Ven. Kwan Tam Woo wrote:Kafei wrote:Ven. Kwan Tam Woo wrote:What “eastern philosophy”
asserts is beside the point. The fact that the
human brain can generate such a “universal” experience does not provide evidence that any other conscious organism can do likewise. This assertion isn’t merely baseless; it’s an outright non-sequitur.
Well, there's no evidence, sure, but this is apparently the claim in eastern Buddhist lore. It's because they didn't see like medieval Christians that there is just one planet in the galaxy, and we're at the center of it. They saw untold myriads of worlds in every direction going on forever and ever with beings of all kinds with their own wars, events, etc.
So what??
So, this is what the Buddhist literature says. There's a lot of overlapping in Buddhist cosmology and in modern physics today. I mean, the Buddha's principle that "everything is in flux and nothing is permanent" could very easily coincide with a modern view that involves evolution and our modern cosmological view that involves deep time.
Ven. Kwan Tam Woo wrote:He had a lot of experience disrupting the functioning of his brain with foreign substances, and he was good at spouting deepities about the resulting subjective experiences. That’s it. Why should I give a rat’s arse what the Psychedelic Salon (whoever they are!) said about him? McKenna contributed *nothing* of actual value to the world as a result of his tripping; if he is the psychedelic community’s idea of an important voice speaking on their behalf, then that really doesn’t reflect well on the psychedelic community.
Well, essentially, he believed that psychedelics could change people's attitude towards each other and their environment on a dime. People have called it "30 years of therapy in one night." That's really what this experience has to contribute.
1) change =/= improve
2) they can just as easily – if not more easily – lead to psychological unravelling or an inflated sense of one’s understanding and/or superiority, as McKenna himself demonstrates.
Well, most people who have been changed by this experience do say it has changed them for the better. Of course, what "better" is may not be something we concretely define. I mean, why should a species keep surviving? McKenna, while he may have exhibited some intellectual conceit, he nevertheless remained humble through his psychedelic experiences.
Ven. Kwan Tam Woo wrote:I never said anything about an “absolute reality”. That said, what your brain tells you is demonstrably NOT the sole or even main criteria for assessing the reality of something. Ask anyone who’s ever seen an mirage or experienced an hallucination due to a brain injury. We probably wouldn’t live in any kind of culture if the serotonin in our brain were switched with DMT, because even if the neurochemical disruption didn’t immediately kill us then the distorted perception of our environment would make us far more susceptible to external dangers (i.e. the ones that exist in reality).
Well, this goes to the idea that reality is a projection or something that consciousness is a transceiver of a signal, the wave-length. As Kaku mentioned, we tune into this reality, but we simultaneously exist in all possible realities. So, if you change the tuner, then you'll inhabit a different sort of reality. There's an interesting phenomenon that happens under the influence of these heroic doses, and that is HPPD (Hallucinogen Persisting Perception Disorder). One symptom of HPPD is what's called "visual snow." This is the stuff that looks like the salt-and-pepper screen on the old TV sets that is supposed to be a signal feedback of the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation which is supposedly remnant of the Big Bang.
This is straight-up quantum woo. Consciousness is not a transceiver for a “wavelength” of reality, indeed modern physics has *nothing* whatsoever to say about consciousness, and it certainly doesn’t support the idea that conscious entities can
choose the universe they inhabit. And the idea that we exist in all possible realities (even the ones where Earth got smashed to bits by a wayward planet early in its history?) is a gross exaggeration at best. All you’re doing when you “change the tuner” is throwing your neural networks out of whack in a way which allows the imagination to run wild and free. What evidence do you have that this visual snow is in any way connected to cosmic microwave background radiation??
