erraticwisdom: Induced Philosophy

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A friend and fellow philosophy student approached me recently describing his experiences with hallucinogenic drugs. He had chosen to take them after a great deal of research into their effects and felt that he would not be able to reach as high an intellectual level through more traditional means.

The drugs helped him detach himself from his everyday duties and worries and let him focus all of his attentions inward to explore his own thoughts on his life, existence and the universe. I had accompanied him often during his feverish research sessions and learned a great deal about these drugs’ impacts. I read countless first-person accounts, some describing the typical trip-induced oddities (you know, happy green elephants, etc.), but others contained much interesting events including adventures into other-worldly dimensions, mesmerizing self-explorations, and one especially stunning narrative where the author claimed to have lived an entire other lifetime before crashing down.

These are mind-altering drugs, and I am unsure about how effective they are as a philosophical “tool”. I, like many others, vacillate between applying all of my effort towards practical life, and screaming at the sky about how pointless it is. I would love to be able to transcend both aggravating states, but I’m also confused about the logic of consuming something that shatters all rationality in order to study something based entirely on rational thinking.

Are the drugs’ effects dreamlike, a direct result of the chemicals they contain, or can they be philosophical catalysts?

Additional Reading:

The Doors of Perception

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At: 03:22:39 PM
On: February 10
In: Personal Skepticism
By: Tom Fadial

Comments

Ah, the Doors of Perception. What a fantastic read! Can I recommend, if you haven’t already read it, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe too.
Rich

Feb 10, 05:09 PM #
I wouldn’t assume that hallucinogens shatter all rationality, or that there is a rational constant present to shatter in the first place. And certainly not that anything is based entirely on rational thought.

Mind altering substances from my perspective, play with your mind’s equalizer. The music stays the same but some frequencies are enhanced while others are muted. It’s more about if you feel like playing with the settings than if different settings have any merit.
Justin Ruckman

Feb 10, 07:33 PM #
In response to your post about altered states of mind/ consciousness I want to post a part of my article which explains how the speed of visuals/ words and the switch over from physical work to mental work affects the subjective-experience of mind.

The link between Mind and Social / Environmental-Issues.

The fast-paced, consumerist lifestyle of Industrial Society is causing exponential rise in psychological problems besides destroying the environment. All issues are interlinked. Our Minds cannot be peaceful when attention-spans are down to nanoseconds, microseconds and milliseconds. Our Minds cannot be peaceful if we destroy Nature.

Industrial Society Destroys Mind and Environment.

Subject : In a fast society slow emotions become extinct.
Subject : A thinking mind cannot feel.
Subject : Scientific/ Industrial/ Financial thinking destroys the planet.

Emotion is what we experience during gaps in our thinking.

If there are no gaps there is no emotion.

Today people are thinking all the time and are mistaking thought (words/ language) for emotion.

When society switches-over from physical work (agriculture) to mental work (scientific/ industrial/ financial/ fast visuals/ fast words ) the speed of thinking keeps on accelerating and the gaps between thinking go on decreasing.

There comes a time when there are almost no gaps.

People become incapable of experiencing/ tolerating gaps.

Emotion ends.

Man becomes machine.

A society that speeds up mentally experiences every mental slowing-down as Depression / Anxiety.

A ( travelling )society that speeds up physically experiences every physical slowing-down as Depression / Anxiety.

A society that entertains itself daily experiences every non-entertaining moment as Depression / Anxiety.

FAST VISUALS /WORDS MAKE SLOW EMOTIONS EXTINCT.

SCIENTIFIC /INDUSTRIAL /FINANCIAL THINKING DESTROYS EMOTIONAL CIRCUITS.

A FAST (LARGE) SOCIETY CANNOT FEEL PAIN / REMORSE / EMPATHY.

A FAST (LARGE) SOCIETY WILL ALWAYS BE CRUEL TO ANIMALS/ TREES/ AIR/ WATER/ LAND AND TO ITSELF.

