ADVOCATION OF PSYCHEDELICS

[Bushpig]

Well not sure if this is correct place but I've not posted in the forum I moderate in for some time lol so here goes:

"...today one can't responsibly advocate the use of major psychedelics. The risks to mental health are too high. "Bad trips" are an ever-present possibility for emotionally unenriched Darwinians. "Freak-outs" on LSD may befall even the psychologically robust. Informed consent prior to taking psychedelics is biologically impossible. This is because psychedelia is not just weirder than the drug-naïve mind conceives; it's weirder than the drug-naïve mind can conceive. One can't grasp, in advance, the nature of the sorts of experience to which one is nominally consenting. Yet in consequence of this taboo on chemically altered awareness, a host of unimaginably alien state spaces of consciousness remains off-limits. Trapped in the squalid psychochemical ghetto of Darwinian life, we lack the necessary wetware to conceptualise radically altered states of mind. We can't explicitly represent such states. We haven't even names for the strange new textures of selfhood and introspection that their metabolic pathways disclose. Alas pure reasoning is impotent to access their nature because it lacks the semantic primitives with which to do so. Yet when the vertebrate genome is rewritten, and gradients of genetically-preprogrammed bliss become the norm of mental health, our veil of ignorance can be safely ripped aside. Armed with exquisite cocktails of designer-drugs, even the most outlandish realms of psychedelia can then be investigated in depth. The study of consciousness can become a truly experimental scientific discipline. And crucially, the advent of post-Darwinian genotypes coding for invincible happiness offers a delightful prospect. At last we'll be able safely to explore other-worldly forms of existence in the confidence that they will all, without exception, radiate the sparkle of earthly paradise..."

From the site:

http://www.hallucinogens.com/
(not worked out who the quote is from yet )


My reason for this is to see what you guys think..basically..........DISCUSS

Booooooooshpig

[fuzz]

before to discuss the opinion you posted, it's nescessary to put this text into its context. its written by a known transhumanist, which of course, they come with their own philosophies and understandings of life.
Discussing transhumanism is a nice topic, but quite large.



I do think this text posted makes some obvious points such as :"One can't grasp, in advance, the nature of the sorts of experience to which one is nominally consenting.". of course we can never know what psychedelics will do in each session, then again, we dont know what no psycedelics would do either.
basically we dont know, so its nice using ones brain as the BLTC site proposes. In the MDMA page for exemple, they do mention that the use of MDMA should ideally be not more than 2 or 3 times in a life time if one doesnt want serious damage done to the fine chemical balance that homosapiens brain is. too bad for them ravers and party goers, but according to that page, they've done irrecuperable damages, so basically they're fucked.

as a great Shulgin said: "be in-form-ed, then choose". (Shulgin said this right?)

lets take a look at the intro of BLTC, it says a lot already...
http://www.bltc.com/

"BLTC RESEARCH was founded in 1995 to promote paradise-engineering. We are dedicated to an ambitious global technology project. BLTC seek to abolish the biological substrates of suffering. Not just in humans, but in all sentient life."

Paradise engineering? WWHHHAATTTT??? Stop suffering in biological life forms (such as homosapiens for exemple??) WWHHHAATTTT? Sentient versus non sentient talks always made me laugh too...
for more transhuman understanding of sapiency, you can see here:
http://www.orionsarm.com/sentients.html
(yes so it is a science fiction site, but yes, it is written by trans heads, and no real transhuman can go past orions arm. go through the site if you want to know more about our future in "paradise engeneiring") and see you in half a year or so, at least thats what it took me to get into that world vision  

Back to BLTC, if you finish reading that page, the shit just keeps on caking on, with statements such as : for the 3rd millenium they want to " rewrite the vertebrate genome".
ok, that sounds scary enough, lets move on to the FAQ page. First thing you can do to help building this "paradise", you have to "Put up a web page setting out your own perspective."
Ok, so thats way enough bowlshit for me. I'd rather learn how to grow my garden, i think thats closer to paradise than babbling on some computer, and as it is i do enough bable as it is.
then again, seeing how much babble is in the web, with some 10th of thousands of blogs and various sites opening every day, i guess according to the BLTC's theory, we soon should be reaching this ellusive paradise state. Yeah, cant you see it too? paradise is coming to town man!

So, yes the transhumans have some very appealling ideas, but many are also scary as shit. in their world, you'd better conform, or its a forced nanochip up your ass that will conform you, if even you were lucky enough and judged smart enough to see the light of the day.

"Not happy enough? dont worry, we'll force you to be happy enough!!"
"Not reaching the intelligence quotas, no worries, we got a nanochip for that too, try our special delete you chip!"

so, in conclusion, the BLTC site has some very interesting ways of putting up ideas, but i also see it as quite dangerous if one studies the philosophy behind it, ie, transhumanism. whats even more dangerous is the way they write text that is extremely clear and enticing at first approach.
i am sure you nerds out there have already gone through Sanders files, but for those who havent, here is a good start:
http://www.aleph.se/Trans/.
(can be slow loading at times, be patient if you experience some delay)

i dont want to build paradise/hell, since to me paradise/hell is already here (i use the word paradise/hell because to me its like time/space, ie one word, not 2). its a state of mind, i just have to be in that state of mind or not. its that simple, and its not something outside of myself, therefore the understanding that its something "outside" to build is to me a ridiculous idea.
Waaaitttt aaa mn!!! i have the illusion that i actually exist!!! i already am in paradise/hell!!! who or what the heck uploaded me in there!???!!!

to repeat those wise words: "be in-form-ed, then choose" and i'll add to that:
"to be or not to be, here is the question. yet, no matter what you choose, you still are". Fuzzy the Poo TS 5026

and then i wander:
what ever happened to the good old BLT?

[Veracohr]

So what I'm seeing is an argument saying psychedelics shouldn't be used until this grandiose "rewriting of the vertebrate genome" is accomplished?

The website doesn't really look like it's worth the time to read it, but I might try to go through a little bit sometime.

As far as the quote, I don't think I would say I advocate the use of psychedelics on a general level. I don't think everyone should use them. I only advocate the choice to do so, and leave that choice up to the individual. And in response to this part:

we lack the necessary wetware to conceptualise radically altered states of mind

I say that, setting aside for a moment those who use psychedelics just for fun, to me this is pretty much why they are used. If we had the ability to conceptualize and process the input of a pschedelic experience in the same way as the input of ordinary states of conciousness, the experience would be useless. Psychedelics are used to expand the concepts we currently hold, to expand that 'wetware', or more accurately the 'software' within that 'wetware'.

And, as always, I don't speak for everybody. That's just how I see things.

[Veracohr]

double post

[laughingwillow]

I agree with Veracohr.

lw

[Jupe]

Interesting to see how many other .com sites they have....

I agree with Veracohr as well...

Humans being the somewhat clever creatures we are....I think Paradise wil be more on the order of William S. Gibson's writings..."Neuromancer"  still amazes me...written in 1985..thats like centuries ago.

[jikuhchagi]

I agree with LW. :wink:

[fuzz]

i totally disagree with fuzz