Well, I don't believe it's quantum woo. I mean, your comment here is indicative to the fact that you have no background with these type of experiences if you believe it's simply the "imagination run wild." Here's a more apt analogy, if a speed bump in the imagination is an intellectual thrill for someone in their 40s or 50s, then DMT is a 300 ft cliff! The comment that we exist simultaneously in all other possible realities is actually something I
quoted from Michio Kaku. He says something really interesting in that interview that we'd have to be God-like in order to perceive these these parallel worlds. Well, isn't it interesting that this is precisely what these psychedelics are called "entheogens" for, because they have the potential to make one "God-like." I read an
interesting article on how the visual snow screen we see on TV when there's no other signal for the TV to pick up is actually electromagnetic signals given rise to by cosmic microwave background radiation which itself is a remnant of the Big Bang and the evidence is explained in the article which I've linked to. As for the experience itself of the visual snow experienced in HPPD being some kind of sensitivity to this signal, that's another question. However, the experience is challenging in itself and is so existentially convincing that you could be led to believe in even more absurd theories about the world. What it tells us at its core is that we don't know what the "bleep" is going on.
Ven. Kwan Tam Woo wrote:Well, it depends on how you're defining reality, I suppose. If you define it on the basis of "consensus reality," then we stray away from that reality in these experiences.
No I don’t define it in terms of “consensus reality”, because such a term suggests that world we live in is defined by some sort of democratic process of mutual consent. This is manifestly not the case: reality clearly does not conform to our will, nor does it ask for our “consent”. These experiences are nothing more than a form of escapism, brought about through distorted neuronal functioning.
Well, yes, apparently reality is some sort of process of mutual consent. "Most of reality is illusory, it's simply that we pay each other the courtesy of not pointing this out. Actually, you trace a very thin data path through the world. Most of what we assume without question we have very little evidence for. The assumed bedrock of 'ordinary perception' is in fact no bedrock at all. It's simply a very comfortable dwell point for most people." -Terence McKenna
No it’s not, and quoting yet another piece of Terence McKenna’s wibbly assertionist bullshit is
certainly not going to help your case here. What is your evidence that reality arises from a process of mutual consent?? Certain artificial components of it may (e.g. the value of money), but the physical world itself most certainly does not. To think otherwise requires a “heroic” amount of delusional narcissism.
This is not "my case." To assume that you're directly perceiving reality is referred to as "naïve realism" for a reason, you know. I mean, if you're not referring to consensus reality, then what are you referring to? There's even talk in quantum physics that in order for reality to exist at all there must be a mutual exchange between an observer and the reality being perceived.
Ven. Kwan Tam Woo wrote:The feeling of oneness is most likely due to subdued functioning of the parts of the brain involved in self-cognition, and altered functioning of the parts of the brain involved in the perceptions of the body’s spatial location within and division from one’s environment (e.g. the posterior parietal cortex).
I'm not sure. That seems a very reductionist explanation for this phenomenon, but nice try.
How exactly is it reductionist, and how would that invalidate it anyway? Feel free to offer a more plausible explanation if you think that one doesn’t cut it.
Sure, I just recently watched "Neurons to Nirvana" on Netflix. David Nutt and Robin Carthart-Harris both offer a very intriguing and better explanation. I'd really recommend that video. Terence McKenna's not in it, if that'll satisfy you. However, Dennis is.
Ven. Kwan Tam Woo wrote:Well, I don't think they're causally analagous, I think you may have misinterpreted the metaphor. The concept behind the metaphor is that if you were to display every possible pattern, i.e. ignite all RGB inputs, you'd end up with a white screen. The impression in the mystical experience is one of having all possibilities played out at once or having all experience simultaneously. Likewise, the art in "
Sacred Geometry" is indicative of this underlying pattern that any object or image can be drawn out from.
So in other words, you do in fact think they’re causally analogous. Just because you have an “impression” of something happening in an altered state of neurological functioning doesn’t mean that it’s actually so, and that’s even before we consider the extent to which such experiences are conditioned by preconceived notions beforehand (e.g. from listening to the articulate ramblings of Terence McKenna) and selective memory afterwards.
