Why I hate drugs

I hate them all because they kill my friends and tear apart lives. My good friend posted this today about his use of spice. All I can hope is that by sharing his words from FB is it wakes someone up about the dangers the harmless seeming medicines can really be. :(

Please listen. As I did my parole more than a decade ago, I was not able to smoke pot without violAting. I never went back to pot. I found his new drug called spice. It was a synthetic marijuana and was\is not illegal. Please the drug is a very powerful and a bad drug. After 5 yrs of use I have recently found myself having seizures from the drug. I had a seizure the other night and it scared both my darling wife and I. Just a final bit. I did come off the spice, and have. Beat the withdrawalt I have too much o lose. Including my wife.....it's just not worth losing u Cath

synthetic drugs are a death sentence, no standards and really equivalent to poison sprayed onto tea leaves.

One bad smoke and there is the chance of pennant damage to bits of your body that you need not that this stops anybody from using.

What about tea, coffee or lucid dream supplements? Where's the line drawn from a cuppa joe to bath salts?

One will make you want to eat someone's face off at Starbucks because the barista wants to have a conversation about race. and the other is bath salts.

Let's admit it. The whole world's addicted to drugs.

We humans aren't the only ones either and many other animals figured it out. http://www.toptenz.net/top-10-animals-that-do-drugs.php

(I edited and changed the link. I didn't read the first one fully until today, and realized it was a little dirty. This new one's better, and suitable for all ages.)

addicted to drugs like tea, coffee and so on and smoking tea leaves that are about equal to something soaked in weedkiller are a bit differant

I m addicted to water.

A sensible person (IQ over 80) usually knows the difference between the slag "drug" which gets used for putting narcotics into your body in order to invoke a psychedelic effect of some sort and the medical definition. Personally I can't believe people use 1/2 the supplement they do to aid in being lucid. I don't trust pfizer as much as some of you trust a stranger on the internet grinding up tree roots and bog fungus so you can have a cool trip lucid dreaming. :roll:

This has nothing to do with IQ, but ignorance.

DesertExplorer wrote: This has nothing to do with IQ, but ignorance.

Granted but sometimes they run hand in hand. ;)

buildit wrote:

DesertExplorer wrote:This has nothing to do with IQ, but ignorance.

Granted but sometimes they run hand in hand. ;)

I doubt it.

I hate drugs as well, but I admit I got very interested in mescaline for a period of my life.

I am lucky it isn't easy to find it. It grows in a cactus which takes years to produce it.

I love drugs. I think drugs are the meaning of life.

I love them too. I use them occasionally. I never abuse them. Everything in moderation. :mrgreen:

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Yeah. Never get too greedy.

I send you my deepest condolences and, if you want them, prayers as well as a hearty pat on the back for beating the withdrawals. I am ashamed to admit it, but I have been an opiate addict for several years. Started with Tramadol due to an injury in my arm, and I quickly discovered the medicine "helped" with other problems of mine too... for a little bit. Then it was up to hydrocodone, then oxycodone and by some stroke of luck, the grace of god, or whatever you believe in I managed to avoid heroine and found some caring people at a methadone clinic.

It sounds like you've done a lot better for yourself than I've done for me, and you should be proud of that. Stay strong and hold onto that love you have for your wife. in my opinion love can triumph over anything.

Personally I don't hate drugs though. The drugs themselves are not bad, and neither are the people who abuse them. It's just the act of abuse itself that makes them bad. I think things are here to be used, but used responsibly. Before I go any further off topic though, I will wrap this up.

I hope you find peace and happiness as your life continues, and as a functioning addict (at least functioning for now) I empathize with some of what your feeling. I know we don't really know each other, but if you ever want to talk privately about it, I will be thrilled to listen. Good luck and blessings to you.

After a terrible marijuana experience with too many cookies! Some friends of that time were having them and they were extremely strong so everyone only had a quarter. My friends were so high on that but it did nothing at all to me so I took another half.. and then when that didn't work, a bit later yet another half..and then Wham...

I lost a couple of days! last I remembered was thinking I was going to die as I went into severe breathing problems but couldn't even yell for help!! it was so scary going into breathing problems when that so out of it, I could hardly move and then I went unconscious (stupid friend just left me there). I guess the only drug I'd try now is some of those ones with shamanic journeys but only if I had a shaman teacher experienced in that stuff.

A boyfriend of mine many years ago, actually we'd split up at the time but were still good friends. He had a bad joint (as far as we know nothing bad should of been in it, he made it up himself). Anyway, on this occasion (he was a heavy marijuana smoker) he suddenly went back years in time and actually thought he was a child again. He started asking to go home (his parents..his father was actually deceased and his adopted mother had disowned him).. and he here is wanting to go home to mummy and daddy. We didn't know what to do with this adult child.

He went outside and saw the other states number plates on the cars (he grew up in another state) and completely freaked out. I can only imagine how scary it was for him in thinking he was a child from back in the past. He couldn't remember me or his girlfriend. He like knew none of us though he'd known us for a long time.

yeah, drugs can be very bad. I think that is what set off my fathers schizophrenia.. he got schizophrenia as a way older adult (which is fairly unusual) but he'd smoked some dope (something he didn't usually do) with a friend and with the added stress of a marriage breakdown. He went paranoid schizophrenic. He's still on phama drugs to keep him from going crazy.

I think everything in moderation people. If mental illness runs in the family, don't do it. I just had a joint and I feel great!!! :mrgreen:

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Summerlander wrote: I think everything in moderation people. If mental illness runs in the family, don't do it. I just had a joint and I feel great!!! :mrgreen:

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What is a joint?

A reefer/spliff/marijuana cigarette. :-P

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Summerlander wrote: A reefer/spliff/marijuana cigarette. :-P

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Aha!! You're indeed a naughty boy, Summerlander. :P

:mrgreen:

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An interesting (or at least amusing) anecdote: the last time I smoked (couple weeks ago), it was perhaps one of the worst experiences of my life (it may have been laced). Not that I resent having had the experience. Au contraire, amor fati was what sustained my relative endurance. Marveling and reveling in my agony and terror, learning instead of suffering, that was the key. Not far into the experience, I realized that in order to maintain some semblance of sanity, I had to conceptualize the experience with a metaphorical representation of my trip: I looked at it as if I were a naïve, inexperienced traveler venturing into some strange and barbarous land to make topographical notations and observations (I literally hallucinated this happening)--I urged myself to resist being a psychonautical xenophobe, to resist my innate immune response to this strange culture of the subconscious depths as something absurd and unbearable and savage--and thusly I preserved my sanity, by allowing myself to be enveloped by insanity.

It truly was a look into the nature of psychosis. Everything was meaningful and so inexplicably profound, burbling over with deductive insight and intuitive philosophical derivations. My mind seethed to understand, but it was all so humorous and absurd that I couldn't make note of everything I was thinking--sheer grotesque comedy quickly swept over me every time the subconsciousness was suddenly conscious of having vomited something from its guttural chasms.

My mind was understood by myself as an expansive civilization full of sovereign parts that professed independence and understanding. The redundancy and inanity of politics were visually representive of internal monologue as "the talkshows of the gods" (as I called them in my mind) and divisive schools of thought arose on as to how one must combat and resist the Terror and Pain--the "turn inward and sleep, let the hallucinations and exploding, infinitely complicated pictures and thoughts seduce you into a vegetative or comatose state" school, and the "remain conscious and alert in case something genuinely deadly or harmful begins to happen to you" school. I realized that my mind is like this all the time, only it is filtered so that only what the mind renders as important to my survival and reproductive interests is allowed through into what is called diurnal "consciousness." We vicariously live through these autonomic façades only at night, but even then they are too magnificent and incomprehensible to be rendered by consciousness. I don't share any of the real details of the trip because right now we are conscious, and ergo would be incapable of comprehending them.

It was an interesting experience, and in-holding with my philosophical principle of exploring unfamiliar and uncomfortable terrain. :D

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deschainXIX wrote: An interesting (or at least amusing) anecdote: the last time I smoked (couple weeks ago), it was perhaps one of the worst experiences of my life (it may have been laced). Not that I resent having had the experience. Au contraire, amor fati was what sustained my relative endurance. Marveling and reveling in my agony and terror, learning instead of suffering, that was the key.

This is inspirational to me. You didn't try to avoid it; you embraced it instead -- it's kind of Buddhistic, in a way, if you don't mind me saying. (I only mean it in the sense of Buddha, the mind explorer, who examines everything arising in consciousness -- come what may. You were learning! Cool! 8-)

deschainXIX wrote: Not far into the experience, I realized that in order to maintain some semblance of sanity, I had to conceptualize the experience with a metaphorical representation of my trip: I looked at it as if I were a naïve, inexperienced traveler venturing into some strange and barbarous land to make topographical notations and observations (I literally hallucinated this happening)--I urged myself to resist being a psychonautical xenophobe, to resist my innate immune response to this strange culture of the subconscious depths as something absurd and unbearable and savage--and thusly I preserved my sanity, by allowing myself to be enveloped by insanity.

