Kafei wrote:

Spearthrower wrote:

Well, only to the skeptic who's never drank ayahuasca or who's never taken a "heroic dose" of psilocybin, but these things will flood the mind with information. That is guaranteed if you take the "heroic dose."

Says the guy who's never taken ayahuasca, and who we have only personal testimony as evidence for ever having taken a "juvenile dose" of psilocybin.

And of course, we have the 'guarantee' that magic will happen, but if you have taken both and didn't see the magic, it's because you weren't praying hard enough didn't take enough!

I've never taken ayahuasca, sure. Yes, I admit that. I'd like to try it someday, but I have taken a heroic dose of psilocybin. Personal testimony is evidence in this endeavor, especially when you've dozens of volunteers taking the threshold dose and reporting this topos of universality.

Nothing universal about it. Not everyone taking massive amounts the same kinds of drugs has the same experience. What they have are similar stories about the experiences with some overlapping patterns of imagery. Not to be unexpected under the circumstances.

And yes, dose is very important, because what you want is a threshold experience.

And of course if someone doesn't come away convinced that they've glimpsed ultimate reality or met space aliens or visited extra dimensional angels they didn't take enough to have this threshold experience. It's just another form of the no true Scotsman fallacy. If you take enough you'll know what I know. If you don't know what I know then you didn't take enough.

Really, after the years of being told where and how your argument goes wrong I'd think you'd give it up. But instead you just move on to a different forum and start up all over again with the same tired routine and getting shot down by different people telling you what you've heard more than once before.

There will be difficult times on a threshold experience, but I believe certain questions will dissolve of their cognitive dissonance, ambiguity, and uncertainty. So, we know that everyone has a unique ADME (absorption, distribution, metabolism, and excretion), so the "heroic dose" isn't a fixed dose. It's going to be relative to your unique physiology. So, this isn't a matter of "not praying enough" or "not taking enough." If you hit the marker, then you hit the marker; if you don't, then you don't. So, of course, if you take a subthreshold dose, you didn't taken enough. However, if you hit the threshold, then you've obviously had taken the sufficient amount to produce this experience. I mean, that's not a "No true Scotsman" fallacy, it's science, it's pharmacodynamics. There's an entire chapter in Strassman's book "Drse MT: The Spirit Molecule" on the threshold dose. Maybe I'll post that, too, if it's not abundantly clear by now.

What's abundantly clear is that you just keep repeating the same circular nonsense. Piling up no true Scotsmen like cord wood.

"You must do the experience, otherwise it’s just whistling past the graveyard. And we’re not talking about something like being born again, or meeting the flying saucers, or something like that where good works and prayer are the method. No, If you take a sufficient dose of an active compound it will deliver itself to you on the money. Because There’s nothing worse than a sub-threshold psychedelic experience. Because what it is, is it’s all show and no go, you know. You feel the CNS activation, you feel the keyboards light up, everything comes on, you start down the runaway, you pick-up speed, you pick-up speed, you pick-up speed… And then you come to the end of the runway! And taxi back to the hangar. Well, that was not a flight to Boston, that was just clogging the traffic pattern." -Terence McKenna

It doesn't help posting more inane quotes from your guru who is just confirming your own bias. McKenna's no true Scotsmen are no better than yours.

Kafei wrote:...and like I said, his vocabulary is unrivaled from any other public speaker I've ever heard on the podium.

Maybe you should get out more.

I just read a transcript of 'what science forgot', (which seems far quicker and less annoying than having to experience him speaking it), and the only word in it I had to look up was one which seemed , if anything, to be rather dubiously used to the extent I'm not sure if he knew what it meant either.

In any case, surely the main point of public speaking is communication, not showing how much time one has spent delving into dictionaries?

Kafei wrote:

Oldskeptic wrote:

Kafei wrote:

Oldskeptic wrote:

There are no parallels only a few random superficial coincidences. Ancient "mystics" didn't uncover the universe's mysteries and secrets by sitting around thinking about it or getting high.

Many theoretical physicists have pointed out these parallels.

Your looking for authority where it doesn't exist.

I didn't go out "looking for authority." I wasn't seeking that at all. This is simply what I've read by the authorities on these topics.

Oldskeptic wrote:

Michio Kaku has spoken about this,...

Here's what I found of Kaku talking about mystics and extra dimensions: ""Higher-dimensional space became the last refuge for mystics, cranks, and charlatans."

Not quite the endorsement you were looking for, is it?

You've got an incomplete quote. Again, I wasn't looking for "endorsements." If you had searched a little better, you'd find that this isn't me simply searching for authority or twisting a theoretical physicist's words around for personal gain. I have no personal gain. I'm only relaying what I've read the authorities speak about on these topics. I've no position on any of this, if anything I'm ultimately agnostic as what is the true nature of the mind. You see, if you had found the complete quote, you'd see that Kaku was saying at a time "higher dimensions" were exclusively the domain of mystics, sci-fi writers, etc. Now, serious theoretical physicists not only believe that higher dimensions exist, but they may explain some of the deepest secrets of the universe. [ Full Article]

That's not the quote I was talking about I was talking about the quote from page 23 of his book Hyperspace. And indeed he talks about mystics helping to illustrate how to think about extra dimensions: Mystics such as Bernhard Rienmann, Louis Carol, L. Frank Baum, and J. M. Barrie. The other dimensions he was referring to were The Land of OZ, Wonderland, and Never Land.

As for the source of your quote in it's entirety:

Do higher dimensions exist? Are there unseen worlds just beyond our reach, beyond the normal laws of physics? Although higher dimensions have historically been the exclusive realm of charlatans, mystics, and science fiction writers, many serious theoretical physicists now believe that higher dimensions not only exist, but may also explain some of the deepest secrets of nature. Although we stress that there is at present no experimental evidence for higher dimensions, in principle they may solve the ultimate problem in physics: the final unification of all physical knowledge at the fundamental level.

Nothing there about ancient mystics or parallels of 11 dimensional M-theory with ancient mystics.

Kafei wrote:

...David Bohm, Werner Heisenberg, Neils Bohr,

Oldskeptic wrote:

All of whom died before Witten proposed M-theory.

Kafei wrote:

In an interview with Fritjof Capra, Heisenberg spoke about these parallels between quantum mechanics and eastern mysticism. Likewise, Bohm and Bohr were also fascinated with eastern philosophy. Bohm and Jiddu Krishnamurti have had many interesting dialogues which can be found on YouTube on all these topics.

