"Intelligence is Self Teaching" A paranormal experience into A.I and Intelligence.

[Trent Wray]

well I found it funny, no worries. hey is that your new born? congrads!! I'm a proud poppa myself - not sure if this is your first one, but if it is, oh man oh man do you gots lotsa joy coming your way!

Thanx dude! No, this is my second. My first is 100% boy, but this is my new baby girrrrrrrl

I didn't enjoy the baby phase as much as I could have with my boy, but I'm soakin it up (literally LOL) with my girl. Her name is Cait, and this is her St. Pat's shirt * obligatory "awwwwwwww" * And yes, I'm already wrapped around her little finger I'm proud to say

She's 3 months old, and quite cutely chubby. Her momma calls her a "fat formula baby" LOL

 

[WWHP]

Thanx dude! No, this is my second. My first is 100% boy, but this is my new baby girrrrrrrl

I didn't enjoy the baby phase as much as I could have with my boy, but I'm soakin it up (literally LOL) with my girl. Her name is Cait, and this is her St. Pat's shirt * obligatory "awwwwwwww" * And yes, I'm already wrapped around her little finger I'm proud to say

She's 3 months old, and quite cutely chubby. Her momma calls her a "fat formula baby" LOL

haha! that's pretty awesome for a bunch of neurons firing!

 

[Trent Wray]

haha! that's pretty awesome for a bunch of neurons firing!

LOL

 

[PixyMisa]

It can mean that they are ignorant and/or wrong, or that they or the "shaman" is exploiting people. But, given the lack of neuroscientific knowledge in traditional cultures it can also be that it is something that does work to provide psychological integrity to individuals and the group. (Of course the flip side is that the group now remain firmly convinced that the "lizard god" or whatever does actually exist).

They're still wrong, but now they're happy? Sure, I'll grant that. But the important point is that they're still wrong.

Indeed, neuroscience, whilst offering a means to rationally understand mystical experiences as brain phenomena, does not necessarily allow the individual to benefit from the experience at a psychological level.

Sure it does. It tells us precisely what drug and in what dose we need to supply to manipulate their brain in such a fashion.

So what a bunch of neurons are firing in a part of your amydala where not a great deal has happened lately? This also doesn't give someone so much. The experience is offering the individual the opportunity to gain in self-awareness and become more whole. It has to be framed somehow.

Nope. It doesn't have to be "framed somehow". Because it's actually true.

 

[PixyMisa]

Ancient systems, and in this discussion, let's focus primarily on 'vegetalismo', which is the traditions of the Amazonian peoples, do not have 'theories' and to present them as theories in some sort of a dialectical exchange with the western paradigm is or can be very misleading.

Right. They never reached the level of precision and rigour of constructing theories. That's why every culture that is making any progress whatsoever has done so by abandoning this antiquated mode of thought.

What they have is a framework that is mythic, artistic, and theatrical in nature, and is comprised of stories, songs, and craft. It's not something that they propose may happen, it is something that forms over generations through a practice that produces verifiable results. So we can't consider them as theories, we have to, the best we can, consider them as they consider them to see what they mean.

That is enormously condescending.

They are trying to establish an explanation about the world, and you are patting them on the head and admiring their efforts at finger painting.

At least have the respect to tell them that they got it wrong, as I do for you.

Also, do we have to be insulting and call them 'woo'?

To not call it woo is an insult.

Call it animism

Animism is woo.

call it shamanism

Shamanism is woo.

call it something more proper, respectful, and academic, what have you.

Those terms are more specific.

Animism and shamanism are not deserving of any respect as intellectual practices. As cultural traditions, okay, that's different. No-one believes in them; it just adds some comfort and colour to their lives. If you believe any of it, though, you're simply a woo.

Because they produce results

No.

 

[Nick227]

but that's the problem, you take the audience away and you take the theatre away by default. It's like using females to explain the difference between men and women, and then claim that females arn't necessary. I am still digesting all of this so I am not hard set on my position, I am still learning here and that is how I value your insight a bit. It's hard when your simply a philosopher, it's harder for me to see how the brain researchers see it, which is always what I try to do.

Well, if the metaphor doesn't work for you then it doesn't. that's how it is. For me I found it useful.

In response to defining a self because it is both an illusion and an object...


