The Improbability of Hyperspace

[gibran2]

If All is possible, then Everything is true. If we have an infinite number of boxes, each containing a variety of marbles, then we can say “a box contains exactly one black marble, two red, thirty-seven yellow, …, and one white marble” and we will be correct.

But if this infinite realm is limited to infinite boxes and infinite marbles, there is still much we can guess that isn’t true: For example, we can claim that a box contains a paperclip. Or we can claim that a box contains a quantity of marbles of a particular size such that the volume of marbles exceeds the volume of the box containing them. Or as HF suggested, we can claim that all boxes contain a black marble, or that no boxes contain a black marble. Even in an infinite probability space, there are infinitely many things that are not possible.

Whether the “multiverse” is infinite or not, we don’t know in every instance what is possible and what is not possible.

I have more to say about this, but I’m running out of time this morning!

 

[Hyperspace Fool]

If All is possible, then Everything is true. If we have an infinite number of boxes, each containing a variety of marbles, then we can say “a box contains exactly one black marble, two red, thirty-seven yellow, …, and one white marble” and we will be correct.

But if this infinite realm is limited to infinite boxes and infinite marbles, there is still much we can guess that isn’t true: For example, we can claim that a box contains a paperclip. Or we can claim that a box contains a quantity of marbles of a particular size such that the volume of marbles exceeds the volume of the box containing them. Or as HF suggested, we can claim that all boxes contain a black marble, or that no boxes contain a black marble. Even in an infinite probability space, there are infinitely many things that are not possible.

Whether the “multiverse” is infinite or not, we don’t know in every instance what is possible and what is not possible.

I have more to say about this, but I’m running out of time this morning!

Truly.

And yet, according to the model of higher dimensions... any limits are only increasingly propagated downward. In higher dimesional spaces, limits are dropped and possibilities expanded with every exponential step.

The marble and box metaphor (as inspired as it was) is kind of backwards to speculating about Hyperspace IMO.

This is because marbles and boxes are more simple and dimensionally constrained than we 3d humans are. Whereas Hyperspace, when theorized as a dimensional nexus in perhaps the 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, or even 9th dimension... we are not then talking about guessing what is contained in a box that is more finite than the world we live in, but infinitely more infinite.

As I said above, if M Theory (or any of the other theories dealing with higher dimensions) is anywhere near correct (and the various string theories have been quite good at mathematically proving the phenomena we do see)... then a place like Hyperspace MUST exist.

The question is only if it is possible for humans to visit such a place, and if so... is the smoalking of a couple dozen mgs of a ubiquitous alkaloid enough to propel us there?

 

[dmtk2852]

Nice post Gibran2, and as usual a difficult topic to dissect and discuss.
Firstly I think hyperspace exists, but only in the mind. What we have to remember is we only see things from our point of view. I don't know about you and what drugs you may have done and things you have convinced yourself of, but I have only seen things from my point of view.

The important thing is differentiating between that which others can see as well. If others can see it I usually take it to mean it exists independent of my perception of it, but I think the root of your question is does hyperspace exist independent of our perception of it.

To me the answer is probably not, but that is only because we can only see it through our own perception. Our mental gear relays the world to us, and under the influence of these substances I am entirely convinced something is being relayed to our mental processing systems that is NOT from the external world.
I understand it feels real and salient, but so do dreams. That is because they are being processed through the same gear we use to process physical reality.

So the real question to me is, where is that data coming from? Is this the soul that so many meta-physicists have discussed or is this the creative center of the brain. Who knows?

I will actually even say that I don't know whether hyperspace exists beyond our perception of it, it's so different for many people yet very similar for many people. That leads me to believe it is merely an artifact of having a conscious mind. The fact that many things from our personal lives appear during the trip, and that set and setting is important is enough to convince me these are just the effects of a very strange psychedelic drug.
I believe drugs like these allow one to explore and expand their own consciousness benefically, not some other actual dimension. Sure metaphorically it is another world and dimension, but it is the inner world as Aldous Huxley called it.
I know many disagree with me on this and I respect that view, I am merely stating my opinion. The truth is we don't know for sure and we may never know. The best bet is to find the purpose of endogenous DMT and better study the pharmacology of it.

 

[Hyperspace Fool]

This is quite a long thread, and I am not sure how many people coming to it this late in the game will bother to go back and read through the fascinating back & forth that it contains. I can only say that it is worth the read.