This is beautiful and enlightening. You were trying to acquire an unbiased perspective, trying to comprehend the nature of the conceptions presented before you by moving from a phenomenalist stance into the territory where you might stumble upon the mental noumena. (Thank you for reviving this Kantian word, by the way, as it is useful in our exploration of the mind!) The whole thing is like drug-assisted meditation. I'm glad I'm not the only one exploring the nature of mind here using methods other than lucid dreaming. :)

deschainXIX wrote: It truly was a look into the nature of psychosis. Everything was meaningful and so inexplicably profound, burbling over with deductive insight and intuitive philosophical derivations. My mind seethed to understand, but it was all so humorous and absurd that I couldn't make note of everything I was thinking--sheer grotesque comedy quickly swept over me every time the subconsciousness was suddenly conscious of having vomited something from its guttural chasms.

I've had a similar experience with psilocybin. I was in a park and the trees seemed so grotesque and chaotic and yet so beautiful and ordered. My mind couldn't help but place me in the lucid perspective of being the Creator of the universe -- I say 'lucid' because I recognised it to be a delusion but I enjoyed it as though it were true. As the Creator I 'understood' that I had made everything for my own amusement; to expose myself to a range of experiences; and then the universe became the concept of a cosmic circus and I was its artistic director laughing euphorically and maniacally at what I had authored. I would never get bored.

Here's an interesting quote by the fictitious Patrick Jane ('The Mentalist'):

'Truth hurts, I know. It’s biologically-based actually. Our brain process sound faster than we do light, but light moves faster than sound. See, so our brains are constantly shifting reality so the world syncs up… Only when someone is standing 30 yards away do we see and hear the world exactly as it is. That’s when your brain, sound, and light are all in perfect harmony… The rest of the time, we’re living in a world of lies. Lies are what make the world make sense. Ergo, the truth hurts.'

To make sense of reality is to create a conceptualised mental model of it. This means that we are not experiencing the reality data as it arrives, but rather, after it's been redacted to fit human logic. The final product is a lie -- a lie that will make sense to us. When I took psilocybin, the goal was recreation, fun; it's intriguing to see how my mind concocted the solipsistic God delusion which led to the goal I had in mind ab initio -- it led me to a state of euphoria and ecstasy. It was certainly one way of experiencing reality, or, one hilarious interpretation of it.

I think your 'sheer grotesque comedy' feeling came from the fact that you were able to appreciate how different your perception was from the norm; you were able to make comparisons on some level. It was absurd but beautiful, unusual...and yet, scary. Am I right? Drugs tend to open 'gates' in the brain that are normally closed because they prevent all manner of mental phenomena from flooding the narrow scope of consciousness. If these gates, so to speak, are wide open, we will experience unusual insights; strange modes of thinking and emotions; abstract concepts; new ideas; hallucinations; different perspectives on reality; epiphanies etc. If they are 'ajar', we won't be as flooded and bewildered by weird imagination, and we'll be able to conduct a more thorough study of mental phenomena. So drug dosage can make a difference. :geek:

deschainXIX wrote: My mind was understood by myself as an expansive civilization full of sovereign parts that professed independence and understanding. The redundancy and inanity of politics were visually representive of internal monologue as "the talkshows of the gods" (as I called them in my mind) and divisive schools of thought arose on as to how one must combat and resist the Terror and Pain--the "turn inward and sleep, let the hallucinations and exploding, infinitely complicated pictures and thoughts seduce you into a vegetative or comatose state" school, and the "remain conscious and alert in case something genuinely deadly or harmful begins to happen to you" school.

Look at the parallel here with my god delusion. A fear of a point of no return seems to be conveyed in the latter and more defensive 'school of thought' (the one that wants to retain consciousness and alertness). The former, which ostensibly promotes a type of resignation, appears to desire freedom of expression of all conceptions whatever the cost. I wonder if this somewhat marks a distinction between left and right hemispheres. :shock:

deschainXIX wrote: I realized that my mind is like this all the time, only it is filtered so that only what the mind renders as important to my survival and reproductive interests is allowed through into what is called diurnal "consciousness." We vicariously live through these autonomic façades only at night, but even then they are too magnificent and incomprehensible to be rendered by consciousness. I don't share any of the real details of the trip because right now we are conscious, and ergo would be incapable of comprehending them.

It's really a different language, isn't it?

deschainXIX wrote: It was an interesting experience, and in-holding with my philosophical principle of exploring unfamiliar and uncomfortable terrain. :D

Primo! 8-)

'To different minds, the same world is a hell, and a heaven.'

• Ralph Waldo Emerson

Lol! Striving for amor fati could be considered Buddhistic.

“My formula for greatness in a human being is amor fati: that one wants nothing to be different, not forward, not backward, not in all eternity. Not merely bear what is necessary, still less conceal it—all idealism is mendacity in the face of what is necessary—but love it.”

“Buddhism is a hundred times as realistic as Christianity—it is part of its living heritage that it is able to face problems objectively and coolly; it is the product of long centuries of philosophical speculation.”

NIETZSCHE

I don’t necessarily believe in any noumena. Or perhaps I do think some kind of abstruse noumenon exists, but it is utterly outside of the human mind. We are doomed to phenomena and all claims about the noumena are pure speculation. When, how, can we transcend our perception? our conceptions of the world, as formulated by our organic gyri and sulci? Even Dennett’s “heterophenomenology” is still (as is duly recognized) a complicity to the phenom because we can never tell whether or not the person we observe is truly having the experiences he or she professes--we run into things like the “philosophical zombie problem.” How can we know they possess qualia and are not mere automatons with no consciousness? The theory of mind is less than a theory; it’s a faith--and you know how much I hate that word.

I would definitely try psilocybe mushrooms. I’ve read a few chapters of Sam Harris’s Waking Up and he seems to think your life (and your intellect) is wasted if you’re not a psychonaut who utilizes substances. :mrgreen:

Yes, Sam Harris is certainly not against drug experimentation, however, the man informs us that the brain is capable of accessing altered states without. Continue reading Waking Up and you will find that Harris once again disagrees with Daniel Dennett on a number of things, for example: the latter asseverates that consciousness cannot be spoken in terms of being either 'on' or 'off' because it is an illusion, i.e. not what it seems; Harris responds to his friend by conceding that he does not know what he means -- consciousness is, after all, simply what it feels like and sometimes it is clearly absent on retrospection.

I don't know if you've read Dennett's Consciousness Explained but it's a well thought out treatise on consciousness and there is definitely room for his argument and conclusions. In his mind, there is no reason to assume that philosophical zombies are even possible as he reasons that if they are identical to us corporeally and behaviourally, they would just be conscious people. Susan Blackmore certainly agrees with him in her thesis. Dennett may be right on most of what he asserts. He also acknowledges that consciousness has, for the most part, been poorly defined. He has developed his own theory. He is, undoubtedly, a great cognitive scientist and philosopher.

Sam Harris has his neuroscientific ammo plus his own carefully examined mental experiences where he recognises the value of subjective exploration and introspection (even if it's phenomenal), and that some of what is recommended in Buddhism shouldn't be dismissed. Harris's approach has enabled him to discover and recognise an existing pristine awareness (pure consciousness) which precedes all conceptions -- including the 'user illusion'.

Anatta is not even acknowledged by Dennett; in fact he has ridiculed Douglas Harding for describing an experience where he had 'no head'. Harris, by contrast, took Harding's experience at face value.

I too have experienced anatta very briefly in deep meditation and salvia divinorum. I can even do it sober and awake, albeit ephemerally. Dennett has rendered his investigation incomplete by ignoring it. A bit of a shame!

Anyway, keep reading. No more spoilers. Just finished Peter Cave's Can a Robot Be Human and it has already left my brain spinning with talk of mysteries! :-D

Will start reading Letters to a Young Contrarian now. ;-)

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I’ve been reading Consciousness Explained, since your post really intrigued me, Summerlander. :D

I’m only a bit into the book, and he’s made remark about the “ego” quite a few times, but I find this passage to relevant: “As soon as something gets into the business of self-preservation, boundaries become important, for if you are setting out to preserve yourself, you don’t want to squander effort trying to preserve the whole world: you draw the line. You become, in a word, selfish. This primordial form of selfishness … is one of the marks of life. Where one bit of granite ends and the next bit begins is a matter of slight moment; the fracture boundary may be real enough, but nothing works to protect the territory, to push back the frontier or retreat.”

I think that Dennett simply takes the nonexistence of the “self” for granted, never mentioning it explicitly because to such an erudite “neurophilosopher” the point is trivial. Here he uses the word “self” in the way Dawkins does in The Selfish Gene. To say that he thinks the self exists is to buy into a false dichotomy--he doesn’t necessarily think that selves exist or do not exist. It seems, at least to me, that his “Multiple Drafts” theory of consciousness rejects any centralization within the mind. His battle against the Cartesian Theater and the absurd “pituitary gland theory” seems to be opposed definitionally to an ego, to any central point in the mind to which one could point and say, “There I am.” He replaces the homunculi with independent operations that perpetuate the illusion of centralized consciousness--self. That’s my perception so far in the book, at least. I'll keep reading! :geek:

I don’t see how Sam Harris can assert that consciousness exists any more than ego exists, when he concedes that the former is a mere feeling, a subjective conception. And isn’t the “philosophical zombie” itself a refutation of behaviorism? Observing and constructing a model of the psyche based on external notation of behavior is flawed, because we can’t know that a person has a mind. But, of course, I agree; the philosophical zombie is impossible, because I share an identical neurology to a supposed “zombie”-- This is a purely phenomenal justification, but I think that phenomenal justifications are all we have.