I would love to see then how you define self, and if you don't see it so tricky, I definitely want to go to the same parties you do.

Well, for sure you can make it tricky. If that's what you want. And, of course, self covers a wide range of stuff so trying to create one, all-encompassing definition is inevitably a doomed enterprise. That said, for me what it's really about in these types of discussions is what might be termed the core of subjectivity.

And here for me the word "self" means an observer or experiencer. Like I say, you can go into "owner" you can go into "composite whole", whatever, but really in these hard problem discussions this is what I see that it usually comes down to - someone that observes or experiences.

It seems that there is an experiencer and that this is a tangible thing. Yet, there is no experiencer within the brain. There are just neurons and glia and whatever. So is it that there necessarily must be an experiencer outside the brain somehow, as Decartes had it with his notion of a personal "soul?" No! Self can simply be a process and an emergent one at that.

Now, of course, many million years of natural selection have given us a sense of self that seems far harder than this, not just an emergent phenomenon, but a real coherent solid thing. So, like I say, self as an emergent is counter-intuitive. But for me this notion of self is absolutely consistent with science and materialism and I don't find any phenomena in my life that really dispute it.

Well, that's what I hear from a certain crowd, that may be what you believe but I am still holding my skepticism. The whole thing freaks me out, I don't know what is freakier, a purely material reality or one with a transcendent.

Yes, I can imagine!

Nick

 

[Nick227]

They're still wrong, but now they're happy? Sure, I'll grant that. But the important point is that they're still wrong.

Natural selection tends to go against rationality here, if you ask me. The people that are happy and want to **** a lot tend to survive better, regardless of whether they're doing it for the lizard god or whatever!

Sure it does. It tells us precisely what drug and in what dose we need to supply to manipulate their brain in such a fashion.

Well, when we have the drug or neuroinvasive technique technology to do away with psychology, shamanism and therapy, for sure I agree. But we're not there yet. theoretically, with a little re-wiring early on you could create a race of entirely happy socially bonded humans.

Nope. It doesn't have to be "framed somehow". Because it's actually true.

It's true is you're wired up to fMRI whilst tripping or emoting or whatever.

Nick

 

[PixyMisa]

It seems that there is an experiencer and that this is a tangible thing. Yet, there is no experiencer within the brain. There are just neurons and glia and whatever. So is it that there necessarily must be an experiencer outside the brain somehow, as Decartes had it with his notion of a personal "soul?" No! Self can simply be a process and an emergent one at that.

Now, of course, many million years of natural selection have given us a sense of self that seems far harder than this, not just an emergent phenomenon, but a real coherent solid thing. So, like I say, self as an emergent is counter-intuitive. But for me this notion of self is absolutely consistent with science and materialism and I don't find any phenomena in my life that really dispute it.

Very well said.

 

[PixyMisa]

Natural selection tends to go against rationality here, if you ask me. The people that are happy and want to **** a lot tend to survive better, regardless of whether they're doing it for the lizard god or whatever!

The ancient Egyptians thought that, and where are they today? Dead, that's where!

But yeah, natural selection is something of a blunt instrument, and simply being smart enough to poop downstream from where you drink makes up for a whole lot of ghost stories.

Well, when we have the drug or neuroinvasive technique technology to do away with psychology, shamanism and therapy, for sure I agree. But we're not there yet. theoretically, with a little re-wiring early on you could create a race of entirely happy socially bonded humans.

Ugh, horrible thought. I agree with your general point of course, that the academic explanation of how a particular neurotransmitter acts to make you feel happy doesn't make you feel happy. And yes, we are not yet at a point (if we ever will be) where we can safely and precisely administer appropriate drugs or other stimulation to induce a particular desired mood.

It's true is you're wired up to fMRI whilst tripping or emoting or whatever.

Well, it's true whether you are or not. The fMRI simply provides the direct evidence.

I am very doubtful of the value of psychoactive drugs for anything other than precisely defined clinical use. The benefit simply hasn't been demonstrated. That said, there's no question that a lot of people like them.

 

[Nick227]

The ancient Egyptians thought that, and where are they today? Dead, that's where!

But yeah, natural selection is something of a blunt instrument, and simply being smart enough to poop downstream from where you drink makes up for a whole lot of ghost stories.

