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Can technology replace psychedellics?

Migrated topic.
D

dio

Rising Star
I was once an avid psychedellic proponent and explorer.

But admittedly I haven't had a psychedelic in 2 years and I don't really feel much of a need to go back to them.

I feel that technology has enabled me to put my creativity into a sort of hyperdrive, and technology has radically increased the rate at which I consume novel information, thus it has radically increased the rate at which I come up with new ideas out of nowhere. It has radically increased my creative throughput and my ability to think up and express things I never could have before.

Further than that, the advent of programming as a highly viable proffesion, and the fact that programming entails one to make money by maintaining a highly abstract and 'far out' internal logic thought process has sort of set in stone the value of ways of using your brain that previously were once reserved for only the 'Magickians', or 'crazies' or 'shamans', or the very few well accomplished artists and philosophers. I have met more and more people who are so incredibly in tune with psychedellic type, far out thinking that have never had psychedellics but have rather just had their neurological development be highly affected by programming.

I've gotten to the point now where I've begun to debate, what can psychedelics really offer me?

Once you've used psychedellics to sort of accelerate your development and understanding of certain spiritual concepts and techniques, and to accelerate a more keen sense of 'I' or rather no 'I'. What more can they do that a highly technological lifestyle can't do?

I keep running into points where I think, maybe I should spend this weekend tripping, see what I come up with. But each successive time I had done that, I had to admit to myself that I really didn't discover nor produce much more insight, nor produce much more creative output compared to when I had just hit the internet, programming and artistic computer applications hard for a couple days.

What do you all think of this?
 
I like to use this analogy. When you get the message, hang up the phone. What you're saying resonates with me.

I don't think it can replace psychedelics. Psychedelics IMO are technology. Natures' technology if you will. I think they can complement each other though. Similar to what you're stating.
 
Another point I also wanted to discuss...

given technology, do you think psychedelics are even needed at a cultural level anymore? ( No doubt they were needed in the 60's )
 
It sounds like what's making the real difference in your creativity is your effort, and not necessarily the specific catalyst for your imagination. Loads of people can surf the internet for novel information without learning a whole lot or becoming creatively inspired. I think the same goes for psychedelics. If you make no effort to remember your experiences and produce something from them, a lot of the revelations and visions can simply disappear from your awareness. I personally have never had any kind of technology push my imagination and present novel experiences/ideas like psychedelics consistently can, but if the techno route is working for you, then you probably don't need the psychedelics, though combining them may be useful. Everybody is individual, so each person needs a unique set of influences to have the life they want, so any beliefs or practices can be "right" if they're producing the goods, chew know?
 
And in response to your second question, I think that psychedelics are absolutely still needed and relevant today, perhaps even moreso than in the past. I think technology is great, but I think it has partially disconnected people from "nature" and the planet as a living whole. And from personal experience, the best technologies pale in comparison to the infinitely novel/educational/entertaining experience that psychedelics can present. I've even felt that the internet and things like iphones are trying to connect people and share ideas/information in ways that are far inferior to, say, a heavy dose of ayahuasca, a technology that has existed for thousands of years. It has even been called "the television of the jungle", and if you look at many cultures with a long history of shamanism, they seem to be the least superficial societies, and the least tempted to jump into the modern, technological age, because they know that what they have is much, much better.

I think technology and psychedelics can absolutely complement each other, but what's sad is the dark side of technology, which is depletion of resources, consumerism, greed, complacency, etc. I think that if we poured as much money into researching psychedelics as we do into progressing technology, we'd solve almost every major problem with today's societies, and make a lot of our technologies obsolete. Technology can evolve sustainably/morally, and psychedelics can be done responsibly, and hopefully that's the direction both will continue toward in the future.
 
not much I can relate to here to be honest. Sitting at my computer on the internet is not comparable to taking a psychedelic like DMT or psilocybin. Your not engaging the same receptors in the brain, and I doubt your exercising the same level of neuroplasticity by sitting at a computer.

Psychedelic practices are a kind of technology, so is shamanism. They are techniques, they are technology. So far there is nothing about being on a computer that replaces that technology, for me anyway.

I still like computers but I think something is being missed in this thread really, in terms of specific receptor activations etc. Im invovlved in creative proccesses all the time and I spent lots of time with my computer, but psychedelics always fuel that process because of the parts of my brain that are activated only when the right receptors are hit.
 
dio said:
Another point I also wanted to discuss...

given technology, do you think psychedelics are even needed at a cultural level anymore? ( No doubt they were needed in the 60's )
Click to expand...

