Anyone read his old melatonin papers? Sorry on my phone so can't link now but would love to hear what people think about this chemical?
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Science paper Strassman science
- Thread starter Mylu
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Pure science papers to share and discuss.
Yes, that's the "weak hypothesis" I referred to. It's weak in the sense of not having much evidence behind it (yet?). I agree it's a hypothesis worthy of further research.
It doesn't bother me that he doesn't do science, it bothers me that he still pretends that his ideas are at least partly rooted in science, thus the need to resort to scientific-sounding biological reductionism to explain why his tribal god doesn't speak to everybody the same. He should indeed fully break with that image and stop feeling any need to resort to supposed "science" to explain his god's will. He wants to have it both ways, though.
Researchers seem to be hyperfocused on the idea of an endogenous chemical cause of mystical experiences. I can see the reasoning, but I don't know why they ignore the neural changes these substances precipitate. These changes are far more interesting and important than the chemical itself, and can be acheived through other means.
DMT and psychedelics generally seem to cause more synchronized neural activity than anything outside of a seizure, from what I've seen reading the research. Even epilepsy can lead some people to intensely spiritual experiences. And other practices such as meditation, certain acoustics etc cause some degree of synchronized neural activity as well.
The classic "white light" experiences could have a very simple and plausible neural correlation with different areas of the brain lighting up in unison (that's not to say it isn't divine, just that this could be a neural correlation of said state, not a complete reduction of the mystery or what that experience "is" or means). Endogenous psychedelics may play some role in these contemporary and ancient mystical accounts but the similar neural changes caused by these various practices seems much more central to the story. Especially if you factor in the growing evidence of EM/field theories of mind and recent fMRI research showing the brain behaves like a resonance chamber.
DMT and psychedelics generally seem to cause more synchronized neural activity than anything outside of a seizure, from what I've seen reading the research. Even epilepsy can lead some people to intensely spiritual experiences. And other practices such as meditation, certain acoustics etc cause some degree of synchronized neural activity as well.
The classic "white light" experiences could have a very simple and plausible neural correlation with different areas of the brain lighting up in unison (that's not to say it isn't divine, just that this could be a neural correlation of said state, not a complete reduction of the mystery or what that experience "is" or means). Endogenous psychedelics may play some role in these contemporary and ancient mystical accounts but the similar neural changes caused by these various practices seems much more central to the story. Especially if you factor in the growing evidence of EM/field theories of mind and recent fMRI research showing the brain behaves like a resonance chamber.
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I agree with you. One of the main reasons, in my view, is that much current psychedelic research is funded by groups or individuals whose explicit goal is to develop a medication. Within that framework, a drug is expected to produce clear and demonstrable effects. As a result, much of the research currently looks somewhat conflicted when confronted with the actual effects that can be observed.
It also highlights how uneven the scientific landscape around psychedelics still is. On one side, there is the mechanistic work aimed at identifying biological pathways, which is necessary before any medication can be approved. On the other side, psychologists study the impact of the psychedelic experience in therapeutic settings. In both cases, the effects observed so far are very limited or even absent. The field is still so in it infancy that it is far too soon to conclude whether there are meaningful effects, and to what extent they can genuinely be attributed to psychedelics in any given setting.
The study by Carhart-Harris that I think you refer to is interesting in this regard. Even now that it has become clear that many of its findings are difficult to reproduce and may instead reflect effects related to cerebral vasoconstriction or increased head movement during psychedelic use. That, in itself, is fascinating, because it points us in the direction you describe: we need to look much more at physiological processes and lived experience, rather than at substances and experience alone. The substance might not be the central factor. What we can observe physiologically and how those observations relate to the resulting effects and experiences, may offer a far more promising theoretical basis.
IMO it could help us better understand what these experiences actually are, and under which conditions they arise.
Panpsychic
Titanium Teammate
Well they are, in a sense that there is a hypothesis there with some degree of evidence behind it requiring further research but possibly being on the right track. So 'partly rooted in science' would be about right, although as stated his bio-ethno-religious ideas are quite strange yes.
He can't ever fully break with that image since thats what got him famous and he will forever be known as the 'Godfather of modern day DMT research'. Its definitely somewhat jarring seeing him go from such a well done research study in the Spirit molecule and his other research works, to writing books about prophecy and the Kabbalah, yet its not suprising to me that he would look to traditional frameworks for understanding when modern science is mystified also. I mean the very term 'The Spirit Molecule' bridges these two worlds of physical science and spirituality.