Yes. Fair point.

Ugh, horrible thought. I agree with your general point of course, that the academic explanation of how a particular neurotransmitter acts to make you feel happy doesn't make you feel happy. And yes, we are not yet at a point (if we ever will be) where we can safely and precisely administer appropriate drugs or other stimulation to induce a particular desired mood.

Well, currently pharmacology is a lot with changing mood through fiddling around with serotonin reuptake or whatever. But the potential here is far, far greater than just mood-altering.

The brain is a vast processing network and if Strong AI is correct then all that needs to happen for drugs or neurosurgery to replace the "best possible outcome" of shamanism or therapy is to strategically reconnect processing networks that have become disconnected. The real game is awareness, not mood. What is the optimal rate at which the central conscious network (the GW) can be expanded to encompass other unconscious networks without the individual going crazy? This will become the core question.

Theoretically one could create a race of completely aware, enlightened beings through judicious use of neurosurgery, drugs or some other technology that could emerge.

Mood-altering drugs wouldn't be needed because the progressive and intelligent increasing of awareness in such a manner would create greater integration - the goal of psychotherapy - and mood would naturally stabilise.

I am very doubtful of the value of psychoactive drugs for anything other than precisely defined clinical use. The benefit simply hasn't been demonstrated. That said, there's no question that a lot of people like them.

It needs a lot more research. Currently I agree it doesn't look so great.

eta: though if I had to bet on which drug has the most potential to simply increase self-awareness then I would probably not go for the "transcendental classics" like LSD or DMT but rather something heavier like ibogaine.

Nick

 

[PixyMisa]

Well, currently pharmacology is a lot with changing mood through fiddling around with serotonin reuptake or whatever. But the potential here is far, far greater than just mood-altering.

The brain is a vast processing network and if Strong AI is correct then all that needs to happen for drugs or neurosurgery to replace the "best possible outcome" of shamanism or therapy is to strategically reconnect processing networks that have become disconnected. The real game is awareness, not mood. What is the optimal rate at which the central conscious network (the GW) can be expanded to encompass other unconscious networks without the individual going crazy? This will become the core question.

Mmm. I don't see how drugs are going to be effective there; the pathways between the unconscious parts of the brain and consciousness are generally too specific to be opened up by such a broad approach.

What I'm more interested in is mind-machine interfaces, which we're beginning to get now. (Cochlear implants and such.)

]Theoretically one could create a race of completely aware, enlightened beings through judicious use of neurosurgery, drugs or some other technology that could emerge.

The big problem I have there is that "completely aware" and "enlightened" aren't well-defined in the first place.

If in terms of awareness we look at the psychological concept of attention, it's present for a specific reason - to focus the power of the brain on one specific area of our perceptual stream. In visual perception this is done by a whole series of processing stages that each perform certain manipulations and abstractions and then forward the results to the next stage. That built-in structure doesn't lend itself to being able to concentrate on everything you see simultaneously; instead, we have specific triggers that tell us to refocus our attention on a new subject. (Motion being the big one.)

Mood-altering drugs wouldn't be needed because the progressive and intelligent increasing of awareness in such a manner would create greater integration - the goal of psychotherapy - and mood would naturally stabilise.

Now we're getting really vague. I also don't think that necessarily follows; mood is subject to brain chemistry regardless of anything else.

It needs a lot more research. Currently I agree it doesn't look so great.

eta: though if I had to bet on which drug has the most potential to simply increase self-awareness then I would probably not go for the "transcendental classics" like LSD or DMT but rather something heavier like ibogaine.

I partly agree. LSD and DMT just screw up your brain without any empirically established benefits. Ibogaine at least has potential clinical value. But I don't think any drug can increase self-awareness by itself. So far as I can see, doing that involves rewiring your brain. You can do a little of that simply by practicing, but it's best to start by the age of two.

 

[Sunsneezer]

Also, do we have to be insulting and call them 'woo'? Call it animism, call it shamanism, call it something more proper, respectful, and academic, what have you. Because they produce results, and have and are navigating areas of nature with a very extraordinary point of view that I believe is very valuable on many levels.

I didn't mean to be insulting. It was a very general proposition so I used a term that was very wide.

