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I don't mean to imply that the whole of Taoism (is there such a thing?) is true, but rather the fundamentals of it regarding the mechanics of change precisely correspond to the fundamentals of calculus. This is explained by examining the two phenomenological reference frames of "being" and "doing."

I derived this starting with calculus; in college when I studied the field it inspired and fascinated me, it seemed to be some great secret that was about more than just manipulation of symbols. In 2015 I took a class on mindfulness-based cognitive therapy using this book that described exactly what I was looking for in the terms of modes of consciousness of being and doing. I had a vague pop-culture understanding of Taoism, but when I looked at this page I discovered that the foundations of Taoism were exactly identical to the perceptual calculus I had "discovered."

In addition during my psychonautic explorations I invented a recursively self-improving self-help system to cure my depression, and it was so fantastically successful that it sent me into hyper-mania; I had become "bipolar." It would take 7 years before I would learn to control the incredible creative power I had unleashed. I had discovered the science and technology of Wu Wei in its most distilled form and applied it to myself, which means to program one's mind to follow the scientific method in a way that self-improves it's own methodology.

The epistemological part of the Tao of Calculus is taken directly from the skeptic's movement and philosophy of science which I studied in college. Skepticism isn't just the immune system of the mind, but maximizes one's creative potential because of such; it is the grindstone of analytical thought that hones it to a razor's edge. My three laws of creativity are:

1. Minimal beliefs makes for maximal efficiency and creativity.
   
2. Do not believe but do imagine.
   
3. That which cannot be denied by any and all means necessary is the probable truth.
   
   The final part of the Tao of Calculus is The Phoenix Theorem which is secular salvation mediated by absolutely nothing and nobody but love itself, which is a birthright of us being alive. It was derived from existentialist philosophy as well as music and art. Religions and ideologies have monopolized love for power, which is the greatest possible evil, one I have known about and fought against since my college days. Love is truly magical, it can be created from nothing simply by having the will to love. I forged boundless love in myself last year by channeling all of my depression, pain, anxiety and sorrow into the determined desire to suffer infinitely in hell for all eternity if that is what it meant to save that which I care about most: humanity. If a god or demon would have given me such an offer, I would have accepted in a heartbeat; such was my will. From this came a total rebirth of myself and a limitless love for existence; inexorable amor fati.
   
   All of existence seems like the most beautiful poetry to me now, my experience is that everything is art. My solution to the existential question is: we are existential artists who co-create in the self-creating tapestry of existence. The universe itself is magic, it created itself out of nothing without even a will, only by an "is." The physical universe is more profound and beautiful than any mythological narrative that attempts to impose conscious order from it; it is emergent order from chaos.

I'm late to this, but I figured I'll answer. First as a backdrop, I think you have to understand where I think we are all collectively heading as a society. Personally, I think climate change is going to be the biggest and ultimate decider of politics in the near future (the next decades), and very much so as we progress into the deeper future (the next century and beyond).

Ultimately, it will destroy how we do things. The globalized world supporting all these economic behemoths will fall, as simply as when the shipping ports go underwater. That will mark the real change, when people begin to fully understand that we are fully into the anthropocene, and from here on out, we need to think in terms of survival and efficiency.

The keys to survival in the anthropocene will be knowing how to produce things more self sufficiently, such as food, electricity, warmth, snd stuff like that. There will be a trend of relearning homesteading type skills. The practice of Permaculture will be a key thing. At least, this will occur among people who are into it and willing to work to secure this knowledge and it's benefits. I'm sure many people will continue to try to live as they always had. Basically, the survival strategy of "mooching". (Which, there isn't anything wrong with mooching, all of us do it in many different ways, but I think in the future it'll be important for each person to produce more of these sorts of things).

Ultimately, the ideal thing to be doing in this timeframe would look like this: learning and passing down survival skills that humans in the deep future might come to rely on. And helping, in an altruistic manner, if possible, to respond to catastrophes such as refugee movements and things like that. The people who know how to produce natural wealth, such as excess food in highly productive modern systems, and rig together cheaper systems to support human life can play a big role in preventing these things from being catastrophically bad.

So all this considered, my politics is just to advocate to more people that they start learning these things now, whether they be in an urban, suburban, or rural environment, just wherever you are, start learning this sort of thing. And also that we start sharing these ideas more and talking more seriously with each other about how we will help each other survive in the future.

