From: || | | | | | | | | (blacksun@btinternet.com)
Date: Sat May 18 2002 - 07:57:25 MDT
Michelle
> Thanks for a really lovely post!!
No. Thank you.
> Actually, I think your experience with psychadelics has been enhanced by
> your obviously thoughtful and analytical nature.
Thoughtful and analytical eh? Hmm, I know a few people who would disagree
: )
> But you concede that most people who use psychadelics use
> them in an infantile, reactionary way without the kind of thought that
> you've obviously put into it.
You are correct - it is at the heart of my current frustration with the
"psychedelic scene" in general. Far too many people claiming; novelty, to
reject dogma and to have found "true enlightenment", without ever realising
that they have been bitten by dogma. Hence my assertion of what psychedelics
don't do, which is in direct contrast to what most actually take
psychedelics for.
> Psychadelics are totally useful for breaking down barriers but they don't
> hold secrets, only keys. I have nothing against them, I only hope that
most
> use them the way that you have.
I am an outsider.
Michelle wrote:
> I am turned off by the theories that psychadelics are what made humanity
out
> of animals - enabling language and such. Does that mean that we are
> inventing interesting new things to entertain ourselves with, or does that
> mean that we are tapping into something that does exist (and has always)?
Hermit wrote:
> I'd suggest the following revisions:How we developed these abilities is
far less important than the fact that they exist. I consider the argument
that
> psychedelics were a prerequisite to neurological development dubious and
probably unprovable, and would add that the development of self-
> aware AI (without the use of hallucinogenic drugs, except possibly by the
programmers) may provide serious obstacles to this theory.
I agree that it is speculative to assert that psychedelics were the catalyst
for generating human language and culture. I would also agree with Hermit
who states that "how" is less important than its actual existence.
With regards to generation of language - from a private email:
"Words are particularly limiting when used literally. They are less limiting
when used metaphorically. I really believe that this is a major insight
conveniently kept away from the masses. One of the greatest lies
communicated to children is 'Metaphor is a figure of speech.' All language
and symbolic representation is metaphorical! When any words are mistaken as
something other than metaphor they become ways of fixing labels and
categories and they lead us into the illusion of a world of isolated objects
and differentiated thinking. Words as metaphors, on the other hand, open up
the doors of probability and lead us into rich associative networks. I would
agree with Leary that metaphor is the primary figure of speech, and thought,
and that all thinking and all symbolic representation is essentially
metaphorical or analogical. Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "Science is nothing
but the finding of analogy." G. Stanley Hall, one of the founders of
scientific psychology in America claimed that metaphors are among the mind's
"first spontaneous creations" and provide the basis for language
development, which is essentially "fossil poetry." The notion that
metaphorical or analogical thinking forms the basis of all knowledge is
widely held.
It is the nature of consciousness to seek similarities. Israel Rosenfield
(in Strange Familiar and Forgotten) reduced consciousness to the process of
making distinctions and establishing relations. Our grand ideas and
philosophies are just higher order escalations of this simple formula:
making distinctions/establishing relations
The first developmental task of awareness is to establish those relations
that give rise to body image and distinguish self from other. From the body
image as point of self-reference all other relations can be established. Our
notions of space and objects, for example, are based on abstractions made
from our experience of the body as a point of reference. Our notion of time
is in turn an abstraction of our notion of space. Our manufactured
technology is the way we have extended our bodies into space and time in
order to control and explore the environment.
The second developmental task is the creation of symbolic language.
Thereafter, the body image and symbolic language become the two primary
mechanisms for establishing relations and making distinctions. If you wish
to fundamentally change a person's experience of the world, change their
experience of their body, or their experience of symbolic language. A
fundamental change in experience is usually accompanied by a significant
change in metaphor.
"Metaphor ignites a new arc of perceptive energy...It relates hitherto
unrelated experience..."
George Steiner
Creative acts, as Koestler points out, involve "seeing an analogy where no
one saw one before." What is the mechanism underlying this? Or, in
Koestler's words, "Where does the hidden likeness hide, and how is it
found?" Why are certain similarities perceived? Such a question may seem
fairly pointless to someone who believes that their experience of continuity
and coherence is an objective reality.
WHAT STATES OF CONSCIOUSNESS ARE IDEAL FOR GENERATING METAPHOR?
Many of the physiological and psychological aspects of trance states
[whether induced by psychedelic drugs or other means] point to their being
ideal for metaphor generation (and in this sense I consider early shamans to
be metaphor generators):
a hyper-associative,
low-focus,
divergent state in which the individual is open to new possibilities,
is not being distracted by anxiety or a narrow (high) focus,
and is able to destructure the limitations of previous metaphor sets as well
as generate new ones.
States similar to trance are often related by people of exceptional creative
ability in relation to fundamental breakthroughs. What must be stressed here
is the relation of trance states to metaphor generation, not necessarily to
some objective truth.
The key word in metaphor generation and the generation of human
consciousness or human culture is "association." Our perceptual
categorising, memory, and learning (which depends on the first two) all
depend on association. The ability to generate metaphor is the ability to
make new associations. The hyper-associative state typical of trance is
analogous to the experience where you are surronded by "white noise" - while
taking a shower, for example. This white noise contains within it the
probabilities of many different sounds. You may hear the telephone ring,
someone call your name, or a song you've just been listening to."
Hermit - I may be mistaken but is it not true that the most promising
results in AI stem from programming it to 'learn by association'? Perhaps
you can elaborate where I am unable to?
> I've had a lot of really amazing ideas while on drugs that don't fit when
> I'm not - but the residue of the feeling is totally real and valuable.
IMO analytical thought should always be applied to test the insights or 'new
connections' made during a psychedelic session. I use analytical processes
to describe a problem and to gather data. I then apply an analogical or
associative process (the psychedelic session) to assist in producing a
solution. Lastly the analytical process is used to test the solution once it
has been found.
In my experience the majority of psychedelic users are confused about this
integrative stage and instead prefer to reject the "cold logical stage",
thus leaving themselves defenseless to the rabid bite of the dogma.
Of course if I reach a stage in my life when psychedelics are no longer a
beneficial tool in fascilitating this process I will not hesitate to throw
them out. The same goes for this process as a whole. I am not sentimental
about this.
> Am I
> being clear at all?
You are being very clear.
Take care and ctrl.
bricoleur.
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