Our dear friend burnt, played the part of the strict scientific materialist in much of the thread, and something he said a number of times stuck with me as I went through this. On quite a few of his posts he took the time to say:

"epistomology aside" (sic)

And, every single time he said that I cringed and thought "How on earth can one put Epistemology aside?" In a discussion such as this, the science of knowledge trumps basically every other branch.

Epistemology /ɨˌpɪstɨˈmɒlədʒi/ (from Greek ἐπιστήμη (epistēmē), meaning "knowledge, science", and λόγος (logos), meaning "study of") is the branch of philosophy concerned with the nature and scope (limitations) of knowledge.

The fact that burnt and others around here have not studied this hoary science is self-evident. The fact that he consistently misspells the word aside, one can not put epistemology aside and have any kind of debate about what is knowable or known. Descartes rightly called it the First Philosophy.

I have said it before about Logic in other threads, but it goes equally well for other branches of knowledge. There should be some basic level of these things that all science majors should be forced to learn. If only to help them formulate decent hypotheses and aid in the interpretation of data. Being well versed in one branch of science does not give one carte blanche to tread all over the other branches willy nilly.

Epistemology is the study of science. It illuminates what it is possible to know. How can you put that aside?

I might as well speculate about compound synthesis and say "chemistry aside."

 

[dmtk2852]

This is quite a long thread, and I am not sure how many people coming to it this late in the game will bother to go back and read through the fascinating back & forth that it contains. I can only say that it is worth the read.

Our dear friend burnt, played the part of the strict scientific materialist in much of the thread, and something he said a number of times stuck with me as I went through this. On quite a few of his posts he took the time to say:

"epistomology aside" (sic)

And, every single time he said that I cringed and thought "How on earth can one put Epistemology aside?" In a discussion such as this, the science of knowledge trumps basically every other branch.

Epistemology /ɨˌpɪstɨˈmɒlədʒi/ (from Greek ἐπιστήμη (epistēmē), meaning "knowledge, science", and λόγος (logos), meaning "study of") is the branch of philosophy concerned with the nature and scope (limitations) of knowledge.

The fact that burnt and others around here have not studied this hoary science is self-evident. The fact that he consistently misspells the word aside, one can not put epistemology aside and have any kind of debate about what is knowable or known. Descartes rightly called it the First Philosophy.

I have said it before about Logic in other threads, but it goes equally well for other branches of knowledge. There should be some basic level of these things that all science majors should be forced to learn. If only to help them formulate decent hypotheses and aid in the interpretation of data. Being well versed in one branch of science does not give one carte blanche to tread all over the other branches willy nilly.

Epistemology is the study of science. It illuminates what it is possible to know. How can you put that aside?

I might as well speculate about compound synthesis and say "chemistry aside."

I completely agree HyperspaceFool. Even though I have only taken General Philosophy 1(2 is required in the curriculum I'm taking it soon), Epistemology was the first thing we studied and I even wrote my first essay on that topic along with Descartes's ball of wax dilemma. I agree it is an important topic to this thread and science in general.

But don't you think since we are discussing a substance, pharmacology might be a little more relevant?
Philosophy is great and all but my major problem with it was that it relied on discussion, examples, hypothetical situations and questioning to prove its points. Not data, I understand you may run to the problem of induction raised by Hume on this, but I can easily counter that with Karl Popper's response which I fully agree with.

My point I guess would be both science and philosophy are key to helping solve this issue, but I think we can learn much more by studying the pharmacology and what exactly is happening in the brain to answer this question.
Don't take it to mean I don't believe hyperspace doesn't exist external of our perception of it, just that it is currently unknowable.

 

[AlbertKLloyd]

certainly certainty is the hall mark of fraud and delusion
and of course to be certain about uncertainty is itself delusion
perhaps our minds cannot grasp that there is no dichotomy
that certainty and uncertainty are two sides of one thing
and it is language based

 

[Hyperspace Fool]

I completely agree HyperspaceFool. Even though I have only taken General Philosophy 1(2 is required in the curriculum I'm taking it soon), Epistemology was the first thing we studied and I even wrote my first essay on that topic along with Descartes's ball of wax dilemma. I agree it is an important topic to this thread and science in general.

But don't you think since we are discussing a substance, pharmacology might be a little more relevant?
Philosophy is great and all but my major problem with it was that it relied on discussion, examples, hypothetical situations and questioning to prove its points. Not data, I understand you may run to the problem of induction raised by Hume on this, but I can easily counter that with Karl Popper's response which I fully agree with.

My point I guess would be both science and philosophy are key to helping solve this issue, but I think we can learn much more by studying the pharmacology and what exactly is happening in the brain to answer this question.
Don't take it to mean I don't believe hyperspace doesn't exist external of our perception of it, just that it is currently unknowable.