Changing the subject or changing the goalposts? M-theory - 11 dimensions, not quantum theory.

Kafei wrote:

They aren't simply superficial coincidences, they're only superficial coincidences to the untrained eye. And one doesn't sit around "think" or "get high," but quite the opposite. It is within quieting the mind that this insight is manifested.

Oldskeptic wrote:

A mind producing hallucinations, drug induced or not, is anything but quiet.

Kafei wrote:

Well, this is the speculatory hypothesis in Dr. Rick Stassman's book, that if one can manage to quiet the mind, then they'd induce endogenous N,N-DMT naturally and have this experience occur.

Speculatory is the key word here, and since there is absolutely no evidence for this it is beyond highly speculative.

Kafei wrote:

After all, this is what happens when you fall asleep, only then does subconscious thought take over, and this is cause for the dream.

What is cause for the dream? You need to be a bit more specific.

Kafei wrote:

If you watch an experienced monk give a demonstration of samadhi, they will instantly undergo REM.

You mean the monks eyes are going to rapidly move around randomly?

When smokes DMT, they instantly undergo REM. I don't think these are merely coincidences.

Once again, I don't think you know what the fuck you're talking about. Just throwing words together that you think sound impressive. Unfortunately for you some people here have wide knowledge in many subjects. You can't bullshit your way here.

REM is a sleeping state were the eyes move rapidly, hence the name. Rem is also a sleep state were brain activity is the much the same as a waking state. During REM the mind is busy not quiet.

Kafie wrote:

These things were called "consciousness expanding drugs" back in the '60s and '70s which is a good ol' phenomenological name for 'em.

Oldskeptic wrote:

It's what some people called them, doesn't make it so.

Kafei wrote:

Well, only to the skeptic who's never drank ayahuasca or who's never taken a "heroic dose" of psilocybin, but these things will flood the mind with information. That is guaranteed if you take the "heroic dose."

What things? What information? Is it really guaranteed? What about when I took massive doses of mescaline or mushrooms and didn't get my mind flooded with these things or information?

Oh, that's right, I didn't take enough. I almost forgot that killer argument.

Kafei wrote:
I disagree. I believe it's all interconnected. The third dimension implies all the others.

Oldskeptic wrote:

Tell me which of the three observable spacial dimensions is the third? And even if there was a third dimension and it implies others this does not even come close to implying that there is any way to experience them.

Kafei wrote:

Well, we don't know that, because these drugs haven't been properly studied. We still lack the technological sophistication to prove M-theory. Until we have an unfettered investigation of these compounds and their relationship to consciousness, these questions will remain unanswered.

No, they're pretty much answered already if you're going by M-theory.

tolman wrote:

Kafei wrote:...and like I said, his vocabulary is unrivaled from any other public speaker I've ever heard on the podium.

Maybe you should get out more.

I just read a transcript of 'what science forgot', (which seems far quicker and less annoying than having to experience him speaking it), and the only word in it I had to look up was one which seemed , if anything, to be rather dubiously used to the extent I'm not sure if he knew what it meant either.

In any case, surely the main point of public speaking is communication, not showing how much time one has spent delving into dictionaries?

Lewis Carol used a lot of words I don't understand, but I don't know that they made much sense. Kinda like McKenna.


’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!”

He took his vorpal sword in hand;
Long time the manxome foe he sought—
So rested he by the Tumtum tree
And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

“And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!”
He chortled in his joy.

’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

Will S wrote:I'd have thought that 'the ground of all being' is 'whatever it is (or was) that makes (or made) things the way that they are'.

You can, then, if you want to, use the 3-letter word 'God' to denote this unknown entity (or entities).

But, of course, that leaves entirely open and unanswered the question: Does 'God', defined in this way, have anything to do with the 'God' which the adherents of Christianity, or of any other religion, talk about? If a religious person says, 'The God of my religion is the ground of all being', then the obvious response is, 'OK. Go on. I'm listening. Just for starters, can you please explain why you think that the God of your religion exists?'

In this way, you might get into a helpful discussion with the religious person, and he might be able to show you that he's got reasons for believing that it's the God of his religion who made things the way they are, and this God is therefore 'the ground of all being'. Or, of course, your discussion might go nowhere ....

This is a very salient point from my perspective. The gods of various religions often/typically carry several thousand years worth of prescientific baggage and that baggage is what lots if not most religious people seem to attach themselves to. But in most traditions the underlying theme of this ground of all being is there. So, it is easy to say that all gods can be disproven while this particular god is simply a matter of fact. Actually, all the religious people I know (which isn't many) seem to have tossed the bulk of the baggage and have settled on the unknowable but experiential god which is not particularly scientific, at least, not yet, and still doesn't have much in common with the gods of fire and brimstone or whatever.

And the religious traditions do seem to have some information on what their mystics have discovered. Separating that from the baggage is easy for some, hard for others.

This thread is worth a look; by page 2 it gets into a discussion of Tillich, the Ground of All Being, and Ignosticism.

In it I write that I can think of three responses to Tillich's notion. First, it's a fancy repackaging of pantheism. Second, it's a fancy repackaging of God as the uncaused cause (in which case it gets us into an infinite regress). Third, it's pure obfuscation, and the proper response is an ignostic one.

Weighing in on “ignosticism”, here are a few things compiled from a few posts I’ve made over the years:

The term “ignostic” was coined by the late, great Rabbi Sherwin Wine - outspoken atheist and founder of Humanistic Judaism. For what it’s worth, I can speak about this with some authority, since Wine was my mentor and close friend for many years. (His sudden death in 2007 in an auto accident was a tremendous loss to the cause of reason, humanism and secularism.) Sherwin and I often talked about this issue. He invented the word “ignostic" to define his stance towards fuzzy, ill-defined evasive talk about "god as energy" or "god as the ground of all being". It was, in other words, a very pragmatic stance. I remember him saying, in essence:

Rabbi Sherwin Wine wrote:If you ask me 'do you believe in the god Yahweh as described in the Bible', then I can say yes, no, I don't know, etc. But if you ask me 'do you believe in god as a cosmic energy that binds all things, is immaterial, beyond space and time and is the ground of all being' - if you ask me that, I can't answer you because I have no idea what you're saying. And I'm not stupid. So I suspect you're being obfuscatory. I can't even begin to answer until you define your terms.

