I'm glad we're digging it! "To dig" is a very helpful expression
I can't help but agree on the point about singing together rather than competing to clarify correctness, although that has its place.
Consciousness is a word that I think we are taking to mean much much much more than what it can possibly be agreed to encapsulate. Whatever this force is, or combination of forces, I believe is the basis for not only the evolution of life on earth, not only the geometry implicit in seashells, in leaves, the phi ratio everywhere... whatever this force is governs the evolution of life and the evolution of the patterns of physics themselves alike.
I think we need to get rid of the idea of "laws" of nature. There are no laws of nature. If there are, try and imagine where the law of biology was before there was life anywhere in the universe. Try and imagine the visible spectrum of light before there was the first star. Should these emergent properties of the evolution of the complexification of matter be thought of as laws? No. I think they should be recognized for what they are, patterns of behavior in the domain of matter, so patterns of nature, not laws of nature.
When you say the word consciousness, what I've just described is included in what I think of as whatever consciousness is. Consciousness must be regarded as the weirdest thing there is in the universe. Nothing is so weird as matter knowing its matter. That is just, gosh I want to cry myself to pieces because it's just so profound to think about. The fact I can think at all?
Anyway, I absolutely agree. I think it should be regarded as an elementary understanding, that our biology depends on plants. Diet is Consciousness. The psychedelics on the scene bring immense potentiality for change. I think we have to trust them to do their job. This is why I'm not concerned with changing people with what I have to say. I know the mushroom will give the person what they need, not necessarily what they want. See, it's the plant that is the wiser, I believe. I am a neuroscience student in Colorado and I plan to one day be able to provide sessions with psilocybin for people of all types who are looking for something to help change their lives. I don't want to council people to give up addictive behaviors. The mushroom will wreck them and then god-realize them, and then when they come back, it will be the greatest pleasure of my life to experience people's expressions and testimonies after having found themselves.
I really really believe in the mushroom. The mushroom isn't what it is without You. And You aren't what you are without the mushroom, or without any psychedelic, or plant helper of some kind.
That's just my opinion, folks.
A neurotransmitter is a "messenger" molecule...
So, these molecules do nothing for plants, so why are these plants producing them?
See, that's the Question! It seems unintelligent on the part of nature to have martialed energy to the evolution of these compounds for no reason. I think there is a very very great intelligence we are embedded within and are largely unaware of. I feel squeamish when I imagine how big this intellect is. Humility, right? So these compounds are not metabolic waste, check. Energy is required to produce them. It seems incredibly unlikely that nature would produce chemical accidents, that so nicely synchronize with the functionality of "nervous systems running on higher neurotransmitters". I ask myself, is condensification of interconnectivity in the brain a coincidence? Is stimulation of the central nervous system causing arousal leading to "increased successful instances of copulation" a coincidence? Is increase in visual acuity a coincidence?
And all of that is just in regard to psilocybin. Let's take LSD: is it a coincidence, if what they have found is correct, that LSD does not affect the left hemisphere? Is the fact that DMT is everywhere in the domain of life a coincidence?
NO! None of this shit is coincidence I maintain! Some kind of intelligence, intentionality is at play here. And we are like two neurons trying to understand our entire brain. We'd have to be very clever indeed to realize we were neurons anyway, living inside a brain, because of how large it would be from the perspective of a happy neuron embedded deep within that electrical forest.
What did the human brain look like before tryptophan? It would be unable to produce higher tryptamine neurotransmitters...then tryptophan shows up on in our diet via plants, and our bodies begin producing novel neurotransmitters like serotonin, the plant introduced tryptophan created our tryptamine neurotransmitters and thus our modern conscious state...
I think that's a very clever observation! Very very interesting...
And I'm sure this is on going, are the plants offering us modified neurotransmitters to further our neurochemical evolution?
Well, here is where I think we are both saying it is obvious they are. The mechanism of this however is unknown. I hypothesize that nature (recall my stressing how enormously intelligence it must be) is actually furnishing these compounds in an attempt to maximize the hardware of our brains, if not to correct a symptom (tearing up of the planet as a result of our addiction to thought, of which language is a function, this ability localized to the left hemisphere) of having an imbalanced brain, as a result of departing from the diet that was responsible for the exponential expansion of our neocortex. The problem with this idea is that is presupposes that the fall from grace, or that that the departure from the very diet that exploded our brain size, was an accident. And I'm not sure I believe in accidents, because nature, just like you, never makes mistakes, for the simple reason that nature learns what works and what doesn't, unlike us most of the time.
I'm not sure there is any objective, either. If there is an objective, this means there is intention, and if there is intention, I don't think it's for any purpose. I think whatever intention there is, whatever objective, is for the purpose of play, of novelty, of creative evolution. Why do I think this? Because when I look at the universe, I see that it never likes to stay the same. It loves changing, and rewards all products of evolution that are most novel and creative. Laws of nature were never "there" in the beginning. They arose out of the river of time, and for this reason they should be thought of as patterns of "Something" that epiphenomenally emerge as conditions evolve which enable the possibility of something new to arise.
Who knows?
If plants are conscious, have intention, and are capable of manipulating and communicating with biology, what are the implications of these conclusions?
...to me it all makes perfect sense
Yup! Right there with ya. lol
The fact that THC hijacks our endocannabinoid system is astonishing. Once again, a psychoactive compound keying into our native biology. I've heard about anandamide before (meaning bliss molecule). We are nothing without plants. We are nothing without each other.
By the way friends, it's not so important as we think to always stay on topic. The universe doesn't work that way. What one person may think is related to something, another person might regard with disdain that there could possibly be a connection. The point of learning is not to fragment a flower into parts and those parts into a lesson each day for seven days. By day two I will hate flowers.
Pitubo, I'm really not interested in provoking arguments or anything, but I assure you that's not what anyone is trying to do here. We're just talking about the weirdness of things. I'm not here for debate, so please don't regard me here in that spirit. I think there is a little projection going on honestly. At a certain level the difference between speculation and fact has to be abandoned so that new ideas can be born. Then afterwards, when we actually have the new idea, we can employ occam's razor and all that.
Curious isn't it? The plants care not at all about "elevating the human ape to global consciousness", they are really interested in ants instead. Well, that ought to tone down our elevated self-importance a bit.
I agree with you here. However, I would say instead, not that the plants care about elevating the human ape to global consciousness, but rather, that because we are the moving extensions of plants, we depend on plants, and therefore what the plants do is very important to us and our state of consciousness. The deep question we're exploring is whether the plants are really aware of what they're doing. Did the mushroom develop psilocybin on purpose? Or was it an accident? I understand how silly is sounds to say there must be intention going on, but the only alternative to that position is that it happened for no reason, and therefore all the effects these compounds have on human beings consciousness in particular are accidental, which I can't help but intuit that this is preposterous.
I don't know, you know?
In defense of Terence Mckenna, the stoned ape theory makes more sense to me than anything else. "It is a bunch of stoner musings"? Now i understand where you're coming from! As somebody whose listened to Terence for thousands of hours, it's obvious that anyone who says, "it's a bunch of stoner musings" simply doesn't recognize a genius when they're in your face.
I admit this is my opinion. Terence and Alan W. Watts, by the way, are two such greats, I believe. My perspective, as it has evolved, is like an integration of their two points of view. It's mind-boggling how well they fit together. Plus a mushroom of course.