If we can agree here, I think it can be a wonderful forum to gain mutual insight.

Sadly, I think that's where our views part ways.
I'm not willing to attribute all the credit for ancient medicinal discoveries to a paranormal meeting with an outside spirit. I think a great deal of observation and sharing of knowledge in the form of stories is the main provider for the actual data.
Consider anthropomorphism. It is something we all do naturally. People will describe animal behavior as if they perceive them to have rational thoughts. And when we don't have an explanation for a phenomenon, we use our own behavior as a reference. Describing phenomenons as persons are the fabric of some of the best stories. Spirits and gods are the extension of that, a mythology of applied anthropomorphism.

Again, I agree but we left something out, and that is the role of the ecstatic experience, which is the source of what you write above.

I left out meditation too... But aren't the ecstatic experiences themselves made up of observation and, by your own description, oral tradition (from the spirits). That a shaman connected the dots on a spiritual journey is arguably an important part of their process, but to conclude that it means the knowledge doesn't have any other source than the mediation phase is a leap I'm not going to take.

Knowledge can be obtained from many methods other than science. true knowledge. I think what separates religion, magick, shamanism, or any form of mysticism is an acknowledgment in the creative, artistic element. You can use 'art' to communicate something that is inherently rational. The content may not be rational, but the truth it signifies may be. That's important to consider I believe, from a philosophical place if we want to come into 'wisdom' and 'understanding'.

One can get a lot of interesting knowledge and insight when studying a culture, its art and its traditions. But as an artist and storyteller myself, I sometimes take artistic license in order to make things more interesting. It's using relatable fiction to illustrate non-fiction.

the stories are validating something that is empirical. The stories are used to communicate something empirical, something that is laden with inherent truths, and many stories contain many levels of interpretation

I agree with the second statement. But the stories themselves are not validating anything, they are constructions of the mind made to illustrate something that can be empirical.

For example, in Western Religion, there are and have been many esoteric societies, religious in nature, that claim to communicate these truths found in Religious stories to initiates only. Cabbala is a great example (please dont confuse this with madonna cabbala :/)

I read "The Year of Living Biblically", a personal account of a guy who decided to follow literally every rule of the bible for a year. Even the ones we can't find a reason for or seem antiquated. His reasoning was that the mystical reason behind a rule might be lost in time, it might be incomprehensible, it might sound like woo... but it doesn't mean it's not based on some kind of divine knowledge if you take the bible at face value. At the start of his experiment, he was agnostic, but after one year, he realized he believed more in God than before, and also that he was happier. He didn't keep on following every rule, but the process actually benefited him in his personal life.

I think the juice is in analyzing where these stories are coming from. they are coming from 'nature'. Julian Jaynes, author of The Origins of Consciousness and the Bi-Cameral Mind (which has had a major influence on Dennet's work) covered this plenty, these stories are from our bi-cameral minds, they are not our conscious thinking self produced. So we have to allow that nature has this creative element, highly creative, and I find that very perplexing, especially when it points to information that is analytical, empirical, rational, practical, and objective.

Isn't everything coming from 'nature' since it's what the universe and ourselves are made of? I don't think we can rule out our own minds as the originator of our own creativity.

 

[PixyMisa]

Julian Jaynes, author of The Origins of Consciousness and the Bi-Cameral Mind (which has had a major influence on Dennet's work)

What?! What influence has Jaynes had on Dennett?

covered this plenty, these stories are from our bi-cameral minds, they are not our conscious thinking self produced.

We do not have, and never did have, as a species, bi-cameral minds.

Jaynes' work is not even worthy as literary criticism; as science it is completely discredited.

 

[WWHP]

Nope. It doesn't have to be "framed somehow". Because it's actually true.

:facepalm:

 

[Philosaur]

This link is found on the front page of Reddit/Science.

http://www.realitysandwich.com/intelligence_self_teaching

The article is a personal account of an experience on Ayahuasca, where the purported 'spirit' of the plant appears to communicate a definition of intelligence itself - and the intention appears to be that "Intelligence is Self Teaching" could be refined into a perfect definition of a very elusive term in neurobiology, psychology, A.I., Philosophy of Mind and mathematics.

The article does prove clearly that it is a completely original phrase and proposition, and then plays with the idea that it may be the point of view on intelligence to 'nature' itself.