I don’t see how Sam Harris can assert that consciousness exists any more than ego exists, when he concedes that the former is a mere feeling, a subjective conception.

Actually, he affirms that the latter is a mere feeling [in consciousness -- where else?] -- a mental product just like a thought. The former can remain as a pristine awareness even when the mental noise has ceased, or when the ego falls away.

I say read both books (Dennett and Harris) and then draw your own conclusions. I think Harris is careful not to make any claims about how consciousness relates to the physical world. Like Dennett, Harris does not believe in the absurd, brain-residing homunculi (let alone souls!); to him, the self is nothing but a lingering conception not unlike the nature of fleeting thoughts.

But to deny the existence of consciousness is also an absurdity. Even if it's an illusion, it clearly exists. It enables us to make the distinction between 'subjective' and 'objective'; 'conscious' and 'unconscious'; and it certainly is what it is like to be! This awareness, this subjectivity -- whatever you want to call it and whatever its nature -- is felt (not by a self, as it can be divorced from any identity and concept -- and these are its 'objects' anyway).

Even if consciousness cannot be found as a physical thing -- because it is most likely an illusory byproduct -- it still exists phenomenologically. (Look into Edmund Husserl's approach.) It is also irreducible: however vague or sharp, it is either 'on' or 'off'. You are either aware or you're not. Wouldn't you agree?

But I take Dennett's point when it comes to memory: if you don't remember, were you conscious or on autopilot? Orwellian or Stalinesque? Do colours exist? Apparently so (as illusions), one might say. Do we say there is a hard problem or do we ignore/deny it with the multiple drafts theory? And... whatever activity is observed in the brain, how could it ever define consciousness?

To understand consciousness, one has to be conscious and examine it subjectively. A physical object such as the brain can never convey it even if it generates it. You could observe my brain activity all you want but that still wouldn't tell you exactly what it is like to be Summerlander... :mrgreen:

Nevertheless, here is an interesting seminar by Susan Greenfield about how the brain may generate consciousness: (seen 30 mins so far but need to go to work)

** http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WN5Fs6_O2mY**

Perhaps there is a reality holding a reconciliation where Dennett and Harris appear to differ in opinion. Maybe we're an expression of the nothingness that's made aware of itself in contrast with the somethingness of the physical world and its complex mental illusions. If there is nothing (no living brain), the 'expression' (conspicuous nothingness) ceases -- in other words pristine awareness does not manifest -- as it cannot relate to itself and we can truly say that it doesn't exist phenomenally (it doesn't have a material existence for sure).

I am not promoting panpsychism here, by the way. Crucially, in contrast to David Chalmers, Dennett denies the hard problem of consciousness. Where do stand with him on this?

'The foot feels the foot when it feels the ground.'

SIDDHARTHA GAUTAMA

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Sorry it’s been taking me so long to get online and reply, Summerlander!

Summerlander wrote: Actually, he affirms that the latter is a mere feeling [in consciousness -- where else?] -- a mental product just like a thought. The former can remain as a pristine awareness even when the mental noise has ceased, or when the ego falls away.

Ah, I must have misconstrued what you said about Sam conceding consciousness to be a feeling: "Harris responds to his friend by conceding that he does not know what he means -- consciousness is, after all, simply what it feels like and sometimes it is clearly absent on retrospection."

I like Gautama’s pithy phrase about consciousness. Self-consciousness is just a sort of mirroring, the part of the general awareness of the mind that is aware of itself as well as aware of objects (and the “self” is just another construction, another object).

But I disagree that consciousness can only be studied via introspection and meditation (Harris’ approach). That seems to be the defeatist stance of those who wish to keep “consciousness” a scientific impasse, something hermetically-sealed from the inquiries of philosophy and empiricism--it is somewhat (if not totally) analogous to asserting that in order to understand happiness, one must first be happy and phenomenologically examine it within oneself. If we stuck to this method, would we have succeeded in making any of the things we now know about other mental faculties--like happiness--apparent to us? That would be to ignore entirely the legitimacy of Dennett’s heterophenomenological approach--a person says “I am experiencing the ‘feeling’ of happiness right now,” and we examine the person’s brain via neurology to determine what is going on; thus have we cleared some of the haze obscuring happiness (not demystifying it, of course; how to get from physiology to phenomenology is still hard, but not impossible). To say that consciousness cannot be explained by any methodological asset used by Dennett--neurology, psychoanalysis, heterophenomenology, Artificial Intelligence, philosophy, et cetera--is to grant consciousness the kind of sublime, mystical quality that Cartesian dualism or even materialism maintains. It echoes hideously, to me, of the sorts of things we encounter all the time from pretentious obscurantists who haven’t yet accepted the obsolescence of vitalism, who imply that to inquire into the true nature of ourselves is a kind of trespassing or diminution. Dennett doesn’t say consciousness has been explained away; he just thinks that he has posed ways of seeing that this question can be answered and that we shouldn’t give up.

Needless to say, I’m on the side of Dennett in this controversy; but I should probably be more suspicious of him, as he thinks free will exists, and even goes on to think that it’s dangerous to admit that it doesn’t!

I do sympathize with the predominant defeatism, however. It seems plausible that understanding the very essence of consciousness may be impossible to conscious beings--especially when we’re not fully (or even half) conscious at any time. This doesn’t mean that we can’t use clever analogies to aid the conceptualization of consciousness, though.

Summerlander wrote: http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WN5Fs6_O2mY

How did I know she would end her lecture with the words, “We simply do not know…”? :D I like that one of her first conditions were parallel to Dennett’s: that there is no centralized “seat” of consciousness in the brain, where a homunculus can observe the theater, operated by an even smaller homunculus, and so on, ad absurdum. I also like that one of her first concessions involved admitting that everything we think about consciousness is going to be a construct--I think that all ruminations or thoughts or intellectual endeavours are a kind of construction, in which we are actually building from the ground up diagrams for representing the world without presenting it, telling about the world without showing it (that’s integral to understanding consciousness itself).

The operational category of consciousness that she talks about is awareness, observation of things, including oneself at times, which is to include David Rosenthal’s idea of the hierarchy of thoughts. This goes back to you saying that consciousness is either “on or off,” which, no, I don’t agree with. Like Greenfield and Dennett, I think that there is a spectrum, and that we shouldn’t bifurcate the contents of the universe into two intrinsic categories in which the light is either on or off, period. The more thoughts about thoughts, the more conscious one is. And these thoughts are the birds of the platonic aviary, the oscillating, neuronal assemblies Greenfield talks about that seem to be analogous to Dennett’s Pandemonium model, in which various ephemeral alliances of “demons” vie for temporary control of one aspect of the efferent nervous system--ever resisting and instigating coups des etats, and effecting and defecting.

Anyway, this is all very interesting. But I’d like to point out that Dennett didn’t necessarily refute the Brain in the Vat thought experiment that I’m very fond of. He makes the assumption, when he putatively sunders the theory, that the “evil scientists” program a world in which the rules and contents of the world are the same as those of the world they inhabit. We could still be in a Matrix!! :mrgreen:

deschainXIX wrote: Sorry it’s been taking me so long to get online and reply, Summerlander!

Don't worry! I've been busy, too, and have struggled to address all the points here. :-)

deschainXIX wrote: Ah, I must have misconstrued what you said about Sam conceding consciousness to be a feeling: "Harris responds to his friend by conceding that he does not know what he means -- consciousness is, after all, simply what it feels like and sometimes it is clearly absent on retrospection."

But I disagree that consciousness can only be studied via introspection and meditation (Harris’ approach).

I hope I haven't misrepresented Sam Harris but he wouldn't say that consciousness can only be studied introspectively. He would concede that observing brain activity can be useful and one can learn a lot -- he is a neuroscientist after all -- about how the mind works. (In fact, people like Kristoff Coch reckon the claustrum plays a major role in the generation of consciousness in the brain and lends credit to tje Tonomian theory.) But there are insights about consciousness, one has to admit, that appear to only be conveyed introspectively. You can look at an active living brain and still not know that it is conscious. Consciousness has to be reported, and, even reportability isn't always evidence of consciousness as some philosophers would argue. Perhaps there is a spectrum where 'off' is at one end and 'on' the other!

