We are all born with the idea of God

fitz0

I'm reading David Nutt's Drugs Without the Hot Air at the minute and he goes into LSD in one chapter. He states that LSD is one of the safest drugs in existence and that it is almost impossible to overdose on. He also says that psychosis and anxiety are usually caused by unknowingly consuming the drug or using it without being prepared for it. Both of which wouldn't apply to somebody willing to and actively seeking to take the drug. The likelihood of anxiety is higher in people who are more cautious and are not likely to want to take the drug at all. Overall (although I'm not finished the chapter) he presents a relatively positive image of LSD and psychadelics in general.

dybbuk

I know several people who never came back from the trip. So that is a lie.
But even more true is that "LSD is a substance which can cause psychotic reactions in people that don't take it." (Tim Leary)

nagirrac

Undergod wrote: »

Subjective data? You mean anecdote?
If not, what on earth does "subjective data" mean? If it's open to interpretation and experienced differently by different individuals, what use is it in forming solid hypotheses?

Sorry, I did go off on a bit of a tangent but I was responding to the specific argument about no evidence for a higher power.

There is a huge distinction between an anecdotal data point and subjective data. The whole field of Psychology is largely based on subjective data. We would literally know very little about the human mind were it not for psychological studies utilizing the scientific method. These studies are carefully designed and involve significant numbers of data sets to minimize the effect of individual experience.

I agree hypotheses from subjective data are not "solid" compared to objective data, but we can't just discard them because we don't have objective methods to study them in more detail.

Soma is the psychedelic plant mentioned in Indian mystical literature. There are numerous proposals for what it actually was, the most credible seems to be the fly agaric mushroom, although there are other candidates.

Brian Shanahan

Kidchameleon wrote: »

Worth nothing the atrocities that science has led to. Atomic bomb etc.

An atomic bomb is not an atrocity, it is a tool which can be used to cause an atrocity.

There is an important distinction between the two. And it lies in the fact that knowledge knows nothing from good or evil, it only on the uses to which that knowledge is put that the labels good and evil can be applied, e.g. using tri-nitro-toluene to get at the contents of a bank vault is evil, but using it to unearth valuable minerals is good (of course even then both terms are relative).

Brian Shanahan

kylith wrote: »

Fair enough. I'm in work at the mo and don't really have time to properly search, I figured that it was better than starting my post with 'I read on Cracked that...'. I know that it was reported in the Mail on Sunday:

Well then we can be reasonably (i.e. greater than 99%) certain that this story is a lie. 99% of Der Heil am Sontag stories are a lie (the weekly paper is worse).

Brian Shanahan

kylith wrote: »

Maybe it just need him to come at it from a different perspective, and LSD helped with that.

Or maybe robbing the photographic evidence gathered by another team trying to solve the same problem was more important?

nagirrac

Brian Shanahan wrote: »

Or maybe robbing the photographic evidence gathered by another team trying to solve the same problem was more important?

I assume you are talking about the x-ray crystallography work of Rosalind Franklin and Maurice Wilkins, which Francis Crick openly said was used in the model Watson and himself developed. Watson and Crick acknowledged the work of Wilkins and Franklin in their original paper describing the double helix structure of DNA. Wilkens was invited to co-author their paper and declined. The xrd data was one just one piece of the puzzle, not at all unusual in that all science evolves through the work of various researchers. It is one of the interesting aspects of scientific discovery that very often similar discoveries are made by different groups. Crick also said in correspondence that Wilkins should have shared in the 1962 Nobel prize (Rosalind Franklin had died in 1958, so was not eligible).

If there was such a thing as a posthumous Nobel prize, Rosalind Franklin should get one. There is no question her xrd work was instrumental in the discovery of DNA as a double helix structure. I do think however there is a bit of an urban myth associated with the suggestion her work was "stolen", even if there is some anecdotal evidence to suggest this. The fact that she was close friends with Crick and his wife through the period of her later career, illness and up to her untimely death would seem to refute this. Thankfully she has received enormous recognition for her work in recent decades. She died in 1958 at the age of 37.

Zombrex

Geomy wrote: »

Maybe irrelevant to yo but to others who lean more twoards an esotheric/mystical way of thinking its relevant

And ... ? Some people think the world is flat. The world is full of idiots.

Zombrex

Cork Boy wrote: »

Psychotropic drugs (mushrooms, LSD, DMT, etc) drugs operate by temporarily affecting a person's neurochemistry, which in turn causes changes in a person's mood, cognition, perception and behavior.

It's not just about a different viewpoint or seeing things from a different angle. Like hypnosis, LSD has been used in therapy in order to regress through a person's memory that they cannot do by themselves.