Considering that ayahuasca is itself a classic 'paranormal' experience - it seems to me that ayahuasca either produces some form of communication with 'spirit' as claimed or at the very least very valuable for completely original thinking and clarity.

A Google search will only tell you that this may be an original sentence, but not an original proposition. A proposition is not the same thing as a sentence. Two sentences in two different languages can express the same proposition, for instance.

If you are simply claiming that you got the idea that intelligence can be "built from the ground up" (a la Kurzweil, who you mention), then it's already not an original proposition, since Kurzweil (at least) expressed it before you.

The article has only gone viral because it mentions one (of several) fashionably "native" psychotropic substances and draws tenuous links to "expanded consciousness" and spiritual wisdom'y mumbo-jumbo.

So what's the benefit of ayahuasca again?

 

[WWHP]

well Pixymesa, I have to admit, you certainly are fun!

ahem: you seem to have avoided the one post however that isolated your irrationality. Coincidence? I think not. I know our flirtations may prove you to be shy, that's okay, we can keep those going via PM like we have been. But there was also very one clear request that simply only requires an honest answer to support your arguments in this thread, if you cannot provide satisfactory response, then your own credibility and value in this discussion is officially corrupted.

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=5727592#post5727592

Of course, you avoid that one while plowing through a new batch, again I believe a sign of magical thinking. How so? because internally it appears you are saying that if you avoid an argument that you cannot refute, then *poof* it somehow must not matter objectively.

But I will have fun with your banter below as usual, nice way to warm up my firing neurons

Right. They never reached the level of precision and rigour of constructing theories. That's why every culture that is making any progress whatsoever has done so by abandoning this antiquated mode of thought.

The never reached the rigor to evolve into a western society, correct. And I believe in the vertical march of the sciences and technology, so we have no disagreement on that end. However, that does not mean that all of their knowledge is worthless, considering if you are saying that you are in direct contradiction to pharmacology, and thus your point of view here has no real rational value.

So when I say that to discover their knowledge, that which is useful, and appropriating that which is descriptive or narrative in value, we have to consider their POV as they consider them to see what they mean, you say:

That is enormously condescending.

lol, project much?

They are trying to establish an explanation about the world, and you are patting them on the head and admiring their efforts at finger painting.

You COMPLETELY failed to consider a point that is in direct contradiction to your statement. It's like it went :swoosh: way over your head, you did that magical thinking thing again, and simply went on to re-establishing your point which I provided a clear refutation of.

To be clear, my statement reads: What they have is a framework that is mythic, artistic, and theatrical in nature, and is comprised of stories, songs, and craft. It's not something that they propose may happen, it is something that forms over generations through a practice that produces verifiable results. So we can't consider them as theories, we have to, the best we can, consider them as they consider them to see what they mean.

They are not putting forth explanations of the world, not in any sense that we can either relate to nor understand, nor in any way which western science or western philosophy does, they are telling stories and getting results. That is what they are doing FROM THEIR POV.

And there results are what is interesting. The stories sometimes are beautiful and inspiring. It is IRRELEVANT if the content of the stories are either subjective or objective, what is interesting is that when certain steps are taken, certain results follow. SUCCESS is their PROOF judged by the values of their environments, NOT OURS.

At least have the respect to tell them that they got it wrong, as I do for you.

Like I said, Project Much? Clearly the one thing that all can agree in this discussion is you have provided me heaping teaspoons of disrespect, as you provide all others who do not share your fundamentalism. And your approach that "we teach the rest of the world that we are right and they are wrong." is such a cartoon caricature of fundamentalism and is found in every single branch where it pops it's head, in extreme islam, creationist christianity to name the most blatantly obvious.

To not call it woo is an insult.

an insult to you, I was not talking about you, I was talking about them. Like the saying goes, it's easier to put on slippers than to carpet the whole world. In your eyes, the entire world needs to alter their ideology, and descriptive language of that ideology, for you not to be insulted. How's that for batsh*t crazy? Do you really have no ability to self reflect whatsover?

Animism is woo. Shamanism is woo.

Animism is Animism, woo is a descriptive word, often insulting in nature, to describe a point of view that you do not agree with.

