I think I know where Discordia goes now...

[Politician168023]

hey triple zero, slightly off-topic... are you really Dutch? You born in NL?

I'm moving there this year...

[Triple Zero]

yep. i'm really dutch. but if you wanna talk about dutchland, start a new thread in apple talk or PM me (for ontopicness)

[P3nT4gR4m]

yep. i'm really dutch. but if you wanna talk about dutchland, start a new thread in apple talk or PM me (for ontopicness)

"ontopicness"???


THEY'VE KIDNAPPED ZILCH - HELP! 

[Triple Zero]

HEEEEEEEEELP IM BEING KIDNAPPED

[Cainad (dec.)]

Ok, listen up:

1.  You cannot directly percieve everything in the universe simultaneously.
2.  You cannot interpret your perceptions seeing all ideological points of view simultaneously.
3.  No matter what filter or reality grid you use, you will always be editing out something.
4.  Even if you decide to shift grids/filters, you're still editing out something.

YOU CANNOT ESCAPE THE ABOVE CONDITIONS.

Ever tried drugs?  

See #4, spag.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

Ok, listen up:

1.  You cannot directly percieve everything in the universe simultaneously.
2.  You cannot interpret your perceptions seeing all ideological points of view simultaneously.
3.  No matter what filter or reality grid you use, you will always be editing out something.
4.  Even if you decide to shift grids/filters, you're still editing out something.

YOU CANNOT ESCAPE THE ABOVE CONDITIONS.

Ever tried drugs?  

See #4, spag.

I was reading 'The Doors of Perception" last night and I was struck by Huxley's discussion of his first Mescalin trip.

Reflecting on my experience, I find myself agreeing with the eminent Cambridge philosopher, Dr. C. D. Broad, "that we should do well to consider much more seriously than we have hitherto been inclined to do the type of theory which Bergson put forward in connection with memory and sense perception. The suggestion is that the function of the brain and nervous system and sense organs is in the main eliminative and not productive. Each person is at each moment capable of remembering all that has ever happened to him and of perceiving everything that is happening everywhere in the universe. The function of the brain and nervous system is to protect us from being overwhelmed and confused by this mass of largely useless and irrelevant knowledge, by shutting out most of what we should otherwise perceive or remember at any moment, and leaving only that very small and special selection which is likely to be practically useful." According to such a theory, each one of us is potentially Mind at Large. But in so far as we are animals, our business is at all costs to survive. To make biological survival possible, Mind at Large has to be funneled through the reducing valve of the brain and nervous system. What comes out at the other end is a measly trickle of the kind of consciousness which will help us to stay alive on the surface of this Particular planet. To formulate and express the contents of this reduced awareness, man has invented and endlessly elaborated those symbol-systems and implicit philosophies which we call languages. Every individual is at once the beneficiary and the victim of the linguistic tradition into which he has been born - the beneficiary inasmuch as language gives access to the accumulated records of other people's experience, the victim in so far as it confirms him in the belief that reduced awareness is the only awareness and as it bedevils his sense of reality, so that he is all too apt to take his concepts for data, his words for actual things. That which, in the language of religion, is called "this world" is the universe of reduced awareness, expressed, and, as it were, petrified by language. The various "other worlds," with which human beings erratically make contact are so many elements in the totality of the awareness belonging to Mind at Large. Most people, most of the time, know only what comes through the reducing valve and is consecrated as genuinely real by the local language. Certain persons, however, seem to be born with a kind of by-pass that circumvents the reducing valve. In others temporary by-passes may be acquired either spontaneously, or as the result of deliberate "spiritual exercises," or through hypnosis, or by means of drugs. Through these permanent or temporary by-passes there flows, not indeed the perception "of everything that is happening everywhere in the universe" (for the by-pass does not abolish the reducing valve, which still excludes the total content of Mind at Large), but something more than, and above ah something different from, the carefully selected utilitarian material which our narrowed, individual minds regard as a complete, or at least sufficient, picture of reality.

These effects of mescalin are the sort of effects you could expect to follow the administration of a drug having the power to impair the efficiency of the cerebral reducing valve. When the brain runs out of sugar, the undernourished ego grows weak, can't be bothered to undertake the necessary chores, and loses all interest in those spatial and temporal relationships which mean so much to an organism bent on getting on in the world. As Mind at Large seeps past the no longer watertight valve, all kinds of biologically useless things start to happen. In some cases there may be extra-sensory perceptions. Other persons discover a world of visionary beauty. To others again is revealed the glory, the infinite value and meaningfulness of naked existence, of the given, unconceptualized event. In the final stage of egolessness there is an "obscure knowledge" that All is in all - that All is actually each. This is as near, I take it, as a finite mind can ever come to "perceiving everything that is happening everywhere in the universe."

