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Powerdana

Powerdana

Science, Question Everything.
Hello all! My name is John and I am new to dmt-nexus. I would like to introduce myself shortly so that I may be promoted to start posting and enjoying this forum.

In brief, I am an adult who enjoys the wonders of this universe. I am of the lower percent of the human population who realizes that there is no finite reality. Our reality is what our brain makes it out to be (which differs from person to person). For anyone on this forum, you too probably realize this, and DMT is one of many compounds that can alter our state of reality to experience the Universe in a new way that our brain has not experienced before. I find it incredible that we are able to alter our state of consciousness and such psychedelic substances (although I have personally yet to obtain DMT) have turned me in to an extremely spiritual person. My existence in this universe is simply amazing and I am kind of bummed about the speck of time that we are even alive to experience it.

Having some industrial experience in chemistry, I am inspired by the works of Dr. Shulgin (most notable for his book PiHAL) and I truly envy him. He is probably the most experienced person with psychedelics to have ever lived. If there were no laws and regulations, I would use my chemistry degree and knowledge to further his work. I have seen many chemistry references on these forums from reading, and I wish I was able to comment on such topics.

I look forward to chatting with all of you and sharing our knowledge together! :)
 
Greetings! I will not release to much information as I would like to remain mostly anonymous. I will say that I have completed a PhD in chemistry and used that to work for a pharmaceutical company developing bio-marker agents for certain protein metabolites that were linked to a degenerative disease. I do not really like the industry scene as they treat employees (even those with finite degrees) as slaves. All they care about is making money and squeezing every last bit of work out of you.

My old boss told me a story of his old colleague who developed a blockbuster drug (one that made the company millions of $) for a company... received a decent raise for a few years during clinical trials ... and was then released (fired essentially) because his project was over and there was no further use for him in the company. This is not the kind of career I want with no job security until you move up to the business side of the company.

I have since forgotten quite a bit of my synthetic knowledge but I can never forget the basics of such chemistry!

Honestly, if it were possible, I would absolutely love to go back and do post-doc research with Dr. Shulgin and further the research on the human brains unknown capabilities.
 
Wonderful introduction, we are very glad and fortunate to have you aboard. I look forward to hearing more from you. You bring some wonderful experiemce to our group.

Ice House
 
Thanks Icehouse. As I said I feel that I have become a very spiritual person thanks to my knowledge of science and some psychedelics. I would like to further that thought for a brief second ... maybe one day I will have a long post with more of my philosophy:

I believe in evolution in that our body was used only as a method of natural selection to develop our brains. We have evolved just enough to be the dominant species on this planet. As such, our brain has stopped having any drastic evolutionary changes because they are no longer needed for survival. Hence, our brains have only evolved to a necessary point, and no further.

BUT THAT DOES NOT MEAN IT CANT GO ANY FURTHER!!! This is where psychedelics can come in. They can take our brains, and essentially open new pathways of thought, consciousness, and feeling of self in this grand universe. I do believe in the future that we will 'hack' the human brain as one of the final frontiers of science to achieve the unimaginable (sounds far-fetched but this is similar to the principles in The Matrix movies). I do not think we will be alive at that point but it is an interesting thought.
 
Powerdana said:
Our reality is what our brain makes it out to be (which differs from person to person). For anyone on this forum, you too probably realize this,
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I don't realize it, actually I very strongly disagree with that.

If reality was what the brain makes it out to be, then how is there a brain in the first place?

If there is a brain, then there is a reality beyond what the brain determines, otherwise the brain could determine that reality is that there is no brain, or even that reality is indeterminable by the brain!

If the brain can determine reality, then can it determine that it cannot determine reality effectively?

Or to put it another way; can God microwave a burrito so that it is too hot for him to eat?

I'll admit it, I am extremely wary of the concept that we determine reality.
I think it is arrogant.
 
AlbertKLloyd said:
If there is a brain, then there is a reality beyond what the brain determines
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Exactly! If one was to ask the question 'What is reality?' ... there really is no simple answer.

I believe (trying to not be arrogant here but this is as close to the truth as possible) that reality begins and ends with the interpreter. Our brains use our 5 senses to perceive the reality we have grown to know. But lets break this down briefly.

Our sight: We can only see the visible wavelength of the electromagnetic spectrum, ~400-800nm. If there is an object that ONLY emits light outside of that range, it becomes invisible to us. Does that mean it is not real and does not exist? To our brain the answer is yes, but in physical space the answer is no.

For example, most snakes can see infrared light. To the snake, an object emitting only infrared light is real, to us it would be invisible and thus not real if we cant see it (from a distance not using other senses obviously). Therefore we are seeing 2 different realities because the brains of snakes and humans perceive things differently.

