Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.
- 119
- 3
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Scott wrote an interesting post about heavy psychedelic use was making people weird https://slatestarcodex.com/2016/04/28/why-were-early-psychedelicists-so-weird/ In addition to the sites own comments, it was discussed on HackerNews https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16386406
Notice the comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16402462 about the cozy-weird.
I've maintained an interest in the topic, despite my own, youthful dalliance being forty years ago. So I read https://old.reddit.com/r/RationalPsychonaut/ Perhaps I still dream of opening the doors of perception and ripping away the veil of illusion to see reality. But I notice that today's psychonauts have little success. I had no success myself last century and my friends insisted that psychedelics were just for fun; there were no deep truths to be discovered that way. More troubling is the posts asking for help to recover from the lingering after effects of bad trips. Such posts meet with sympathy, but little practical help. There are rather too many for my taste, and problems seem to arise somewhat at random. Yes, heroic doses often lead to trouble, but small doses are not entirely safe. And having tasted the forbidden fruit, the curious often return for a larger bite, and bite off more than they can chew. Had I read those anecdotes as a young man, they would have put me off experimenting.
I want to return to the concept of the cozy-weird. I don't want my mind opened so that I can see the out-there-weird. I've no faith in the value of the out-there-weird. But I do want to open my mind so that I can look at the cozy-weird and see the weirdness of it. I doubt that psychedelics help. One route is to study statistics and logic and spot pervasive bad reasoning; that provides loose threats to pull on, unraveling the veil of illusion and exposing the weirdness behind the ordinary. Another route is Buddhist meditation practices. Cultivate noticing ones emotional responses and how the defense mechanisms of the mind keep you socially safe by not letting you see the weirdness of the cozy-weird. I think that there is more than enough weirdness in the cozy-weird to let you escape from your straightlaced life. There is no need to go down the route of psychedelics and out-there-weirdness.
More options
Context Copy link