I feel you about Popper. His anti-Nazi stance (as an Austrian who moved to New Zealand) alone makes him a cool bloke IMHO. Socio politically, he had a lot of interesting things to say.

As far as his solving of the Problem of Induction... he didn't even think that he did. In his own words:

"I approached the problem of induction through Hume. Hume, I felt, was perfectly right in pointing out that induction cannot be logically justified." (Conjectures and Refutations, p. 55)

What he did, and what all of science relies upon, is introduce the idea of falsification. This basically says that while you can not take inductive reasoning as a logical proof, you can build a theory on it that can stand until it has been proven false.

Relying on such theories, though, is no different than theorizing that you live in a material world and proceeding to act as if it were so after having done a certain number of "false positive" reality checks in a dream. The fact that the overwhelming majority of dreams recorded are not lucid indicates that we can not rely on our induction to assert reality.

While it is useful to skip past the epistemological stumbling blocks and get on with our empirical data analysis... doing so, we never actually deal with those issues, and they come up again and again when we start to leave the comfortable real world experiments, and delve into theoretical science.

Considering that we are not actually discussing the alkaloid of n,n DMT, but rather Hyperspace, pharmacology has no answer for us. When the issue at hand is extraction, synthesis, neurochemistry or what have you, then I am with you 100%. And, as you well know, much of this site is devoted to the findings of our chemistry loving bretheren... as well as the flounderings of our amateur alchemists. :lol:

But as far as the existence or non-existence of Hyperspace? I am fairly sure that 1,000 pharmacology labs experimenting round the clock for a decade will provide us with a true answer... not.

We have not, and in all probability, will not, even find an answer to consciousness that way, IMO.

At this point, all we have are A) subjective anecdotal accounts & B) various theories on what they might mean or entail.

Setting the mystical and spiritualist theories aside for the moment, we are left with a number of "scientific" stances, such as the gut level feeling among materialists that it must be all in the brain... which is unfounded in anything remotely provable. However, we also have the mathematically sound theories and speculations of string theory. And, as I have somewhat pitifully tried to explain above, these theories actually INSIST that a place like Hyperspace MUST exist.

Since this thread is called the Improbability Of Hyperspace, I think the "pseudo-sciences" of Logic and Epistemology are clearly the main tools we have here. Probability is usually the province of Statistics, and an inductive pursuit indeed. Yet, in this case, what could a statistician actually say about this? Only that the vast... overwhelmingly vast number of people who consume certain tryptamines, report having visited a place that is astoundingly consistent across all demographics.

Is that a proof of Hyperspace? Of course not.

But it does beg the question... what are the odds that our human neurochemistry and the structure of the brain is designed to evoke visions of hyper-dimensional spaces, vivid encounters with telepathic beings, experiences of timelessness, and visceral sensations of traveling to other worlds?

What evolutionary advantage would there be to such a thing (especially if it were fake)? Why does the typical human being go their entire life without ever activating this built-in function?

In fact, I will go one step further and say... even if these experiences are somehow hardwired into our brains, that could be interpreted as evidence for their objective reality.

This would suggest that such experiences are not alterations to our CNS or distortions to our perceptions (which would display a wildly different character based on set and setting like with LSD), but rather a built in feature of our bodies. (which would explain why we make DMT on our own, and why certain people like yogis and dream masters can visit hyperspace without taking any drugs whatsoever)

I am not going to say that Hyperspace is provable. Not even in the way that Relativity was. And even it if it was... Relativity is still a theory. Hyperspace, though, is a place that IS consistently reproducible. If you accept falsification and the justification of induction... a case could be made.

 

[gibran2]

Epistemology is an interesting branch of philosophy. There are certain questions I have, and I’m not sure if they’re covered under the purview of epistemology. They’re more concerned with human cognition: What are human beings cognitively capable of knowing and understanding?

The human brain is finite and limited, so it seems reasonable to assume that human cognition is also limited. There are no doubt many things in the physical world that are simply too complex for human beings to grasp. Just as a fly can’t comprehend the pane of glass it continually bumps into, there are no doubt things which we routinely encounter but don’t really understand – not because they are unknowable in theory, but because we’re just not smart enough to connect all the dots.

One of the reasons I started this thread was because of such questions. If even “simple” things in the natural world are too complicated for human beings to grasp, why do some people think that something potentially much more complex (i.e. hyperspace) is within reach of their cognitive capacity?


(I’ll mention here that as far as I’m concerned, hyperspace is self-evidently real. Of course, I don’t define “real” as I used to.)