In chapter IV of Letters to a Young Contrarian, Christopher Hitchens recalls that Adam Smith believed we carry around an 'unseen witness to our thoughts and doings and seek to make a good impression on this worthy bystander.' There is a 'bystander' but he/she/it is not necessarily worthy and it is only a fiction. Here Dennett and Harris would agree. Then, Dennett goes as far as saying, in so many words, that consciousness doesn't really exist, that its contents -- or qualia -- are part of an elaborate illusion. Harris would say, 'Dan, slow down, we don't yet understand how subjectivity emerges, let's not redefine consciousness just yet.' Dennett still hasn't ruled out the hard problem of consciousness concept to everyone's satisfaction. To do so, he needs to explain exactly how this illusion can emerge which, sorry to say, begets the reality of subjectivity. David Chalmer's eyebrow remains raised at Consciousness Explained.

Read Dennett and then Harris and then you'll see what I mean. I'm also starting to think that they don't necessarily disagree on what consciousness might be but both, like everyone else, have trouble understanding the nothingness that resides in all of us. I think neither would disagree with this statement: We are the void experiencing the complexity that fills us. Without the complexity of the brain (and the atmosphere of this planet which makes it work; and the hospitable past of our solar system and galaxy), there is no experience.

Both of them would also agree that we shouldn't give up. I'm out of time but I will address all these points and expand on this subject in the other thread too. I don't promise to solve the riddle though. This is consciousness and we have no idea! :mrgreen:

Determinism still makes more sense to me than compatibilism. Let us remember that Dennett believes the argument for free will is a presumptive one, not an absurd one. To simplify his argument, I paraphrase him: 'Free will feels intuitively real and therefore we should behave as though we have it; rejecting it leads to chaos.'

What matters most? Truth or delusions you believe will maintain whatever safety we think we have in the world? Also, notice how the concept of free will is destroyed once we begin to examine the course of events and discover the chain of cause-and-effect. The same cannot be said of consciousness. Even if you have a spectrum of intensity, the question remains of how any one physical systems becomes aware of the world and itself. What begets the weakest degree of consciousness? And if we don't notice it, we are not conscious -- it's 'off'. And we are in the Matrix. ;-)

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Yeah, it's absurd to think that people will just descend into careless anarchy if they lose their illusory sense of agency. I wonder if Dennett really does think free will is an illusion, but he won't admit it; in all other spheres he appears to be perfectly honest about the mechanistic nature of human neurology--there's no reason it should somehow transcend causality. The only alterations to the justice system resulting from a recognition of this truth would be things people already consider irrational, things that no enlightened individual genuinely thinks are important: retribution, resentment, punishment without Telos. We can still pose laws that tell people they will be punished if they do certain things, and they won't do them; that's what we already do!

That's funny that Dennett cites intuition as evidence of free will, when he spends more than half of Consciousness Explained putatively deconstructing common intuitions and paradigms about the nature of the mind. There's nothing more anti-scientific than intuition.

I think it's important to remember that consciousness is just a word. It doesn't have to be anything. We are aware of things, that is we take in information about our environment and we rationally draw a line between ourselves and the outer world, producing the illusion of ego, an evolutionary product of genetic replication through Dawkins' "lumbering robots." Everything else after that had to do with the plasticity of the human mind and it warping before the fire of memetic culture, slowly altering, phenotype changing genotype.

That's funny that Dennett cites intuition as evidence of free will, when he spends more than half of Consciousness Explained putatively deconstructing common intuitions and paradigms about the nature of the mind. There's nothing more anti-scientific than intuition.

In 'Marionette's Lament' we see quite a few blunders on Dennett's part. It baffles me how a philosopher of his calibre could have been so wrong about free will! But it's important to recall that he is not a libertarian, he is a compatibilist. Perhaps in his mind he knows we are all at the mercy of cause-and-effect but thinks that humankind is not ready to acknowledge this truth. But when will we be ready, Dan? Do we just bury our heads in the sand until what -- we find a way to genetically engineer scrupulous human beings and weed out the antisocial scum?

But he is probably right about consciousness for the most part. I think Consciousness Explained is an excellent book -- it really does make a lot of sense! -- but I just don't know why he doesn't apply the same level of reasoning when it comes to free will.

Perfect marriage: Dennett's Consciousness Explained and Harris's Free Will

I can also understand the Hitch's suspicions about what Eastern religions prescribe for Westerners. It is true that many tyrannical leaders, particularly in China and Japan, have zombified the masses with Zen Buddhism; urging people to abandon their egos and dissuading them from desires is indeed a great way to diminish political competition, it's like telling the hoi polloi: Be happy with what you have; seek no more; you are great in just accepting what's presented to you.

I don't deny that Buddhism has been twisted, used in extreme ways, and can be a great tool for brainwashing. The doctrine in itself seems to discourage the impetus for those who would otherwise dare to oppose conventional views and mores -- the pursuit of nirvana is a fatalism that dispirits Hitchensian contrarianism for if one adopts it, one loses that revolutionary purpose and is led to the 'Why bother?' attitude. The 'apotheosis of the ostrich' as our perspicacious matinee idol put it. The Hitch abhorred the farfetched scenario where the Buddha lives happily in an Orwellian dystopia. He thought: Life is short; I lost my mother to superstition therefore all forms of transcendence and promised utopias must be distrusted; everyone should give a voice to their mind; we should pander to their egos; and epicureanism is reasonable.

I agree with much of what he said but there is an imbalance there to be detected. The booze and the cigarettes that he loved so much cut his life short -- the man was like a chimney and had no control there! This led to the development of the same cancer that killed his father (the 'commander'), only the Hitch was afflicted with it twenty years earlier in life. And you could clearly tell that he was not ready to lose everything including his life. The Hitch said things like, 'If I can't write any more there is no point -- I'd rather die!' He also admitted that his plans of retirement and going on holiday with his family were ruined and that he felt a sense of 'unfairness'.

Ironically, what the Buddha prescribed was a kind of introspection where one does not have to identify with ego; a way of life that gets you ready for the impending loss; it discourages attachment and strengthens the mind for any situation, and, contrary to what some might believe, you don't become less human -- you just alter your perspective and become more accepting of your transience. Considering all this, we can reverse the argument and demonstrate that the Hitch also had his head buried in the sand, in a way, with his contrarian trope, which, however reasonable in some ways, caused him to be closed off to a valuable wisdom.

That's my only criticism of Christopher Hitchens, one of my favourite authors. 8-)

Surprised? :mrgreen:

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You don't become less human? Are you sure about that?

Yep! A lot of people think human means a certain way of behaving that should apply to all, and with it, universal flaws. But the truth is that humans differ in character and potential. Diminishing your ego means palliating inner pain. The corollary is that you immediately become an improved individual, a human being pushing the frontiers of his potential.

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Summerlander wrote: Yep! A lot of people think human means a certain way of behaving that should apply to all, and with it, universal flaws. But the truth is that humans differ in character and potential. Diminishing your ego means palliating inner pain. The corollary is that you immediately become an improved individual, a human being pushing the frontiers of his potential.

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Yes, but as diminishing your ego, makes you feel less pain, doesn't it make you feel less love for yourself and the other people as well?

What’s wrong with becoming less human? Remember… there’s nothing more inhuman than society, or marriage (humans were sexually omnivorous and promiscuous before the cultural revolution).

I don’t take issue with those same problems, Summerlander (and here’s where my existentialist homunculus takes the reigns of my thought). Hitch personified the prime Randian or Nietzschean; he said, “I am what I am, I am aware of what I am, and I affirm what I am.” There was never any hysterical addiction, no vapid back-pedaling or lack of control over his condition, no pathological denial or unawareness; he knew perfectly well what he was doing to his body, and he wasn’t surprised when death knocked at his door, neither did he wax resentful of the fates. His will was never violated. I also don’t think that because he lost his mother to superstition did he hate utopia and divine revelation. Clearly, in his early life he pursued a faith in the utopian Marxism, but then realized that such things are impossible and made a departure from the Left--better be it, he says, to keep your wits about you and to question everything, to exude the Apollonian principium individuationis and to accept the twilight of the idols (ideologies, that is).

And I’m surprised to hear that he ever wrote of an “unfairness,” since he seemed to maintain perfect lucidity and ratiocination in his end, even saying that if he did submit to God while in the throes of death, we should err on the assumption that he was bad with senility. If he did say that, that’s disappointing…

I do think that the Buddhistic transcendence can (and does) portend a political complacency or complicity, due to the nature not of the ideology but of the practitioners themselves. Society is about individuals, about egos, and the equal exaltation of all egos. That’s irrational, obviously, but it’s important to this concept “society.” Once you step into the pool of anti-egotism, things start to go haywire in the political realm, as is expected. People become open to exploitation, they don’t possess the required vitriol to attack ugly and dangerous people, and the prime conditions for totalitarianism are established. They're ready to toil mindlessly in a socially-striated bee hive.

Of course, we can lose our thanatophobia with Epicureanism as well. You don’t necessarily need Buddha, but only a good philosophy, even if there are problems in Epicurus. Simply acceptance that sensation is all that is makes one realize that “Death is nothing to us.” The Epicurean is aware that death is nirvana, and that we have an eternity of nirvana awaiting us--but he doesn’t actively pursue that nirvana, like the Buddhist does, often to malignant effect.