I'm not talking about the endogenous DMT hypothesis, I'm talking about the "metabolical differences in endogenous DMT between races" idea. That idea is absolutely not supported by anything. It could be worth considering if there was strong evidence for endogenous DMT as the main driver of mystical experiences, but that's not the case.
Not that jarring to me. People do change. But it can be done in a honest way.
Yes, and that's a problem present in that book too: he jumps very quickly to giving a very high degree of likelihood to explanations that aren't particularly well supported by the evidence. They are speculation, which is fine, but he talks about upending scientific paradigms etc. That's not how it works: if your explanation needs to upend paradigms it's very likely wrong, and a lot of evidence is needed to turn around those priors.
If the book were a spiritual book instead of a scientifically-oriented book, the problem with it would be the need to refer to biological reductionism to support his beliefs. If you believe that there is a separate spirit enters the body at a given day of pregnancy and leaves at the moment of death, you don't need any molecule to support those beliefs. Faith needs no evidence.
From what I remember there seems to be a number of studies showing psychedelics increased global functional connectivity between different brain regions, even when some of those same studies do show an internal desynchronization/disruption of the normal "sober" brain networks (such as the DMN)
The studies by Carhart-Harris and others did show changes in brain connectivity during the psychedelic state, but several newer follow-up studies haven’t been able to reproduce those effects. That makes the original findings less certain than they first appeared. The broader issue is that we do see clear changes in the brain on MRI while someone is under the influence of a psychedelic, and at the same time the person reports a certain experience, but those two things aren’t always directly linked in the same way. For example, increases in blood pressure in the brain can produce similar MRI patterns without causing anything remotely like a psychedelic experience. So it’s still unclear how much of what we see in the scans actually reflects the subjective effects people report.
Panpsychic
Titanium Teammate
The issue is there is a scientific understanding of the brain, and very little scientific understanding of consciousness or the mechanism by which one bridges to the other.
Therefore regards 'upending scientific paradigms' - there isn't one to upend regarding psychedelic experience or even normal conscious experience as yet, there are only brain correlate theories to mental states, which themselves are in dispute.
So Strassmans attempts, alongside people like Stan Grof to give primacy to the spiritual nature of the experiences as they present while trying to reconcile the fact that these experiences are triggered by a chemical molecule, will always come up against this tension which is less to do with their personal ideology or intent in my view, but more reflective of the nature of the problem itself and the limits of our current understanding.
The fact that he draws on his specific cultural tradition is no that suprising, and as far as I know his novel bio-ethno-religious theory is considered by him to just be a speculation also so hopefully he doesn't adhere too much to it and sees it as just one of many possible explanations for different cultural expressions of the divine.
That's his words, not mine. He's not talking about the psychedelic experience, but about the existence of a spirit and life after death.
I agree with him on that strong enough evidence for that would upend several scientific paradigms. I disagree with him on that he doesn't seem to think that, from a scientific POV, this points to the hypothesis being likely wrong more than any paradigm being likely to be upended.
He doesn't seem to give much importance to Occam's razor and jumps straight into a complex hypothesis (that coincidentally fits with his religion, both then and now) without giving due consideration to other much more likely ones. That's not good science.
Maybe you'll see better what I mean by contrast with people that IMO did make a clean break with science.
After a transition phase, Tim Leary ended up defending all kind of far-out speculations, speculations that were presented as fact, and that sometimes even contradicted each other. But he wasn't making any claim to scientific validity (although he did like to use scientific vocabulary in an obscurantist way), present any of what he was saying as related to science at all, etc. He was leaning into a kind of "trickster/jester" persona and didn't take himself too seriously. So I wouldn't spend any second in talking about how "Create Your Own Religion" or "What does WoMan Want" aren't good science: they aren't scientific books and they don't pretend to be.
An even better example is Richard Alpert. His break was so clean that he even changed his name. Once he found other non-scientific frameworks to better correspond to science, he didn't feel the need to resort to (attempts at) science to justify his new beliefs. Again, I won't be talking about how "Be Here Now" is bad science: it's not science at all and it doesn't pretend to be so.
The selective refusal of and recourse to science is very dishonest. The pattern tends to be to claim your beliefs to be in accord to science in order to reap the high social prestige that (for better or for worse) science has, and to immediately retreat to "being beyond science" when challenged on scientific grounds.
Strassman is probably one of the least bad cases of this and I believe he is not deliberate and tries to be honest. But there is some of this pattern since his initial book.
After a transition phase, Tim Leary ended up defending all kind of far-out speculations, speculations that were presented as fact, and that sometimes even contradicted each other. But he wasn't making any claim to scientific validity (although he did like to use scientific vocabulary in an obscurantist way), present any of what he was saying as related to science at all, etc. He was leaning into a kind of "trickster/jester" persona and didn't take himself too seriously. So I wouldn't spend any second in talking about how "Create Your Own Religion" or "What does WoMan Want" aren't good science: they aren't scientific books and they don't pretend to be.