Though the term is still useful today, it’s interesting to note the context in which Sherwin invented it: during the heyday of the New Age in the 1960s. People were rebelling against traditional religion - but replacing it with great clouds of woo. Ignosticism was a useful stance that cut through all the word salad. It said, quite plainly, that until people define their terms clearly, no useful conversation could be possible.

An odd footnote: not that it matters, but Sherwin always attributed the coinage of the term to Paul Kurtz, and Kurtz always gave Sherwin credit for it. I’m not sure what that was all about.

tolman wrote:

Kafei wrote:...and like I said, his vocabulary is unrivaled from any other public speaker I've ever heard on the podium.

Maybe you should get out more.

I just read a transcript of 'what science forgot', (which seems far quicker and less annoying than having to experience him speaking it), and the only word in it I had to look up was one which seemed , if anything, to be rather dubiously used to the extent I'm not sure if he knew what it meant either.

In any case, surely the main point of public speaking is communication, not showing how much time one has spent delving into dictionaries?

Well, I had intentionally linked to the Q&A portion of "What Science Forgot" for you, because I felt that was where Terence was really challenged. He had skeptics in his audience, too. He preferred to have a skeptical crowd over preaching to the choir. It's not fun if everyone agrees with you.

Oldskeptic wrote:

Nothing universal about it. Not everyone taking massive amounts the same kinds of drugs has the same experience. What they have are similar stories about the experiences with some overlapping patterns of imagery. Not to be unexpected under the circumstances.

Well, I disagree. I believe it is an experience that is in some sense universal. What makes it seem one of a kind is that it's simply filtered through the individual's unique personality. So that if they don't have a background in religion, they might reach for other profound metaphors in attempt to describe this experience, like an encounter with ETs or an alien mind or simply something beyond themselves that they cannot quite define. By and large, the overwhelming intuition is something transcendental, profound, and interconnected.

Oldskeptic wrote:

And yes, dose is very important, because what you want is a threshold experience.

And of course if someone doesn't come away convinced that they've glimpsed ultimate reality or met space aliens or visited extra dimensional angels they didn't take enough to have this threshold experience. It's just another form of the no true Scotsman fallacy. If you take enough you'll know what I know. If you don't know what I know then you didn't take enough.

Again, I disagree. The threshold dose amount isn't a point in your psychology where you say, "Okay, the experience was profound, therefore I had a breakthrough," or "I did not experience anything spiritual/transcendent, and therefore I dismiss this experience." It doesn't work that way. The threshold amount is something relative to your physiology. It's not psychological, it has to do with pharmacodynamics. So, it doesn't equate to a "No true Scotsman" fallacy for this reason. I mean, if that were the case, then it's like saying, "I could down an full 190 proof Everclear bottle, and and I never get drunk!" That's bullshit. If that doesn't completely waste you, it'd probably kill you. The effect isn't placebo or psychological, it's a physiological effect.

Oldskeptic wrote:Really, after the years of being told where and how your argument goes wrong I'd think you'd give it up. But instead you just move on to a different forum and start up all over again with the same tired routine and getting shot down by different people telling you what you've heard more than once before.

Years of being told by who? People who've never tried this stuff? The only person who admitted to having intense psychedelic experiences also admitted to having these themes occur within these experiences. So, that didn't go against my point, it was actually for it. If by "years," you're referring to ol' Gallup's Mirror from the ThinkAtheist forums, that guy obviously had a subthreshold dose in an instance he was attempting to recall over twenty years ago, but there was no convincing him. You see, a full dose usually doesn't leave you that easily. It has the potential to forever change and sway the direction of your life. Even after twenty years, it will still continue to vibrate within your life. We had to end the discussion early, because he was pissing off Dan, the owner of TA, with his "incessant whiny bullshit." Dan's words, not mine. I actually posted Gallup's description of his so-called "psychedelic experience" at a forum where experienced psychedelicists announced it nonsense. They believed either he had a subthreshold experience or he was flat-out lying about the experience that he had, and it didn't in no way at all resemble the full-throttle experience that a heroic dose would elicit. The thread's still there, and you'll even see how certain details in Gallup's story change. He can't even keep the story straight. I even saved a screenshot of this funny shit. I was going to post the link to the other forum, but Dan was already getting fed up with Gallup's crap.

Oldskeptic wrote:
What's abundantly clear is that you just keep repeating the same circular nonsense. Piling up no true Scotsmen like cord wood.

Well, apparently, I don't think I have been clear, then. Because people keep assuming "No true Scotsman," when that's impossible. It defies pharmacodynamics to imagine that someone would not induce this phenomenon in consciousness once they've had the full-spectrum dose.

Oldskeptic wrote:It doesn't help posting more inane quotes from your guru who is just confirming your own bias. McKenna's no true Scotsmen are no better than yours.

Terence isn't my "guru" and I don't have a bias. The fact that people believe that this is some kind of "No true Scotsman" argument is further evidence of everyone's nescience on these topics. That's all.

Oldskeptic wrote:That's not the quote I was talking about I was talking about the quote from page 23 of his book Hyperspace. And indeed he talks about mystics helping to illustrate how to think about extra dimensions: Mystics such as Bernhard Rienmann, Louis Carol, L. Frank Baum, and J. M. Barrie. The other dimensions he was referring to were The Land of OZ, Wonderland, and Never Land.

As for the source of your quote in it's entirety:

Do higher dimensions exist? Are there unseen worlds just beyond our reach, beyond the normal laws of physics? Although higher dimensions have historically been the exclusive realm of charlatans, mystics, and science fiction writers, many serious theoretical physicists now believe that higher dimensions not only exist, but may also explain some of the deepest secrets of nature. Although we stress that there is at present no experimental evidence for higher dimensions, in principle they may solve the ultimate problem in physics: the final unification of all physical knowledge at the fundamental level.

Nothing there about ancient mystics or parallels of 11 dimensional M-theory with ancient mystics.

Michio Kaku has compared the "nirvana" of Buddhism to hyperspace on many occasions. One of his quotes he often uses is "nirvana of hyperspace" and another quote is "The mind of God as music resonating through hyperspace." I've spoken about in detail how these parallels are thought about, and have given a few examples over the length of this thread. I don't think you have to be a rocket scientist to see these parallels. I believe any lay person could understand it.

