(Part 2) Best products from r/RationalPsychonaut

>I strongly believe consciousness is like a WiFi signal, our personalities are like software and our bodies are the computer. I reject with all my being that consciousness is only a program the computer runs.

I'd suggest (and there's good science supporting this) that the body IS the mind, the computer IS the software. I can highly recommend the book Descartes' Error by Antonio Damasio.

>For anyone to say they know for certain is a lier.

Science doesn't deal in certainties. It forms theories (models of reality) that can make accurate predictions given the evidence we have at the time. When new evidence comes to light, old theories can always be disproven. While it cannot provide certainties, it does provide far more accurate predictions about the universe we live in than any system of knowledge we had before science.

Chalmers' philosophical writing on this is actually pretty interesting and accessible, IMO. You might be interested to check out a couple of his classic papers, Facing Up to the Problem of Consciousness and Consciousness and its Place in Nature.

The panpsychist view is described in the latter paper under the heading "Type-F Monism." For those interested in this idea, there is a brilliant book length treatment of it by Gregg Rosenberg called A Place for Consciousness.

Agreed. Also Storming Heaven is a great companion, a lot of overlap but awesome and well done.

> "the sound seemed to have additional reverb, especially in the frequencies below 200Hz, with an impulse response characteristic of a long tunnel, such as the reverb filter you can find in ..."

That strikes a nice example as ideally script-modeled hypothetically i.e. not from an actual IRL case (- ?), but approximating comments of some people, sometimes heard.

Going with scenario of someone articulating their trip report as you've well exemplified, with specific technical-sounding details - question:

Suppose someone - some tough-minded 'critic' type (skeptic, doubting Thomas, whatever) who (let's say) has even had psychedelic experience, nobody lacking their own subjective touchstone (for 'independent' reference) - were to suggest that such testimony especially as detailed, whatever dramatic impressions aside, considerations otherwise notwithstanding - actually wouldn't tell us much of anything theoretically valid (nor could it) about the experience itself per se (whatever it was they were experiencing) - but would instead reflect informatively (as a factor intrinsic to this type narrative evidence) - mainly on the person psychologically - directly telling something specifically about the individual so attesting - any ramifications for the experience they're talking about unclear, inconclusive.

Big Framework being a deep dark question (almost beyond reach of any beam to illuminate adequately) - do we see whatever hallucinations as they are mainly, or in some far more essential sense (realized or not) - as we are, in an inescapably subjective fashion - case by case?

Hell, not just hallucinations - even 'reality' itself? I.e. "It all depends on how we look at things, not how [or what?] things are themselves" - Jung (if memory serves).

Or less Jungianly speaking - more thru a Wm Jamesian lens (and this is close to how I might say it - if I were the 'doubting Thomas' type):

"Whatever it was he experienced, this is clearly a subject of particular intellectual disposition, maybe above avg IQ (wouldn't be surprising) - who displays significant interest not only of these personal experiential 'dimensions' but also certain subject fields - topics like acoustics, physics of sound what with 'pitch' and 'tone' (frequencies, amplitude and such, oscilloscope wave forms, all that - whaddya bet?) whether purely amateur interest (a hobbyist?) or professionally as well - and however educated about such stuff (not being expert in all that myself who can tell?)."

How would you counter that (if you would) especially considering - phenomenology of consciousness is nothing new nor exclusive to psychedelic experience - and that indeed dreams and the phenomenon of dreaming provide an extensive prior methodological, theoretical foundation - with well-known pitfalls and issues that carry over for attempts at analysis or interpretation of any specific psychedelic experience - or the phenomenon of such effects and experiences as induced by LSD-like drugs in general?

