podcast:: [[Lex Fridman Podcast]] guest:: [[Mathew Johnson]] topic:: [[psychedelics]]
The [[default-mode network]] does self-referential processing and was know before psychedelic research, psychedelics did not really contribute to the knowledge that [[self-referential processing is related to the sense of self]]. It's a common misconception that psychedelics were instrumental in discovering this.
[[Mathew Johnson]] is attracted to the idea of [[panpsychism]]. Unless you dismiss the idea of ther being a phenomenon as consciousness, if you take that as a give, the only way for the model and the real world to merge is if there is something baked into reality, some fundamental forces… there's some thing.. that's just a given. Gravity seems like a good placeholder until something else comes to replace it. [[monism]] Everything we know in science, in physics, really describes… [[its all interactions - its not the thing itself|it's all interactions. It's not the thing itself]]. This sounds very new-agey.. but… an isness. Huxley, mescaline… There is a nature of being… When we say consciousness we think of a human experience, [[human consciousness might be so processed - so derivative - that we dont recognise the basic thing|but that might be so processed… so derivative that we might not recognise the basic thing]].
Would rather hedge my bets on something like [[panpsychism]] than emergence… than it emerging through complex processes. At some level of complexity, suddenly there is an inside (that experiences). That – to me – doesn't pass Occam's Razor as easily as maybe there is a fundamental property of the universe.. both interactions and the property itself…
Lex: Looking at [[cellular automata]]; ![[it doesnt seem like we understand anything about complexity - like emergence]]… That could be a fundamental property of reality. something emerges, something miraculously happens. Something about the layers of abstraction, layers of reality.
Note: The process we don't understand about complexity and emergence could be bigger than anything else we know – and don't know – about.
whether or not there is an inner experience – that is the hard problem – acting like an agent, having an algorithm that acts like there is a thing like an agent, that is a thing that has worked. Psychedelics will be extremely useful in exploring that, since they seem to eliminate that, or at least shift that.. that sense of self (agency). ^a-thing-like-an-agent
If instead of the drudgery of explaining the ineffable psychedelic experience… could we record it and show it to others? Or could we just give them the psychedelics? ^escapism-vs-reality
Mention [[Rick Strassman]] and his DMT work.
[[This is how magic is done - by hurling yourself into the abyss and discovering its a featherbed]]
original file:: [[tickler-2020-12]]