This is just one example. In layman's terms, psychotropic drugs have the ability to (de)enhance brain functions as neurotransmitters and receptors are affected by the drug

All psychotropic drugs can do is effect the parts of the brain that are already there, in a manner that is already in the range of effects of the brain. They cannot produce effects that a human brain already cannot achieve.

Or to put it another way, a 5 euro pocket calculator enhances the human brain a million times more than the most powerful psychotropic drug.

Zombrex

nagirrac wrote: »

Exactly what Einstein would have been doing in his mountain walks by the way.

Yes Nagirrac that is exactly the point. These drugs have no more profound physical effect on the mental capacity of the brain than a good walk does. Einstein was Einstein, Jobs was Jobs, Lennon was Lennon not because they took drugs that gave them these abilities but because these abilities were already their, present in their brains. The idea that these drugs advance human mental ability is bogus.

Your mobile phone has enhanced your mental and cognitive abilities far beyond anything a drug could do.

When did this forum turn into the forum of unmitigated nonsense. It is like the Enlightenment never happened ....

nagirrac

Zombrex wrote: »

Yes Nagirrac that is exactly the point. These drugs have no more profound physical effect on the mental capacity of the brain than a good walk does. Einstein was Einstein, Jobs was Jobs, Lennon was Lennon not because they took drugs that gave them these abilities but because these abilities were already their, present in their brains. The idea that these drugs advance human mental ability is bogus.

When did this forum turn into the forum of unmitigated nonsense. It is like the Enlightenment never happened ....

For a poster who it is claimed is the voice of reason around here, it is ironic that you display such a strong example of an argument from ignorance. You speak about the brain in this and above posts as if it is a kind of computer processor we are familiar with. Such nonsense, it is a processor but nothing like anything we are familiar with.

The brain's functioning is still largely unknown to us. There is a project underway called the BAM project which is about the same scope as the human genome project and is estimated to take 15 years to help us understand the brain and mental states better. The best objective data we have today is from fMRI where we can study the structures of the brain and EEG where we can study the electricial signals within the brain. How these physical structures and electrical signals give rise to the mind is still largely a mystery. The most difficult to understand is the binding problem, how does information from many centers in the brain come together to form a specific outcome? Let's say you are trying to solve a difficult mental problem, you will draw on many areas of the brain and then suddenly you get an inspiration and zap problem solved. There are 1) no known physical connections within the brain to facilitate this, and 2) the speed at which this happens is far too fast to be based on chemical migration across synapses which is actually quite slow.

The brain is nothing like a hard wired structure, it is a fluid plastic structure that is constantly being rewired. You make it sound like you are born with a brain and that is it ("these abilities were already there"). Not true at all, every time you learn something new, however you learn it, new structures are laid down in the brain. For example if you read my post seriously and then reflect on it seriously, you will build new structures in your brain. If you read a book and gain knowledge from it, you will build new structures in your brain. This is how neuroplasticity works, you can effect permanent changes in your brain by focussed thinking.

Meditation and psychedelic drug intake can cause permenent changes in your brain. Using techniques like fMRI we can study what is going on in the brain in various states. Someone meditating for example has completely different brain activity to someone not meditating, the same with certain drugs. If the brain were the brain and drugs do not change it, how do you explain people who become psychotic permanenty after ingesting massive quantities of LSD for long periods? How do you explain Syd Barrett and many others who were casualties of the 1960s psychedlic revolution? If we accept that brain functions can be damaged by LSD, why is it so outlandish that brain functions can be enhanced by LSD (which is the case in the vast majority of cases, brain damage is quite rare).

Einstein did not just go for a walk, he was meditating. Don't believe me if you choose, but he said so himself. John Lennon said that ingesting LSD was the source of the inspiration for the huge leap in quality and complexity between the Beatles earlier work and their later work. Steve Jobs said that the use of drugs made him more creative. Maybe they are all wrong and you are right, but these are just three examples and there are countless more. Remember also that psychedelic drugs are illegal, so its not like people are in a rush to admit taking them.

King Mob

nagirrac wrote: »

For a poster who it is claimed is the voice of reason around here, it is ironic that you display such a strong example of an argument from ignorance. You speak about the brain in this and above posts as if it is a kind of computer processor we are familiar with.

Lol, once again proving you don't actually know what a fallacy is. Then go on to use one.
"We don't know exactly how the brain works, therefore it's magic and has psychic powers."

nagirrac

King Mob wrote: »

Lol, once again proving you don't actually know what a fallacy is. Then go on to use one.
"We don't know exactly how the brain works, therefore it's magic and has psychic powers."

As always, nothing to add to the discussion.

Zombrex' posts on the brain are an argument from ignorance as there is no evidence to back up his claims, in fact the opposite is true, the available evidence shows he is wrong.

We know a lot about how the brain works and this knowledge supports what I have posted. We also still have a lot to learn. Look it up and educate yourself.