Oldskeptic wrote:Changing the subject or changing the goalposts? M-theory - 11 dimensions, not quantum theory.

No, I'm not. Superstring theory had been around for a while before the fundamental forces were described and combined in M-theory. Evidence of M-theory or string theory will come out of quantum physics, it's simply we don't have the technology to prove M-theory, of course, even that evidence will be indirect. These parallels have been pointed out in both string theory and quantum mechanics, and I believe it's because these concepts are of the essence. It's a principle. It's basically the yin and yang expressed as duality in every aspect of nature. Alan Watts once said, "Everything fundamentally is yang and yin. If you understand that, you really don't need to understand anything else."

Oldskeptic wrote:

Kafei wrote:
After all, this is what happens when you fall asleep, only then does subconscious thought take over, and this is cause for the dream.

What is cause for the dream? You need to be a bit more specific.

Well, I was referring to the subconscious activity. Whether DMT is involved in that, that's what's speculatory.

Oldskeptic wrote:

Kafei wrote:

If you watch an experienced monk give a demonstration of samadhi, they will instantly undergo REM.

You mean the monks eyes are going to rapidly move around randomly?

Well, yes, this is what I meant. That when a monk enters into the state of samadhi, their eyes rapidly race in all directions behind their closed eyelids, and there has been experiments done on Tibetan monks that actually showed that these monks were exhibiting gamma-band brainwave oscillations as the ones that are observed in the REM stage of sleep.

Oldskeptic wrote:

When smokes DMT, they instantly undergo REM. I don't think these are merely coincidences.

Once again, I don't think you know what the fuck you're talking about. Just throwing words together that you think sound impressive. Unfortunately for you some people here have wide knowledge in many subjects. You can't bullshit your way here.

Well, I'm not throwing words together, you could research all this for yourself. I'm heavily obsessed with this stuff, and spend a lot of time studying these sort of topics, and I wouldn't try and speak on something if I didn't know what I was talking about. The fact you'd think that is probably because this stuff is associated with all the stuff hardened skeptics and atheists consider "spiritual mumbo, jumbo third eye bullshit," and so when they hear there's actually some science behind this stuff, they're just in a state of disbelief.

Oldskeptic wrote:REM is a sleeping state were the eyes move rapidly, hence the name. Rem is also a sleep state were brain activity is the much the same as a waking state. During REM the mind is busy not quiet.

I'm aware of that, but this is the claim or speculation, that this activity is attained once one can manage to quiet the mind. In other words, the heightened oscillations is what follows when someone can manage to quiet the mind. Of course, this happens every night when we fall asleep. Our minds become exhausted to the point where we cannot carry a thought on anymore, and so we enter into these slower oscillations in the early stages of sleep.

Oldskeptic wrote:What things? What information? Is it really guaranteed? What about when I took massive doses of mescaline or mushrooms and didn't get my mind flooded with these things or information?

Oh, that's right, I didn't take enough. I almost forgot that killer argument.

It's not a tryptamine-based compound like psilocybin or DMT, but it will produce similar effects nonetheless, if you take enough, you will get the iridescent fractals and these unsubtle effects that I've been talking about here. I have a friend who attends pow wows where mescaline is taken, but in very, very small amounts. Apparently, this is what the tradition has come to nowadays. The LD-50 in mescaline is actually much higher in rats than psilocybin, so I'm not sure what you're calling a "massive dose," but did you drink a full cup? Did you eat over 13 buttons? A full dose is usually a dose that makes your palms sweat before you take it, because you're nervous. Terence used to say, "If you haven't taken enough that you think that you may have done too much, then you did too little."

Oldskeptic wrote:

Kafei wrote:

Well, we don't know that, because these drugs haven't been properly studied. We still lack the technological sophistication to prove M-theory. Until we have an unfettered investigation of these compounds and their relationship to consciousness, these questions will remain unanswered.

No, they're pretty much answered already if you're going by M-theory.

M-theory is unproven. We don't know exactly what's going on, and that's why I believe neuroscience is basically a shot in the dark at this point in explaining consciousness.

Oldskeptic wrote:

tolman wrote:

Kafei wrote:...and like I said, his vocabulary is unrivaled from any other public speaker I've ever heard on the podium.

Maybe you should get out more.

I just read a transcript of 'what science forgot', (which seems far quicker and less annoying than having to experience him speaking it), and the only word in it I had to look up was one which seemed , if anything, to be rather dubiously used to the extent I'm not sure if he knew what it meant either.

In any case, surely the main point of public speaking is communication, not showing how much time one has spent delving into dictionaries?

Lewis Carol used a lot of words I don't understand, but I don't know that they made much sense. Kinda like McKenna.


’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!”

He took his vorpal sword in hand;
Long time the manxome foe he sought—
So rested he by the Tumtum tree
And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

“And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!”
He chortled in his joy.

’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

Quoted for truth!

kennyc wrote:

Oldskeptic wrote:

tolman wrote:

Kafei wrote:...and like I said, his vocabulary is unrivaled from any other public speaker I've ever heard on the podium.

Maybe you should get out more.

I just read a transcript of 'what science forgot', (which seems far quicker and less annoying than having to experience him speaking it), and the only word in it I had to look up was one which seemed , if anything, to be rather dubiously used to the extent I'm not sure if he knew what it meant either.

In any case, surely the main point of public speaking is communication, not showing how much time one has spent delving into dictionaries?

Lewis Carol used a lot of words I don't understand, but I don't know that they made much sense. Kinda like McKenna.


’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!”

He took his vorpal sword in hand;
Long time the manxome foe he sought—
So rested he by the Tumtum tree
And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

“And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!”
He chortled in his joy.

’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

Quoted for truth!

I'm sure you guys are aware that Lewis Caroll was Charles Dodgeson's pseudonym. He wrote those books to introduce to the masses a creative way to imagine wormholes and things like that. When Alice put her hand through the Looking Glass, she was entering a Einstein-Rosen bridge connecting two universes, in a sense.

Kafei wrote:The only person who admitted to having intense psychedelic experiences also admitted to having these themes occur within these experiences. So, that didn't go against my point, it was actually for it.

Surely, what he said was essentially that his experiences seemed to be things he saw as internal, and not representative of any external connections to parallel universes, etc, and that they were simply effects resulting from a brain being made dysfunctional by drugs, not a brain being 'turned on'.