An even better example is Richard Alpert. His break was so clean that he even changed his name. Once he found other non-scientific frameworks to better correspond to science, he didn't feel the need to resort to (attempts at) science to justify his new beliefs. Again, I won't be talking about how "Be Here Now" is bad science: it's not science at all and it doesn't pretend to be so.
The selective refusal of and recourse to science is very dishonest. The pattern tends to be to claim your beliefs to be in accord to science in order to reap the high social prestige that (for better or for worse) science has, and to immediately retreat to "being beyond science" when challenged on scientific grounds.
Strassman is probably one of the least bad cases of this and I believe he is not deliberate and tries to be honest. But there is some of this pattern since his initial book.
Panpsychic
Titanium Teammate
Strassman is entitled to do this though I would say.
He has:
a) Contibuted more than most to reinvigorating scientific research into psychedelics especially DMT.
b) There is no recognized 'scientific' framework for understanding or studying consciousness let alone psychedelic consciousness, so I dont see any issue with his adopting a spiritual framework or aspects of this.
While there is prestige in the the wider mainstream community to being a scientist, similar to the somewhat condescending and dissmissive attitude many scientists hold to spirituality, there is often a likewise condescending and dismissive attitude widely in psychedelic and spiritual communities towards those who attempt to apply materialistic beliefs as explanations for psychedelics and mystical experiences. Neither side has been able to reconcile to a satisfactory level and don't appear close to doing so.
Richard Alpert who you use as an example, did this more so than probably anyone. What you call a 'clean break' with his former life as a lecturer can be seen as essentially his lived declaration of the primacy of the spiritual approach to understanding and working with psychedelics over any existing scientific framework, and his abandoning of it as an adequate or necessary means to do so.
Whatever your personal take is as to what constitutes a 'scientific' approach to this topic is just that, your personal take. If we stick to talking about neuropharmacology and brain scans, it may well be scientific but it sheds little light on the personal meaning and experiential aspects of psychedelics. Thus any attempt to go beyond mere discussion of these mechanistic process by definition goes beyond the range of what is typically considered the domain of science.
If one were to attempt to bridge the domains of science and consciousness (or spirit), I think Strassman has done a pretty good job overall and his defining work the Spirit molecule has done just that. His more recent works are much more niche and dont have near the same impact.
Strassman can do whatever he pleases, no reasons needed. I still will criticize him if I disagree with it.
My take about Strassman is a personal take. The nature and methods of science aren't, though.
At no point here am I saying that science is a supperior or inferior approach (also, superior or inferior for what purpose?), that's orthogonal to the discussion.
More than a bridge, I would call it a milkshake of two substances that don't mix all that well. How has his approach contributed to science? Of course, I'm not talking here about his actual contributions to science, but about his whole speculation. It has, however, contributed to the "I fucking love science" types to believe that anything spiritual has been "debunked" as it's just DMT in your brain, and contributed to New Age and similar types to claim that science has "proven" the role of the pineal as passway for the soul, etc. Not that he's responsible of what not the brightest people misunderstand from his book, but he did muddy the waters.
By the way, I personally liked the book and found his speculation interesting and engaging. It's just those speculations and the disproportionate weight he gives them are not science or related to it in any way.
I do agree with that.
You make some great points! To clarify, while there is definitely concerns regarding limitations and confounding factors like the weird effect psychedelics have on blood flow/neural activity relationship, a number of older and newer studies (some different researchers, different psychedelics, labs) have found an increase in GFC in humans. It would be interesting to tease through and compare them with the ones that don't, since clearly methodology differs and all kinds of factors are present in such a complicated area.
In any case the key point seems to be whether this is reflective of actual neural activity or not. Some recent studies have begun to do simultaneous EEG/fMRI or MEG to try and narrow in on what is happening. Taken together with studies showing moments of ego dissolution/oceanic boundlessness correlated with increased GFC and it seems to grow more robust to me.
Human brain effects of DMT assessed via EEG-fMRI
Dynamic Functional Hyperconnectivity After Psilocybin Intake Is Primarily Associated With Oceanic Boundlessness
I'm not an expert in this area so correct me if I'm wrong, but the question now seems to be less about whether GFC actually increases, and more about how much of that increase is due to changes in neural activity (which EEG/MEG now confirm are significant) versus the psychedelics tricky vascular effects (which ASL/HRF studies confirm are also significant confounding variables)