Uhh, look around at where our technologies are taking us. In many ways it's way worse than it was back in the 60's. Yes I think that psychedelics are needed at a cultural level more now than ever before. Just becasue some acid heads made computers and tech that evolved into what we have today does not mean that the hippies won. In many ways they lost that battle.
 
No, not for a long time.
Sure the internet can take you places... you can find information which will give you inspiration but nothing like psychedelics.
So far every experience i have had has been incredibly unique and extremely hard to understand. The ability to combine these insane visuals and use them as inspiration with your own perspective and sense of expression is so personal i don't think it is at all possible to recreate with our current technology. Technology will have to make some advancements in neuroscience... accessing the subconscience dreams manipulating the brain to alter perception (scary) to actually replace psychedelics.

The tools made with technology to create art have obviously made art easier create.
When technology can make art on its own will we be able to relate to it? will it have any personal value?
I think those are some pretty cool questions right there.
 
i don't know if its about activating certain parts of the brain that is what increases great creativity and ideas, but more about opening yourself up to be able to recieve ideas from that other place, since i believe most great ideas don't come from within. Yes there certainly is inspiration in technology but its much more than just the technology. Its also the type of quality of ideas you have, you can have tons of creativity and ideas but that are ego based if that makes sense. Psychedelics help dissolve/calm the ego so that the ideas/creativity can come from beyond the ego, beyond the self, where i think really great ideas derive. So no i dont think modern technology replaces psychedelics, technology doesnt heal like psychedelics, to say you never need them might be self misleading, most people that need healing dont think they do
 
I totally get what you're trying to get across, being a computer programmer myself. Of course, not everyone can relate to this, but I do believe that just like psychedelics, programming opens up one's mind and enforces continuous discovery and learning. So in that sense, I believe that we're actually developing neuro pathways, just like when we take a psychedelic.

Now, I don't think computer technology will (or needs to, for that matter) replace psychedelics, and I don't think that's really the point. But both can unveil awesome secrets to anyone willing to listen. Computers are much more than internet browsing devices, that's for sure. I'm gonna go have an EEG soon and see what that reveals. Just have to find the right person to help me out with this investigation... :)

cosmic butterfly said:
Psychedelics help dissolve/calm the ego so that the ideas/creativity can come from beyond the ego, beyond the self, where i think really great ideas derive.
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You can connect to that place through technology, too. Just like you can with meditation. It's not as intense, but it's not impossible either.
 
yes ur right especially with meditation, since meditation i think can be like taking a psychedelic in the sense that it can also increas natural dmt production and disolve/calm the ego. Also theres some gifted people in the world that dont need psychedelics or meditation that have high natural dmt production, mind wired better for connection to the transcendent, everyones different..
 
Will there eventually be technologies that can perfectly imitate psychedelics?
I imagine so. Here come the people who will tell me that the spirit is in the plants and that if you don't have that natural component, then the substance will be incomplete. People like to imagine that they are above or somehow apart from nature. They are not. They call things un-natural, while in fact, everything that happens on this planet is part of nature. The computer that I am posting from is nothing more than modified rocks and reworked dinosaur remains.
I think that there will be technologies that will allow psychedelic activity in the brain without the introduction of traditional drugs. Some sort of neural stimulation, but more likely, something that we can't even imagine yet.

Also: I sometimes get the sneaking suspicion that DMT is a technology and not a drug.
 
I enjoyed reading your post, and can totally relate. Psychedelics are meaningless without their corresponding ritual.

Your bias of computer technology has prevented you from seeing that humans have lost much of their innate paranormal brain technology. Furthermore, ancestral ritual knowledge of herbs is being lost around the world at an alarming rate. If only the universities would put more funding into fields like ethnochoreography and psychogeography....even physics.
 
I think you are asking the wrong question, it should be:

"Can technology replace todays psychedelics?". I state this because if you have technology that can bring you the same lavel as todays substances then that technology is a psychedelic too.

Furthermore, if you look at programming then substances like LSD and mescaline can help you improve your level of programming a lot, they both work as a long lasting nootropic (up to weeks for me).

Maybe in the future with the combination of things like binaural beats, electrodes, ultrasonic sound and other inducers it might be possible to easily bring the brain and body in a psychedelic like you have with LSD. For example; with electrodes to stimulate certain parts of the brain you can induce things like instant hallucinations and dopamine release. So in that regards with todays technology you already have a very strong psychedelic mechanism (let alone the substances that are made with todays technology that are also psychedelics).