I agree with Sam Harris that many Eastern religions are exceptional to the Western monotheisms. I think Buddhism is a genuinely useful and powerful set of philosophies and practices to enhance human existence. But I don’t think that it has any blanketing, absolute utility--it’s not the revelation. If everyone in society adopted Buddhist fundamentalism, I would be concerned. In this sense, Hitch was the perfect citizen... but perhaps not so perfect in his thought regarding Buddhism.

DesertExplorer wrote:

Summerlander wrote:Yep! A lot of people think human means a certain way of behaving that should apply to all, and with it, universal flaws. But the truth is that humans differ in character and potential. Diminishing your ego means palliating inner pain. The corollary is that you immediately become an improved individual, a human being pushing the frontiers of his potential.

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Yes, but as diminishing your ego, makes you feel less pain, doesn't it make you feel less love for yourself and the other people as well?

People's illusions carry weight. This is the truth that could do away with the objection, "If I don't believe in myself, I don't believe in other people's selves." If I destroy my illusion of self, that doesn't mean my neighbor has. It would do him great angst if I were to cut off his arm. It's actually a principle brought up by Dennett in Consciousness Explained (though he doesn't mention the Buddhist's dilemma explicitly, obviously):

Why do we bury people? Why do we give them these elaborate and expensive graves and funerals? Materialists acknowledge that a corpse does not possess an active nervous system, and thus the "person" who "inhabited" this body is not longer "here." The Cartesian dualists have the same conclusions, but far more literally: the soul has evacuated this vector, and the body is nothing. Everyone falls into one of these two metaphysical camps. So why do we respect bodies? It's not for the loved ones. They shouldn't care about the body any more than we do, not rationally.

Of course, we do it to give the moribund a sense of serenity, a peace of mind. If you were lying on your deathbed with the awareness that, as soon as you die, your body is going to be churned by a machine into a hundred pieces and then fed to rats, this would be a horrific thought. But if you knew that you would be embalmed respectfully and honored at a funeral and placed peacefully into the ground with a permanent epitaph placed above your head, you would be deeply comforted. (Incidentally, this isn't the case with myself, of course. I'm donating my entire body to science to be dissected, to have my eyeballs, brains, and genitals poked at by medical students.) This is wholly illusory and irrational (like the ego), but if we were to violate this illusion, it would be like doing actual harm to these people.

DesertExplorer wrote:

Summerlander wrote:Yep! A lot of people think human means a certain way of behaving that should apply to all, and with it, universal flaws. But the truth is that humans differ in character and potential. Diminishing your ego means palliating inner pain. The corollary is that you immediately become an improved individual, a human being pushing the frontiers of his potential.

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Yes, but as diminishing your ego, makes you feel less pain, doesn't it make you feel less love for yourself and the other people as well?

The idea is that you feel a freedom you've never felt before, and with it, a kind of happiness that does not hinge on the perspective of likes and dislikes. You don't deny your mental contents as such, by the way, but you begin to not identify with them so much as you become mindful and self-aware. You suddenly play the witness role a lot more instead of being caught up in your emotions. As you observe the objects of consciousness arising in your mind, you're able to say, 'This is anger' rather than 'I'm angry', and 'This is affinity' instead of 'I enjoy or like...' And when you give yourself a break from interpreting the world from the ego standpoint, your brain grows and you will feel much better. Meditation and mindfulness have been scientifically established to improve your health...

... not carcinogens such as tabacco and whiskey. :mrgreen:

deschainXIX wrote: Hitch personified the prime Randian or Nietzschean; he said, “I am what I am, I am aware of what I am, and I affirm what I am.”

And there is nothing wrong with that until someone takes his cigarettes and alcohol! And then what? When a cancer-stricken Hitch was asked in an interview if he would have smoked and drunk less, he said he would have done exactly the same because that is what moved him, that's how he functioned.

Like all of us, he identified with ego and the idea of self-denial was abhorrent. (And this isn't surprising seen as many of his heroes were political and revolutionary, like Thomas Paine and Jefferson.) But being mindful isn't self-denial, it is acknowledging the contents of one's mind and realising that the ego is a fiction -- it is facing a truth, yes, a truth that the Hitch ignored -- and then you are able to open yourself to other modes of being.

In saying this, I would recommend a blend of Epicureanism with Buddhism for balance and other reasons I'm sure I highlighted in the OP to 'Lucid Dreamers and God' in the Dream Science section.

deschainXIX wrote: There was never any hysterical addiction, no vapid back-pedaling or lack of control over his condition, no pathological denial or unawareness; he knew perfectly well what he was doing to his body, and he wasn’t surprised when death knocked at his door, neither did he wax resentful of the fates.

I don't think this is entirely true. His wife could tell he was an alcoholic and here is where he was in self-denial. I have watched a documentary about Gore Vidal which shows when this one first met the Hitch, and Carol is clearly heard telling him to go easy. The Hitch is like an excited child as Gore Vidal politely declines another glass and says he's had enough. (Eventually they fell out on differences of opinion -- mostly regarding American imperialism and foreign policy -- and there is a brilliant piece by Christopher Hitchens entitled 'Vidal Loco' found in Arguably.)

And he certainly resented his fate. This is an excerpt describing a moment of self-pity from Mortality:

'I sometimes wish I were suffering in a good cause, or risking my life for the good of others, instead of just being a gravely endangered patient. Allow me to inform you, though, that when you sit in a room with a set of other finalists, and kindly people bring a huge transparent bag of poison and plug it into your arm, and you either read or don't read a book while the venom sack gradually empties itself into your system, the image of the ardent soldier or revolutionary is the very last one that will occur to you. You feel swamped with passivity and impotence: dissolving in powerlessness like a sugar lump in water.'

Ironically, self-pity with self-denial... before the tactic of mindfulness comes...

'I am badly oppressed by the gnawing sense of waste. I had real plans for my next decade and felt I'd worked hard enough to earn it. Will I really not live to see my children married? To watch the World Trade Centre rise again? To read -- if not indeed write -- the obituaries of elderly villains like Henry Kissinger and Joseph Ratzinger? But I understand this sort of non-thinking for what it is: sentimentality and self-pity.'

Resenting -- and indeed regretting his conduct even if he didn't own up to it -- his fate, however, isn't something that I find disappointing in him. I think it made him more human (in the sense employed by Desert) and exposed his ego for what it was: an exemplary image for those who watch; an ideal he loved and borrowed from the revolutionary heroes that preceded him; a useful fiction which finally expired. Do read Mortality, and find, also, what the Hitch found off-putting about Nietzsche regarding democracy and how he came to disagree with his 'Whatever doesn't kill me makes me stronger,' which the German philosopher, in turn, borrowed from Goethe.

deschainXIX wrote: His will was never violated. I also don’t think that because he lost his mother to superstition did he hate utopia and divine revelation. Clearly, in his early life he pursued a faith in the utopian Marxism, but then realized that such things are impossible and made a departure from the Left--better be it, he says, to keep your wits about you and to question everything, to exude the Apollonian principium individuationis and to accept the twilight of the idols (ideologies, that is).

Very admirable but let's not forget that the principle of individuation does not negate introspection and mindfulness. It does not stand for an unchanging, unwavering sense of identity either when we consider that caprice and volatility can reside in the nature of individuals.

I don't know if you've read Hitch-22 but I find that the psychology to distrust and outright reject the slightest mention of the transcendent -- or even the secular Harrisian spirituality -- couldn't be more present in him. But I certainly would NOT fault him for being a Marxist in the truest sense, where, like a Rosa Luxemburg who formed the Spartacus League and criticised Leninism, adhered to the Marxian epigram de omnibus disputandum ('everything must be doubted').

deschainXIX wrote: And I’m surprised to hear that he ever wrote of an “unfairness,” since he seemed to maintain perfect lucidity and ratiocination in his end, even saying that if he did submit to God while in the throes of death, we should err on the assumption that he was bad with senility. If he did say that, that’s disappointing…

As I said above, I don't think it's disappointing. It's something he inadvertently came to feel and finally recognised for what it was. After all, how could he not have been disappointed? The last lines of Mortality also show that he was clearly not as lucid in the throes of death as he normally was in his prime. But kudos to him for denying the supernatural till the end and it is certainly true to say that he died more atheistic than ever.

'I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker, And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker, And in short, I was afraid.'

• T. S. Eliot, 'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

'...I don't so much object to his holding my coat in that marked manner, as if mutely reminding me that it's time to be on my way. No, it's the "snickering" that gets me down.'

• Christopher Hitchens, 'Mortality'

It is also true that he already despised religion and superstition before Yvonne took her life. In fact, he placidly and leniently teased his mother for having adopted a New Age stance with her equally credulous boyfriend -- at the time, something he tolerated, if not condoned, in her.