Meanwhile, as you might be able to tell, my politics right now supports a transition off of carbon emitting technologies as fast as possible. I think the author of the www.waitbutwhy.com blog did a really good job explaining the logic of this in his post (really long, but very good) on Tesla and Elon Musk. We have a finite amount of fossil fuels, we WILL run out in this century no matter what, if we keep using it. And the more gets pumped out, the worse the consequences will be in the future. So, all considered, there is literally no reason not to start transitioning as soon as possible (unless your an oil company). And I'm actually kind of hopeful in this sphere of things that we will keep making progress.

The other thing I support now is a fight to win back and expand more areas for natural reserves. The biologist E.O. Wilson, really great biologist known as "the father of the concept of biodiversity" wrote a book recently calling for setting aside a whole half of the Earth's land surface for natural habitats in order to preserve biodoversity through the hard times it is set to face. Larger and more contiguous natural habitats can contain and keep more biodiversity and life than smaller and more isolated sections. So he's calling for a sort of activist movement to fight for that, with the set goal of winning back a full half of the Earth's surface. So I guess I'd include that in my politics as well.

As one of the people who commented on that thread, I feel the need to respond to this as rationally as humanly possible.

For starters, let's clear up the difference between fractal mathematics, fractal woo, and what Douglas Hofstadter might call fractal analogy.

1. From the wiki - Fractal Mathematics would be the study of "natural phenomena or a mathematical sets that exhibits repeating patterns that display at every scale" as well as the study of self similarity and iterated functions. While it has grown complex and vast, the studies of fractals and their geometry started out as literally what you say it isn't: people asking questions about self-similarity in nature and asking how to describe it mathematically.
   
   
2. Fractal Woo would be, as OP said:
   
   >“Everything big is just like everything small!” they exclaim, “the universe is self-similar!”
   
   ...and then using such logic to thereby justify whatever silly energy-Reiki-mystical-connectedness-telepathy-de-jour they want.
   
   
3. Fractal Analogy (my term, but run with it) would be seeing patterns in the world which are, indeed, self similar, as tons of stuff in nature is. This includes plant and animal system, as well as consciousness and human experience. The reason I mention Douglas Hofstadter is that he is a PhD physicist who literally used fractal mathematics to predict some pretty nifty real world stuff 35 years before it was confirmed - but Mr. Hofstadter is also an incredibly enjoyable author who muses at length about cognitive science and AI research, often using the analogy of self-similar shapes to help describe what we understand of consciousness in a way that most layman readers can understand. Even if you are not a very capable mathematician, I highly recommend his Godel Escher Bach, which uses fractals and loads of other creative stuff to help conceptualize how the "mind" arises from the brain.
   
   As well, Chaos Theory - the study of how immensely complex patterns emerge from seemingly simple preconditions - is full of fractal mathematics. Given that the universe is absolutely packed with iterated functions and self-similarity almost everywhere we look, I think you can absolutely take the point of view that the universe is fractal in nature, especially when you are in a self-induced state where your brain makes a lot of connections you might normally overlook or not even bother to think about.
   
   My point is that discussing things in the universe as self-similar is useful to mathematicians and non-mathematicians alike; using the word "fractal" to describe natural systems that exhibit those familiar patterns might not be perfectly correct, but it's not itself offensive or an affront to reasonable discourse. I manage a business; so what's your problem if I visualize the structure of my company as a fern leaf with departments and employees as branches off the main stem? What would be the issues of discussing how incredible human cellular morphology really is with my biologist roommate, and citing some cool research someone decided to do about fractal geometry in the way our bodies build themselves?
   
   EDIT: OP's edit makes it more clear his statements were more about irrational folk seeing the universe as a single continuous fractal (that would be the "fractal woo"), and that he is not denying the existence of fractal-like patterns in nature, or that using fractal models can be useful in understanding phenomena. Sorry for any confusion and thanks for the discussion!
   
   EDIT2: /u/ombortron commented pretty well in regards to the utility of the concept of fractals in scientific discourse and otherwise:
   
   >The universe itself doesn't have to be a fractal for fractals to be important.
   