Well, these archetypes will occur whether or not you listen to Dennis or Terence McKenna. They seem to be ignited in any individual willing to take upon this endeavor. Sure, just because you have an impression of something doesn't mean it's actually so, and so we take this default position of ignorance, because we don't know what's going on. However, it also doesn't necessarily mean that it isn't so.
Did you first take these hallucinogens before or after you had listened to McKenna and/or others talk about their experiences on them? Until you can provide compelling evidence that these experiences are something more than mental impressions, then there is no compelling reason to treat them as anything other than imaginary. Why? Because given the evidence accumulated thus far, a world where these experiences are ‘real’ is
functionally indistinguishable from a world where they are purely imaginary.
The phenomenon is real, the archetypes are there, the motifs are ever-present. I took 'em before, but I hadn't taken the recommended dose until I was given the dose amount from Terence. But my experience would have been the same whether or not I had listened to Terence as long as I had taken that dose amount. I mean, if you truly want to convince yourself, why don't you just consider this endeavor for yourself? I mean, like Joe Rogan said, "Everybody's running around looking for spiritual or mystical experiences. You can have that. You really can. It is a
real thing. It doesn't care whether you believe it or don't believe in it. It's not dogmatic. It is a legit thing." It'll challenge your point-of-view no matter where you start from be it atheism, Taoism, etc.
Ven. Kwan Tam Woo wrote:
That was a possible explanation, it wasn't the explanation.
What do you mean it wasn’t “the explanation”? Have you got a better one?
Well, I thought Sam Harris' was pretty good. After all, Sam Harris did say about the psychedelic experience that, "It's
absolutely clear to me that there is a range of experience there that is hugely motivating, real, and accessible and has been traditionally described only in religious language and seems to cash out the crazy claims of the various religions." - Straight from the mouth of Sam Harris himself, folks!
So you haven’t got a better explanation then.
Well, I agree with Harris that this experience could potentially be reduced to not the "misfiring," but the firing of synapses throughout the brain that cause this higher cortical experience to occur. That this neuronal activity is heightened in even areas that are usually dormant, and as a result produce this panesthesia or omniexperience.
Ven. Kwan Tam Woo wrote:Every possible image or interpretation of the reflection of light is lit up and what then falls behind closed eyelids are these geometric patterns. That's why people will reach for religious vocabulary in articulating this experience or why someone might believe they're witnessing the language of extraterrestrials.
Where is your evidence for this claim?
The experience, of course. Have you not had it?
Not good enough. How do you know that the experience is actually underpinned by the mechanism you describe, and that it is not merely an impression of a scrambled mind which has been further distorted after the fact by faulty memory, wishful thinking and suggestion?
Well, that was the point of the clinical trials ran in the University of John Hopkins and the University of New Mexico. You could read dozens and dozens of trip reports even with heroic doses taken of psilocybin or DMT and see these underlying motifs riddled throughout. I mean, if you take a heroic dose, and come back saying that you didn't experience this type of profundity that I've been referring to here, then you and I have got to talk, because I've got to know your thought process behind it. Because according to everyone I've spoken to who's had this experience, they have become convinced without an iota of doubt. The extraordinary evidence is this extraordinary experience, and it is available even to the most hardened skeptics.
Ven. Kwan Tam Woo wrote:Ven. Kwan Tam Woo wrote:
I got what he was talking about.
So did I, and it was total fucking word salad. Nonetheless, you are welcome to explain what you think he meant
in your own words.
Well, I have explained this in my own words, but here it goes again. I gave an example in an earlier post of the parallels between 11-dimensional hyperspace in M-theory and the notion of Brahman in Hinduism. The simplest example is if you can imagine a cone that has its base level to the ground, and the tip pointed upward. If you make a horizontal conic section, then you'll end up with a circle. So, the two-dimensional slice through the three-dimensional cone leaves you with this two-dimensional plane. Now, Rob Bryanton had an interesting metaphor for 11-dimensional hyperspace. He said, "Imagine 11-dimensional hyperspace as a place where all possibilities are contained" such that our reality is a three-dimensional slice through this hyperdimensional domain. So, the domain of 11-dimensional hyperspace contains all possibilities that can manifest in a sort of limbo of pure potentiality. This is precisely what Brahman is described as, you see, because it is static, timeless, unchanging, and absolute. It contains all possibilities that could manifest, and therefore it is absolute, it is without time, because it is, in some sense, every single point in time being expressed simultaneously in a kind of frozen, unchanging state of potentiality that resides in hyperspace. Likewise, this is precisely how Michio Kaku describes 11-dimensional hyperspace.