He didn't seem to be claiming that there was some magic heroic dose which actually enabled people to see everything, more that there was a level of dose where his reality-checking was sufficiently disabled that he would be able to feel (or pretend to himself) that he was seeing everything.

But that would hardly seem to be a radical suggestion, or one which people with milder experiences would have any reason to doubt.

Clearly, given the nature of the beast, with various interacting mechanisms being dialled up or down, there's a whole blurring of continuums and thresholds ("...two grammes for a trip to the gorgeous East, three for a dark eternity on the moon", etc), but it would seem strange for someone to assume that any 'subjective threshold' marked a boundary between seeing inside and seeing something outside just because it felt like it did.
After all, my dreams feel extraordinarily real at the time, but I have no reason to believe that they are anything other than my own fictions.

Similarly, no-one seems to be denying the commonality of much drug-linked experience, it's simply that that commonality seems most simply explained by it being the result of misbehaving brains misbehaving in similar ways rather than any enhancement in terms of understanding reality.

It may well be that for some people, psychedelic experiences may be like '30 years of therapy in a night', but if so, I'd wonder whether that said more about the power of psychedelics, the inefficiency of therapy, or the particular issues one individual may have had.

Kafei wrote:Well, I had intentionally linked to the Q&A portion of "What Science Forgot" for you, because I felt that was where Terence was really challenged. He had skeptics in his audience, too. He preferred to have a skeptical crowd over preaching to the choir. It's not fun if everyone agrees with you.

I don't mean just the Q&A portion, but the whole speech.
His vocabulary didn't seem usefully larger than mine.
In any case, were I to desire the experience of listening to someone use obscure words, I'd go and listen to Will Self, who seems less annoying and more entertaining

Kafei wrote:

kennyc wrote:

Oldskeptic wrote:

tolman wrote:
Maybe you should get out more.

I just read a transcript of 'what science forgot', (which seems far quicker and less annoying than having to experience him speaking it), and the only word in it I had to look up was one which seemed , if anything, to be rather dubiously used to the extent I'm not sure if he knew what it meant either.

In any case, surely the main point of public speaking is communication, not showing how much time one has spent delving into dictionaries?

Lewis Carol used a lot of words I don't understand, but I don't know that they made much sense. Kinda like McKenna.


’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!”

He took his vorpal sword in hand;
Long time the manxome foe he sought—
So rested he by the Tumtum tree
And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

“And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!”
He chortled in his joy.

’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

Quoted for truth!

I'm sure you guys are aware that Lewis Caroll was Charles Dodgeson's pseudonym. He wrote those books to introduce to the masses a creative way to imagine wormholes and things like that. When Alice put her hand through the Looking Glass, she was entering a Einstein-Rosen bridge connecting two universes, in a sense.

Do you just say whatever pops into your mind? Or do you set out to purposely demonstrate how ill informed you are?

Through the Looking Glass was written in the 1860s. The first paper on worm holes was published in 1935.

Oldskeptic wrote:

Changing the subject or changing the goalposts? M-theory - 11 dimensions, not quantum theory.

Kafei wrote:

No, I'm not. Superstring theory had been around for a while before the fundamental forces were described and combined in M-theory.

I was unaware and a bit surprised to find out that it was M-theory that first described the electromagnetic force or the weak force and then combined them into the electroweak force. Rather difficult to do if you ask me since M-theory didn't come about until 1999 and people were winning Nobel prizes for describing the electroweak force twenty years prior to that.

Also it's very surprising to find out that we have a theory of every thing uniting all four fundamental forces. I'd of thought someone would mention it other than just you.

Kafei wrote:

Evidence of M-theory or string theory will come out of quantum physics, it's simply we don't have the technology to prove M-theory, of course, even that evidence will be indirect.

And? Is there something else you want to say that I all ready know?

Kafei wrote:

These parallels have been pointed out in both string theory and quantum mechanics, and I believe it's because these concepts are of the essence.

The essence of what? How does quantum mechanics point out parallels concerning 11 dimensions when it doesn't deal with extra dimensions?

Kafei wrote:

It's a principle. It's basically the yin and yang expressed as duality in every aspect of nature.

What the fuck are you talking about? The dualities in QM have to do with the particle and wave nature of certain entities. One entity with dual natures. Yin and Yang have to do with the complementary nature of opposites. Two entities - opposite natures - one cannot be without the other.

Kafei wrote:

Alan Watts once said, "Everything fundamentally is yang and yin. If you understand that, you really don't need to understand anything else."

Alan Watts doesn't know what he's talking about anymore than you do.

tolman wrote:

Kafei wrote:The only person who admitted to having intense psychedelic experiences also admitted to having these themes occur within these experiences. So, that didn't go against my point, it was actually for it.

Surely, what he said was essentially that his experiences seemed to be things he saw as internal, and not representative of any external connections to parallel universes, etc, and that they were simply effects resulting from a brain being made dysfunctional by drugs, not a brain being 'turned on'.

Well, I never said it was "parallel universes." And about this use of the word "dysfunctional" when referring to these states. It's only dysfunctional when you think of it in terms of how its effectiveness is towards the three-dimensional here and now. Usually, when people do this stuff in the shamanic fashion, they usually prepare the set and setting so that the "here and now" is no longer an issue. So, in this way, it's not seen as a "dysfunction" in the sense that it's some kind of impairment. Perhaps it's a dysfunction in that you're experiencing an abnormal experience or an experience apart from the norm, but during these experiences your thinking is quite intact. You're still able to intellectualize and all of that, it's simply that reality as you know it has been replaced, and that's why it'd be a bad idea to take a high dose in an undesignated social setting.

tolman wrote:He didn't seem to be claiming that there was some magic heroic dose which actually enabled people to see everything, more that there was a level of dose where his reality-checking was sufficiently disabled that he would be able to feel (or pretend to himself) that he was seeing everything.

Well, I'd argue that this feeling of "intuitive omniscience" is equated to this overwhelming feeling of "oneness." To feel that it's all interconnected is to somehow know it intuitively. I'll offer you a heuristic example without calling it truth. Let's consider for a moment that hard determinism is true. This is the idea that everything that happens is preordained. That, by metaphor, the universe is akin to a movie burnt to a DVD. So, while people believe they're making choices and doing things, everything has, in this perspective, been predetermined. So, now imagine that most people are unaware of their lack of free will. This experience is like having a powerful dose of your own fatalism. You're able to somehow able to feel your fatedness, and in fact, there are those like Michael Hoffman who hosts the "EgoDeath.com" website that believe this is the ultimate insight in psychedelics.