   >Fractals are quite common in our reality, and as a result, that means they are an important facet of reality, and as such they are a legitimate and common topic of discussion amongst people, and this is particularly true of people who do psychedelics.
   
   >Does this mean the universe is 100% fractal in nature? No.
   
   

Not really a guide but I love The Joyous Cosmology by Watts. Has a bit more woo than a materialist might like, but Watts' brand of woo is palatable and non-dogmatic -- more of a try "try THIS on for size" than a "so THIS is this the way the universe is."

You may also find The Secret Chief Revealed insightful in terms of the therapeutic benefits to tripping, and how to approach psychedelics seriously.

Prometheus Rising, while more of an owner's manual to the human mind than a tripping guide, can help with recognizing your own biases and trying new perspectives -- highly relevant to the psychedelic experience and beloved by many psychonauts.

Thank you for that long and thoughtful response! I've really been overwhelmed by all the responses I've gotten here, I thought I would be downvoted to oblivion with just a few dismissive replies, so I'm impressed! Time to reply to everyone! :)

>There's no reason to conclude that spirit realms are real based on descriptions of NDEs or psychedelic trips

Actually, there's every reason to do it. Here's how I see it. Temporarily disregarding the fact that the scientific analysis of NDEs clearly leads to the conclusion that it cant' be the brain that's producing them, everyone who has a deep NDE gets convinced of an afterlife. Full stop. There are no exceptions in the literature. Doesn't matter whether it's you, me or Richard Dawkins himself. Once we've gone far enough into the light and encountered the being of infinite love and intelligence, we would be convinced. Here and here are the two most famous examples of that, but it applies to millions of people.

In light of that fact, I can't pretend that my armchair skepticism is of any value. I mean these people also understand the skeptical arguments - the close correlation between everyday thoughts and brainwave activity, how it seemed to them before their NDE that we were just our brains, that it's theoretically possible that these experiences were hallucinations, etc. They heard all those arguments. The problem is, those considerations are just jokes to them now, in light of their experience. They often describe the NDE world as "hyperreal", and say that this life here is the deep, deep dream in comparison to what it's like over there. I think this response really summarizes it.

I recognize that the only reason I or anyone else believe in the exclusivity of this reality is because that's all we've experienced and have any memory of, and that once that is no longer the case, it's only rational to let go of that belief.

>The trouble is that sensitive people get offended by such themes over at /r/psychonaut, and threads about them often devolved pretty quickly into arrogant pricks enthusiastically attacking from both sides.

Woah, really? I had no idea. I mean I'm not offended by people talking about materialism as a way to explain the deep psychedelic experiences, I just think it's uninformed and treat it with a smile. But it is indeed a problem across the board as you say - these subjects touch the core of a person's worldview, and most people are not even close to being able to dispassionately discuss alternative worldviews and question their own. The history of religion is the prime example of that fact.

>So really this is not the place to entertain "other realms/realities" theorizing, unless you have scientific evidence to discuss, which I secretly would love to see, but is still lacking to the extreme.

To the contrary, there's an abundance of it. I've already linked a piece of it in my last reply, but that's just a drop in the ocean. For a comprehensive analysis, see for instance this and this, this, this presentation, this, this, etc. I mean, I'd say that the evidence we have for an afterlife/disembodied consciousness is at least as strong as what we have for the existence of Neptune. So it's not as strong as the evidence we have for, say, the existence of the Sun, but it's overwhelmingly in favor of its reality nevertheless. If that sounds completely outrageous to you or anyone reading this, I wish to emphasize that it's only because you're not familiar with that evidence that you think it sounds completely ludicrous.

But when it comes to just the psychedelic experience - ignoring all that afterlife evidence - it's still rational to conclude that there is something to it when so many people come back from those heroic dosages of DMT, Ayahuasca and Magic Mushrooms fully convinced of the reality of something beyond this life. The plural of testimony is data, not just a collection of anecdotes. There's a clear pattern observed here.