 

[dmtk2852]

Interesting point there Gibran and HyperspaceFool. Since both posts are related I'll respond to both of you.

Firstly HyperspaceFool, I thought this to be a discussion of the place you go to when you breakthrough on DMT which we have colloquially dubbed "hyperspace". Not alternate dimensions such as those discussed in physics.

Now I understand you may believe they are one and the same, but I do not, and I doubt many physicists would agree with that either.
I also like the question you raised about evolution. The fact of the matter is, our brains did not evolve to use DMT. It is the fact that these chemicals fit perfectly into our evolved neurochemistry that produces these altered states. I don't believe that this was something natural selection sought for. Quite the opposite in fact, there may have been members of our species that saw the world that way all the time, and natural selection favored those who see the world the way we do when we're sober.

Now bear with me on this, perhaps the existence of DMT in our body is like a fail-safe, in case our consciousness needs to be altered to overcome certain elements(similar to how endorphins evolved as natural pain-killers to overcome pain when survival is more important. I can't tell you why, though some might hypothesize it is to ease one into the experience of death or some other reason. One thing I have noticed is that the pattern-detection system goes crazy on these substances, you pick up patterns in everything. Perhaps when you are near death, the brain seeks to find any possible way to continue surviving, so it releases DMT overcomes patter-detection restrictions and allows you to fully comprehend your environment and any patterns which could save your life. Hyperspace may be something that occurs when there is TOO much DMT in the system, just like how euphoria can occur with too many endorphins in the system.

But we're getting fairly off topic on these lines of thought, as Gibran stated initially the thread is about probability. We may not be able to comprehend this, but what we do know for sure is that certain substances do take you to the place we are calling Hyperspace.

So I guess my question/point is why are we discussing whether these places are real or not? To the mind they are just as real as the computer screen in front of your face. Since we know for sure that DMT causes you to go there, and it DOES have pharmacological effects and IS technically a drug, I think the pharmacological aspect is more relevant.
The simple fact that your body remains in this dimension and that there is a measurable effect on the brain leads me to believe that the existence of that realm is solely within the mind.

If similar hyper-dimensional realms exist in reality is another question entirely to me. I don't believe such places could be reached simply by inhaling an organic molecule found in many plants and animals. No, I believe you would need things like particle accelerators and hadron colliders to even prove such dimensions exist, let alone reach them.
But as Gibran stated our knowledge is finite and limited, and we don't understand the majority of things in the universe. Its easy to be cocky and think we know so much through science(induction problems aside), we still have only uncovered a small amount of data. In fact, most of what we have studied is about things on Earth, a pretty small rock in a pretty large universe.

 

[gibran2]

The simple fact that your body remains in this dimension and that there is a measurable effect on the brain leads me to believe that the existence of that realm is solely within the mind.

If similar hyper-dimensional realms exist in reality is another question entirely to me. I don't believe such places could be reached simply by inhaling an organic molecule found in many plants and animals. No, I believe you would need things like particle accelerators and hadron colliders to even prove such dimensions exist, let alone reach them.
But as Gibran stated our knowledge is finite and limited, and we don't understand the majority of things in the universe. Its easy to be cocky and think we know so much through science(induction problems aside), we still have only uncovered a small amount of data. In fact, most of what we have studied is about things on Earth, a pretty small rock in a pretty large universe.

Your point of view seems to be fairly materialistic (at least in the section I quoted). You assume that the material world exists independent of mind – your statements support and depend on acceptance of the “primacy of matter” paradigm. One of many possible alternatives to the primacy of matter paradigm is “primacy of consciousness”.

There is nothing about our everyday experiences that supports one of these over the other. (However, since all we ultimately know is that consciousness exists, I tend to favor the primacy of consciousness paradigm.)

It may be that “Consciousness” has created the appearance of material existence, when in fact there is no such thing. So when we discuss bodies and brains and mind-altering chemical compounds and all other things physical, we may in fact be discussing what appears to be, and not what is.

Both the primacy of matter and the primacy of consciousness paradigms are, in part, theories concerned with how things actually are. I suggest that they are both highly improbable.

 

[dmtk2852]

The simple fact that your body remains in this dimension and that there is a measurable effect on the brain leads me to believe that the existence of that realm is solely within the mind.