"In string theory, all particles are vibrations on a tiny rubber band; physics is the harmonies on the string; chemistry is the melodies we play on vibrating strings; the universe is a symphony of strings, and the 'Mind of God' is cosmic music resonating in 11-dimensional hyperspace." - Michio Kaku
He often compares the strings of string theory with the strings of a music instrument, and of course, you don't play all the strings at once, you see, but all possible notes are contained in 11-dimensional hyperspace, and the experience of "oneness" in the psychedelic experience is quite akin of somehow seeing the domain in which all notes are being played simultaneously.
All I see here is a bunch of wild speculations with no substantive evidence to back them up. Who the fuck is Rob Bryanton, and where’s his evidence for his claim?? And how does it follow that the experiences from hallucinations are actually experiences of such a multi-dimensional reality, even if such a reality did exist?
Well, we're not sure really if they are, but what I was attempting to point out is the parallels between these concepts. Perhaps if we had a grip on what consciousness was and if we could prove M-theory, then we could truly and properly study this phenomenon in consciousness, so until then you will have wild speculation. Rob Bryanton is the host of the 10thdim channel at YouTube, and while he's not a theoretical physicist or anything like that, he's simply a person with a grasp of these concepts that is less tenuous than that of your average layman. So, his metaphor was simply a stencil, an analogy to attempt to understand these very complex notions.
Ven. Kwan Tam Woo wrote:Ven. Kwan Tam Woo wrote:
Well, in this case, these experiences are the evidence. That's the entire point of the clinical trials that were done at the John Hopkins University and the work Dr. Rick Strassman did at the University of New Mexico.
No they’re not. The key contention here is that these hallucination experiences are glimpses into some higher transcendental reality. You cannot demonstrate the validity of these experiences by pointing to the experiences themselves. That is circular reasoning.
I disagree. The experience is the meat of this evidence. The extraordinary evidence lies in this extraordinary experience. I believe you simply underestimate the experience perhaps because you've never had such an experience yourself.
No, you overestimate the experience because it’s so whizz-bang and exotic. You are unable to get your head around the notion that the vividness and emotional power of an experience is not necessarily a reliable indicator of its factuality.
It is not enough to take this assumption for granted; you need to demonstrate its validity . Until you can provide
independent evidence for this claim (i.e. evidence which does NOT involve being under the influence of hallucinogens), then all you have is a circular argument which says “these experiences seem extraordinary, therefore they are windows into a higher reality, and I can tell that they are glimpses into higher reality because they seem so extraordinary”.
Well, the experience speaks for itself. I mean, I don't think you can objectively transmit these concepts. English is too low dimensional a language or perhaps the primate mind runs at too low a Hertz rate to even begin to grasp it. That's why I think the experience is absolutely necessary. I don't think I could have been convinced any other way. Like I said before, if I hadn't the experience myself, then I'd without a doubt share your skepticism.
Ven. Kwan Tam Woo wrote:
This statement shows you've either misunderstood or misinterpreted what I've said thus far. I wouldn't equate this to those people who "hear things" or "see things." If a person claims they're seeing leprechauns or unicorns, that's just one subset of possible imageries that would go on in the psychedelic experience. Like I said, there's an impression of every possible imagery that could possibly be displayed. So, that's how I distinguish this experience from someone with a neurological condition that is causing them to perceive entities that aren't there.
Like hell I’ve misunderstood. The answer to my question then is “yes”, you really can’t your head around the idea that an experience which SEEMS supercalifragilistically awesome isn’t necessarily an accurate representation of reality.
