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Do you think that you feel better than others for not taking drugs, and that this superiority is assailed when people who take drugs find common ground with one
by mxkopy 4y ago
Do you think that you feel better than others for not taking drugs, and that this superiority is assailed when people who take drugs find common ground with one of your favorite thinkers? Because that's the only explanation I can think of for this blatant assholeishness and gatekeeping.
Hofstadter doesn't own thinking about consciousness, thinking deeply, or thinking philosophically. As a matter of fact these sorts of things, to many people - many more than who have even heard of Hofstadter - associate them with psychedelics. So it's not unreasonable, it's not an insult, to think Hofstadter going pretty deeply into questions of meaning, putting mind-bending Escher works in his book, referring to the person that wrote GEB as different from Hofstadter himself, etc... is psychedelic. These are things that most people find eccentric, and what psychedelic users find psychedelic.
The only way I could find insult in such comparisons is if I felt psychedelics themselves were morally inferior or insulting. I would examine that.
- widowlark 4y agoOh, to be clear it has nothing to do with morality. Similar to someone elses comment above, having the experience of thinking you can salsa dance while drunk and actually being able to salsa dance are very different. In the same way, Someone might gain some understanding of H's thinking by taking psychedelics, but that does not lead to the same understanding as actually processing, imagining and writing the material does. I also think you might be devolving a little into flamebait here, as it seems you have taken my statements personally but they were not directed in any way at you.
- mxkopy 4y agoI took a lot of psychedelics in my life, and in that period I also read GEB quite religiously. And in my experience, I think it could have taken me a lot longer to empathize with the book than if I weren't taking psychedelics; not because of a false sense of understanding but because of a similarity in mental context. I felt like on LSD, I could look behind the curtain, so to speak. This isn't the same feeling as when you're drunk. Nothing else triggered my 'looking behind the curtain' sense as reading GEB. FFS Hofstadter had a place for the non-things - Tumbolia. To a sober person, it's obviously very silly. But on psychedelics, it's quite fantastical and intriguing. Imagine if, there was a place where non-things are. You begin to follow that thought more closely if you've taken psychedelics. You might leave it as nonsense if you haven't. So from my point of view, it devolved into flamebait the moment you said comparing GEB to psychedelics is insulting. Because to me, it makes sense on a lot of personal levels. As I've said in another comment. If you think drinking alcohol and taking psychedelics have similar mental effects. Then I suggest you stop talking about what you don't know.
- widowlark 4y agoI truly am not intending this upcoming statement as an insult: I did not struggle with 'looking behind the curtain' while reading GEB, nor did I find the concepts silly - I was rapt with curiosity the whole reading and came to many profound conclusions about the book and it's ideas - and I was not on LSD. Whatever helps you personally understand the world in a more meaningful light is wonderful, but it certainly was not needed for me and I doubt (based on what I know about the author) it was needed for him when writing this book.
- mxkopy 4y agoI don't find that insulting. It's wonderful for you. What I find insulting is saying that calling GEB trippy is an insult. It's genuinely trippy and there's nothing wrong with that.
- cfraenkel 4y agoYou explicitly "wondered" if H was "experienced" with psychedelics, implying that you thought so since you found it "trippy". Go back and read your original comment. No one here is saying psychedelics are morally suspect, they're saying that your explicit suggestion that H was "experienced" is insulting. Because it is. And your trying to move the goalposts after the fact is just digging that hole deeper.
- mxkopy 4y agoThat's really quite funny. Tell me again how I should read 'my' original comment - after you've compared my username with the one who made it. The suggestion that Hofstadter has tripped isn't insulting because GEB is a trippy book. Even if it weren't it wouldn't be insulting, only confusing, unless you think that trippy is a bad quality. Examine that. GEB is whimsical, fun and mind-bending. If it were written any other way it wouldn't be trippy. There is nothing wrong with that.