If similar hyper-dimensional realms exist in reality is another question entirely to me. I don't believe such places could be reached simply by inhaling an organic molecule found in many plants and animals. No, I believe you would need things like particle accelerators and hadron colliders to even prove such dimensions exist, let alone reach them.
But as Gibran stated our knowledge is finite and limited, and we don't understand the majority of things in the universe. Its easy to be cocky and think we know so much through science(induction problems aside), we still have only uncovered a small amount of data. In fact, most of what we have studied is about things on Earth, a pretty small rock in a pretty large universe.

Your point of view seems to be fairly materialistic (at least in the section I quoted). You assume that the material world exists independent of mind – your statements support and depend on acceptance of the “primacy of matter” paradigm. One of many possible alternatives to the primacy of matter paradigm is “primacy of consciousness”.

There is nothing about our everyday experiences that supports one of these over the other. (However, since all we ultimately know is that consciousness exists, I tend to favor the primacy of consciousness paradigm.)

It may be that “Consciousness” has created the appearance of material existence, when in fact there is no such thing. So when we discuss bodies and brains and mind-altering chemical compounds and all other things physical, we may in fact be discussing what appears to be, and not what is.

Both the primacy of matter and the primacy of consciousness paradigms are, in part, theories concerned with how things actually are. I suggest that they are both highly improbable.

Gibran, you are correct that I support a materialist view, similar to Plato. I believe there is a true reality independent of our observation of it(whether or not we are in it, is an entirely different discussion). I believe we are in what Bashar calls "Physical Reality", though there may be other forms of reality we can't access yet, its a tricky concept.
I'm getting all philisophical here...:roll:

You are correct about several things.
The material world exists to us only through our conscious view of it, that is if we didn't exist we would not know about it. That said, I very well believe the Universe could have existed just fine without life(Its like the old, if a tree falls in a forest dilemma).

The easiest way to get around this is to understand this this realm has certain rules/structure to it. I believe these could be rules(like a game), restrictions(like a computer program), or just plain and simple limitations to the laws of physics. Regardless of what your view of consciousness and reality is, I believe that in this realm science governs the rules of the game, so to speak.
When/If we ever leave this dimensional reality and achieve other ones, those rules may and probably won't apply.

To Sum up DMT exists in this reality, our consciousness is the primary artifact of construing this reality to us, and there is order and there are rules to this reality(Science IMO).

Please don't take this to mean I believe this is the only reality and I'm a straight materialist, I completely am open to the ideas of higher dimensions, gods, aliens, and anything else you can dream of. But it goes back to probability, the whole reason you started the thread. I'm not sure how probable any of these things are, just that they are possible.


BTW for fun:lol: here's my personal opinion of probability of these things we've been discussing
-Higher Dimensions 99%
-Multiverse 99%
-Gods 10%
-Aliens 99%
-Intelligent Aliens 50%
-Hyperspace actually existing as a salient dimension: Priceless:wink:


I also had a question regarding your post, you state that "Both the primacy of matter and the primacy of consciousness paradigms are, in part, theories concerned with how things actually are. I suggest that they are both highly improbable."
Could you expand on that? I don't fully understand what you meant by this, are you suggesting that we are not living in physical reality? Solipsism? Please expand

 

[Hyperspace Fool]

@dmtk2852 & Gibran2

Ahhh... the old primacy debate.

As hard as this might be for materialists to grasp, LOGIC states that primacy of consciousness is more likely than primacy of matter. This is because in the Cartesian sense, all we can truly know to exist is consciousness.

Matter is a speculation based on our limited ability to interpret sense data.

It is possible to to imagine a material universe without consciousness. It is possible to imagine a "universe as a giant mind" model without any real matter. One could even imagine the latter to include the former. A conscious Omniverse could create a Universe that appeared to be without consciousness... despite its creation and laws all being set and maintained by some kind of mind.

After all, matter becomes more and more ephemeral the harder we look for it. What we find, even in strict materialist terms, is that matter only exist when we look for it. That there are probability waveforms we collapse with... wait for it... our conscious observation.

Some would say that observation alone (unsconscious, if you can imagine that) can collapse the waveforms. But even if that were the case, we could never verify it. As soon as we observed the results of any test, we have brought consciousness into the mix.

In human reality, consciousness is omni-present. Matter, on the other hand, even according to its most ardent proponents... is mostly empty space and what tiny bit of something that even seems to be there is also illusory. Materialism offers no reason for anything to exist in the first place. Why would there be a big bang?

D2852... do you really think atom smashers are the way to reveal higher dimensional nexi?

Higher dimensions would encompass the lower ones, and as such a reductionist (dividing and labeling) process is clearly going in the opposite direction.

Firstly HyperspaceFool, I thought this to be a discussion of the place you go to when you breakthrough on DMT which we have colloquially dubbed "hyperspace". Not alternate dimensions such as those discussed in physics.