Again, what reality are you talking about? Consensus reality? You see, once again you're missing the point. Whether it's an accurate representation of "consensus reality" is besides the point, because that really what people are arguing for in this experience. Obviously, there's more neuronal activity occurring in this experience then there is occurring in an ordinary state of consciousness. It's this type of perturbation of mind that people find insightful whether spiritual or psychological. The idea behind Perennial Philosophy is that this experience laid the basis for the notion of the "soul" or "God" in the first place. As Terence
said, "When you take the 'heroic dose,' now hunting is out of the question and even fucking is out of the question, because you are nailed to the ground somewhere off at the edge of the firelight wrestling with a mystery so profound, so bizarre that even as we sit here with Husserl, Heidegger, and Heisenberg, and all these clowns under our belts, it is still absolutely mysterious, appalling, challenging, boundary-dissolving, and unavoidably ecstatic, it is 'the living mystery,' and I don't know how many of them there are in the world, but for my money there only has to be one to rescue the entire concept from the dirty claws of the reductionists, the materialists, the Christ-ers, the nothing but-ers, the merely this and the simply that-ers!"
No I’m not talking about “Consensus Reality” because there is no such thing. How do you know that there’s
more neural activity occurring in these experiences, or – even if there *is* more neural activity – that it is necessarily doing a better job of processing reality? Where is your data for this claim? Terence McKenna is pulling assertions out of his arse (again), even as he inadvertently points to the fact that the so-called “heroic dose” merely gives you the
imaginary impression of a deeper understanding of reality while actually taking you further away from it and making you more vulnerable to its vicissitudes. The ‘insight’ and ‘transcendence’ offered by these drugs is
counterfeit, and no more genuine than the offerings of a handsome smooth-talking con artist who seduces his victims into handing over their life savings.
I don't think so. I don't think you could smooth talk someone into forgiving their father who committed suicide or smooth talk someone who's terminally ill from cancer to learn to enjoy their last days. The insight within these experiences allow people to do this. I'm going to assume you never clicked on that link I left where Chris Kilham shared his
ayahuasca experience. I'm not sure what you mean by "better job at processing reality." You keep using the term reality as though there is some kind of absolute reality out there. I think Terence's ink analogy is more useful here. He said…
I mean, think about… and I don’t think you could discover consciousness if you didn’t perturb it, because as Marshall McClune said, “whoever discovered water, it certainly wasn’t a fish”. Well, we are fish swimming in consciousness; and yet we know it’s there. Well, the reason we know it’s there is because if you perturb it, then you see it; and you perturb it by perturbing the engine which generates it, which is the mind/brain system resting behind your eyebrows. So, you see, if you swap out the ordinary brain chemistry that are running that system in an invisible fashion, then you see: it’s like dropping ink into a bowl of clear water – suddenly the convection currents operating in the clear water become visible, because you see the particles of ink tracing out the previously invisible dynamics of the standing water. The mind is precisely like that, and the psychedelic is like a dye-marker being dropped into this aqueous system. And then you say, “Oh, I see – it works like this… and like this.
The psychedelic is working like a dye marker, and if the ink fills the bowl, then that'd be akin to these neurotransmitters attaching themselves to the synapses throughout the brain. Another similar analogy I'd like to add… Do you recall that scene in the movie "Twister" where they're trying to get Dorothy off the ground? Well, they finally do in the last scene of the movie, and dozens of these little sensors go flying through the air relaying back information about the dynamics of the tornado. You could imagine the mushroom as Dorothy, and the psilocybin molecules as these sensors as they react with your serotonergic system feeding back to you information about consciousness that, like in the movie Twister, would take years to otherwise collect.
Ven. Kwan Tam Woo wrote:Ven. Kwan Tam Woo wrote:
Not really. Because it's not like I'm saying, "We don't know what consciousness is, therefore there must be a God." Perhaps Sam is right, however there's no confirmation. I'm not discounting what Harris has said, but the fact of the matter is that there is no neuroscientific confirmation of this explanation.
