cthrowaway2

i didn't realize we were so intimately familiar with the source of human consciousness. i'd think, if our consciousness was conclusively just the sum of our synapses, we'd have stopped debating life after death by now.

i'd be happy to read more if you care to source.

the post seems like a verbose attempt at "do what makes you happy". what precisely is being debated here?

like everything, apply a cost and reward analysis.

i was the first technical employee of a now well known, but still very much young and growing startup. i predict this credential will prove more beneficial than "software engineer, google" for a number of reasons.

incidentally, i was so young and isolated when i started working for startups that i didn't realize it was taboo or scary until it was too late. i wasn't optimizing for credentials; i just needed a job man.

we are neurons and synapses? is it not perhaps the case that neurons and synapses are simply arbitrary inputs into our true selves? which, like any input, could be configured, removed, or entirely replaced.

"At some point, they start attributing all interesting or creative thoughts they have to the use of drugs".

i have never met anyone like this. i've also never heard of someone taking it to this extreme. i'm inclined to call it a straw man.

what Steve Jobs for instance, actually said, is that LSD is "one of the two or three most important things [he had] done in [his] life".

rather than responding to a generalized anecdotal scenario, it might suit your response better to respond to Steve's quote directly.

the question is, "could Steve Jobs have become Steve Jobs without LSD?"

now, i don't think Steve's quote is enough information for us to answer conclusively. i'm sure Steve himself doesn't even know. but when you compare Steve's feelings to the question your parent prompted, "Honestly?" seems like an awfully short sighted response.

that was a very abrasive introduction considering your gross misinterpretation of the post you were responding to.

your idea, and the one you are replying to, are not mutually exclusive. reread it's thesis: "Psychedelics give an empirical experience that is undeniable but most people don't have the cognitive constructs to interpret that experience in a logically consistent way."

put simply, LSD does not magically infuse cognitive constructs that allow you to explain or understand the actual experience that is occurring while you are tripping.

consequently, the God/Death analogy becomes easy to dismiss if you forget that they are merely a best effort articulation, not unlikely drawn from previous experiences or beliefs.