Also, I am not claiming to be a physicist, but there is a known anomaly that nothing in this universe exists without definite properties until an observer looks at it. Einstein once said, "Is the moon still there when no body looks?" ... Niels Bohr I believe answered of course it is. Einstein replied, "can you prove to me the opposite?" Obviously you can not prove the opposite. This has been further proved with quantum mechanic experiments in which particles can exist in 2 places at 1 time (see quantum computing). Furthermore, look into the double slit experiment
.


Last example, take the 2004 Sumatra Tsunami for example. Humans had no idea it was coming yet most all of the local birds and animals ran away long before it reached land. They had a 6th sense to know that something was coming. In effect, their reality was different than ours because they knew something we did not even though the same information was present, we just were not able to process that information. Therefore, there is a difference in reality between different brains.

Last last mini example... 'normal' human vs a schizophrenic person. The 2 peoples brains process information differently so experience a different reality.

I have an endless amount of examples so I will pick one more. Birds (not mammals) and bats (which are mammals) navigate by using the magnetic field. To them, this is a reality that they use to survive. To humans, we can not see this as part of our reality until we get old of a magnet. All of this shows how reality is different depending on the user, and the users senses.


As I previously mentioned, our brain has only evolved enough sensory information to keep us alive enough to pass on our genes. Anything beyond that was not necessary so it stopped at the typical human brain today. We need to use sophisticated equipment to detect other parts of reality that our brain can not process. For example, telescopes, microscopes, neutrino detectors, etc.

So to answer your question... YES our brains can determine that we can not determine reality effectively, and this is why we have had to build such equipment to see it.
 
Welcome to the nexus my friend, I like your intro also. I believe you are in the right place and you will be promoted in no time. Any contribution will be highly appreciated and will most definitely lead to your promotion to a full member. Do not worry if you can not post in other parts of the forum at the moment just post it in "Welcome Area"

Make sure you understand forum rules "Attitude" also read through "Health & Safety" and lastly you will find most of your answers in "FAQ" and "Wiki"
 
smokerx said:
Welcome to the nexus my friend, I like your intro also. I believe you are in the right place and you will be promoted in no time. Any contribution will be highly appreciated and will most definitely lead to your promotion to a full member. Do not worry if you can not post in other parts of the forum at the moment just post it in "Welcome Area"

Make sure you understand forum rules "Attitude" also read through "Health & Safety" and lastly you will find most of your answers in "FAQ" and "Wiki"
Click to expand...

Thanks! I have read through them and I certainly understand the rules (at least I hope so lol)
 
Hi and welcome to the nexus, Powerdana!

I've been enjoying your posts and am looking forward to more input from you. Its an interesting thought about reality, but I find it a bit simplistic. An interesting take on the matter (though more indirectly) is integral theory, using terms like objectivity, subjectivity, inter-subjectivity and inter-objectivity. What you describe is the subjective worldview only, which, granted, is the one we percieve. But at the same time, most of us will agree that there is an objective reality. If not, science would be rather pointess. Communication between two conscious individuals would be inter-subjectivity - a whole different reality, namely that which is created between and by two (or more) subjective realities. Inter-objective reality, IIRC, would be something like society, culture, economy, etc. But it's been a while since I've read about these things.

THe point is that none of them stands alone, according to the theory and that if you neglect one or more of these realities, you are missing a big portion of the picture.

I like to us the arthur c. clarke quote when contemplating these things however. "Reality, as always, will be far stranger".

be well
 
Enoon said:
Hi and welcome to the nexus, Powerdana!

What you describe is the subjective worldview only, which, granted, is the one we percieve. But at the same time, most of us will agree that there is an objective reality. If not, science would be rather pointess.
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Thanks for the welcome! I do not know many people philosophical enough to have such an awesome response as yours was. I did not mean to imply that there is only the subjective reality. Obviously that is the one that we focus the most on because that is what our minds perceive from our external stimuli. In light of my examples dealing with an unknown reality as with quantum computing and the double slit experiment, I was trying to imply that there is a reality far stranger than we could ever imagine (as your quote also indicated). This is where the objective reality comes in. The inter-subjective and inter-objective from person to person and from society I believe is just a derivative of the more general subjective and objective realities.

Before psychedelics, I only saw the subjective reality. Now, I feel that I try to see everything from a more objective standpoint and that there usually is more to something than I can perceive. In a sense this makes me feel 'more alive' because I have more thoughts on topic 'A' than I would have had many years ago.


This is a complex topic so I am not completely sure if what I just said makes sense to you, but I hope it does.
 
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