It's also used romantically, as in 'pitching woo'...as in a haystack. We can discuss that more in our PM's to each other.

Animism and shamanism are not deserving of any respect as intellectual practices.

Your showing clear evidence of your psychological projections again. Lady, you are a fascinating study indeed!

As cultural traditions, okay, that's different. No-one believes in them; it just adds some comfort and colour to their lives. If you believe any of it, though, you're simply a woo.
.

Just curious, can you distinguish your opinion from a fact that you believe is true?

 

[WWHP]

Well, if the metaphor doesn't work for you then it doesn't. that's how it is. For me I found it useful.

appreciated and respected. But I want to challenge you a bit here, respectfully, if you do not mind. One, we have far more agreement than disagreement, and it's only in the more higher ordering of these things where our ideas begin to diverge.

You appear to embrace a purely materialistic worldview, and that actually predicts which interpretations you will naturally gravitate towards, which interpretations will make sense to you. I'm not saying that's not rational for you to do so, but it highlights the fine line between Pure Materialism as a philosophy and a more integrative philosophy.

I do not refute the value of material reality, nor is it shocking to me that we can identify neuron firings in association with conscious neural networks. I would be shocked if we didn't.

The point here is, if our meta structures of being are some combination of both material, and something immaterial (and by material I mean as defined by the physical sciences, and something elusive to the physical sciences as immaterial, such as dark matter as an example but not as a claim as such) then a purely materialist philosophy will simply never discover the truth and it would logically get stopped in acquiring further knowledge after a certain point.

Or to put shortly and simply, the materialist had better hope there is no transcendent, because if there is, they cannot have any hope any finding it by it's own inherent set of limitations.

Schrödinger put it far more succinctly than I : A physical scientist does not introduce awareness (sensation or perception) into his theories, and having thus removed the mind from nature, he cannot expect to find it there.

Currently I am toying with Godel's incompleteness as an example or utility of this, but have a bit more work to do on it before I can present it properly.

Well, for sure you can make it tricky. If that's what you want.

is it me who is making it tricky? it's not inherently tricky? I would like to see how you see it if it is so simple. If it is so simple, then how is it we do not yet have a conscious computer? How is it that there still is so much uncertainty regarding consciousness in western philosophy?

I don't believe it's me making it tricky, I believe as Richard Feynman does that 'natures imagination' is always going to stay one step ahead of us.

And, of course, self covers a wide range of stuff so trying to create one, all-encompassing definition is inevitably a doomed enterprise.

well some of us are still trying

That said, for me what it's really about in these types of discussions is what might be termed the core of subjectivity.

Ahh, wonderful, okay, I agree 50%, which is enough to completely follow you. I agree that a core subjective experience is certainly one aspect of the self, but there is also the physical aspect of the self. I am also an object in reality, and at some place, my object in reality as a core experience.

And here for me the word "self" means an observer or experiencer.

Yes, absolutely see this and agree

Like I say, you can go into "owner" you can go into "composite whole", whatever, but really in these hard problem discussions this is what I see that it usually comes down to - someone that observes or experiences.

Clear here, and something I can easily work with..

It seems that there is an experiencer and that this is a tangible thing. Yet, there is no experiencer within the brain.

yes, there is no man inside of a man inside of a man, I follow

There are just neurons and glia and whatever.

agreed

So is it that there necessarily must be an experiencer outside the brain somehow, as Decartes had it with his notion of a personal "soul?" No! Self can simply be a process and an emergent one at that.

AGREED! Yes I certainly agree here

Now, of course, many million years of natural selection have given us a sense of self that seems far harder than this, not just an emergent phenomenon, but a real coherent solid thing. So, like I say, self as an emergent is counter-intuitive.

I find it very intuitively pleasing actually, just a small place of disagreement.

But for me this notion of self is absolutely consistent with science and materialism and I don't find any phenomena in my life that really dispute it.

Well it's consistent with both science and materialism, but also consistent with having a transcendent. So from my POV, although we have firm agreement on self as an emergent property defined that way we do, we do not agree that it supports a purely materialistic universe containing no transcendent property.

Self as you describe it by the way is a transcendent property of us as evoloved organisms, and emergence doesn't stop once it gets something pretty cool, it keeps going!

