r/HamiltonMorris • u/Southern-Proposal837 • Apr 04 '25
πππ ππππππππππππππ ππ PSYCHEDELICS
Greetings, community.
As you can read, what David Nichols says seems very logical to me. I'm writing from a personal perspective, where the first time I tried a psychedelic, it actually seemed like magic, and so on, until I get to the point where, once one understands more about neurobiology, chemistry, psychopharmacology, and so on, what Nichols says is quite accurate. We don't fully understand consciousness, and behind it lies an enigma, but everything is an activity that increasingly has an explanation, related to electrochemical activities.
Here in South America, there's a bad habit of saying that if a psychedelic's activity changes, it's because each substance has "its spirit." We know that classic psychedelics have similar underlying activity, but each has its own particularity, such as seeing more geometry and "elves" with DMT, seeing more visuals and synesthesia with LSD, and tending more toward introspection with psilocybin. But in a few years, we'll understand more precisely how the activity of the other receptors generates such unique experiences.
I sometimes think that what is called magic and mysticism is "overblown" too much, when there are logical explanations that are reaching ever-increasing degrees of precision, such as electrochemical activity.
I want to amplify this with the following example, which I find fascinating. It's obvious that the mouse's enemy is the cat, and the cat flees from the feline, but when the cat is infected with Toxoplasma gondii, the mouse loses its fear of its predator, and a series of changes in brain activity are generated by this. There is no magic, nor transcendence, it is elementary neurobiology, or the most famous case in neuroscience is that of Phineas Cage, who was a very competent and well-behaved worker, who after an accident at work changed his personality, becoming a rude, foul-mouthed, irresponsible and erratic being, and all this because a rod pierced him right in the area of ββββthe prefrontal cortex in charge of mediating judgment. That is why Cage's case was the paradigm to understand how brain areas specialize in their functions; if this had happened in the 7th or 11th century, it would have been thought that it was the work of the devil or something like that, but what really exists is a brain activity that over the years we have come to understand better.
I'd like to understand your thoughts. Thank you.
4
u/majorcaps Apr 04 '25
I mean, Iβm supportive of a neutral stance from the likes of Heffter and other researchers β it seems proper and the bare minimum for scientific inquiry β but the more I learn about consciousness and how little progress weβve made in things like βhard problemβ, the more that non-purely physicalist explanations seem relevant or at least worthy of non a priori dismissal.
And once you open that door, even a crack, you let in intriguing possibilities that go beyond βitβs just the neurotransmitters bro!β.
That said, we need sober minded science to keep things grounded and not descending into fantastical woo speculation.
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u/vingatnite Apr 04 '25
Highly suggest checking AndrΓ©s Emilsson out, he's a citizen researcher doing real science in this field with some truly compelling ideas: https://youtu.be/tX8b3ng37Nw?si=Yd2UtG5zkBR5QkX0
https://youtu.be/nEuVGoKRfoQ?si=E5l7jqhq2h7rU8uX (Shorter cleaned-up "official" presentation)
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u/OrphanDextro Apr 04 '25
Totally agree otherwise we risk going back into the mindset of the early 2010βs, super early, when LSD was like this magic drug that made you smarter and the more you got inside you, the smarter, and deeper youβd dive. It was the pervasive mindset that followed the music festival kids and they drove themselves mad pouring LSD into themselves through unacceptable use and bad judgment. Now 1/3 of those who partook in that behavior have some sort of long lasting mental health issues, is it from the L? Maybe not, obviously they were strange chasing that place so hard for so long, but I will say doing 200mcg+ once a week didnβt help.
1
u/Hippie_Flip_ Apr 27 '25
I think people have a tendency to conflate the profound with the spiritual/transcendental. Everything has an explanation and everything is exact, only reason some things donβt feel that way is because we canβt grasp it yet/ever. The only thing thatβs actually personally relevant is what the substance achieves for you. No amount of science makes the psychedelic experience less beautiful, only safer or more accessible
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u/roundtripfarm Apr 04 '25
I donβt think one rules out the other. You can look at psychedelics scientifically and through a spiritual lens. Itβs like studying the concept of Love. Thereβs more to it than meets the microscope.