What you *are* saying is that exposing the brain to foreign substances provides a window into some Higher Reality / Ground of Being. You are making this assertion based on incomplete knowledge of 1) how the brain works and 2) how certain substances disturb the functioning of the brain. Therefore you are speculating about a Ground of the Gaps. Harris’ explanation has a damn sight more neuroscientific credibility than what you’re proposing.
Well, I thought Terence's analogy of dropping ink into a bowl of water to witness all the convection currents and dynamics of the water in motion worked well towards Harris' explanation. I don't think it's some "higher reality," although it definitely seems to allude to one in the experience. There is a fellow at the "Egodeath.com" website that believes this experience confers a revelation of "no free will." A kind of hard determinism. If this is the case, then in one sense this could be seen as a "higher power" in the sense that all that happens from the motion of every spec of dust, the sway of every grassblade, the fall of every raindrop, your every thought, down to every quantum effect is all predetermined by a cosmic law or if you're religious, then "God's will." That everything we type here, even, has been pre-ordained throughout all eternity, and here we are just typing as though we were the authors of our actions.
Blah blah blah, where’s the evidence??
I've already pointed to the evidence done at John Hopkins University and Stassman's evidence. What else is there left to do? Shall I send you 70mg of DMT in the mail? That's how Alex Grey got his first dose, by the way. Terence McKenna sent him DMT via UPS.
Ven. Kwan Tam Woo wrote: Ven. Kwan Tam Woo wrote:
Well, he's one of many famous people who've done this and had their lives completely transformed by this experience. Amber Lyon, Francis Crick, Aldous Huxley, Richard Alpert, James Scott, etc.
So what? It simply does not follow that someone has glimpsed into a deeper/higher reality just because they have undergone a personal transformation as a result of such an experience. Come back and talk to us when one of these people –
just one of them – brings back something substantive and independently verifiable from these experiences.
But people have. People bring back these archetypes. I mentioned before that this experience isn't going to help you find your car keys or solve the drought problem. The insight seems so "deep," for lack of a better word, that the primary beneficial thing that people gain from this experience is simply peace of mind, a kind of closer, the cessation of cognitive dissonance, etc. I want to quote Watts quoting Confucius… Watts would say, "As Confucius would very wisely say, 'A man who understands the Tao in the morning, could die with content with in the evening."
What “archetypes”?? In what way are these “archetypes” falsifiable, in what way do they have any practical usefulness or relevance in the real world? Yes the insight SEEMS deep, but that doesn’t mean there’s any substance to it. Peace of mind is all well and good, but there is no reason to believe that peace of mind = access to a deeper or higher reality. Bottom line, you can take all the brain-scrambling hallucinogens in the world but at the end of the day they amount to nothing more than a chemical amusement park.
Well, this is anything but an amusement park. Why don't you read "DMT: The Spirit Molecule"? I mean, they go into these topics quite extensively. Topics like the motifs of the experience, the dose response and "threshold dose," etc. I mean, that's just your own skeptical bent there not accepting any of that work as evidence when it so obviously is.
Onyx8 wrote:I love the term: "heavily speculated".
Is that better than 'lightly speculated"?
Well, what I mean by "heavily speculated" is that there's a lot evidence to back this speculation up. The reason why the pineal gland is "heavily speculated" to be the source of DMT is because it has the necessary constituents to synthesize N,N-DMT. tryptophan is two enzymatic steps away from being N,N-DMT, and so tryptophan and the enzymes necessary to make this synthesis are all present in the pineal gland. Then, you have the research done with
rats in 2013 that actually proved that the pineal gland was manufacturing DMT. So, that's why I say "heavily speculated," because it's a safe bet that DMT is being produced in the pineal glands of human beings, too.
by 
What struck me most was perspectives and angles; there was that feeling when you're looking at a stereogram and you are just a touch away from the picture falling into place, but it was about shadows and angles - impossible to explain when not high! 