This example is interesting, because in what sense is everything interconnected? What sense exactly is everything "one"? The "block time" is an interesting way of looking at it, because if posited for a moment that the universe actually operated this way, then that means it truly is all one. Now, of course, M-theory and superstring theory also agree that existence is a unity, but it doesn't resolve the question of "free will." So, considering the "block universe," this means your actions aren't your actions, but the actions of the universe itself. If that's so, then this could also explain the illusory aspect of the ego. The ego, in this view, is that which believes it is the author of its own actions when it truly isn't. This is a very humbling point-of-view, because it shows that there's nothing to strive for, nothing to compete with, there's no inferior, no superior which is a very Buddhist way of looking at things. Although, most Buddhists won't tell you that "there's no such thing as free will," unless you're listening to someone like Ramesh Balsekar. In assuming that you're the "ego," is to assume that you're fundamentally somehow separate from the universe. When, in fact, it's all one process. You are not separate from your environment, and the psychedelic experience allows you to somehow intuit that this is so. Not necessarily that everything is predetermined, but that it is all one interconnected process. Lisa Cairns elaborates on this idea.

tolman wrote:But that would hardly seem to be a radical suggestion, or one which people with milder experiences would have any reason to doubt.

A low dose experience and a high dose experience are like night and day. I wouldn't even compare the two. That's why I said you cannot extrapolate from a low dose to imagine what a high dose experience is like.

tolman wrote:Clearly, given the nature of the beast, with various interacting mechanisms being dialled up or down, there's a whole blurring of continuums and thresholds ("...two grammes for a trip to the gorgeous East, three for a dark eternity on the moon", etc), but it would seem strange for someone to assume that any 'subjective threshold' marked a boundary between seeing inside and seeing something outside just because it felt like it did.
After all, my dreams feel extraordinarily real at the time, but I have no reason to believe that they are anything other than my own fictions.

Well, I'm glad you brought up dreams here, because we're talking about "The Ground of all Being." There's something that I've been calling "The Fountain of Dreams," because the psychedelic isn't like the dream or even your most vivid lucid dream. It seems to encompass all dreams that one could ever have. The dream is ordinarily presented as a scenario of you as the bodily entity roaming an environment. Now, the psychedelic experience, on the other hand is what I'd call an experience of the "Fountain of Dreams," it's the source of all dreams. It's presented as having all dreams occur simultaneously. That's why I feel it's far more profound than even that of your most profound lucid dreams.

tolman wrote:Similarly, no-one seems to be denying the commonality of much drug-linked experience, it's simply that that commonality seems most simply explained by it being the result of misbehaving brains misbehaving in similar ways rather than any enhancement in terms of understanding reality.

Again, I think this "understanding reality" is the wrong way to think about this. I mean, what reality? Consensus reality? If you refer to the dye analogy from earlier, I think that's a better way of looking at how these substances offer insight. The terms used here, too, exhibit a bias for a consensus reality. You use "dysfunctional," "misbehave," and of course, you mean misbehave as "behave incorrectly" or dysfunctional as "debilitating" or "deteriorating." Towards what? The consensus reality? Sure, but that's why things like "set and setting" are put into place. Because people suspend consensus reality to take a peak at a lit up mind, and in the same way the dye illuminates the convection currents in a bowl of water, the psychedelic is like a dye being dropped into the aqueous system of mind. So, the dynamics of the water that were previously invisible are now being traced out by the dye. This is why Terence quoted Marshall McLuhan when he said, "Whoever discovered water, it certainly wasn't a fish." And pointed out that we are fish swimming in consciousness, because the medium we're in is invisible to us unless it's perturbed, and it's perturbed by swapping out the ordinary chemicals that are running that system in an invisible fashion, and once that swap is made, then the process is no longer invisible. That analogy is a better way to think about it, because it offers how people are using it in order to gain psychological insight or insight into the nature of consciousness.

tolman wrote:It may well be that for some people, psychedelic experiences may be like '30 years of therapy in a night', but if so, I'd wonder whether that said more about the power of psychedelics, the inefficiency of therapy, or the particular issues one individual may have had.

I believe it goes to the power of psychedelics, without a doubt. Did you take a listen to Amber Lyron's experience or Chris Kilham of which I posted in this thread? If you haven't, I'd definitely take a gander. Start with Chris Kilham. It's brief and to the point.

Oldskeptic wrote:

Kafei wrote:

kennyc wrote:

Oldskeptic wrote:

Lewis Carol used a lot of words I don't understand, but I don't know that they made much sense. Kinda like McKenna.


’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!”

He took his vorpal sword in hand;
Long time the manxome foe he sought—
So rested he by the Tumtum tree
And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

“And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!”
He chortled in his joy.

’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

Quoted for truth!

I'm sure you guys are aware that Lewis Caroll was Charles Dodgeson's pseudonym. He wrote those books to introduce to the masses a creative way to imagine wormholes and things like that. When Alice put her hand through the Looking Glass, she was entering a Einstein-Rosen bridge connecting two universes, in a sense.

Do you just say whatever pops into your mind? Or do you set out to purposely demonstrate how ill informed you are?

Through the Looking Glass was written in the 1860s. The first paper on worm holes was published in 1935.

Well, of course, I'm aware of that. That's why I said "in a sense," and used the term "Einstein-Rosen." However, I'm not the only one to point out this parallel between the imaginary world of Alice in Wonderland. The term "wormhole" probably wasn't used in the 1800s, but the idea was similar.

Oldskeptic wrote:

Oldskeptic wrote:

Changing the subject or changing the goalposts? M-theory - 11 dimensions, not quantum theory.

Kafei wrote:

No, I'm not. Superstring theory had been around for a while before the fundamental forces were described and combined in M-theory.

I was unaware and a bit surprised to find out that it was M-theory that first described the electromagnetic force or the weak force and then combined them into the electroweak force. Rather difficult to do if you ask me since M-theory didn't come about until 1999 and people were winning Nobel prizes for describing the electroweak force twenty years prior to that.

Also it's very surprising to find out that we have a theory of every thing uniting all four fundamental forces. I'd of thought someone would mention it other than just you.

Yes, this notion of "theory of everything" goes all the way back to ancient Greek times, but scientists like Einstein have been trying to crack that puzzle decades now. M-theory just combined them in such a way to be aligned with the consistent string theories to date.

