RE: Just read this and tell me what you think.
June 3, 2015 at 12:01 pm
(This post was last modified: June 3, 2015 at 12:04 pm by JuliaL.)
(June 3, 2015 at 11:18 am)rary Wrote: The reason this thought came to my mind was because, I've lived all my life in the normal level of consciousness and one day I stimulated my brain to produce high levels of DMT. What I found so interesting was how the brain was capable of seeing, understanding and learning and in a completely new way. My whole life I've lived in a single state of mind, how many other states of minds are there. Surely, there is a reason for the brain being able to alter so drastically. What is the point of having such a function if there is no use for it in the past or the future?
If consciousness is an emergent property of wet chemistry, it's anthropocentric to claim 'reasons' for anything.
I'll use an operating definition for the moment of 'good' being 'that which better allows an individual to survive and reproduce in their current environment.' Though DMT (dimethyltriptamine) is naturally produced and utilized in the brain, there is no reason to believe that there is any transcendent purpose for it. It evolved with the rest of our neurochemistry over millenia of natural selection. It exists at an equilibrium level conforming to this evolutionary history. It was good because it got us here. Like a balanced diet, adding (or subtracting) from it only unbalances the equilibrium. Over time, with enough trials of additional added chemicals, you could determine if elevated DMT would give an advantage or not. My suspicion is that most of the high DMT experimental group would wander out into traffic in a short time and remove themselves from the reproducing population.
Regarding the different physics aspect, you should be able to quantify your new state by experiment and compare results to the more prosaic non-DMT reality. These are the idealist (the world exists because we perceive it) and the realist (the world exists and we perceive it) alternatives. You appear to be advocating for the former. If, in fact, you are correct in your assertion that you can read minds, levitate or comprehend in 'a completely new way,' the JREF has a million dollars waiting for you to collect. My experience is that when users come down after recording their insights, they are typically embarrassed by how unimpressive those insights are in the light of undrugged day.
So how, exactly, does God know that She's NOT a brain in a vat?