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Sorry, that's not what they mean. My carpet is not changing color, my mother's face isn't melting. That's not happening on a physical level. My sober percepti

Sorry, that's not what they mean. My carpet is not changing color, my mother's face isn't melting. That's not happening on a physical level. My sober perception is repeatable and verifiable. It exists no matter my state of mind. It's novel to make yourself see things that are unreal. It's novel to have your emotions fluctuate wildly. But it's just novel, and unreal, and nothing more.

mostertoaster 5y ago
[flagged]
- dang 5y ago
  Personal attacks, flamebait, snark, and ideological battle—which I think this manages to be all 4 of!—are not allowed on HN. If you'd please review the rules and not post like that, we'd appreciate it. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - mostertoaster 5y ago
    I apologize. I will try not to let myself get carried away next time.
Elof 5y ago
I think the point is that your sober perception exists only in your state of mind. My sober perception of the 'same' experiences you have is almost definitely not going to be the same as yours. So an altered state potentially gives you the realization that your personal experience isn't universal reality. In other words a personal perception of reality is not reality itself. This is why we have philosophy in general. Novel in this instance isn't relevant IMO Updated for spelling
- jklinger410 5y ago
  This is such a silly conversation. We have cameras and all sorts of equipment that tracks a constant reality. Who gives a shit if people perceive it with varying levels of accuracy? What does it matter that introducing substances to the brain can reduce your ability to perceive it? There is evidence of reality, and childish mind games and semantic debates that it might not. I drop you off in the Gobi desert with no water (or acid) and let's test the boundaries of reality. Let's see if you can perceive yourself some water.
  - toomanydoubts 5y ago
    Old cameras recorded in black and white. Did people in the 20s live in B&W? Or maybe the camera is a device that attempts to record a picture of reality at some point in space-time, with lossy compression, to match the perceptions of reality of its creators? The thing is, you can have a consistent model of reality when you're only looking at it from the inside. This tells you nothing about the outside. Eg: if you're living in a simulated universe, everything is consistent, your cameras and the dry desert. Still, outside the thing you perceive as reality, there could be anything.
  - dwaltrip 5y ago
    For many things, you are right (or close enough for most purposes). For many, many other things, including the some of the things we care about most, the "true reality" is not so easy to discern.
    - GoblinSlayer 5y ago
      That's just FUD. If reality was difficult to discern, we would long be extinct.
      - SamoyedFurFluff 5y ago
        Reality is difficult to discern and we are not extinct. Cognitive bias has a long history of existing. For example, attributing personal flaws to harmless mistakes and attributing the flaws of others to malice or incompetence. This is clearly a distortion of reality, because we cannot assume we know the intention or capacity of all other people who aren’t perfect. (A huge number of other evidences that sober people don’t have a full grasp of reality also exist: people misremember things all the time. People mishear things all the time. Check out that internet debate about the black-and-blue or gold-and-white dress!)
sedivy94 5y ago
Psychedelic perception is also repeatable. And sober perception is not reliable.
- jklinger410 5y ago
  Same drug, same effects. Cameras can't see your wall melting, but they exactly match what we see in reality Huh, weird.
  - toomanydoubts 5y ago
    Cameras were designed to work just like our own eyes. Design a camera to work like flies eyes, and suddenly you will get an image that does not match your perception. That's the whole point, we don't know reality. We only know a model of reality that we can perceive with the senses we have. Show a picture to a fly and it will tell you: "you're tripping, this is not what reality looks like".
    - jklinger410 5y ago
      The physical reality seen by a fly and myself are the same consistent reality. Regardless of our differences in perspective. You are correct, we only know a model of reality that we can piece together. And we piece that reality together, bit by bit, with instruments and math and studying. Regardless of how much you dream that there is an oasis in the desert, it is simply not there. No one else can see it, no instruments can detect it, you can't drink its water, it is unreal. You can "what if" and "woah dude" until you are blue in the face, but you will never be able to drink that water. So what is more real? The sun and the sand and your dehydration? Or an oasis that exists only in your mind? Many don't like the answer, but it is clear as day.
  - malermeister 5y ago
    But you only see the recordings from those cameras with the same eyes you're trying to verify, so this isn't actually giving you anything useful. You only have one input and no way of testing how reliable it is.
akomtu 5y ago
Your carpet will change colors are if you wear colored glasses. If everyone had colored eye lenses, we wouldn't be able to agree what color the carpet really is. We would still agree that it's a 500nm wavelength that gets reflected from the carpet, because that number is objective, while our senses aren't. It just so happens that we perceive the numbers in a more or less the sane way. I guess that mushrooms change your perceptual "reference frame", you notice that the two reference frames have equal standing and thus neither is true.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

mostertoaster 5y ago

[flagged]

dang 5y ago
Personal attacks, flamebait, snark, and ideological battle—which I think this manages to be all 4 of!—are not allowed on HN. If you'd please review the rules and not post like that, we'd appreciate it. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- mostertoaster 5y ago
  I apologize. I will try not to let myself get carried away next time.