Oldskeptic wrote:

Kafei wrote:

These parallels have been pointed out in both string theory and quantum mechanics, and I believe it's because these concepts are of the essence.

The essence of what? How does quantum mechanics point out parallels concerning 11 dimensions when it doesn't deal with extra dimensions?

The essence of nature, of course. The basic substance of the universe which is what M-theory presents an idea about.

Oldskeptic wrote:

Kafei wrote:

It's a principle. It's basically the yin and yang expressed as duality in every aspect of nature.

What the fuck are you talking about? The dualities in QM have to do with the particle and wave nature of certain entities. One entity with dual natures. Yin and Yang have to do with the complementary nature of opposites. Two entities - opposite natures - one cannot be without the other.

Yes, and the point is that these dualities are ubiquitous in nature, you cannot have waves without particles and particles without waves. They're interconnected opposites.

Oldskeptic wrote:

Kafei wrote:

Alan Watts once said, "Everything fundamentally is yang and yin. If you understand that, you really don't need to understand anything else."

Alan Watts doesn't know what he's talking about anymore than you do.

I disagree. Alan Watts has actually had extensive experiences with these psychedelics. There's one talk in particular I want to link you to, and I'll place it below. I'm not sure how read he was on quantum physics or anything like that, but I wouldn't be surprised if he did read about it. Of course, he was coming at it from an angle of philosophy and a layman's understanding of it, but he'd often speak about "particles and waves" in his discussions.

Kafei wrote:

Spearthrower wrote:

Well, only to the skeptic who's never drank ayahuasca or who's never taken a "heroic dose" of psilocybin, but these things will flood the mind with information. That is guaranteed if you take the "heroic dose."

Says the guy who's never taken ayahuasca, and who we have only personal testimony as evidence for ever having taken a "juvenile dose" of psilocybin.

And of course, we have the 'guarantee' that magic will happen, but if you have taken both and didn't see the magic, it's because you weren't praying hard enough didn't take enough!

I've never taken ayahuasca, sure. Yes, I admit that. I'd like to try it someday, but I have taken a heroic dose of psilocybin. Personal testimony is evidence in this endeavor, especially when you've dozens of volunteers taking the threshold dose and reporting this topos of universality.

And yes, dose is very important, because what you want is a threshold experience. There will be difficult times on a threshold experience, but I believe certain questions will dissolve of their cognitive dissonance, ambiguity, and uncertainty. So, we know that everyone has a unique ADME (absorption, distribution, metabolism, and excretion), so the "heroic dose" isn't a fixed dose. It's going to be relative to your unique physiology. So, this isn't a matter of "not praying enough" or "not taking enough." If you hit the marker, then you hit the marker; if you don't, then you don't. So, of course, if you take a subthreshold dose, you didn't taken enough. However, if you hit the threshold, then you've obviously had taken the sufficient amount to produce this experience. I mean, that's not a "No true Scotsman" fallacy, it's science, it's pharmacodynamics. There's an entire chapter in Strassman's book "DMT: The Spirit Molecule" on the threshold dose. Maybe I'll post that, too, if it's not abundantly clear by now.

"You must do the experience, otherwise it’s just whistling past the graveyard. And we’re not talking about something like being born again, or meeting the flying saucers, or something like that where good works and prayer are the method. No, If you take a sufficient dose of an active compound it will deliver itself to you on the money. Because There’s nothing worse than a sub-threshold psychedelic experience. Because what it is, is it’s all show and no go, you know. You feel the CNS activation, you feel the keyboards light up, everything comes on, you start down the runaway, you pick-up speed, you pick-up speed, you pick-up speed… And then you come to the end of the runway! And taxi back to the hangar. Well, that was not a flight to Boston, that was just clogging the traffic pattern." -Terence McKenna

You keep repeating this mantra, but you don't acknowledge the clearly written statements already made contending the merit of that position. Ergo, it's not worth even discussing with you: you're wrong. Your buddy Terry is wrong.

Kafei wrote:

tolman wrote:Are there any talks dubbed over by people without intensely annoying voices?

He's very whiny and nasal, and his halting delivery is very annoying. Whether that's the result of too many drugs, pretentiousness, or something else, I don't know, and I don't particularly care.

But I sure know I couldn't stand to listen to the guy for any length of time even if he showed much sign of actually getting to a fucking point.

Oh well, if you can get past what you find a "annoying voice," you'll find that he does have a point and the content is intensely interesting. He's always thought provoking, super articulate, and like I said, his vocabulary is unrivaled from any other public speaker I've ever heard on the podium.

For me, it's apparent you're desperate for a guru. You should go to India: they're 2 a rupiah.

Hey Kafei, I popped over here, since I wonder where you disappear to! We have these long conversations, and then you disappear for weeks or longer at a time, then come back with these HUGE long dialogues with so many new claims. Since you're having a conversation here, let me interject a tad!

Kafei wrote:So, in this way, it's not seen as a "dysfunction" in the sense that it's some kind of impairment. Perhaps it's a dysfunction in that you're experiencing an abnormal experience or an experience apart from the norm, but during these experiences your thinking is quite intact. You're still able to intellectualize and all of that, it's simply that reality as you know it has been replaced, and that's why it'd be a bad idea to take a high dose in an undesignated social setting.

This is an assumption, and it is part of why this claim is in the general debunking category of this forum. Though I agree that we cannot prove that taking these drugs (in the dosages you recommend) DOESN'T replace reality in some way shape or form... That does not mean we should assume it does. It could quite simply be that your brain hallucinates - i.e. has experiences that are not at all dictated by external events such as other dimensions - and that this hallucination creates an experience that is convincing to you.

Kafei wrote:Again, I think this "understanding reality" is the wrong way to think about this. I mean, what reality? Consensus reality?

We only know of one reality that does not change regardless of the consensus we may reach to try to vote certain factors into or out of existence. The idea that there are multiple realities, it is an assumption.

Kafei wrote:I believe it goes to the power of psychedelics, without a doubt.

This is responding to tolman positing what the 30 years of therapy in one night analogy might say about drug usage. You say it goes to the power of psychedelics, I ask: To do what? We know that anti depressants can change moods, I do not deny that drug usage is capable of meaningfully affecting mindset. However, the idea that they allow you to contact something higher is not something anyone should accept without evidence.