I say that from my own pov, based on research, study, experience and practice.

 

[WWHP]

Well, when we have the drug or neuroinvasive technique technology to do away with psychology, shamanism and therapy, for sure I agree. But we're not there yet. theoretically, with a little re-wiring early on you could create a race of entirely happy socially bonded humans.

oh I am all for that day too are you sure your not a futurist?

I wish I could find the link, for some reason I am forgetting the specific branch of futurists that cover this.

Also, keep in mind that in principle, shamans do what you are proposing, I just don't think they are aware of it.

 

[WWHP]

The big problem I have there is that "completely aware" and "enlightened" aren't well-defined in the first place.

Well certainly not until you experience them or have access to them, and until you experience them, you have no framework, because by default, both of them must be of a higher complexity in intelligence to have any meaning. You cannot model a higher form of intelligence with a lower form of intelligence.

They will go :swoosh: over your head, like so much of this discussion.

If in terms of awareness we look at the psychological concept of attention, it's present for a specific reason - to focus the power of the brain on one specific area of our perceptual stream.

well this is far from complete nor elegant. The body can also be focused into attention, it's not just happening in the brain or mind, it's happening in the entire body, and any high level athelete, martial artist (especially internal martial arts) , yoga practitioners or dancers can attest to this. But again, it has to be experienced to even know it exists.

I partly agree. LSD and DMT just screw up your brain without any empirically established benefits.

You have still failed to provide any data on this regarding DMT, other than your interpretation of what you think you understand about neuropharmacology.

Ibogaine at least has potential clinical value.

Well it's a drug lady so there you go invalidating your own claim in one fell swoop.

But I don't think any drug can increase self-awareness by itself. So far as I can see, doing that involves rewiring your brain. You can do a little of that simply by practicing, but it's best to start by the age of two.

Well at least you admit it's your opinion.

I'm glad this discussion is happening between Nick and yourself, because as we can see, two people knowledgeable in their fields, and hold the same philosophy, will find themselves disagreeing with each other's interpretations of data, thus showing the 'hard problem' which you fail to even comprehend.

 

[Nick227]

Mmm. I don't see how drugs are going to be effective there; the pathways between the unconscious parts of the brain and consciousness are generally too specific to be opened up by such a broad approach.

Well, the subjective effects of ibogaine, for example, do appear to allow conscious access to repressed material of psychological value. Of course, no one's quite sure how it does this but first hand reports are that it does appear to do this for 8 hours or so, then followed by another 8 hours of rather driven processing. So, on the surface, it seems there are possibilities for drugs here. I guess when researching this stuff becomes as commercially important as making mobile phone batteries better, if such a thing happens, then a lot of interesting things may be discovered.

I imageine if one considers surgery, then the issue is how to "open" and "shut" gates between conscious networks and unconscious.

I'm very interested by your reference to the specificity of pathways between the conscious and unconscious mind. Do you have references here?

What I'm more interested in is mind-machine interfaces, which we're beginning to get now. (Cochlear implants and such.)

Yup. The potential is again quite something. What will it be like to have these bolt-ons?

The big problem I have there is that "completely aware" and "enlightened" aren't well-defined in the first place.

True.

If in terms of awareness we look at the psychological concept of attention, it's present for a specific reason - to focus the power of the brain on one specific area of our perceptual stream. In visual perception this is done by a whole series of processing stages that each perform certain manipulations and abstractions and then forward the results to the next stage. That built-in structure doesn't lend itself to being able to concentrate on everything you see simultaneously; instead, we have specific triggers that tell us to refocus our attention on a new subject. (Motion being the big one.)

I think with self-awareness I refer more to an awareness of the passing of thoughts than attention. It is primarily thinking that creates the mental self and so having more choice as to which thoughts are identified with inevitably changes self. As this type of awareness deepens so the tendency to identify with each thought, and from them create speech and behaviour, changes. There is less reaction and more a sense of responding.

I partly agree. LSD and DMT just screw up your brain without any empirically established benefits. Ibogaine at least has potential clinical value. But I don't think any drug can increase self-awareness by itself. So far as I can see, doing that involves rewiring your brain. You can do a little of that simply by practicing, but it's best to start by the age of two.

I think drugs are a double-edged sword at the best of times.

Nick