripping, they thought up some cool neato thought like, I dunno, all people are one. A thought they can't verify at all, but makes sense while tripping. And because of that, not only is their neato thought true, but LSD itself must be something paranormal because other drugs don't let them think nonsense is true.

That's essentially all of what Leary and others come down to, despite hiding it in a lot more verbiage and nicer sounding ideas.

Just because the understanding of consciousness is rather much in its infancy doesn't give people blank checks to make shit up. LSD-fueled and valid-only-with-acid ideas on consciousness should be given as much weight as LSD-fueled pictures of Pluto.

Think about the song Amazing Grace: "How sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me; I once was lost but now am found, was blind but now I see". That was written by a guy who had abandoned his career as the captain of a slave-trading ship after having a spiritual awakening.

The transcendental, mystical, transformative, touching-infinity experiences that people report from psychedelics go far beyond any philosophical concepts about "physical reality" or "consciousness". You don't need to hold any particular dogmatic beliefs to try out and perhaps benefit from psychedelics.

You might feel at home with the people at /r/RationalPsychonaut: https://www.reddit.com/r/RationalPsychonaut/

Of course, you make a lot of good points. People should use rationality and critical thinking. And some psychedelic users can certainly be annoying.

I'd rate psychedelics on-par, impact-wise, around the same level as the birth and death of one of my children. I just don't see the need to say it goes beyond physical reality - there's just no proof of that. Why can't we be impressed and amazed with what our brains are capable of, with chemistry alone?

>I just don't see the need to say it goes beyond physical reality - there's just no proof of that.

What physical reality are you talking about? To the best we can ascertain, we only have subjective experiences of perceptions of electromagnetic phenomena. We don't get to perceive physical reality, only our own interpretation of what is postulated as an image of the physical reality.

It appears that there can be no proof either way whether a physical reality actually exists or not. All we can know is that we have a subjective experience. We can hypothesize that it arises from some other "thing", but there is no way we can know.

Also, I'm not sure anyone in this thread chain has claimed that consciousness goes beyond physical reality. I think you are the only who has assumed a physical reality (also, with no "proof").

Reliable computing technology is as revealing of an objectively existing physical reality as I need. The rules are solidly understood, do not change depending on our perception, and any "evidence" to the contrary that I've heard requires philosophical thought experiments.

>Reliable computing technology is as revealing of an objectively existing physical reality as I need.

What do you mean by this?

All you need is Boolean algebra to derive every reliable aspect of our computing technology.

01~&

Yes, you need a machine that can "execute it", but every reliable thing that a current computing machine will do is predicted by consecutive and parallel applications of the truth table:

    a|b|a~&b
    -|-|----
    0|0| 1
    0|1| 1
    1|0| 1
    1|1| 0

Do you mean that Boolean algebra is the objectively existing physical reality; is a part of the objectively existing physical reality; or, is only evidence of an objectively existing physical reality? If it is only evidence, in what way is it evidence?

You remind me of Rabbi Zalman Schacter-Shalomi. He was inspired by LSD to explore the mystical side of Judaism. But aspects of the LSD experience bothered him:

> It also wasn't Jewish enough for me. A universe in which everything was happening, regardless of whether it was kosher or not, wasn't Jewish enough.

http://books.google.com/books?id=HZq2YrPxL1IC

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/09/us/zalman-schachter-shalom...

Perhaps you are also a bit bothered by some aspects of your experiences that do not totally agree with materialism? Excuse me, but do you possibly feel ashamed to have thought certain things while tripping, perhaps concerned that you were delusional? Or maybe not, not everybody thinks that way.

Are you truly "impressed and amazed" by chemistry alone? Many feel that modern materialism is a cheap and disappointing answer to the question of what is really actually going on in the universe, the sum total of everything that is and will be. But of course chemistry is part of it, and it is really amazing.

No, I'm not bothered. I find it richly rewarding. I just know that the real world, nature, is worth admiring and being totally impressed and blown away with. As an example, I find life explained in natural terms and diversity of life via evolution to be far more inspiring and impressive (and elegant) than life explained via divine will. Not that you're suggesting that but just as a comparison.

I think it's worth encouraging people to be impressed with physical reality, with the amazing stuff that gets produced that way, rather than needing to discard reality as if it wasn't sufficient enough.

For an even simpler and perhaps baser phenomenon: the female form, for me. Without going into details, I find it rather amazing how something so "ordinary" can, at times, produce such powerful emotion/experience (not even referring to actual sex). Sure, perhaps it's not quite as strong as psychedelics, but I've yet to hear anyone seriously suggest that physical attraction needs explanations beyond materialism. Why should acid be qualitatively different? (I've experienced real delusions, too - all seems perfectly in line with a materialistic view of the mind.)

>> any feel that modern materialism is a cheap and disappointing answer to the question of what is really actually going on in the universe, the sum total of everything that is and will be.

And these many have no better answer, in fact all they ever, ever have is some handwaving about feelings and a dietary supplement to sell you.

To understand, you have to get out of your current 'reality context'. It's very easy actually.

A powerful psychedelic trip leads to a couple of simple realisations:

- you are God that created this Universe experiencing the sensation of being separate, weak and mortal within this body

- all living beings are the same - God experiencing himself subjectively. Including the cells in your body - God in a different 'vehicle'. Hence 'we are one'. Hence the necessity to be respectful towards all of nature - they're all you and you will experience all the interactions with your 'current' self.

- you have been here since the beginning of time and will 'exist' forever.

- Life is a trip, a story, a simulation. You will wake up from it one day. It's hard to believe it, because it's so 'real'. But everybody will get 'it' when they die.

Of course, the correlations between these "realizations" and any actual reality may be zero. That is, "realization" implies that there is some truth that you are realizing is true. But these things may well be not actually true, just impressions from using chemicals to temporarily alter your brains. They may not even be true on the next trip!

Acid trips as a way of actually discovering truth (rather than perception) seems to me to be hopelessly naive.

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

> Just because the understanding of consciousness is rather much in its infancy doesn't give people blank checks to make shit up.

Exactly. That's why you can't say things like "it's just messing with your perception" because you really don't know what "it's just" doing.

I didn't say anything about consciousness existing outside of the physical world. All I said is that "you don't really know". But, whenever I say something like that people tend to project some other argument onto me, like I'm here to defend everything any LSD user ever said.