4 ms·

I am extremely and genuinely curious: have you experimented with psychedelics to a high degree? Personal question, no obligation to answer.

llamaimperative 2y ago
Yes I’ve done psychedelics, though I don’t really trace my (reluctant) belief in panpsychism to that. Psychedelics are really great at showing you just how much “work” consciousness is doing, and just how fungible all of its contents are. And the most important insight, which is that everything “out there” in the world — everything you experience — is actually an internal, subjective representation. The way I’ve described it is that we’re all in our own sensoriums, but that is generally totally opaque to us. Psychedelics can temporarily knock that sensorium askew — enough to notice that it’s there all the time and doesn’t have to be configured the way that it happens to be. The reason I have reluctantly come to believe in panpsychism is because I haven’t heard anything close to a better explanation of when, where, and why “the lights are on.” There’s no reason to think there’s something special about brain matter in particular. There’s probably something special about information processing, but then: what is information processing? Information is just a local reduction in entropy, and all sorts of things are doing that in all sorts of ways all over the universe.
- mistermann 2y ago
  > Psychedelics are really great at showing you just how much “work” consciousness is doing, and just how fungible all of its contents are. And the most important insight, which is that everything “out there” in the world — everything you experience — is actually an internal, subjective representation. > The way I’ve described it is that we’re all in our own sensoriums, but that is generally totally opaque to us. Psychedelics can temporarily knock that sensorium askew — enough to notice that it’s there all the time and doesn’t have to be configured the way that it happens to be. Considering this: do you find it a bit strange that ~all people (including yourself above) write as if the opposite of this is true? I mean sure, "people are imperfect" and "everyone is just expressing their opinion" are attractive memes (cultural "truths" that emerge from the very same simulation), but is there not perhaps something important going on that might be worth paying at least a little attention to?
  - llamaimperative 2y ago
    I’m not sure what you’re referring to?
    - mistermann 2y ago
      > there's no reason to think that that stack of unfathomably complex and highly chaotic interactions is anything but chemical/electrical/thermal interactions. Did the psychedelics not teach you that knowledge of all like this may not be genuine? And never even mind that, is there good reason to trust what consciousness tells us in the first place? Sure, people have matching stories so that's a good sign, except the stories don't match over time.
      - bubblyworld 2y ago
        The stories do match over time in some domains though. Notably many (but not all) scientific domains, but also in a lot of day-to-day interactions. That's arguably what makes scientific theories so useful. Not the person you're responding to but for me that's compelling evidence that there is something like an objective reality out there (even if apes can't perceive it clearly).
        llamaimperative 2y ago
        Yeah this comment also points to William James and the rest of the Pragmatists. Something is true if and only if it is useful. Our good scientific theories are good specifically and solely because they're useful to us -- their actual underlying truth is not only indiscernible outside of the context of validating useful claims, but any such concept of "underlying truth" (below/separately from what's useful) doesn't even have meaning.
        mistermann 2y ago
        > Our good scientific theories are good specifically and solely because they're useful to us Watch out for how you're calculating utility though (or, if you are not actually calculating it and this fact isn't even on your radar). > but any such concept of "underlying truth" (below/separately from what's useful) doesn't even have meaning Watch out for this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_and_indirect_realism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_and_indirect_realism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heuristic_(psychology) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heuristic_(psychology) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_mind https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_mind

llamaimperative 2y ago

Yes I’ve done psychedelics, though I don’t really trace my (reluctant) belief in panpsychism to that. Psychedelics are really great at showing you just how much “work” consciousness is doing, and just how fungible all of its contents are. And the most important insight, which is that everything “out there” in the world — everything you experience — is actually an internal, subjective representation. The way I’ve described it is that we’re all in our own sensoriums, but that is generally totally opaque to us. Psychedelics can temporarily knock that sensorium askew — enough to notice that it’s there all the time and doesn’t have to be configured the way that it happens to be. The reason I have reluctantly come to believe in panpsychism is because I haven’t heard anything close to a better explanation of when, where, and why “the lights are on.” There’s no reason to think there’s something special about brain matter in particular. There’s probably something special about information processing, but then: what is information processing? Information is just a local reduction in entropy, and all sorts of things are doing that in all sorts of ways all over the universe.

mistermann 2y ago
> Psychedelics are really great at showing you just how much “work” consciousness is doing, and just how fungible all of its contents are. And the most important insight, which is that everything “out there” in the world — everything you experience — is actually an internal, subjective representation. > The way I’ve described it is that we’re all in our own sensoriums, but that is generally totally opaque to us. Psychedelics can temporarily knock that sensorium askew — enough to notice that it’s there all the time and doesn’t have to be configured the way that it happens to be. Considering this: do you find it a bit strange that ~all people (including yourself above) write as if the opposite of this is true? I mean sure, "people are imperfect" and "everyone is just expressing their opinion" are attractive memes (cultural "truths" that emerge from the very same simulation), but is there not perhaps something important going on that might be worth paying at least a little attention to?
- llamaimperative 2y ago
  I’m not sure what you’re referring to?
  - mistermann 2y ago
    > there's no reason to think that that stack of unfathomably complex and highly chaotic interactions is anything but chemical/electrical/thermal interactions. Did the psychedelics not teach you that knowledge of all like this may not be genuine? And never even mind that, is there good reason to trust what consciousness tells us in the first place? Sure, people have matching stories so that's a good sign, except the stories don't match over time.
    - bubblyworld 2y ago
      The stories do match over time in some domains though. Notably many (but not all) scientific domains, but also in a lot of day-to-day interactions. That's arguably what makes scientific theories so useful. Not the person you're responding to but for me that's compelling evidence that there is something like an objective reality out there (even if apes can't perceive it clearly).
      - llamaimperative 2y ago
        Yeah this comment also points to William James and the rest of the Pragmatists. Something is true if and only if it is useful. Our good scientific theories are good specifically and solely because they're useful to us -- their actual underlying truth is not only indiscernible outside of the context of validating useful claims, but any such concept of "underlying truth" (below/separately from what's useful) doesn't even have meaning.
        mistermann 2y ago
        > Our good scientific theories are good specifically and solely because they're useful to us Watch out for how you're calculating utility though (or, if you are not actually calculating it and this fact isn't even on your radar). > but any such concept of "underlying truth" (below/separately from what's useful) doesn't even have meaning Watch out for this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_and_indirect_realism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_and_indirect_realism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heuristic_(psychology) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heuristic_(psychology) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_mind https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_mind