>> Once there are experience, we can only have partial consensus. Now, I know >> better salvia than DMT, and the resemblance of the experience is striking. >> It goes like -30% feel the "feminine presence" (called lady D, or virgin Maria, etc..). -75% feel the "rotation/vortex" -67% feel the "alternate reality/realities" -10% feel the copy/reset effect -49% feel the "home effect", etc.
These are not the kind of 'metaphysical messages' I was referring to. These are just phenomena that similar physical systems perturbed by the same physical substance might be expected to experience. Take the rotation/vortex. Theres no question its an impressive sight and far from being ephemeral seems utterly immersive and made of physical stuff. On weaker psychedelics you get a hint of it, but with DMT or high doses of Psilocybin etc, you are thrown into the vortex as if it were as real as any perception of the real world. On the one hand you could imagine that you are genuinely travelling through an alien geometry and architecture, and many people who 'smoalk' do. On the other hand you might conclude that the neural apparatus of perception is just being tickled in the same way by the same chemical, and many people who 'smoalk' think that instead. The fact that the imagery can be accounted for and predicted could be evidence for a brute identity theory. https://plus.maths.org/content/uncoiling-spiral-maths-and-hallucinations The point being that the brute phenomena itself doesn't lend itself easily to one conclusion or its opposite. Strassman thinks DMT allows the mind to escape 'consensus reality' to another realm. Sand thinks the visions are just a psychedelic trick and that the real value of psychedelics is in unshackling people from decades of psychological baggage so that they can re-evaluate their moral and social worth. The one feeling that seems to get repeated more than any other is a feeling of greater empathy towards and understanding of other people and a more profound love for oneself, and that feeling, I think, stems from a greater appreciation of ones own fallibilty...self doubt. So, to cut to the chase, when a thread appears claiming the benefit of a psychedelic is to work out who the idiots are, when it is suggested that the substance be used in such a miserly way, I can't help but feel the people suggesting that are the ones who have missed the message.... From: marc...@ulb.ac.be To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Idiot Test Date: Thu, 13 Aug 2015 15:27:29 +0200 On 13 Aug 2015, at 13:15, Kim Jones wrote: OK - so the inability to be sure if someone is an idiot is just as fraught as trying to be sure that they are intelligent, I hear you say. I was saying that idiocy is easy to judge, but you can also deduce impossible to assert (of oneself or some-else). But we can see, and see from time to time, person behaving like idiots, even children! "intelligence" is often used for flattery or vanity."idiot" is often use as an insult (usual with more vulgar synonyms). But it is better to not encapsulate people with such terms. Sometimes people believe it, making them into idiot in my "protagorean sense". That will not help them. It refers to character, and I think it is related to some amount of attention from the parents, which get it from their parents, etc. Sounds like the ideal situation doesn't it! Tends to suggest that people rise only to the heights of their incompetence at understanding whether they or others are intelligent or stupid! So we are all stupid and the sand on the beach is intelligent. This is becoming very Smullyan, this bit... So if we adopt your simple criteria of the repetition of stupidities as idiocy and the silence of the pebble as intelligence, it seems the human race is suffering a terrible toll of redundancy. I hope yours is in fact the correct definition because it means we can do something about the problem of latency with respect to the evolution of human consciousness. I mean - the idiots (if there be such) really are holding us back. They are in all the top jobs. They are more dishonest than idiots, I think, a bit like we can suspect John Clark to be when reading some of its post (where we see he got the point, but still deny it or mock it). We might put dishonesty in idiocy. I don't know if this would be useful. Robbing a bank does not really look like a mistake, even if it makes money mistakenly representing work. That's a whole debate. They cannot not be idiots so where does that leave us? Flexibility and tolerance and reform are not supported by the mental software idiots use throughout their lives. But that is normal, given our long evolution. At least we have a big cortex making us able to do reasoning and thought experiences ... Insects are much more wired, but that does not make them necessarily idiots. It take a lot of neurons and reflexive ability to be an idiot, and the more we are intelligent, the bigger we can be idiot. Intelligence and idiocy are not that much in opposition. They always come together. May be the human are the most idiot among the animals, as few animals say so much stupidities for so long, believe in fairy tales, and cut the head of those who don't, etc. But the human grandeur is that he can be aware of this, and try to do something (which often aggravates the case, as it is not easy). Bruno I actually wasn't thinking of John Clark when I started this thread. It's amusing to me in the extreme that everyone thought that's what I was doing! John isn't an idiot. He's just taking a long time to understand. He'll get there. I love Bruno's patience with him. Nobody here is an idiot. Kim On 13 Aug 2015, at 8:02 pm, Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be> wrote: On 12 Aug 2015, at 01:42, meekerdb wrote: If you think you have a sure fire way to identify an idiot...it's you. It might be easy, for some class of beings. Perhaps, for the human, a simple criteria is simply being adult, and for a computer, being not yet programmed. Idiocy reveals itself by, not the mistake, but by the more or less systematic repetition of them, and the inability to change its mind, despite evidences. Denying evidence is also a common symptom. Then, obviously with the theory I gave, asserting one own intelligence, or one own idiocy is a (local) symptom. Asserting one own Intelligence/Idiocy can be replaced with asserting someone else intelligence/idiocy. Saying that Einstein is intelligent is either a cliché or a way to assert one's own intelligence. In fact idolatry, and uncritical attitude with respect to the boss, or anyone, even a God, is also a symptom of idiocy/cowardliness. But there is no criteria for intelligence, except that with the definition taken, keeping silence is a sort of local quasi-criteria (making pebble intelligent, but why not as they rarely utters stupidities). Bruno Brent On 8/11/2015 4:06 PM, Kim Jones wrote: On 11 Aug 2015, at 10:26 pm, Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be> wrote: No doubt that it would be interesting to look at. Salvia has been called a cure of ... atheism (the non agnostic one 'course). Not that it makes you believe in anything new, it just shows reasons to doubt more, and to recognize we are more ignorant that we would have been able to conceive before. Bruno Well, that’s it, surely. The Idiot Test administered in this way has as a basic assumption that only what might be called The True Public Idiot is by nature incapable of changing or modifying his stated beliefs. A hallmark of idiocy is absolute certainty. In this light, Richard Dawkins for example, qualifies pretty much as a TPI. The other thing about this possible theological definition of ‘idiocy’ is: you will never meet an idiot who thinks the test was run fairly. This person has to accept that there is now an institution-backed sanction against them due to someone ticking a box marked ‘idiot’ next to their name. Still, they can justify themselves by saying how ‘in the past’ they changed their mind over certain matters when people whose opinions they could respect convinced them otherwise. You might like to check this assertion by interviewing his mother or sister instead. You will never, therefore, catch a certified public idiot in the act of changing his beliefs. This is because he has never changed his beliefs in the past and will never in the future - not because you are unlucky in the matter of catching him at it. The ticking of the box marked ‘idiot’ is a truly serious business. True (ie incorrigible) Public Idiots are actually quite rare. Even David Icke had to kind of admit that he probably wasn’t the reincarnation of JC…proving therefore that he was capable of recognising the lie he was telling himself. This leads to further refinements of the concept: 1. An idiot is one who lies about core matters - but only to himself. Others long since realised he enjoys playing this game with himself and that any other setup would entail him in ceasing to enjoy the game. 2. ?? Please feel free to add your own refinement. Kim -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. 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