King Mob

nagirrac wrote: »

As always, nothing to add to the discussion.

Just pointing out the irony in the guy who believes in crap like psychic dogs is whinging about people being the voice of reason.

nagirrac wrote: »

Zombrex' posts on the brain are an argument from ignorance as there is no evidence to back up his claims, in fact the opposite is true, the available evidence shows he is wrong.

No, that's not what his argument is.
It is what you are arguing by claiming that because we do not yet have a total understanding of the brain, we can conclude that magic/psychic dogs/god/faires exist.

Again, you don't know what the words you use actually mean.

nagirrac wrote: »

We know a lot about how the brain works and this knowledge supports what I have posted. We also still have a lot to learn. Look it up and educate yourself.

Lol, another star example of your scientific education and reasoning :rolleyes:

Can you describe what the difference between "mediation" and just walking in the woods is, what causes it and how it effects the brain.
Or are we just going to stick to empty, fluffy, vague new age vomit?

nagirrac

King Mob wrote: »

Can you describe what the difference between "mediation" and just walking in the woods is, what causes it and how it effects the brain.
Or are we just going to stick to empty, fluffy, vague new age vomit?

Absolutely I can, but why would I bother wasting my time explaining something to someone who has no interest in learning the subject matter, and whose sole interest seems to be attacking posters with a different view?

Based on your latest ugly diatribe I have placed you on ignore.

King Mob

nagirrac wrote: »

Absolutely I can, but why would I bother wasting my time explaining something to someone who has no interest in learning the subject matter, and whose sole interest seems to be attacking posters with a different view?

I'm not attacking you, just pointing out your failure to understand what a fallacy is and the irony in you attacking Zombrex for a fallacy you actually are committing.

You can't explain it. You can't address any of the things I asked you. You never can. At best we'd get a wall of unsupported claims, random illogical conclusions, more fallacies and name dropping that you think supports your claims because you yourself don't understand half of what you type.

Brian Shanahan

nagirrac wrote: »

I assume you are talking about the x-ray crystallography work of Rosalind Franklin and Maurice Wilkins, which Francis Crick openly said was used in the model Watson and himself developed. Watson and Crick acknowledged the work of Wilkins and Franklin in their original paper describing the double helix structure of DNA.

A) just because they acknowledged the work of others doesn't mean they didn't rob it, it just means that they were thick enough to openly admit it. b) Wilkins refused the offer because his work was used in an immoral fashion by Watson and Crick, plain and simple.

My point still stands.

nagirrac

Brian Shanahan wrote: »

A) just because they acknowledged the work of others doesn't mean they didn't rob it, it just means that they were thick enough to openly admit it. b) Wilkins refused the offer because his work was used in an immoral fashion by Watson and Crick, plain and simple. /QUOTE]

Source for the latter allegation? What I have read is that Wilkins did not feel he had contributed to Watson and Crick's model.

Zombrex

nagirrac wrote: »

The brain's functioning is still largely unknown to us.

This is how every freaking discussion goes with you nagirrac. You make a ridiculous claim that cannot be supported. It is pointed out that your claim is ridiculous and cannot be supported, at which point you make the mother of all logical fallacies and claim that because of our ignorance of the subject people cannot say we know you are wrong :rolleyes:

You appreciate that making a claim that requires a lot of knowledge about how the brain works (or quantum mechanics, or evolution), while simultaneously stating that we know hardly anything about how the brain works (or quantum mechanics, or evolution) is ridiculous right?

This has been pointed out to you before, but you clearly aren't getting it. So lets use a completely obvious example.

Person A claims that All life on this planet was seeded by super intelligent aliens from Mars

Person B points out that we have absolutely no evidence for that and it doesn't make much sense

Person A then points out that we don't know anything about how life got started on Earth, nor do we know anything about the ability of Mars to sustain life from 4 billion years ago.

Person B just looks with bewilderment and rolls their eyes.

You have to stop making claims about subjects that you then a few posts later claim we know almost nothing about, the latter claim you only ever make as a defense against those who say you are wrong.

GCU Flexible Demeanour

Zombrex wrote: »

All psychotropic drugs can do is effect the parts of the brain that are already there, in a manner that is already in the range of effects of the brain. They cannot produce effects that a human brain already cannot achieve.

I'm not particularly saying you're right or wrong. But if human thought has something to do with brain chemistry, surely it's at least possible that augmenting that chemistry can get a brain to do something that it cannot normally do. For the sake of argument, don't folk sometimes use stimulants to stay awake and alert for durations that they'd be unable to manage otherwise.

Again, I'm not taking sides as this is really just a question that's down to evidence. But it seems to me that drugs can produce effects that a brain cannot achieve. I've never managed to replicate the effects of a bottle of Captain Morgan's without actually drinking the stuff.