Kafei wrote:Well, of course, I'm aware of that. That's why I said "in a sense," and used the term "Einstein-Rosen." However, I'm not the only one to point out this parallel between the imaginary world of Alice in Wonderland.

I get this a lot with theists. You can find a thousand 'parallels' with the genesis accounts and scientific findings to try to talk around any specific flaws in the account of creation as the bible puts forth. However, these parallels are interpretations, and not intrinsic to the work you are referring to. In other words, that you feel Alice in Wonderland could be interpreted to be referring to the Einstein-Rosen bridge, does not mean that Lewis Carroll had a sense of it during his writings.

Kafei wrote:I disagree. Alan Watts has actually had extensive experiences with these psychedelics.

This is responding to oldskeptic denying that Alan Watts knew what he was talking about when he said all of existence was yin and yang. To respond to a comment that states he doesn't know about everything in existence to be able to make that claim, with 'he had extensive experiences with these psychedelics' is a fallacy of irrelevant theses.

I think however, the problem is that the concept of yin and yang implies universal opposition (where opposition requires both anthropomorphism and context, i.e. the star being consumed by a black hole has no feelings about what is happening even if its gravitational force is working to keep it from being consumed) actually leading to universal interconnectivity, where that may be perception bias. Let me undeepity this real quick.

Water puts out fire, but if you put water in a pot under the fire and get it boiling, now I can make rice, wow! The yin-yang works, man.

Yes yes, good good. But it is we that implied that these forces were in opposition in the first place. It may be these all these forces simply are, and simply share space. In that way they are all interconnected, but we have no evidence of them being interconnected in any way other than that.

Kafei wrote:Well, I disagree. I believe it is an experience that is in some sense universal. What makes it seem one of a kind is that it's simply filtered through the individual's unique personality.

Then you STILL have my dragon rebuttal to contend with. So many cultures around the world see dragons, people catalog the different claims and then point out perceived similarities, perceived interlinking ideas or concepts, then they claim to have all this 'evidence' for dragons. We reject that just as we must reject your interpretations that these experiences are all universal IN THE SENSE that they all come from a similar source, all touch the same thing. In other words, there is no evidence that you've touched hyperspace.

Of course ignoring all that, it could still simply be that brains work in a similar way, and respond to these chemicals in a similar way.

Kafei wrote:The threshold dose amount isn't a point in your psychology where you say, "Okay, the experience was profound, therefore I had a breakthrough," or "I did not experience anything spiritual/transcendent, and therefore I dismiss this experience." It doesn't work that way. The threshold amount is something relative to your physiology. It's not psychological, it has to do with pharmacodynamics. So, it doesn't equate to a "No true Scotsman" fallacy for this reason.

What you said is completely irrelevant to oldskeptics point. He's saying that you're committing a no true scotsman fallacy, people who claim to take what you would call heroic doses you dismiss as either misunderstanding what you mean by heroic dose, misunderstanding how much they took, or being disingenuous about taking them at all.

To then say 'no I'm so super not committing a no true scotsman fallacy because taking the right amount is super duper pharmacodynamical!'

That should just mean if you take the right amount, you will experience an expected result physiologically. To deny people have taken the right dose if they disagree with you would still be a no true scotsman fallacy. We understand that you claim that the proper dose is something you can predict, that is in no way a response to the statement set forth however.

Kafei wrote:Years of being told by who? People who've never tried this stuff? The only person who admitted to having intense psychedelic experiences also admitted to having these themes occur within these experiences. So, that didn't go against my point, it was actually for it.

This is in response to oldskeptic referring to you repeating the same things when others point out they are fallacies.

The claim that others haven't taken the drugs (presumably in the proper amounts) it is irrelevant to whether your argument is fallacious. It's as I said to you in our other conversation, the one that started with the definition of atheism and the epistemological stance of Neil DeGrasse Tyson, not the one that discussed the idea that the kalam isn't fallacious if you interpret it through perennial philosophy...

Let me rewind the clock a bit. You said this with regard to the threshold dose experience:

Kafei wrote:"I don't think we necessarily know what we're contacting. Neuroscience doesn't have much of an explanation in this area. Neuroscience can't even explain consciousness at this point, and consciousness is the very thing these active compounds have an effect on. For all we know, it may be something "outside the mind"

I responded thusly:

TinyTypingDragon wrote:We don't know if we're contacting anything, in point of fact. And for all we know, it may be something outside the mind, or we may not be contacting anything at all, to conclude anything based on what we don't know would be an argument from ignorance, so since you admit we don't know, I hope you realize why I cannot accept these claims at the current moment.

And then you said this.

Kafei wrote:Sure, I don't think most people who've never had such an experience can. I believe people are intellectually set-up to doubt these concepts that are born out of this experience, and it is probably because most people have not had this experience, atheists and theists alike.

I responded:

TinyTypingDragon wrote:This is a retelling of a common phrase I hear often: "The fool has said in his heart: there is no god", and since the book said it, I have just proven the book true by disbelieving the claim.

So too with you, you seem to believe I've never had the experience, and you think because of this I can't understand. Therefore, anyone who disbelieves you, you automatically have an ego defense out. "They just don't get it like I get it."

If you can agree there is no evidence, then it shouldn't be a matter of asserting people are set up to doubt. It should simply be accepted that it's reasonable to withhold belief.

As I said then, so I reiterate now. If you agree that we don't know we're contacting higher dimensions, then I don't have to be 'set up' to doubt anything for it to be not only justified, but reasonable that I withhold belief. That is the most reasonable stance. And finally something I want to touch on...

Kafei wrote:I've never taken ayahuasca, sure. Yes, I admit that. I'd like to try it someday, but I have taken a heroic dose of psilocybin. Personal testimony is evidence in this endeavor, especially when you've dozens of volunteers taking the threshold dose and reporting this topos of universality.

I hope you do agree that 5% of the population does not hallucinate when taking some of these substances? Are you saying you disagree with the John Hopkins research, which puts the number of 'mystical experiences' for the dose at closer to 60% of the subjects involved? If you agree, then the experience wouldn't be universal among people.

This leaves your assertion that 'personal testimony is evidence' down to one simple question, evidence of what? Can you agree that it's not evidence of something outside the mind, i.e. that it is not evidence of the drug users contacting hyperspace?

Welcome to the Lifeboat TinyTypingDragon!

Thanks a bundle!