Elof 5y ago

I think the point is that your sober perception exists only in your state of mind. My sober perception of the 'same' experiences you have is almost definitely not going to be the same as yours. So an altered state potentially gives you the realization that your personal experience isn't universal reality. In other words a personal perception of reality is not reality itself. This is why we have philosophy in general. Novel in this instance isn't relevant IMO Updated for spelling

jklinger410 5y ago
This is such a silly conversation. We have cameras and all sorts of equipment that tracks a constant reality. Who gives a shit if people perceive it with varying levels of accuracy? What does it matter that introducing substances to the brain can reduce your ability to perceive it? There is evidence of reality, and childish mind games and semantic debates that it might not. I drop you off in the Gobi desert with no water (or acid) and let's test the boundaries of reality. Let's see if you can perceive yourself some water.
- toomanydoubts 5y ago
  Old cameras recorded in black and white. Did people in the 20s live in B&W? Or maybe the camera is a device that attempts to record a picture of reality at some point in space-time, with lossy compression, to match the perceptions of reality of its creators? The thing is, you can have a consistent model of reality when you're only looking at it from the inside. This tells you nothing about the outside. Eg: if you're living in a simulated universe, everything is consistent, your cameras and the dry desert. Still, outside the thing you perceive as reality, there could be anything.
- dwaltrip 5y ago
  For many things, you are right (or close enough for most purposes). For many, many other things, including the some of the things we care about most, the "true reality" is not so easy to discern.
  - GoblinSlayer 5y ago
    That's just FUD. If reality was difficult to discern, we would long be extinct.
    - SamoyedFurFluff 5y ago
      Reality is difficult to discern and we are not extinct. Cognitive bias has a long history of existing. For example, attributing personal flaws to harmless mistakes and attributing the flaws of others to malice or incompetence. This is clearly a distortion of reality, because we cannot assume we know the intention or capacity of all other people who aren’t perfect. (A huge number of other evidences that sober people don’t have a full grasp of reality also exist: people misremember things all the time. People mishear things all the time. Check out that internet debate about the black-and-blue or gold-and-white dress!)

sedivy94 5y ago

Psychedelic perception is also repeatable. And sober perception is not reliable.

jklinger410 5y ago
Same drug, same effects. Cameras can't see your wall melting, but they exactly match what we see in reality Huh, weird.
- toomanydoubts 5y ago
  Cameras were designed to work just like our own eyes. Design a camera to work like flies eyes, and suddenly you will get an image that does not match your perception. That's the whole point, we don't know reality. We only know a model of reality that we can perceive with the senses we have. Show a picture to a fly and it will tell you: "you're tripping, this is not what reality looks like".
  - jklinger410 5y ago
    The physical reality seen by a fly and myself are the same consistent reality. Regardless of our differences in perspective. You are correct, we only know a model of reality that we can piece together. And we piece that reality together, bit by bit, with instruments and math and studying. Regardless of how much you dream that there is an oasis in the desert, it is simply not there. No one else can see it, no instruments can detect it, you can't drink its water, it is unreal. You can "what if" and "woah dude" until you are blue in the face, but you will never be able to drink that water. So what is more real? The sun and the sand and your dehydration? Or an oasis that exists only in your mind? Many don't like the answer, but it is clear as day.
- malermeister 5y ago
  But you only see the recordings from those cameras with the same eyes you're trying to verify, so this isn't actually giving you anything useful. You only have one input and no way of testing how reliable it is.

akomtu 5y ago

Your carpet will change colors are if you wear colored glasses. If everyone had colored eye lenses, we wouldn't be able to agree what color the carpet really is. We would still agree that it's a 500nm wavelength that gets reflected from the carpet, because that number is objective, while our senses aren't. It just so happens that we perceive the numbers in a more or less the sane way. I guess that mushrooms change your perceptual "reference frame", you notice that the two reference frames have equal standing and thus neither is true.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]