I felt this article did a well above-average job communicating details about what alternate states of consciousness are like, and how it can fundamentally change your thinking, in at least a semi-permanent manner. However, most of the comments on the article seem to be written very much from a scientific materialist perspectives, and are often utterly lacking in epistemic humility.
Take the very first sentence from the top voted comment in the thread:
>> I did a bunch of ketamine and mdma in the early 2000s. They’re miracle substances and they changed my life in positive ways that I can’t even begin to talk about, but they are not cures for depression. Eventually the effect wears off and all of the stuff that bothered you before will start bothering you again.
This is fairly representative of many comments. Some obvious questions:
- how does he know this to be true?
- it may be pedantically true that they aren't 100% cures on their own for every single person, but might they get us 75% or more of the way there for most people?
- it's true that the effect diminishes over time, but do you completely revert to the previous state? Can the improved state be maintained with ongoing usage (something which is rarely disputed for mainstream pharmaceuticals, but often seems to be considered unacceptable for psychedelics)
>> If you don’t figure out how to give your life meaning, the drugs aren’t going to do it for you.
This is another one of those comments that may be pedentically technically true, if read very generously, but also very misleading. Might the subconscious mind choose casual expressions like "do it for you" to maximize persuasion, while minimizing opportunity for criticism ("hey, I was speaking colloquially, man"). The next sentence appears to undo much of the harm, but what impression is left in the mind of an unknowing reader? Who knows. Does it matter? I think it probably does, and maybe a lot.
I would argue that result of this style of speaking is a kind of epistemological chaos - we are discussing substances that may finally offer at least a partial solutions for much of what ails the world, but the status quo aggregate opinion (~nothing particularly noteworthy to be seen here, just woo woo, move along citizen) in most threads like this seems completely incorrect to me. At least, there is a serious lack of epistemic humility - strong, conclusive opinions, on topics where the facts are currently unknown - literally. And no one can admit it (that such things are unknown). To me, this is a utterly surreal state of affairs, and it is incredibly frustrating to experience this, and then open the next thread on HN and hear people complaining about problem-of-the-day that could be fixed if group <x> would "just" stop being "stupid". The irony is bitter sweet.
>> Someone I’m sure is going to say that it’s a medicine and not a party drug now because a nurse is giving it and someone wrote a prescription, but it’s the same drug with the same effect.
Again, pedentically technically true as written (maybe, if read generously), but completely overlooks the essentially undisputed (among knowledgeable people) notion of the importance of set and setting. Ignorant and misleading comments like "not a party drug now because a nurse is giving it and someone wrote a prescription" getting heavily upvoted kind of disgusts me to be honest. I am of the opinion that that thinking like this, and the people that support it, are preventing the world from improving. And most likely, many of the people complaining about faults in the world are the very same people who refuse to consider alternative ways of thinking about issues, and downvote anyone who makes such a suggestion.
These substances, and articles like this, are finally giving us some new insights into possible underlying reasons of why people behave like they do, and believe the things they do (anti-vaxx, climate change deniers, I have no reason to be happy, etc), in spite of overwhelming and "obvious" (or so it seems) evidence to the contrary.
And it seems if you try to point this possibility out to people, they will get angry at you. What could explain these effects (of the substances), and this behavior (~refusal to even consider certain possibilites)? How about this: the human ego. The human ego often doesn't like to be disagreed with. This is clear as day, if one is willing to look. But it seems like the ego will only allow this on certain topics, almost as kind of a self-defense mechanism.
> It's not that it's incorrect, more like it's kind of non-sequitur-ish, as if you omitted a part of it that connects the comment to what it's commenting on.
I don't think it's so much that it's a non-sequitur (it isn't), but perhaps that it seems (but actually isn't, if one is willing to think, which is my point) irrelevant (or blatantly obvious) to the degree that it is considered useless. With any topic, if people refuse to use their minds (and that very much is the case), there's a good chance they won't understand the material. Mocking various out-groups for refusing to acknowledge facts and think properly is a popular pastime on HN, but rare is the individual who is able to even consider the possibility that they suffer from the very same psychological affliction.
I wonder how often this is the case, where the shortcomings of language, the medium, and many other things, result in incorrect perceptions of disagreement, where none actually exists.
That's the kind of thing I wish people would be able to take away from essays like this.
>> ...and began to understand, on an emotional plane that overshoots the academic level at which I’d only previously understood this— that all that’s come today comes from all that’s come before, and as all things must pass, so must we always find ourselves fighting the same battles forever and ever, until the lesson is learned.
>> I emerged from that realization inspired, empowered and with a newfound sense of gravitas where rage and anger once resided. Where we are, now, as a human collective, is further along on the continuum of progress, yet no closer to achieving it. The moral arc of the universe is long, and bends toward justice, but that bend is fraught with fractious regressions, pauses, and misfires.
>> ...continuing for the next several paragraphs.
>> I began to confront things I felt I had forgotten. People I’d hurt. People I’d wronged. People who’d hurt me. People who’d wronged me. Traumas of every degree, gradient, and sub-genre stretching as far back as preschool. My brother who severed contact with me five years ago. Friends I’d let down. Bosses who’d fired me. Drugs I wished I’d never done. Drinks I wished I’d never drank. Decisions I made and regretted. Decisions I never made and regretted not making.
>> I was not scared — I gazed at them right in the eyes, and forgave them right in the moment. I forgave myself, too. “It’s okay,” I told them. “You are free.” And then they would leave, or I would leave. Determining who “leaves” during a ketamine trip is a bit like trying to choose which half of the car you want to drive while the other half is a boat. I rose in a grain elevator I didn’t willingly enter, and I escaped the minus-world as it crumbled and roared behind me. Safe.
And so on.
These sorts of sentiments seems potentially more productive than the "You're wrong, no you're wrong, and stupid..." mode that much of humanity seems stubbornly dedicated to currently, but then it doesn't seem clear to me that everyone experiences these things in the same way, and many seem(!) opposed to the very idea.