But having missed his mother's final call to him; having gone to the scene of the tragedy and learned about the pact suicide, and then the view of the Acroplis, a Parthenon; and wishing he were able to hold Yvonne's hand whilst sharing the magnificence of the landscape, just got to him. It certainly affected him psychologically and made him beware the allure of transcendence and the ultimate. Here's an interesting passage from Hitch-22:

'whenever I hear the dull word "closure," I am made to realise that I, at least, will never achieve it. This is because the Athens police made me look at a photograph of Yvonne as she had been discovered. I will tell you nothing about this except that the scene was decent and peaceful but that she was off the bed and on the floor, and that the bedside telephone had been dislodged from its cradle. It's impossible to "read" this bit of forensics with certainty, but I shall always have to wonder if she had briefly regained consciousness, or perhaps even belatedly regreted her choice, and tried at the very last to stay alive.'

deschainXIX wrote: I do think that the Buddhistic transcendence can (and does) portend a political complacency or complicity, due to the nature not of the ideology but of the practitioners themselves.

I agree. And it's trur even if one follows the agnostic and tentative brand closest to the teachings of Siddhartha Gautama, as the Theravadins appear to do. It can be a good philosophy but certainly non-utilitarian in political circles -- but can certainly be used as a brainwashing tool when officially proclaimed to be the state's ideology, and can be twisted to aid and abet the realpolitik of peremptory governments. Any philosophy, ideology, or recipe for living is bound to be criticised, twisted, and extremely abused.

deschainXIX wrote: People become open to exploitation, they don’t possess the required vitriol to attack ugly and dangerous people, and the prime conditions for totalitarianism are established. They're ready to toil mindlessly in a socially-striated bee hive.

Again, it is what the Hitch reasonably feared as humanity, as a whole, cannot be trusted to use anything responsibly. But there is an inner stillness to be found, which is blissful and the happiness it brings is divorced from desires and urges to control the world. While the Hitch's blood boiled at the sight of an active dictator, the mindful would remain calm and simply describe the tyrannical behaviour and why it isn't good for the world. A mindful individual wouldn't necessarily assume that others are equally mindful nor would he regard others as unworthy selves who should be selfless. If mindfulness is applied properly, one can still be understanding, empathetic and compassionate all the while knowing that the self -- as an identity -- is a mental fiction. There are some horribly inhumane methods of induction into enlightenment employed by gurus on their acolytes (described and discussed in Sam Harris's Waking Up. Imagine having your finger chopped off by surprise and being told to accept it! It goes without saying that a line should be drawn at such violations. And thus we should acknowledge that the Buddhist life is optional -- not something forced upon people by the state. But people should certainly be informed that meditation and mindfulness can certainly augment their cortex and improved their health both mentally and physically as scientifically demonstrated.

deschainXIX wrote: The Epicurean is aware that death is nirvana, and that we have an eternity of nirvana awaiting us--but he doesn’t actively pursue that nirvana, like the Buddhist does, often to malignant effect.

Pursuing it can make a difference, though, and some enjoy the thrill of the chase. And once you achieve that enlightening freedom you suffer less compared to the hedonic Epicurean who is tortured with cold-turkey as everything that makes him happy falls away. Hence why I urge balance. A little bit of Buddhism and a little bit of Epicureanism. Be mindful if you can... or find your own path.

deschainXIX wrote: I agree with Sam Harris that many Eastern religions are exceptional to the Western monotheisms. I think Buddhism is a genuinely useful and powerful set of philosophies and practices to enhance human existence. But I don’t think that it has any blanketing, absolute utility--it’s not the revelation. If everyone in society adopted Buddhist fundamentalism, I would be concerned. In this sense, Hitch was the perfect citizen... but perhaps not so perfect in his thought regarding Buddhism.

Hitchens was great and right about many things regarding Buddhism. But he was wrong, I feel, about rejecting the idea that the ego is a fiction which need not be satisfied or entertained, and that an inner happiness lurks within. But at least, now, he's found nirvana.

But if he were alive, to iterate in a different way, the unorthodoxy that he recommends in his Letters to a Young Contrarian aside, on matters of individuation I would sardonically say to him 'Who do you think you are?' and remind him -- as he knew! -- that he was influenced like the rest of us -- in ways unusual to the sheepish majority, granted -- but there is no inherent specialness, only perceived originality. I am sure he would agree that there is no free will, since he once quipped that we have it because we have no choice. :mrgreen:

Either way I am too young to be enlightened. I have to experience many other things from my selfish perspective yet. If I reach 50 without dying, I will look into it. :D

I like your wisedom, DesertExplorer. Being as young as I am, I have to constantly remind myself that I am infinitely impressionable. My mental immune system against bad memes has to be sharply attuned. But I think that if we've already developed an ego and a functional, healthy, normal mind, we should at least start entering the world of psychonautica with meditation and the like to notice the illusion of the self and the will. The sooner we start, the better, I think.

I'm still reading Letters by the Hitch (reading it slowly as I've been busy) and I've reached a postscrypt warning against counterarguements for what he recommends. I think I'm about to be schooled! :-D

By the way, I meant to say that I certainly would NOT fault him for being a Marxist. :-P

I've also edited some parts to make my point more coherent as I had typed in a rush. I feel like we hijacked this thread a little bit. It was supposed to be about why buildit hates drugs but we've gone from that to the mystery of consciousness -- culminating in Christopher Hitchens. :-)

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If anything, we should be having this conversation in the "Happy Birthday" thread you made for him. I suppose, though, I'll make the obligatory reply once I get to a computer. :D

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But maybe I like the pain life seems so generous to give. It makes me appreciate the peaceful moments even more.

Right, DesertExplorer. We all have our means of coming to terms with the struggle of being organic apes. Some bury themselves in alcohol and cigarettes ... and lead millions with nothing but a tongue and a pen in the reaction against a vicious lie. I would argue that Buddhism is a superior one, but it, like all idols, has its flaws. And, by the way, Hitchens certainly didn't think he was the originator of his philosophy--most of his writing is striking anecdotal, and he knew it. He knew that Orwell was his inspiration, for example.

I think that to violate a person's will is to do real, consequential harm to that person--the person who takes his alcohol away from him, in my mind, is doing a greater sin than the he who actually does the drinking. Under one condition: that the drinker is not harming anyone else. Hitchens succumbed to the vices of alcohol, yes, but he was aware of his vice.

Did Hitchens ever even condemn mindfulness itself? Maybe he condemned certain esoteric, cultish "paths" that were dictated from Eastern pulpits under the guise of being "enlightened" and "transcendent," but clean and simple mindfulness? In the quotes you provided, Summerlander, he is lucid of his animalistic side that is resentful of his fate. He realizes he is merely feeling the tugs of thanatophobia, just like he realized he was drowning himself in poison. In the "Four Horsemen" video, Hitchens doesn't have a problem with "Harrisian spirituality," under the condition that Harris carefully make it clear that this is something separate from that espoused by religion, which Harris was (and is) obliged to do. There is, however, a case to be made against pure mindfulness, as with anything. Spending your entire life being contented with nothing but sitting in a chair, walking around a little, lying in a bed, eating, et cetera, can be interpreted as a nihilism. Now, I acknowledge there are subtleties here imbibed in each tenet, so I'm agnostic on the issue.

I can't recall him making many comments about those sorts of scientifically controversial and obscure, inconsequential issues like "Does the self exist?". He knew he wasn't a scientist, he was a conscientious writer with unflinching erudition, wit, and indignation to battle against those who believed in any one thing, one taste, or one practice. If he had to confront the issue of the ego directly, in a debate of some kind, it would have been interesting indeed. If I were to guess, he'd go along the route of "The self as a concept is nonexistent, but so is society--we've got to build concepts of the world, or else it dissolves." That seems to be your stance, Summerlander. You're still in line with your experience, but experience is something that's merely happening, not happening to you (or at least that's my interpretation of your description).

This is out of topic but since everything seems to be out of topic, I wanted to talk about it. I have tried many times in the past various alcoholic beverages and I still can't figure out what's so good about it. I can't stand the flavour of it. Are there specific requirements for someone starting to enjoy it?

I just drunk a cup of milk. That's what I'm talking about!! :D

No one likes the taste of alcohol the first time; it's an acquired taste. I remember that my parents didn't let me drink soda until I was 5 or 6, and it tasted absolutely abhorrent to me when I tasted it for the first time, but now it tastes great.

I've only drank alcohol once and it was a miserable experience. I'll probably never the touch the stuff again. Green tea is my drink of choice. Lol! :D

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Green tea is nice..

Some wonderful things are constructed once upon a time by chance and have a very brief existence -- and very few witnesses! Last night I had typed a great essay in response to your eloquent and reasoned post, Deschain. And then I lost it when I excitedly pressed 'send' and was logged out! (It was my father-in-law's 70th and I had been drinking cider -- shoulda gone for green tea!) :mrgreen:

I was gutted! But I can say that I agreed with most of what you said with a few appendages of my own here and there. I also felt like you had co-authored it which is why I was so excited and couldn't wait for you to read it. The post contained a bit of a resolution to our discourse. But never mind. I will be reviving 'The Shocking Truth' soon, where we will discuss the controversial topic of consciousness and some of my lost points may come back to me.