I think this is an excellent assessment of the limits of drug induced "perception". It does appear that various substances can decrease the 'filtering' that our brain does under normal circumstances... but it cannot completely remove ALL filtering. Or at least, not in any experience I have had.

However, that still doesn't negate my opinion that a black iron prison, appears to me, as a negative symbol. I continue to sort this concept and examine it from different perspectives... while I find some perspectives where the BiP works... I think I dislike the sort of eternal condemnation that is evoked when I consider the statement that we are all born in a prison cell and we shall all die in a prison cell. To me, it feels like Theatens or Original Sin, "YOU ARE SCREWED AND THERE'S NOTHING YOU CAN DO UNLESS YOU LISTEN TO US!" Now, from another angle, I agree completely that we will always have some constraints on our field of perception... but I think my love of symbolism and its attendant psychological effect causes me to dislike the BiP as a metaphor.

However, no matter how I feel about the BiP, I agree that drugs don't let you escape it. Maybe drugs combined with lots of self-reflection and will to change... but not just trippin balls.

[AFK]

Drugs can't allow you to experience that which you've never experienced.  If someone had never heard of a camel, never seen a camel, has zero knowledge of camels, they would not visualize camels in a drug-induced state.  Just like a newborn baby is going to have dreams about pizza or cars or elephants. 

[P3nT4gR4m]

It's more the big things that drugs tackle. Huxley talks a great deal about his experiences with the concept of time. That's a pretty big initiation the first time it happens. Doors of perception are opened, new avenues of possibility become available.

[hunter s.durden]

The first time you experience non-linear time....

Jesus...

[P3nT4gR4m]

Some inexplicable period of time, not earlier or later but rather sideways

Best way I could describe it 

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

Drugs can't allow you to experience that which you've never experienced.  If someone had never heard of a camel, never seen a camel, has zero knowledge of camels, they would not visualize camels in a drug-induced state.  Just like a newborn baby is going to have dreams about pizza or cars or elephants. 

Well, maybe. At the very least, in a drug induced state one could experience what they believe a camel would be like... its relation to a real camel may be close or quite distant.  

However, that wasn't really the point of what Huxley was saying, I don't think... at least I have found anywhere where he claims to perceive camels without camels actually being around in some sense.

Throughout his writing, particularly the record of his first trip (which was audio taped with researchers etc), he makes a point that his perception is wider less filtered under mescaline. That is, the stuff that his 'prison bars' blocked suddenly became unblocked. We all see colors, but, in the usual course of the day, most of them fade into the background and are unimportant. Things like the folds of cloth, or the grain of wood... or even the chair or table we make use of... all of these things enter the 'robot' where they are perceived and then dumped, because we have become trained to ignore them (its not important for survival). Huxley's descriptions of them under the influence and his comments above were more about perceiving these things without the robots automatic "scan and dump" programs in place. That is, he tore down his prison bars... temporarily.

Beyond that, he discusses less physical things, like the concept and perception of time, or interpersonal relationships... all things that we have programs built to handle... or iron bars to confine or *insert metaphor here*.

[Jasper]

Ok, listen up:

1.  You cannot directly percieve everything in the universe simultaneously.
2.  You cannot interpret your perceptions seeing all ideological points of view simultaneously.
3.  No matter what filter or reality grid you use, you will always be editing out something.
4.  Even if you decide to shift grids/filters, you're still editing out something.

YOU CANNOT ESCAPE THE ABOVE CONDITIONS.

Ever tried drugs?  

You are the stupidest person who has ever posted here.



Ever.

[P3nT4gR4m]

Ok, listen up:

1.  You cannot directly percieve everything in the universe simultaneously.
2.  You cannot interpret your perceptions seeing all ideological points of view simultaneously.
3.  No matter what filter or reality grid you use, you will always be editing out something.
4.  Even if you decide to shift grids/filters, you're still editing out something.

YOU CANNOT ESCAPE THE ABOVE CONDITIONS.

Ever tried drugs?  

You are the stupidest person who has ever posted here.



Ever.

well maybe this week anyroad.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

Ok, listen up:

1.  You cannot directly percieve everything in the universe simultaneously.
2.  You cannot interpret your perceptions seeing all ideological points of view simultaneously.
3.  No matter what filter or reality grid you use, you will always be editing out something.
4.  Even if you decide to shift grids/filters, you're still editing out something.

YOU CANNOT ESCAPE THE ABOVE CONDITIONS.

Ever tried drugs?  

You are the stupidest person who has ever posted here.



Ever.

Err, I think think of other candidates for that award Felix

[hunter s.durden]

Name 'em, pussy.