Just to cite some lit (I been to 'college' - help) it's been widely noted that study of dreams and the phenomenon of dreaming runs into a snag almost foreshadowing the 'witnessing' neotradition of psychedelic subculture's "Trip Report" methodology - in which testimonials like the hypothetical 'richly-detailed' example you've modeled figure (examples of subcultural discourse and discursive processes):

Hobson JA, EF Pace-Schott & R Stickgold ("Dreaming and the brain: Toward a cognitive neuroscience of conscious states") note 5 major methodological problems in attempted study of dreaming. The first one they cite:

2.3.1. The reduction of psychological states to narrative reports ... the most profound problem in studying conscious states [is] reliance on verbal reports - reduction of conscious experience to prose ... To describe mental states closer to dreaming than to waking mentation [e.g. religious conversion, near-death experience, functional psychosis, delirium, drug-induced conditions and other altered states of consciousness] verbal retrospective reports are often considered inadequate. https://www.amazon.com/Sleep-Dreaming-Scientific-Advances-Reconsiderations/dp/0521008697

As usual no obligation and not to prevail upon anyone. Merely idle curiosity on my part - what your rebuttal might be to such basic perspective from phenomenology of consciousness - despite what such did to some cat. Curiosity that is - not phenomenology.

A direct agonist can bypass various feedback loops and interactions that are present with endogenous neurotransmitters. For example, serotonin stimulates 5-HT1A autoreceptors which inhibit further release of serotonin, but LSD isn't dependent on that loop. And there's also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functional_selectivity.

A lot of visual clues are in intro cogsci, like this book: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0262514273. But the Psychedelic Information Theory website and book linked later in the thread probably go through most of the relevant bits.

Also linguistics and the self in schizophrenia are relevant to dissociatives, which bear some important similarities to psychosis. And the glutamate hypothesis of schizophrenia.

This thing I made [MASSIVE SEIZURE WARNING] simulates certain aspects of simple CEVs quite well for me when I stare at it for awhile or move my head back/forward: https://gfycat.com/SleepyWigglyAfricanpiedkingfisher

Pressure-induced phosphenes, by pressing your fingers into your eyes, also bear similarities. (If you want to see something really wild, try pressing your eyes as you take a hit of nitrous while tripping on a psychedelic.)

I highly recommend you read The Chemical Muse. It's very much about this subject, and the prevalence of drugs in ancient Greece and Rome. The author asserts that much of the acceptance of drug use in that time has been whitewashed. It's a fascinating and well-researched book.

thoroughly recommend this book!


https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00M5JXUEM/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1#navbar

or -- less complex but way more fun -- this one:


https://www.amazon.com/dp/B005GQR074/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1

The Spirit Molecule covers DMT and the clinical study on it that Rick Strassman did, its very interesting.

DMT The Spirit Molecule

It was very accepted and practiced in the 50s. The book Acid Dreams goes into in depth.

Good book I have recommended on this topic: http://www.amazon.com/Belief-Instinct-Psychology-Destiny-Meaning/dp/0393341267

You might enjoy this book: http://www.amazon.com/Mystical-Mind-Theology-Sciences/dp/0800631633/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1413670113&sr=8-1&keywords=the+mystical+mind
There's also a lot of cognitive science research on vision that might be relevant (esp. optical illusions).
The "jump" that you mention is interesting. Maybe when the boundaries we usually draw are reconfigured in unusual ways, people start to feel that how boundaries are drawn is arbitrary, and therefore boundaries are illusory. I think that that is still a jump, but that could be what is going on.

Great book btw! I highly recommend it!

As /u/Das_Erlebnis said, there's tons of literature in the philosophy of mind. Check out some books, e.g. Chalmer's [The Conscious Mind] (https://www.amazon.com/Conscious-Mind-Search-Fundamental-Philosophy/dp/0195117891/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8) and Dennett's [Consciousness Explained] (https://www.amazon.com/Consciousness-Explained-Daniel-C-Dennett/dp/0316180661/ref=pd_bxgy_14_img_2?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=MK07ERGEZ7B8NBW6JBS1).

Edit: I'll add Nagel's essay [What is it like to be a bat?] (http://organizations.utep.edu/portals/1475/nagel_bat.pdf) to the list.

The Cosmic Serpent is a good book on the subject.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Cosmic-Serpent-Origins-Knowledge/dp/0874779642

Here's a good resource: https://www.amazon.com/Psychedelic-Explorers-Guide-Therapeutic-Journeys-ebook/dp/B0051OHLVG

See the book The Mind Illuminated, by long-time meditator and neuroscientist John Yates. He explains how meditation exercises your brain so you're like this most of the time, and specifically how to meditate to accomplish that.

>^(~)^(Chaos)^(.)

Entropy: Jeremy Rifkin

The Tao of Physics: Fritjof Capra

These two help with a bit of a framework to ford the physicl/metaphysical gulf.