But allow me to quote Sam Harris from Waking Up which illustrates a point I'd like to emphasise when I say that I don't urge people to follow Buddhism but I would still take heed of some of the things it can offer:

'Some people are content in the midst of deprivation and danger, while others are miserable despite having all the luck in the world. This is not to say that external circumstances do not matter. But it is your mind, rather than circumstances themselves, that determines the quality of your life. Your mind is the basis of everything you experience and of every contribution you make to the lives of others. Given this fact, it makes sense to train it.'

And while you train your mind you can be proactive with the external world. A practitioner of mindfulness shouldn't even be obsessed with a concept such as the goal of enlightenment as this is unavoidably a selfish motive. Enlightening states are perspectives one stumbles upon, and, however ephemeral they must be, can have an everlasting impact. Rather than being swayed by emotions and slavishly following trains of thought, we can foreclose that familiar mental wilderness by becoming increasingly aware of the tendency to lose ourselves. Eventually, an exquisite focus as the finis of our mindful efforts becomes second nature. The untold magni aestimo interioris can be found and we will no longer just deal with perceived problems outwardly, but inwardly, too. It is possible to become --or indeed feel -- free of the nature of our minds by just observing its conceptions, as they come and go, from an unbiased standpoint. This unbiased standpoint is that naked awareness, which, if divested of its serviceable organism, is unveiled to be an undestroyable nothingness.

With mindfulness, one can really put things into a new perspective, so to speak, and rational decisions in relation to the external world can still be made. And we may even avoid those egotistical decisions which do not really favour us at all in the long run. ;-)

As Derek Parfit once pointed out, there are desires that exist outside our well-being, and that it is not irrational to act to fulfill these desires. From this we can see that what we are discussing here, which includes the great Christopher Hitchens, is a very complex thing. Our journalistic hero, who did visit places of worship, abhorred the thought of a Buddha retaining an equanimous modality of mind whilst surrounded by a dystopian environment -- and he knew that his neuroscientific friend's 'spirituality' was a secular one, based on insightful brain states which appear mystical or even supernatural to the uneducated mind. But surely, Deschain, you can recognise the strength of a mind whose felicity is untouched by external misery and horror, and that the practices that can beget such mind are only seen as a waste of time by those who won't even try them because their egos appear to be working well for them at the moment.

In 'Tron Legacy', Flynn survived and preserved his sanity whilst trapped in a virtual reality for years by reading literature of the likes of Dostoevski's in order to reinforce a selfless philosophy -- a kind of Buddhism in a way. It's fiction -- I know! -- but veridical analogies exist and one can understand why a troubled or trapped individual would want to lessen his ego and adopt a different attitude. Why reside in a turbulent and tortuous mind that says you're a prisoner when an inner peace is available? It can be a useful tool for times that would otherwise have been perceived as desperate by the ego.

As the Buddha once said:

'There are no bad dreams.'

So simple and so cool! 8-)

When it comes to violations, Deschain, believe me, I share your concerns and I believe that no ideology or philosophy should be forced on anyone. If people are going to practise anything -- be that Buddhism, Jainism, secular mindfulness, or any other equivalent -- they must be willing. This aside, it is completely harmless to inform people that meditation, like lucid dreaming, can improve them in ways they never dreamed of besides the potential health benefits. I'm not forcing people to engage in the adulation of Allah ad nauseum and ordering them to pray five times a day. I am merely recommending the minimum of five-minute meditative exercises on a daily basis. It's not compulsory but it can help when you're stressed. This is a moderate recipe, not the extremism, or radicalism, that both of us find repugnant. I'm not forbidding you to play with, or indulge in, your mental narrative altogether. Just spare some time, if you can, to relax, pay attention, and be aware.

Remember: There is no thinker; no author of conceptions; no free will. The self is not consciousness, but it can be something to be aware of, a peculiar sense which tends to be erroneously interpreted because it is an illusion. Identities are fictions as you are not who you think you are. The sense of self can vanish when you're engrossed in a movie, and re-emerge tenfold when a minacious stranger glowers at you. As you can see, your identity is also a mental formulation -- a fiction which can be reshaped in ordinary dreams! -- but what we really are at the core level is the unalterable witness with no ID. The Hitch would not pursue a path where, at the finis, he'd be able to candidly say -- without arriere pensee -- that despite enjoying his writing, he could stop it without being affected or losing a sense of vital purpose. Did he know that felicity does not have to depend on egoistic experiences? Anatta does not have to be viewed as a nihilism and interpretations are all relative anyway. :-)

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That’s the absolute worst, when you’ve written something brilliant, something with true craftsmanship, and you lose it. I lost a fifteen page essay on Anthony Burgess a couple months ago (my laptop died as I was writing) and didn’t even bother reconstructing it from memory, because I knew it would never be exactly as it had been. And I’m always torn up when I can’t read Summerlander. :lol:

I’ve listened to that bit from Waking Up on Sam Harris’ free podcast, and I agree that it’s important to train and explore the phenomenology of our minds. Look at it this way: one can smoke weed without being a Rastafarian! But I agree with you. There are things about my own perspective Hitchens would probably detest: my belief that there is no definitive reality, for example, or that the theory of mind is a faith.

And, again, I think that mindfulness in theory is positively benign, and if I had my doubts before (which I don’t think I did, but I can’t claim to be wholly aware of myself!), you’ve convinced me. But mindfulness isn’t necessarily “transcendence.” Or at least it does not encompass all of the undeniably dangerous connotations associated with the word. Someone as literate as Hitchens would naturally scrutinize linguistic implications, and indeed the implications of mindfulness itself.

“This unbiased standpoint is that naked awareness, which, if divested of its serviceable organism, is unveiled to be an undestroyable nothingness.” I don’t want to extenuate our trespass in this thread too much, but I must admit that I fail to perceive your meaning here, Summerlander. What is indestructible to you about consciousness? Surely you can’t mean that consciousness is somehow preserved after the Sodium-Potassium pumps in neurons stop functioning? And the alternative is that consciousness doesn’t exist, and that is the transcendent revelation. But that seems paradoxical to your previous, far more digestible claim that there is an intrinsic, stark awareness lying beneath the human psyche.

That’s a nice example from “Tron Legacy.” The selfless, passive observation found in Buddhist doctrines would probably be the only way to preserve one’s sanity, to forestall the inevitable psychological entropy (the result of living too long, I suspect, in the “familiar mental wilderness”), when living for an eternity. We should study up on the Buddhavacana for when we get to Hell!

But with Buddhism, you’re still not transcending what it is to be an observer, which is a definitionally bias thing. What does the world really look like, if one were to consider it with not the eyes and brain of a mammal but from the perspective of “The Neutral Observer”? Such a question is axiomatically absurd. The question, “What does the world look like?” is absurd. To posit an observer is to posit a subject. Buddhism merely alleviates the mind by rending it of its fictions and concepts and replacing them with a cleaner, less pandemoniac fiction. According to Epicurus, the task of the philosopher is that of the apothecarist, but for the mind rather than the body. If a philosophy is not curative or therapeutic, it is redundant and fallacious. With this (admittedly flawed) definition of philosophy, Buddhism is the ultimate philosophy.

I’m with you, too. Whenever anyone is struggling or has some sort of personal problem and they ask me for advice, I always recommend meditation. Because in any system, however hopelessly haywire and entranced with subjectivity, improving lucidity always has a positive effect. It is a true virtue. I ask them to meditate, even if only a little, for some period of time and see if they don’t observe some slight difference within themselves. But almost everyone I recommend it to end up being philistine, Western ethnocentrists and frowning and shrugging and never really making the effort to expand the limits of their experience. So many otherwise intelligent people, and I think Hitch was among them, self-identify themselves as “Westerners” (even if it’s subconscious) and thus cut themselves off of a world of self-improvement and psychological expansion.

deschainXIX wrote: That’s the absolute worst, when you’ve written something brilliant, something with true craftsmanship, and you lose it. I lost a fifteen page essay on Anthony Burgess a couple months ago (my laptop died as I was writing) and didn’t even bother reconstructing it from memory, because I knew it would never be exactly as it had been. And I’m always torn up when I can’t read Summerlander. :lol:

I'm torn up that I can't read about Anthony Burgess. I love A Clockwork Orange and the author happened to have died where I currently live! Interesting character... :-D

As a matter of fact, Burgess experienced the numinous once, an ineffable 'spiritual' state when he listened to Claude Debussy's 'Prelude a l'apres-midi d'un faune' for the first time. Personally I can reach a profound sentimental state by listening to 'Clair de lunne'. 8-)

deschainXIX wrote: I’ve listened to that bit from Waking Up...there is no definitive reality, for example, or that the theory of mind is a faith.

Ernst Mach's phenomenalism would probably resonate with you, then. He influenced logical positivism big time and I believe I've heard the Hitch mention AJ Ayer -- who popularised said theory of knowledge in his Language, Truth and Logic -- in a positive light.

Funnily enough, Mach was an atheist (not surprising for a physicist) whose ways could have been described as Buddhistic. He believed that we construct knowledge, rather than receive it, and that atoms don't exist. (Of course, soon after this admission of belief, experiments leant credence to atomic theory.)

