Natural selection has a nifty way of taking care of organisms that don't interact well with their environment. How long do you think someone is going to last if they are in a perpetual dream state?

(June 3, 2015 at 12:03 pm)robvalue Wrote: I've heard before about "learning through drugs" but I've never had a straight answer about what exactly is learnt.

I can understand performance enhancing drugs and such, but if you're just off tripping... besides coincidental weird sort of subconcious jiggery, what can you learn that is valid in the real world?

It's about understanding the processes of your mind and learning how the model of reality your mind has built can be demolished by a few micro-grams of a simple liquid.  It's about gaining a better understanding of  your needs, wants, and motivations.  Taking hallucinogens is a humbling experience that demonstrates that who you are, your sense of self is just a precarious balance of neurochemicals that can be altered in an extreme manner with little effort.

The "learning" you do is really improving your self-awareness and getting you to recognize that you are a sentient, chemical meat-bag.

Learning how the model of reality your mind has built can be demolished by a few micro-grams of a simple liquid.

Your sense of self is just a precarious balance of neurochemicals that can be altered in an extreme manner with little effort.


Spot on

What the heck does that have to do with the laws of physics and alternate universes and life after death?

(June 3, 2015 at 1:09 pm)FatAndFaithless Wrote: What the heck does that have to do with the laws of physics and alternate universes and life after death?

If our minds can come up with these alternate universes then they can come up with the laws of physics.

Our minds didn't 'create' the laws that govern the universe.... We simply observe their effects and try to describe them.

(June 3, 2015 at 1:12 pm)FatAndFaithless Wrote: Our minds didn't 'create' the laws that govern the universe.... We simply observe their effects and try to describe them.

The result of our observations is from how are brain processes these observations.

What?

(June 3, 2015 at 1:11 pm)rary Wrote: If our minds can come up with these alternate universes then they can come up with the laws of physics.

This is an excellent example of a gross conceptual error.

(June 3, 2015 at 1:13 pm)rary Wrote:

(June 3, 2015 at 1:12 pm)FatAndFaithless Wrote: Our minds didn't 'create' the laws that govern the universe.... We simply observe their effects and try to describe them.

The result of our observations is from how are brain processes these observations.

The effects we try to describe is a result of how our brain processes the observations we make. If the brain processes in another way the observations are now different.