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The difference is that losing a child gives you real information about your surroundings. Taking LSD doesn't allow you to take in any different input- it simply

by araneae 15y ago

The difference is that losing a child gives you real information about your surroundings. Taking LSD doesn't allow you to take in any different input- it simply changes the way your brain interprets that same information. I can see why people would enjoy this, but not how they could take it seriously. Taking drugs breaks the way your brain is supposed to function; I mean that quite literally. I mean, if I introduced bugs into my simulation code and got results that I liked, I'd be like, "I need to fix those bugs" not "boy are these great results! Look, I can stop the HIV epidemic!" Because I'd be wrong.

jonknee 15y ago
> Taking drugs breaks the way your brain is supposed to function; I mean that quite literally. I don't agree at all. Many people's brains are "broken" without drugs--depression, anxiety, schizophrenia, etc. The default state isn't always perfect. Who's to say the drugs are the bug? Maybe they're a patch.
- jamesbritt 15y ago
  Many people's brains are "broken" without drugs--depression, anxiety, schizophrenia, etc. The default state isn't always perfect. Who's to say the drugs are the bug? Maybe they're a patch. Thank you. I've tried explaining this to various people when discussing my on drug use. There's a common presumption that a person's brain, in its default state, is "OK", and that any messing with it is bad. Yet people typically do not have this same view of the (rest of the) body; few people get bent out of shape over diabetics shooting insulin. The brain is a meat machine sitting in a chemical soup and is no more or less inherently perfect than your heart, blood, or pancreas. The stigma attached to drug use is horrendous and keeps many people from getting proper treatment or even understanding that they may need help. People whose brains are broken by default end up self-medicating, or living miserable lives, or both, often because people believe that "drugs breaks the way your brain is supposed to function."
  - Alex3917 15y ago
    The way I think about it, we're all made out of drugs. Someone famous actually said this, I forget who.
thwarted 15y ago
Taking LSD doesn't allow you to take in any different input- it simply changes the way your brain interprets that same information. I can see why people would enjoy this, but not how they could take it seriously. Asserting that "simply changing" the way inputs are interpreted provides nothing of value seems odd on a site where a lot of the participants are programmers who regularly take input and massage it through iterative development of software that interprets that input and produce actual value. Cyphertext and an encryption key looks random until you apply a cryptographic transform to it. Same inputs, different output, different value.
- redwood 15y ago
  Great point, bit more specific than I was thinking but spot on: science is a field which uses new tools, mechanisms, and systems of measurement to continue looking at the same universe but determine more specifics from it!

by araneae 15y ago

jonknee 15y ago

> Taking drugs breaks the way your brain is supposed to function; I mean that quite literally. I don't agree at all. Many people's brains are "broken" without drugs--depression, anxiety, schizophrenia, etc. The default state isn't always perfect. Who's to say the drugs are the bug? Maybe they're a patch.

jamesbritt 15y ago
Many people's brains are "broken" without drugs--depression, anxiety, schizophrenia, etc. The default state isn't always perfect. Who's to say the drugs are the bug? Maybe they're a patch. Thank you. I've tried explaining this to various people when discussing my on drug use. There's a common presumption that a person's brain, in its default state, is "OK", and that any messing with it is bad. Yet people typically do not have this same view of the (rest of the) body; few people get bent out of shape over diabetics shooting insulin. The brain is a meat machine sitting in a chemical soup and is no more or less inherently perfect than your heart, blood, or pancreas. The stigma attached to drug use is horrendous and keeps many people from getting proper treatment or even understanding that they may need help. People whose brains are broken by default end up self-medicating, or living miserable lives, or both, often because people believe that "drugs breaks the way your brain is supposed to function."
- Alex3917 15y ago
  The way I think about it, we're all made out of drugs. Someone famous actually said this, I forget who.

thwarted 15y ago

Taking LSD doesn't allow you to take in any different input- it simply changes the way your brain interprets that same information. I can see why people would enjoy this, but not how they could take it seriously. Asserting that "simply changing" the way inputs are interpreted provides nothing of value seems odd on a site where a lot of the participants are programmers who regularly take input and massage it through iterative development of software that interprets that input and produce actual value. Cyphertext and an encryption key looks random until you apply a cryptographic transform to it. Same inputs, different output, different value.

redwood 15y ago
Great point, bit more specific than I was thinking but spot on: science is a field which uses new tools, mechanisms, and systems of measurement to continue looking at the same universe but determine more specifics from it!