That's like saying that only studying the universe with the frequencies of visible light will be more effective.
It's probably the most effective, since we're biased towards being capable of analyzing data from those wavelengths, and the atmosphere is transparent to them.
But why would that imply that we can't use tools that let us view how the universe looks with different wavelengths of light to effectively discover new things we otherwise wouldn't?
I think it is largely a mirage. Certain drugs make us feel like we’ve “broken through” or “figured it all out”. We might write down these incredible insights, hoping to share them with the sober world as a kind of prophet. And the next day we read these words of truth, “Purple banana, awesome blofohga!”
Eh, your brain is a lot more complicated than that.
Your brain is the most powerful filter we've discovered in the universe. You can take immense amount of noise and separate information from it. The issue with these filters is most of the time you don't realize you have them. How you were raised, the people you're around, the culture you're in can all present bias filters that are impossible to see around since you don't even realize they exist.
It may not be 'figuring it all out', but sometimes just having a filter lowered for a bit letting you realize there is another part of the world exists behind it can be a breakthrough.
That was kind of my initial reaction. Like the idea of "breaking through" seems to rely on there being some other coherent world to break through to, ie the basis of most of what we call religion. Which, at least to me, isn't particularly compelling.
But on second thought, we certainly are experiencing some kind of phenomenon of consciousness, even if it's purely an emergent phenomenon of the physical world. And tweaking the experiencing of that consciousness will tend to expose the boundaries of it, even if just at the level of running a fuzzer on a C program or blowing up a balloon too far.
That indeed might happen. Also, something else might happen.
Each individual human doesn't know everything that happens, consciousness + culture just makes it look like they do, as demonstrated in numerous comments in this thread, and all other threads, on TV, in conversation, etc. Reality itself is composed of various mirages.
Some substances help me ask that all important question in the first place. Waking up, brushing teeth, going to work, doing chores, raising kids, family time, rollerblading, gardening, studying... These activities don't help me ponder my existence with the same efficiency as some substances can offer. I mean, who has the time to ask these questions in the first place?!
I'm reminded of a quote from the TV series "Weeds". A bit on the nose, I know, but when discussing peyote in the show, one character said, "It's like 30 years of psychotherapy in one night".
In the real world, the scientific community's recent renaissance around the use of psychoactive drugs like psilocybin or MDMA in therapeutic settings is further proof that "substances" can be good.
If someone doesn't have time to ask existential questions, then how does that person have time to do drugs?
I guess your point is that psychoactive drugs can speed up thinking about these questions. I guess I could see that. It sounds a bit like how Adderall can speed up people's programming ability.
Does having a greater variety of life experience broaden one’s horizon? I hear travel can expand the mind. Reading books by diverse authors on varied subjects is believed to be valuable even if those books aren’t on metaphysics. Why wouldn’t psychedelic experiences be similar to travel or reading or joining the army or falling in love or any other of the many experiences we can know?
I’m not advocating for or against the use of mind-altering substances. But a scientist with two microscopes is going to have an edge over one who dogmatically subscribes to their one and only favourite. Even something as simple as observing the sky turns on knowledge of the failure of our neuro-optical pathways qua optical illusions.
The scientist whose second microscope has fun-house wonky lenses may only have an edge when it comes to discovering canals on Mars, researching N-rays (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N_ray), and similar.
Yes. If you don't want to use chemical substances, try fasting without water or food for large periods of time. Highly recommend The Doors of Perception by Aldous Huxley for you.
Wouldn't a sober study of the universe and history be more effective?
Once upon a time, people painted with oil paints as closely as they could to still life reality. But something was missing. Cue impressionism. After impressionism, an increasingly vanishingly small proportion of the art world tried to paint still life as an arts career and be taken seriously.
And so, then along came cameras. So now why should anyone bother with art at all, wouldn't sober photographs taken by cameras more effective at depicting reality?
(No offense to photographers.)
Not all of life is about being more effective and efficient all the time. Sometimes it's worthwhile to see things in a different way, and to open up new ideas.
We are in agreement. Personally I went through a history phase, and photography phase, and a Wikipedia phase: now I'm doing watercolour. I find art history to be very interesting, but mostly only the generalities.
Hmm. It seems to me that the switch from still life to impressionism was due to a change in the goal.
With study vs drugs, the goal is still the same: find out why we're here. Since there isn't a goal change, it's not clear there should be a strategy change.
The problem is the only reasons to suspect drugs can provide "insight" into "why we are here" arise from mysticism and other basically non-scientific things. How does making your brain work differently help us understand reality? Weed doesn't make the ruler more accurate or change size, it just makes you feel good.
Coffee benefits some people (I'm not sure it really provides me benefit though).
But do psychedelic drugs help? If I want to write code, would a psychedelic drug help there? If not, why would a psychedelic drug help in finding why I exist?
Wouldn't a sober study of the universe and history be more effective?