I emphasize heroic dosages, because it doesn't apply to normal dosages. I want to be very clear about that: Most psychedelic experiences are probably best explained by neurology. It is only the complete breakthroughs that even begin to be relevant to the question of other realms. Smoking 35mg DMT out of a pipe will not make you meet God, for instance. Not even a tiny chance. But 100mg DMT out of a gravity bong? That's something different. Same with Ayahuasca. 3g rue and 5g Mimosa? Forget it. But 6g rue and 15g Mimosa? Say hello to it from me. I mean I've even done 2g rue + 10g Mimosa myself, and it was completely, redonkulously insane. But I didn't meet God, and the experience on its own would never lead me to believe in anything spiritual. But I recognize that higher doses are something completely different. See for instance this reply:

You wouldn't, actually. I'm familiar with this drug and you don't want to go where it will take you without guidance.
Look, I get where you're probably coming from with with this. You don't want the pseudo-religious spiritual stuff. That's cool, I'm an atheist too. Ayahuasca is not for us.
There's no "grounded" on ayahuasca. You'll trip your face off. You will experience the end of everything that exists. You'll cry. You will meet god. Doesn't matter that you don't believe in one. You will while you're tripping. He won't be fucking happy either. And this drug is dark. I know that everyone thinks they can handle it. I did. Maybe you've done mushrooms or LSD and think you know what a trip is. I thought so.

>descriptions of an "afterlife" from people who are still alive, it's fair to say, are highly dubious

Why? I don't see a problem with it whatsoever. Why is it a priori unreasonable to visit the afterlife when your heart temporarily stops beating, and come back when it starts again to talk about it?

But even if there is something unreasonable about that, there's still the fact that the evidence we have from people who are still not alive (death-bed visions, death-bed coincidences, After Death Communication, etc) is still overwhelming.

>"metaphysical science" is something I'd like to see more of, except with the input of intelligent, skeptical people rather than all the kooks and the overly obsessed, true-believer types who get upset when they're lacking a palatable explanation

Then you might be interested in visiting this forum.

>But such speculation is not for /r/RationalPsychonaut. Thanks for the well presented criticism of what this sub is, I'm sure many people would agree with you; The last critic just linked to the wikipedia page for scientism and left it at that, pretty lame really.

Thank you and everyone else as well for the replies. I think this subreddit has potential, but you don't need to equate logic, rationality and science with materialism, it only hurts your credibility and perceived open-mindedness. It's OK to think that psychedelics are best explained by neurology. It's OK to think it's rational to be a materialist. But it's not OK to think that psychedelics must be explained with neurology, or that rational people must be materialists. If you must have such a subreddit, it would be better called r/Itsallinyourbrain or r/MaterialisticPsychonauts or whatever. Also, linking to RationalWiki in the sidebar really hurts your credibility, because that site is demonstrably run my militant materialists.

I get that you don't want to talk with people who think that everyone in the new world order smokes DMT to contact their lizard overlords, etc. There's a lot of incomprehensible nonsense out there. But not every non-materialistic idea is irrational, and treating it as such doesn't warrant the prefix 'rational'.

Edit: Changed 'g' to 'mg'.

I'll crosspost my comment here: I argue they are real.

Hold on now, I know what you're thinking. But we need to define "real" here first. Just because it's happening in your head doesn't mean it isn't real (after all, you're happening in your head too).

There was a fascinating article about this I read not long ago that discussed this very topic in relationship to voices people hear in their heads unrelated to drugs that really got me thinking about how I interpret such things. It's talking about hallucinated voices, but it applies here as well:

> The second step is to understand that hallucinated voices are as real as just about anything. They aren’t what they purport to be — sounds coming from the external world — but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist.

> Let’s count the many ways that hallucinated voices are real:

> They are real neurological patterns that exist in real human brains.
> They are subjectively real. The listener actually hears them.
> They satisfy the criterion for reality put forward by David Deutsch in his book The Fabric of Reality: they kick back. You can read the whole argument here.
> They have metaphorical reality. We can reason about the voices the same way we talk about a movie with our friends (discussing the characters’ motivations, their moral worth, etc.).
> * They have real intelligence — because (this is crucial) they’re the products of a bona fide intelligent process. They’re emanating from the same gray matter that we use to perceive the world, make plans, string words together into sentences, etc. The voices talk, say intelligent things, make observations that the hearer might not have noticed, and have personalities (stubborn, encouraging, nasty, etc.). They are, above all, the kinds of things toward which we can take the intentional stance — treating them like agents with motivations, beliefs, and goals. They are things to be reasoned with, placated, ignored, or subverted, but not things whose existence is to be denied.