Now I understand you may believe they are one and the same, but I do not, and I doubt many physicists would agree with that either.

There are quite a few physicists who describe places that sound exactly like Hyperspace. The fact that most of them have never used DMT or visited our Hyperspace via other means, means that they can not speak to the DMT induced experience. However, the mathematics behind these theories insists that all possible versions of space-time, all possible universes with their own laws and own space-time, and all possible agglomerations of universes MUST EXIST.

Therefore, we can say with certainty, that if higher dimensions exist, Hyperspace must exist somewhere in it as an objective and consensual reality. Entities must exist. The whole shebang.

Not only that, but as Hyperspace reveals itself to us, it matches the conceptions of what higher dimensional spaces would be like. Furthermore in multiple worlds interpretations of the math... Hyperspace would be MORE REAL than our limited conception of the individual space-time thread we happen to be experiencing now.

I realize that this doesn't make hard materialists comfortable. But this is simply the best explanation that physics has come up with thusfar.

To go back to Gibran2's point, yes, I believe that we are stupid humans and that our best models are like ants trying to understand the concept of continental drift or ice volcanos on Neptune's moons.

Nonetheless, my experiences indicate that Hyperspace is real. Nearly everyone I know who has broken through more than a few times also believes this. The few people who hold to the brain fart concept tend to have tons of caveats and mystical speculations which mark them as more agnostic than atheist. In fact, I know of no regular Hyperspace traveller who is a true Hyperspace atheist.

Personally, the fact that I can get to Hyperspace reliably via lucid dreaming (and even occasionally via meditation) further strengthens my conception of it. The fact that I have had a huge number of OOBEs in a vast number of dreamworlds, been able to astral project here in this world, have had proven shared dreams, brought back information I was previously unaware of... and other more bizarre phenomena... forces me to induce that consciousness can travel outside the physical body.

Pharmacologists can speak to the causal chain of events around the creation and metabolism of a compound. Physicists can speak to the mathematical likelihood that not only do all possible worlds exist, but that one can actually fold one dimension through a higher dimension is such a way that one could conceivably travel between such worlds or teleport within one.

Psychonauts, on the other hand, are the experiential experts in the exploration of that space directly. If an astronaut had to choose between the speculations of his ground team and his own senses, he would trust that he is actually the expert here. If an astronaut repeatedly ran into energy beings that spoke to him telepathically, ascertainied that he was not suffering from psychosis, and that the things these beings told him were prescient and useful... should he listen to the doubters back in Houston?

 

[Hyperspace Fool]

@dmtk2852

I forgot to answer one of your MAIN questions.

Why should we care if Hyperspace is real?

Well, if one truly believed that Hyperspace was just a curiously similar hallucination, and that everything we experience there is only a product of our own overstimulated brains... it would seem foolish and counterproductive to spend too much time bothering with it.

One might imagine that if Hyperspace is a malfunctioning brain, like hyperventilating or huffing gas seem to be... then going there regularly would be akin to slamming yourself in the head with a hammer.

Why should anyone devote time and energy to delusions?

Believing that Hyperspace (or lucid dreaming for that matter) are completely delusional, why would one bother to join a forum like this?

Personally, if I didn't know in the deepest part of my being that the experiences of other worlds are valid and useful, I would find all of this a ridiculous waste of time. A kind of clubhouse for semi-functional schizophrenics and fairy tale fanatics.

 

[dmtk2852]

@dmtk2852

I forgot to answer one of your MAIN questions.

Why should we care if Hyperspace is real?

Well, if one truly believed that Hyperspace was just a curiously similar hallucination, and that everything we experience there is only a product of our own overstimulated brains... it would seem foolish and counterproductive to spend too much time bothering with it.

One might imagine that if Hyperspace is a malfunctioning brain, like hyperventilating or huffing gas seem to be... then going there regularly would be akin to slamming yourself in the head with a hammer.

Why should anyone devote time and energy to delusions?

Believing that Hyperspace (or lucid dreaming for that matter) are completely delusional, why would one bother to join a forum like this?

Personally, if I didn't know in the deepest part of my being that the experiences of other worlds are valid and useful, I would find all of this a ridiculous waste of time. A kind of clubhouse for semi-functional schizophrenics and fairy tale fanatics.

You're hitting some there Fool. I don't know why people devote themselves to this substance, and lately I've been even questioning why I started using it in the first place.
-To expand my conciousness?
-To understand more about reality and how my brain construes it?
-To understand more about my subconscious and personality and possibly learn and benefit from it?
-To just have a good time and see amazing, impossible and incredible things which I would never even have imagined before I smoked the spice?