To read the complete article please follow either of these links :

http://www.planetsave.com/ps_mambo/index.php?option=com_simpleboard&Itemid=75&func=view&id=68&catid=6

http://www.earthnewswire.com/index.php?option=com_forum&Itemid=89&page=viewtopic&t=11

sushil_yadav
sushil_yadav

Feb 11, 01:03 AM #
Did your friend happen to play basketball at Gonzaga…?
Andrew H

Feb 11, 11:34 AM #
I agree with RAM DASS,THE HARVARD PSYCHOLOGIST THAT TOOK LSD that mind expansion drugs ‘speed up’ a process that occurs naturally through normal daily expansion.Having taken LSD and mescaline in the 70’s and almost fifty today,the way I feel now and what I experience on the internet,socially and sexually would have been felt as ‘tripping’ when younger.As A MEMBER OF SOCIETY -don’t take drugs,then,and experience that same result thru normal channels.
reidwalldrippy

Feb 11, 12:20 PM #
Rich:
Thanks Rich, I saw that booked linked to at the Wikipedia entry for Doors, I’ll try to pick them up.

Justin Ruckman:
Yeah, I was definitely taking the comparison to the extremes there.
Also, that’s a fantastic analogy.

reidwalldrippy:
Yes, like Justin mentioned, if the drugs are only enhancing certain senses, then any conclusions arrived at during this period of heightened perception are still valid.
Thame

Feb 11, 01:56 PM #
Re: “I, like many others, vacillate between applying all of my effort towards practical life, and screaming at the sky about how pointless it is.” ...

http://www.huge-entity.com/2007/02/on-nature-of-this-incomprehensible.html
Justin Ruckman

Feb 11, 04:38 PM #
I think you’re glamorising the experience. Sure, all kinds of wierd shit can open up, some of it maybe quite interesting. That in itself is not a reason to do this, for several important reasons

1) damage
2) it extends the autobiography, which itself changes nothing – you’re still just YOU, with no greater understanding of life because thats NOT what drugs give you
3) philosophy? – I think its a nonsense connection to make.
TheDude

Feb 14, 02:36 PM #
i disagree with TheDude
im not saying that drugs are a good idea, although i do them on occasion, but the thought processes that your mind goes through while on many substances can help one come to realizations about life and the world around them that they would have never otherwise come to
DanMac

Feb 14, 08:49 PM #
Well,I dont think person who is already in unconscious state by taking drugs,could actually gain anything except meandring of his thoughts..
ajay

Feb 18, 08:46 AM #
Nah the drugs are just taking over their brain, nothing philosophical according to me, just like a dream which you remember.

Linked to you, come visit some time.
8 in 48

Feb 22, 10:48 AM #
i myself too am a constant user of ganja,(no not lsd heroin and such just mj), and the prolonged use has open so many doors and closed many, one of them really is wisdom. the flow of imagination, reflection becomes alot easier. its not for everyone i must state.
Iz

Feb 27, 08:52 PM #
Entheogenic substances are tools; they can be used or abused to various ends.

One problem with using them explicitly for the purposes of conscious growth is, as I see it, their unpredictability.

This, combined with the counter-productive stance taken by our governments on this issue, can make it more difficult than necessary to organise suitable settings for meditative use.

Those who seek to throw open the doors of perception through plant-allies or synthetic chemicals may find that their expansion proceeds quite quickly. And unless they have a solid framework of meditation or other discipline, this can be a difficult process to reconcile.

However, if a relatively balanced individual feels inclined to use a reasonable dose of an entheogen in a peaceful environment, the experiment will very often produce beneficial results. If integrated with an ongoing practice aimed at nourishing the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual aspects of the self, it can be invaluable.

Stanislav Grof used LSD to heal psychotic patients that had previously been considered ‘lost causes’. He found that they tended to undergo trans-personal experiences of a mystical nature, unexplainable by the prevalent consensus view of science.

To anyone interested in this realm of the exploration of consciousness, I would say: AYAHUASCA.

slan agus beannacht
phats

Mar 1, 11:22 AM #
The hallucinogens I’ve taken (magic mushrooms) did more than enhance sensory experiences. They caused a sense of intellectual breakthrough and discovery, and a passionate desire to explain those “discoveries”.

Unfortunately, the more circular the thought, the greater this sense of discovery. I think it was the circularity iteslf that seemed particularly striking and impressive.

So. in my experience hallucinogens simulate philosophical breakthroughs, rather than causing them.

Great fun, though.
Nick A

Mar 3, 12:35 PM #
“They caused a sense of intellectual breakthrough and discovery, and a passionate desire to explain those “discoveries”.”

