> One can definitely describe a rainbow to a blind person. Your explanation is perfectly valid.

My explanation is just an approximation though isn't it? It doesn't help the blind person to actually see the rainbow, just to get a sense of it.

> Does that mean, that before that experience you never felt at peace or empathetic, or were you just enlightened, that you can induce that feeling by drugs?

No. But the mushrooms caused a difference experience that I can only explain to you like I can only explain a rainbow as sounds to a blind person. Of course I feel empathy to people without drugs.

> My explanation is just an approximation though isn't it? It doesn't help the blind person to actually see the rainbow, just to get a sense of it.

What you are talking is physical experience. And I doubt drugs somehow give you that. How is it different from "a sense of it", except you being very excited about it by a drug?

It's just a different kind of experience. Psychedelics gave me this particular one. But plenty of other things, like having eyes or skydiving, give you a different experience too. You get a pretty accurate idea of what skydiving is like if you bungee jump, but nothing really compares to psychedelics so it's very difficult to explain, like explaining a rainbow to a blind person. Because no experience is really similar, words feel especially inadequate.

It doesn't make me better than anyone else because I took some shrooms. I'm not sure what you're arguing with me about.

I am arguing about the constant use of the word "enlightening" in relation with drug use. People don't call skydiving or bungee jumps "enlightening".

Ok, well, I choose to use that word. Given the actual dictionary definition of the word, I'm okay with using it.

You can describe anything to anyone but that doesn't mean they'll actually understand it. A blind person who has never seen anything, let alone colors, will never be able to comprehend what a rainbow looks like.

Sure, you can describe it in a technically correct way, maybe even provide an analogy, but what you can't provide is the context for understanding the experience of seeing the rainbow.

The context being "being on drugs"? How is it related to enlightenment?