All of these are possible reasons, I've been using drugs a long time. I don't know if you can tell this or not from my posts, but I'm beginning to feel more and more like DMT is the magnum opus of the journey I have taken when I began exploring my consciousness so long ago.

I can't say for sure that Hyperspace is or isn't real like you can, frankly I think that's a bit arrogant Fool, I see you as more open-minded than to say you can be certain that the place you go on Spice is something external of your own mind.

After all as Gibran stated and you agreed, our consciousness is the only real salience.

If we can't even agree the external world exists, than how can we say that altering our conciousness(the only thing we can be sure actually exists) is going to give a closer portrayal to reality? Doesn't simple logic and Occam's razor dictate that a pure unaltered mind which has evolved to construe our world as best as possible functions better in its normal unaltered atate, and that inhaling a substance is more likely to just cause psychoactive effects?

 

[gibran2]

I also had a question regarding your post, you state that "Both the primacy of matter and the primacy of consciousness paradigms are, in part, theories concerned with how things actually are. I suggest that they are both highly improbable."
Could you expand on that? I don't fully understand what you meant by this, are you suggesting that we are not living in physical reality? Solipsism? Please expand

It seems to me that the true nature of existence is beyond human analysis and comprehension. Existence is a mystery that will never be understood by living human beings. As with the DMT experience, existence is not only beyond our imagination, but beyond our capacity to imagine.

If this is the case, then every idea we have about the nature of existence is just a story we tell ourselves. Our stories about the nature of existence might be more sophisticated now than they used to be (maybe), but they’re still just stories. We experience this existence with a huge void of understanding, and the stories we tell ourselves fill that void.

The idea that we are living in a physical reality is a story we tell ourselves. The concept of solipsism is a story. The primacy of consciousness – the idea that Consciousness created what appears to be physical reality is also a story.

Ultimately, here is all we really know: There are conscious experiences.

Not much of a story there.

 

[Tek]

This is an odd discussion, and admittedly I jumped in late and haven't browsed the entire thread up to this point, so I apologize.

Clearly, we cannot prove to anyone other than ourselves that hyperspace exists, is plausible or implausible, or anything of the sort. However, we also can't empirically prove that love exists for that matter, yet few would argue that love doesn't exist because we all feel it to some degree throughout the course of our lives, trying to describe it with words is another matter entirely. The same thing came be said about many different unexplained phenomenon; things like intuition, deja vu, the persistence of memory, etc. How can any of this be proven with evidence that is applicable to everyone? I argue that it cannot.

I mean, there are no tests we can use to prove of disprove these ideas. How can we use our physical instruments to try and prove the existence of a place that is seemingly nonphysical? To me it seems the only tool we have for exploring hyperspace is our own minds, and until we can create a technology that lets us view the inside of other people's minds, I maintain that hyperspace cannot be proven to exist.

That being said, it's impossible for me to deny it's existence. This is a peculiar paradox isn't it? I cannot prove my experience using the tools we value here on our planet, yet I've never been so certain of something in my entire life. Once you've 'been there' and received the 'knowing' that comes through the experience, it's hard to argue AGAINST it's existence, probable or not.

Now, we can debate all day about the true nature of what we are calling hyperspace. I mean, is it a product of the perturbation of our brain because we have interrupted our normal neural chemistry or an actual freestanding place somewhere in existence?

My own theory on the place (and it can only ever be a theory) is that what we see as this place called hyperspace is actually seeing into the inner workings of the Mind (big M) which all concious beings seem to share. I'm more of the opinion that, in some impossible to comprehend way, my thoughts are more real then I am (in physical form) and to venture past the physiological workings of my humanity and enter into my mindscape is coming into more of what I really am. That's why that place seems so familiar every time we 'go there', we're not really GOING anywhere, we're simply relaxing into more of what we already are, which is our thoughts. If we can accept that as true, how can I show you what goes on inside of myself? Is there any way to do that other than in some arbitrary fashion?

With all that being said, I'll play my own devil's advocate. After my first few times of 'going there', I used every single rational argument I could think of to explain away the phenomenon, yet they all failed completely when confronted with the immense 'knowing' of the experience. That's the trick I think. I could be shown a lot and led down many desceptive paths based upon a BELIEF that I might have about something I interpret on my own, but when you move right past belief and directly into KNOWING, it's a lot harder to reduce it to how probable or improbable it is. Truly, looking at it from the outside and trying to explain it using words, I HAVE to say, for the sake of not being hypocritical, that hyperspace is extremely improbable by the standards of our society, and yet I know it to exist.

