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The problem is the theory implies that people with brain damage should experience psychological effects similar to those induced by psychedelic drugs, and we do

The problem is the theory implies that people with brain damage should experience psychological effects similar to those induced by psychedelic drugs, and we don't see anything like that.

TheOtherHobbes 8y ago
It doesn’t imply that. “Brain damage” usually means gross structural damage, while psychedelics seem to operate at the neurotransmitter level.
- MikkoFinell 8y ago
  Okay so damaging the neurotransmitters (filters) should create a more psychedelic experience for that person. I find that unlikely.
iaml 8y ago
Have you seen "my beautiful broken brain"(2014) ? It's exactly about that happening to one person. Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSfpA3AEKmY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSfpA3AEKmY
- MikkoFinell 8y ago
  No hadn't seen it.
stinos 8y ago
we don't see anything like that Yes we do. For quite some effects seen in patients in psychiatry it's not too hard to come up with a drug which induces similar experiences. Take paranoia for instance. And hallucinations of course. Or, to mention an extreme and very rare example: there are people lacking a certain connection between the low-level visual processing and the parts translating that to known objects (sorry, don't remember exact terminology). It's extremely hard to imagine, but such people have normal vision yet they do not recognize based on what they see. E.g. they see a chair, but don't know it is a 'chair'. However when they touch the chair they know 'aha, chair'. Someone I know described that exactly once when on psychdelics; psilocybin IIRC.
- MikkoFinell 8y ago
  If the hypothesis was true, we would expect the effects of brain damage to reliably create a richer and more psychedelic experience for the sufferer. Hallucinations and paranoia are only a tiny subset of the effects experienced by people on psychedelics, so logically the only part of the hypothesis that becomes more probable is that the brain usually filters out hallucinations and paranoia. But I won't accept that either, because neither brain damage or psychedelics reliably produce paranoia, and brain damage does not reliably produce hallucinations. I don't rule anything out, but the filter hypothesis seems a lot less likely to me given the evidence, than the simpler explanation: That psychedelics just mess up the normal functioning of the brain to create a different experience. This requires less assumptions than the filter hypothesis, which is akin to suggesting that the brain is actually drunk all the time, but alcohol merely removes the filter to allow us to experience the drunk phenomenology.
  - Retric 8y ago
    Brain trauma is inherently more localized than drugs, so expecting a 1:1 mapping is hardly reasonable. However, fever lack of sleep and other non localized effects can produce a wide range of Hallucinations.
    - MikkoFinell 8y ago
      I agree that fever and lack of sleep can produce hallucinations, but I'm not convinced that they are non-localized effects in the brain, nor that psychedelic chemicals are non-localized in the brain.
      - Retric 8y ago
        How do you think the temperature increase from Fever could be localized? It's just a temperature increase and you can induce the same effects by preventing the body from cooling down effectively.
        8y ago

The problem is the theory implies that people with brain damage should experience psychological effects similar to those induced by psychedelic drugs, and we don't see anything like that.

TheOtherHobbes 8y ago

It doesn’t imply that. “Brain damage” usually means gross structural damage, while psychedelics seem to operate at the neurotransmitter level.

MikkoFinell 8y ago
Okay so damaging the neurotransmitters (filters) should create a more psychedelic experience for that person. I find that unlikely.

iaml 8y ago

Have you seen "my beautiful broken brain"(2014) ? It's exactly about that happening to one person. Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSfpA3AEKmY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSfpA3AEKmY

MikkoFinell 8y ago
No hadn't seen it.

stinos 8y ago

we don't see anything like that Yes we do. For quite some effects seen in patients in psychiatry it's not too hard to come up with a drug which induces similar experiences. Take paranoia for instance. And hallucinations of course. Or, to mention an extreme and very rare example: there are people lacking a certain connection between the low-level visual processing and the parts translating that to known objects (sorry, don't remember exact terminology). It's extremely hard to imagine, but such people have normal vision yet they do not recognize based on what they see. E.g. they see a chair, but don't know it is a 'chair'. However when they touch the chair they know 'aha, chair'. Someone I know described that exactly once when on psychdelics; psilocybin IIRC.

MikkoFinell 8y ago
If the hypothesis was true, we would expect the effects of brain damage to reliably create a richer and more psychedelic experience for the sufferer. Hallucinations and paranoia are only a tiny subset of the effects experienced by people on psychedelics, so logically the only part of the hypothesis that becomes more probable is that the brain usually filters out hallucinations and paranoia. But I won't accept that either, because neither brain damage or psychedelics reliably produce paranoia, and brain damage does not reliably produce hallucinations. I don't rule anything out, but the filter hypothesis seems a lot less likely to me given the evidence, than the simpler explanation: That psychedelics just mess up the normal functioning of the brain to create a different experience. This requires less assumptions than the filter hypothesis, which is akin to suggesting that the brain is actually drunk all the time, but alcohol merely removes the filter to allow us to experience the drunk phenomenology.
- Retric 8y ago
  Brain trauma is inherently more localized than drugs, so expecting a 1:1 mapping is hardly reasonable. However, fever lack of sleep and other non localized effects can produce a wide range of Hallucinations.
  - MikkoFinell 8y ago
    I agree that fever and lack of sleep can produce hallucinations, but I'm not convinced that they are non-localized effects in the brain, nor that psychedelic chemicals are non-localized in the brain.
    - Retric 8y ago
      How do you think the temperature increase from Fever could be localized? It's just a temperature increase and you can induce the same effects by preventing the body from cooling down effectively.
      - 8y ago