Kind regards,

The Traveler
 
Mister_Niles said:
Will there eventually be technologies that can perfectly imitate psychedelics?
I imagine so.
I think that there will be technologies that will allow psychedelic activity in the brain without the introduction of traditional drugs. Some sort of neural stimulation, but more likely, something that we can't even imagine yet.

Also: I sometimes get the sneaking suspicion that DMT is a technology and not a drug.
Click to expand...


there already is :) check this out: [youtube]
 
Intresting stuff on the god helmet :D, seems it has gotten some critic too hehe. Although doesnt seem they replicated it right. Would be best to take it with a grain of salt.



"In December 2004 Nature reported that a group of Swedish researchers led by Pehr Granqvist, a psychologist at Uppsala University in Sweden, had attempted to replicate Persinger's experiments under double-blind conditions, and were not able to reproduce the effect.[8] The study was published in Neuroscience Letters in 2005.[10] Granqvist et al concluded that the presence or absence of the magnetic field had no relationship with any religious or spiritual experience reported by the participants, but was predicted entirely by their suggestibility and personality traits. Persinger, however, takes issue with the Swedish attempts to replicate his work. "They didn't replicate it, not even close," he says.[8] He argues that the Swedish group did not expose the subjects to magnetic fields for long enough to produce an effect. Granqvist et al. respond that Persinger agreed with their proposed methodology beforehand[42] and they stand by their replication.[12]

The theoretical basis for the God helmet, especially the connection between temporal lobe function and mystic experiences,[43][44] has also been questioned.[5]"

God helmet - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org


How to build one :D Looks quite complicated Open-rTMS
 
to know for sure guess one of us needs to try it, ah what i wouldnt give to go on that ride n compare it with dmt, if its good should be available to everyone worldwide, what a better way to wake people up that are anti-psychadelics
 
Thanks for all you guys replies, it was insightful.

I have another point I want to bring up for discussion.

Timothy Leary once stated something to the effect of:
"The internet will be the LSD of the future".
Implying to me that Leary believed the technology will manage to do what he thought psychedelics needed to do for culture.

However on the flip side, Terence McKenna till the day he died thought psychedelics, particularly plant psychedelics were necessary. Him saying something to the effect of "They are the only way to connect with the gaian consciousness and do things right".

Now, there was a fundemental difference between Leary and McKenna. Leary was a balls to the walls space migrationist. He wanted to migrate into space ASAP. Whereas in some interviews, McKenna stated that, he never intends to leave the earth, he is set and bound to gaia, and will remain on earth to his death even if an intergalactic vessel revealed itself in his time.

Now with that said.

If you believe technology can replace psychedellics, are you also a balls-to-wall space migrationist? Do you want to be living in future intergalactic vessel on some holodeck or whatever ASAP?

Or, if you believe psychedellics can't be replace by technology, are you also one of the types that would forego space migration if it were presented to you?

I am curious to know if this desire for space migration is at all linked to ones inherent belief in what the role of psychedellics are.
 
yeah I can't say this really resonates with me.. though I do find it interesting that technology has such a positive effect creatively for you! This may sound arrogent in text but I don't mean it that way.. what do you find particularly creatively inspiring about technology? Personally I find technology almost reduces my creativity.. at least when i spend excessive amounts of time with it. Nature is the best catalyst for my creativity.. the odd psychedelic experience seems to do alright too :thumb_up:
 
acacian said:
yeah I can't say this really resonates with me.. though I do find it interesting that technology has such a positive effect creatively for you! This may sound arrogent in text but I don't mean it that way.. what do you find particularly creatively inspiring about technology? Personally I find technology almost reduces my creativity.. at least when i spend excessive amounts of time with it. Nature is the best catalyst for my creativity.. the odd psychedelic experience seems to do alright too :thumb_up:
Click to expand...


Technology became really interesting to me creatively when whatever application or thing I was working with become complex enough that it begins to demonstrate almost organic like qualities of itself. Like your interfacing with something that has more potential responses it could produce then you could have imagined on your own. Where it becomes not so much like your projecting your imagination to a medium, but rather your working with this other entity that is just as complex as you, with just as much influence over the result, and because of that, you cannot really foresee what it will produce.

A good example of this in technology is in making electronic music. You know I can sit and pluck chords on a guitar, but it gets old to me really quickly, I can fully wrap my mind around the full potential of the guitar. However if I load up a synthesizer app, theres just so much intricacy, and you can twist this knob, twist that knob, hit this button, and all of sudden you have something you previously couldn't of imagined.
 
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