So are DMT entities "real"? I say yes, just not in the way some people want them to be.

Note my disclaimer of huge grain of salt. I'm just regurgitating things that I've read and contextualizing it with my personal experience.

But neuroplasticity is not a concept I am simply speculating on. -http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroplasticity

Drugs like psilocybin and LSD do what they do because they affect our neurochemical receptors, like serotonin.

There is evidence out there that these types of things happen such as recent treatments using these drugs to treat PTSD. You can go find these for yourself. At the least, a neuronal rewiring explanation is infinitely more rational than the sort of "the fungal/plant spirit healed me!" woo.

It's not my field of study. These are not my ideas. If you're looking for a stalwart defense of them, I encourage you to go read about them. For instance, a book like this one: http://www.amazon.com/Psychedelic-Information-Theory-Shamanism-Reason/dp/1453760172

Again, I would encourage you and everyone else to read material and come to your own conclusion. I just wanted to try to answer OP by regurgitating some of the information I have collected.

Maybe you should look into microdosing as a first step.

Microdosing: People who take LSD with breakfast (A video from the BBC which is a couple of years old; cutting tabs is not recommended as it's not accurate; volumetric microdosing is a better method - see wiki/thirdwave links below for comprehensive info)

Ayelet Waldman who is featured on the second video talks about her depression and how microdosing helped her and saved her from suicide and wrote this book about it:

A Really Good Day: How Microdosing Made a Mega Difference in My Mood, My Marriage, and My Life

If you do decide this path the maybe you should have a look at a look at r/microdosing and read through the wiki at https://www.reddit.com/r/microdosing/wiki/index

(e.g. I found this in my history: https://www.reddit.com/r/microdosing/comments/cf4tmc/microdosing_psilocybin_to_control_ocd/ )

Also lots of comprehensive free info at: https://thethirdwave.co/microdosing/

I'm assuming you are not using any pharma meds because if you are you may want to check for drug interactions.

Psychedelics are one tool in your toolbox along with things like meditation, breathwork, exercise, healthy diet, etc. for achieving 'flow states'/better quality of life.

Good Luck.

Edit: strike out 'second' as originally had a video about macrodosing as well.

My suggestion would be to get a good understanding of how belief systems work, how humans are hardwired to react to the world and the mechanics of creating and trying out new reality tunnels. The best place to start is with Robert Anton Wilson's Prometheus Rising. He presents an amazing way to approach this whole topic including suggested exercises to make it understood deep in your neurons.

Once all this is clear, you will be able to really start communicating with nearly everyone, not just the hippy-aliens. :)

This has happened to me too. Its time, in my opinion, to stop, and to focus on the hard work of walking the path towards elevating your normal mindset closer to the altitude of the one you experience when you do drugs.

You might be interested in this comment that I actually just wrote right before I wrote this one. Especially my latter response.

The thing is, drugs open your mind to see the possibilities. But then you come back. Back into the world, where mundaneness rules, where you have many personal flaws, where life hits you with problems, and where its often hard to see the light.

Drugs are like a helicopter ride to see the path and the endpoint. But in reality, you have to walk the path. And walking the path is hard. It takes daily effort against the powerful forces of habit. Look to the Buddhists. They are the only ones I know of who are actually walking this path. Meditation and a continual focus on building positive mental qualities are key here.

My blueprint is sort of based on two books. One is Buddhism without beleifs, and the other is The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, which despite the title, is actually about developing qualities in yourself such as honesty, courage, patience, and others.

Very interesting. You might be interested in

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Intelligence

https://www.amazon.de/Intelligence-Jeff-Hawkins/dp/0805078533

It was pretty popular and was read among AI researchers alot. It's easy to understand.

Consciousness prepare to be understood!

AND ALSO

Another great author:
James Oroc - Tryptamine palace, 5MeO-DMT and the Sonoran Desert Toad

http://www.amazon.com/Tryptamine-Palace-5-MeO-DMT-Sonoran-Desert-ebook/dp/B003GDFRS8


It's about his personal research with 5MeO-DMT and more importantly the conclusions he comes to, about what everything (our consciousness, god, ...) is, while induced in his DMT trips. Awesome read, I think he should give you something to think about