Anyway, I can certainly see what you mean when you assert that the theory of mind is a faith. (It would be hard to argue against your proposition so I won't even entertain the idea of playing devil's advocate lest my brain explodes.) :mrgreen:

deschainXIX wrote: But mindfulness isn’t necessarily “transcendence.”

I agree. I think I've mentioned this somewhere on this site (possibly 'Lucid Dreamers and God') based on the reasoning that we are only unveiling what is already within our brains or sometimes experiencing things according to our cortex's potential. Even when we learn new things we are not truly transcending what our brain can do; we merely feel novelty via new synaptic connections that the cortex may develop.

deschainXIX wrote: Someone as literate as Hitchens would naturally scrutinize linguistic implications, and indeed the implications of mindfulness itself.

Yes indeed. And he was right to do so. I think it's a healthy approach in conformity to scepticism and the aforementioned Marxian principle which has been ignored by the majority of communists who have ever lived.

deschainXIX wrote: “This unbiased standpoint is that naked awareness, which, if divested of its serviceable organism, is unveiled to be an undestroyable nothingness.” I don’t want to extenuate our trespass in this thread too much, but I must admit that I fail to perceive your meaning here, Summerlander. What is indestructible to you about consciousness? Surely you can’t mean that consciousness is somehow preserved after the Sodium-Potassium pumps in neurons stop functioning? And the alternative is that consciousness doesn’t exist, and that is the transcendent revelation. But that seems paradoxical to your previous, far more digestible claim that there is an intrinsic, stark awareness lying beneath the human psyche.

Allow me to clear this up as I realise now that my dictum would have flummoxed even the great Hitch and probably would have warranted a 'Sorry, but I don't understand the grammar of your statement' reply. :-)

I still maintain that a pristine awareness lies at the core of our psyche. This would be consciousness in its purest form, devoid of all its objects including the ego. But even this awareness, which remains when one experiences anatta, is a phenomenon (regardless of whether it's an illusion or not) which is contingent on a functioning brain. In short, I am still endorsing the materialistic view that consciousness is contingent on physical processes. (Whether dualists -- or vitalists, to be more precise -- like it or not, the evidence still points in this direction -- it doesn't look like consciousness survives physical death, and, in all likelihood, there is no afterlife.)

I'm reserving much of this discussion for the other thread but let me just briefly state that Dennett and Harris might be saying the same thing in different ways and perhaps both versions require corrections in phraseology and luculent refinements. What would lie at the core of this pristine awareness (illusion or not) if not a complete nothingness where any kind of experience -- including anatta -- is extinguished? I guess what I was trying to say is that we are the void that needs to be filled with an entire universe in order to experience. And what such void necessitates in order to become a witness of any kind, isn't just any arrangement of atoms in motion. It requires specific molecular conglomerates organised into complex organic systems whose functions depend on compatible atmospheres whose planets need to be in life-friendly galactic corners which can only exist in universes whose laws of physics permit such space-time fabrics.

You see? Ignoring the ego and all our mental fictions, where do we really begin and where do we end? The whole universe is required for you to be consciously illuminated where you stand (whatever this means). The pristine awareness exists and can be experienced (sometimes unpleasantly as in the case of certain amnesiacs who forget who they are) but this stark witness can only exist while the organism is still alive -- hence why prior to your birth there is nothing to remember as your particular type of awareness, which has seen many changes from infancy into adulthood, did not exist. The physical body is still required for experience.

Neither Dennett nor Harris proppose anything supernatural or pseudoscientific. Dennett has a theory where consciousness doesn't really exist. Harris would say it phenomenologically exists and its physical causes are still unknown. I'll stop here. :mrgreen:

deschainXIX wrote: That’s a nice example from “Tron Legacy.” The selfless, passive observation found in Buddhist doctrines would probably be the only way to preserve one’s sanity, to forestall the inevitable psychological entropy (the result of living too long, I suspect, in the “familiar mental wilderness”), when living for an eternity. We should study up on the Buddhavacana for when we get to Hell!

Only the relevant and valuable parts of the Buddhavacana should be taken into account, of course. Gautama was only a man after all. And yes, if there is a hell, Buddhism will be a great antidote. :mrgreen:

deschainXIX wrote: But with Buddhism, you’re still not transcending what it is to be an observer, which is a definitionally bias thing. What does the world really look like, if one were to consider it with not the eyes and brain of a mammal but from the perspective of “The Neutral Observer”? Such a question is axiomatically absurd. The question, “What does the world look like?” is absurd. To posit an observer is to posit a subject. Buddhism merely alleviates the mind by rending it of its fictions and concepts and replacing them with a cleaner, less pandemoniac fiction. According to Epicurus, the task of the philosopher is that of the apothecarist, but for the mind rather than the body. If a philosophy is not curative or therapeutic, it is redundant and fallacious. With this (admittedly flawed) definition of philosophy, Buddhism is the ultimate philosophy.

I guess the question should be 'why is there a "what it is like" to be something?' rather than, 'What is the nature of consciousness?' 'Consciousness' is still something which is poorly defined. But... why should sensory perceptions be subjectively 'illuminated'? As much as Dennett says that consciousness is not really there (and indeed it cannot be found as something physical) why do we experience anything? Why do we see red? He cannot deny this and he still has not answered this to my satisfaction. Of course, what am I expecting anyway? :-)

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My perspective matches Ernst Mach's phenomenology of science perfectly; thank you for directing my attention to the man. I think science describes the phenomenology of ourselves, not objective reality, but that is the best we can do. In my view, science is still demonstrably superior in every way. Religion still spins lies, both about the phenomenology of ourselves and objective reality, so it is twice condemnable. The only problem with Mach is that he is too much of an inductivist, and seems to forget that we can make deductive observations about our experience too, and thus he erroneously though atomic theory was incorrect.

I can't find any evidence for the theory of mind, and I bring it up often in the hopes that someone has a viable alternative, or at least a more interesting interpretation of the problem. It seems that there isn't one, unfortunately.

I think you're right that there is a void at the center of consciousness, in this way. With nothing to observe, awareness is nothing. Consciousness is simply the awareness of other objects. Perhaps that is one of the functions of dreams, hypnagogic displays, and mental images... to preserve the mind when there is nothing for it to fixate onto. Maybe that's the definition of consciousness.

I think Dennett does a good job of "disqualifying qualia" in his book, but it's a lot of analogies and thought-tools that help us understand. But I'm okay with abstract metaphors and the like in understanding ourselves, because that's what we do with physics and other parts of science. In fact, we should be even more prepared to be stupefied, because we are trying to understand our brain with our brain, which might be simply impossible to do directly. But we can certainly change the water of physiology into the wine of phenomenology with certain tricks, I believe. Those tricks are just hard to come by.

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deschainXIX wrote: My perspective matches Ernst Mach's phenomenology of science perfectly; thank you for directing my attention to the man. I think science describes the phenomenology of ourselves, not objective reality, but that is the best we can do. In my view, science is still demonstrably superior in every way. Religion still spins lies, both about the phenomenology of ourselves and objective reality, so it is twice condemnable.

Absolutely! 8-)

deschainXIX wrote: The only problem with Mach is that he is too much of an inductivist, and seems to forget that we can make deductive observations about our experience too, and thus he erroneously though atomic theory was incorrect.

I know, it's a shame. Still a great character though. If the brain in a vat is true, however, he might have been right! :mrgreen:

deschainXIX wrote: I can't find any evidence for the theory of mind, and I bring it up often in the hopes that someone has a viable alternative, or at least a more interesting interpretation of the problem. It seems that there isn't one, unfortunately.

And yet you act as though you know for sure that I possess a mind identical to yours. (And I'm doing exactly the same.) You assume I'm a conscious, sentient being. If it was somehow revealed to you that I'm a philosophical zombie, would you stop talking to me?

deschainXIX wrote: I think you're right that there is a void at the center of consciousness, in this way. With nothing to observe, awareness is nothing. Consciousness is simply the awareness of other objects. Perhaps that is one of the functions of dreams, hypnagogic displays, and mental images... to preserve the mind when there is nothing for it to fixate onto. Maybe that's the definition of consciousness.

Brilliantly put and I like the hypothesis! 8-)

deschainXIX wrote: I think Dennett does a good job of "disqualifying qualia" in his book, but it's a lot of analogies and thought-tools that help us understand. But I'm okay with abstract metaphors and the like in understanding ourselves, because that's what we do with physics and other parts of science. In fact, we should be even more prepared to be stupefied, because we are trying to understand our brain with our brain, which might be simply impossible to do directly. But we can certainly change the water of physiology into the wine of phenomenology with certain tricks, I believe. Those tricks are just hard to come by.

So true. It's consciousness studying consciousness. There might be a way to fully understand it which comes with an indelible conclusion (given the evidence), but, I am not sure humans will ever crack it. :-o

I don't HATE drugs, but I am not as inclined to take em because it's the same as steroids and workouts. They will boost your perofrmance but if you stop taking em, they will cause withdrawal symptoms. On tne other hand, if you train yourself to do more without them with sheer willpower, you might not need to take em or be dependant on em.

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Hi Indorill!! :P

Yeah, drugs can be great but we don't need them, really! :mrgreen:

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