Quite the conundrum really.

 

[embracethevoid]

"However, we also can't empirically prove that love exists for that matter"

Evolution of species by means of natural selection = the sustained application of male-female love towards a greater balance of nature whereby more love/light is available

 

[dmtk2852]

"However, we also can't empirically prove that love exists for that matter"

Evolution of species by means of natural selection = the sustained application of male-female love towards a greater balance of nature whereby more love/light is available

I was also about to comment on this, I know you were probably unaware of this TEK, but we can prove love exists. There were some interesting fMRI studies done which found that certain portions of the brain light up in participants when they see their lover.
I saw a great video of this lady who truly loved her husband, they showed her many images of many attractive men while she was hooked up to the fMRI.
The responses produced in certain regions of the brain lit up when she saw the image of her husband. There is a neurochemical basis for love, and the chemical oxytocin and serotonin may both be involved in producing the feeling we call Love.

But that's a little off-topic. You can just go back to what Gibran said and argue that we can only know our own consciousness. As I can't progress the discussion any further than that, I'll leave here. I'll return if there are any interesting points.

 

[Hyperspace Fool]

I can't say for sure that Hyperspace is or isn't real like you can, frankly I think that's a bit arrogant Fool, I see you as more open-minded than to say you can be certain that the place you go on Spice is something external of your own mind.

After all as Gibran stated and you agreed, our consciousness is the only real salience.

If we can't even agree the external world exists, than how can we say that altering our conciousness(the only thing we can be sure actually exists) is going to give a closer portrayal to reality? Doesn't simple logic and Occam's razor dictate that a pure unaltered mind which has evolved to construe our world as best as possible functions better in its normal unaltered atate, and that inhaling a substance is more likely to just cause psychoactive effects?

I suppose the dovetailing of all that I have said in this thread together into a coherent whole is a herculean task.

What I think I have said, is that:

A) A place that matches the description of Hyperspace is implicit in modern theoretical physics (whether the physicists themselves would agree to that or not) in that every possible version of space-time and every possible configuration of it must exist in some higher dimension.

B) Therefore the probability that such a place as we have termed Hyperspace exists is 100% if you buy into M Theory... which has been a rather foolproof theory thusfar, and explains everything we see including Quantum Mechanics.

C) My experiences make a ridiculously strong case for Hyperspace being subjectively external to my 1st person linear egoic mind. Obviously, this is only valuable to me personally.

D) The statistical relevance of the thousands of anecdotal reports of a Hyperspace populated with independently intelligent entities is huge.

E) Having Hyperspace and The Entities be a function of the subconscious or hardwired into our CNS does not preclude their being ostensibly real.

Now, having said all that, I think we all agree the only thing I can say for certain is that I exist and am a conscious being who is seemingly aware of a great many things... including Hyperspace.

I don't want to come off as arrogant, though there are worse things to be.

Occam in my opinion is lazy thinking. According to Occam's Razor, we would have stopped with the belief that the sun revolves areound a flat Earth at the center of the Universe.

The fact that I can get to Hyperspace without inhaling any substance whatsoever, and that I am able to learn things in my extra corporeal adventures that I didn't previously know, speaks against a purely psychoactive explanation... for me anyway.

 

[Hyperspace Fool]

To me it seems the only tool we have for exploring hyperspace is our own minds, and until we can create a technology that lets us view the inside of other people's minds, I maintain that hyperspace cannot be proven to exist.

That being said, it's impossible for me to deny it's existence. This is a peculiar paradox isn't it? I cannot prove my experience using the tools we value here on our planet, yet I've never been so certain of something in my entire life. Once you've 'been there' and received the 'knowing' that comes through the experience, it's hard to argue AGAINST it's existence, probable or not.

Truly, looking at it from the outside and trying to explain it using words, I HAVE to say, for the sake of not being hypocritical, that hyperspace is extremely improbable by the standards of our society, and yet I know it to exist.

Quite the conundrum really.

These statements hit the nail on the head.

Paradox, enigma, mystery... conundrum.

Hallucinations can be fun, trippy, weird, spooky, whatever... but once you have had a hyper-intelligent being so close to you as to cause the hairs on your body to stand on end... once you have had such a being read your mind as effortlessly as downloading pr0n... once you have had such a being download their multi-dimensional thoughts into your mind and felt like you just upgraded from DOS to Windows 7 in a split second... only times 1000...

You simply can not deny it.

It is like alien abduction in reverse.