In response to the above:

Taking drugs may make one think that they are at an intelletual breakthrough. However, drugs alter the way your mind reads the information it is recieving through the senses. I would question the validity of any breakthrough made while my mind was being “tricked” because the breakthrough is not based on valid information.

I would equate the idea that taking drugs makes you a better philosopher with the idea that taking steroids makes you a better athlete. It is somewhat artificial and not sustainable which, I believe, makes it not yours.
Mary B.

Mar 30, 05:59 PM #
Hallucinogens, by definition, make you hallucinate. This is obvious. The purpose of philosophy is to help you live life in reality. A hallucination is not reality. Something that makes sense because you are hallucinating probably will not make sense in reality.
BrutalCapitalist

Apr 2, 04:18 AM #
depends what you call reality, brutal capitalist.

Are you not still living, breathing, and experiencing while in a hallucinogenic state?

It certainly Feels very real.

and how can anything be called fake if it exists?

Isn’t reality what you’re perceiving at any and every moment?

i think it’s possible to experience intellectual breakthroughs in any conscious (and unconscious!) arena. I’m sure it happens all the time.

In fact, one might be limiting themselves if not willing to explore every possible way to explore.
albatross

Apr 25, 10:14 PM #
The point I was trying to make was that when you are hallucinating, altering your brain in a way that makes you mispercieve and distort reality, you can’t come up with solutions for a reality in which you are generally forced to live. Solutions that you come up with while in the altered state will generally, not always, not apply to a normal or unaltered state.
Brutal Capitalist

Apr 27, 11:01 PM #
I have also taken this approach to drug use, but through my experience drugs are only mind altering and nothing else. So many times have i reached ‘enlightenment’ that now i understand it as ignorance. Conclusions reached while under the influence of drugs are always very convincing, you lack the skepticism which sobriety offers. Simple ideas seem more significant and you can see the connection (which you normally take for granted) clearer.

Sobriety is a particular mix of mindstates, and tripping is another. I find it somewhat presumptuous to say that evolution has given us the best composition possible. the drug induced mindstate may not be better but in many cases it isnt any worse. Some drugs i would say allows you to operate in the real world just as well as sobriety would, perhaps even clearer.

However there is one major philosophical point which drugs has taught me. That reality is as real as your mind makes it. the first time i smoked marijuana, it blew my mind… it wasnt incredibly intense like acid, but it showed me a completely different view of the world which i was oblivious to. not that it was more accurate but that the sobriety which i was used to is faulty and unreliable.

our minds make mistakes all the time. look at optical illusions. but we are often so convinced that our senses are reliable, we forget that optical illusions are infact a hallucination. when we see lines that bend or colours that aren’t, we are hallucinating. Sobriety is a trip.
Jack

May 13, 07:16 AM #
yeah…...since i have not taken drugs so far, drugs are not the solution for any mental or physical stress.Its basically the presence of mind, it is a state of mind.To attain this state of mind, is done with the individual responsibility.Doing YOGA is ultimate solution for this state.
direction unwanted!!!!

May 17, 03:32 AM #
Most people believe marijuana causes forgetfulness, but it seems to me the layers of habitual denial melt away, my struggle with denial leaves me a much better memory than most. The depression denial causes is chemical change that natural ingestion of herbs (and food) can balance. Reason is a man-made structure of containment so doors of perception may be a gift from (of) Creation Powers. What if natural astringents actually clean the filters? Drugs might be like binoculars and people tend to look through the wrong end.
It is natural to alter consciousness (with roller-coasters, etc.) to augment the thrill of life.
I use taichi at unnatural speed (slowing time) to explore limits of natural form (centering space) for body balance, which is an uncommon state of consciousness, but possibly more natural.
Brad4d

May 17, 11:09 AM #
Ah but the irony! It is an interesting thought, this one, and a lo-fi example would be the use of caffeine as a stimulant in improving the mind’s capacities. Would you use it or would you not? Culture has yet to catch up. Freedom of choice, however, is still ours.

PS: A wonderous blog of what I have been steering towards, with my blogging. How dire to have met someone who has done far better :P, and a medic too. Keep on going!
Cheryl

Jan 26, 08:42 PM #