GCU Flexible Demeanour

nagirrac wrote: »

Sorry, I did go off on a bit of a tangent but I was responding to the specific argument about no evidence for a higher power.

I must be missing the point. How is any of this evidence of a higher power?

Zombrex

GCU Flexible Demeanour wrote: »

Again, I'm not taking sides as this is really just a question that's down to evidence. But it seems to me that drugs can produce effects that a brain cannot achieve.

It seems based on what exactly?

GCU Flexible Demeanour

Zombrex wrote: »

It seems based on what exactly?

OK, just based on the example of stimulants that enable folk to function for longer without sleep.

Bear in mind, the point I'm making is simply that anyone who has every experienced a drunken state has to acknowledge that chemicals can certainly change your mental state. Whether that change constitutes augmentation is really just a matter of definition. Possibly, running round Stephens Green with a traffic cone on your head is a mystic state that raises you closer to the image of the divine creator. Certainly, no-one would do it without the benefit of some mind-altering drug.

Zombrex

GCU Flexible Demeanour wrote: »

OK, just based on the example of stimulants that enable folk to function for longer without sleep.

Bear in mind, the point I'm making is simply that anyone who has every experienced a drunken state has to acknowledge that chemicals can certainly change your mental state.

That isn't in dispute. The claim is that chemicals can give the brain mental abilities it doesn't naturally have.

GCU Flexible Demeanour

Zombrex wrote: »

That isn't in dispute. The claim is that chemicals can give the brain mental abilities it doesn't naturally have.

But isn't duration an ability? And have you ever generated the effects of being drunk without actually putting enough booze into your body?

Zombrex

GCU Flexible Demeanour wrote: »

But isn't duration an ability?

Is it? I wouldn't consider it an ability.

I mean electrocuting your balls for 24 hours straight will keep your brain in a particular state beyond any naturally occurring brain function, but I would hardly call that an enhancement

GCU Flexible Demeanour

Zombrex wrote: »

Is it? I wouldn't consider it an ability.

In fairness, I'd feel it is - but if you're placing it outside the defintion, there's no point in arguing.

Zombrex wrote: »

I mean electrocuting your balls for 24 hours straight will keep your brain in a particular state beyond any naturally occurring brain function, but I would hardly call that an enhancement

But it is a talent.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3aaaF2Ryjo

Geomy

Zombrex wrote: »

And ... ? Some people think the world is flat. The world is full of idiots.

It's the intelligent idiots I'm afraid of...

nagirrac

Zombrex wrote: »

This is how every freaking discussion goes with you nagirrac. You make a ridiculous claim that cannot be supported.

Zombrex, we are both making claims. I am claiming that the brain is a fluid plastic organ that undergoes tremendous modification during our lifetime, and can be deliberately modified resulting in a positive outcome by a variety of causal effects such as meditation, legal and illegal drugs, etc. I am claiming there is significant objective evidence based on scientific measurement techniques such as fMRI to support this claim. Your claim is that this is bulls*** and our brain is our brain and there's nothing we can do to enhance it or presumably de-enhance it.

I have provided significant evidence to back up my claim. You have provided none, and worse still made no effort to debate my evidence. Your position is that of "conventional wisdom", which is the equivalent of an old wives tale, or believing in faeries at the bottom of the garden. You claim to be a man of reason. Well, reason this, which is more likely to be true; something that has lots of evidence backing up its claim, or something that has nothing, other than lots of people think its true.

You are on the wrong side of this argument zombrex. The sound you hear is me sawing through the branch you are sitting on the end of.

Zombrex

nagirrac wrote: »

Zombrex, we are both making claims. I am claiming that the brain is a fluid plastic organ that undergoes tremendous modification during our lifetime, and can be deliberately modified resulting in a positive outcome by a variety of causal effects such as meditation, legal and illegal drugs, etc. I am claiming there is significant objective evidence based on scientific measurement techniques such as fMRI to support this claim. Your claim is that this is bulls*** and our brain is our brain and there's nothing we can do to enhance it or presumably de-enhance it.

Present the evidence that drugs can cause the brain to be modified beyond its natural abilities and that "mystical altered states" actually produce new mental and cognitive abilities beyond what humans are normally capable of.

And no saying "Steve Jobs" is not presenting evidence of this.

nagirrac wrote: »

I have provided significant evidence to back up my claim.

No you haven't, you have just listed people who produced ideas while on drugs. You have presented no evidence that these ideas were incapable of being produced by a brain not on drugs or were produced by mental ability that were even produced by the drugs themselves.

You know you don't have any evidence because you littered your original claim with the qualifier that it was all subjective speculation, which is what you always do when you are about to self consciously start spouting nonsense you know people are going to call you on.

nagirrac wrote: »

You have provided none, and worse still made no effort to debate my evidence.

I did debate the evidence. I informed you it wasn't evidence. Try again.