Paradigm shift

[Janvier]

Hunter S. Thompson wrote:
    We're all wired into a survival trip now. No more of the speed that fueled the sixties. That was the fatal flaw in Tim Leary's trip. He crashed around America selling consciousness expansion, without ever giving a thought to the grim meathook realities that were lying in wait for all those people who took him seriously. All those pathetically eager acid freaks who thought they could buy peace and understanding for three bucks a hit. But their loss, and failure, is ours too. What Leary took down with him was the central illusion of a whole lifestyle that he helped create. A generation of permanent cripples, failed seekers, who never understood the essential old mystic fallacy of the acid culture. The desperate assumption that somebody, or at least some force, is tending the light at the end of the tunnel.

But there is a way around this problem. A way to resolve this fallacy and replace it with valid reasoning.

What is the reason the atomic theory of Democritus is the one that turned out to be true? The usual assumption is that the truth was already there, already present, before science "proved" him right. But this is mere illusion, and can be likened to Plato's assumption that ideas are stored on some metaphysical plane as essences of the things materialized in the world. I am not saying Democritus isn't "right". I am saying he is only "right" following Parmenides' Doxa, the Way of Perception. Let us follow his Aletheia, the Way of Truth. But let us heed Parmenides' advice that there is nothing but the present, and in the present, Evolution is also "right", which dismantles Plato's essentialism.

Let us investigate the hypothesis that the "truth" of the nature of the universe is already present before it is discovered or proven. We may refer to it as "posit A"

If this hypothesis is correct, we humans have only an empirical task, for we can simply observe this nature and describe it, thus documenting "truth".
But if this is so, whence does disagreement come from? Is it merely a result of fallible measurement?
  What, then, is a paradigm shift? The proof being discovered of mass delusion? Then how do we now that we ourselves are not deluded?

If this hypothesis is incorrect, then this truth must be somehow created through the process of inventing, discovering and proving. This is "posit B"
But how, then, does truth come about?
  Is truth perhaps merely that of which most people are convinced?
  Is the truth that which men hold on to with greatest resolve? That which is most deeply-rooted? The things "on which we agree"?

Let us examine the first hypothesis.
If it is true, how, then, do new ideas come about? If it were true, there would be no reason ever to change one's mind,
because the idea would always correspond to the truth. There are clusters of people who have different paradigms, but what is it that persuades men to assume a
different paradigm? Is it some external force? By Occam's Razor, we should discredit that idea.
If it is false and posit B is true, then either the second hypothesis or some other explanation are true.

Let us then examine the second hypothesis. This is posit X.
If it is true, then the conviction men is the measure of things. And I am willing to stake anything that my conviction that LSD is the way into the future is stronger than anything any rhetorician can throw at me.

If it is false, then I am wrong.

If posit x is correct, than the light at the end of the tunnel is indeed tended to... By those who are yet to come. Everyone who trips now, reading Leary's and other trips, is the tender. We are gods watched over by gods yet to come. Like Nietzsche points out: man is both creature and creator.

[Lupernikes_shadowbark]

You'll like Dan Simmons' work; he calls this concept the Void which Binds, essentially the memory of the universe.  In short it's this; everything which happens in the universe, every discovery, every 'truth' is stored in the energetic, emotional medium and we sometimes access it subconciously....he says that this is where great leaps in inspiration come from....could be something in that....somewhere, somebody or something has already discovered this or that concept.  In an apparently infinate universe the statistics speak for themselves.

I think it's a very interesting idea personally, kind of like Teilhard de Chandin's Oosphere/Omega point; the time we can conciously 'access' this Universal Database....

[East Coast Hustle]

the OP in this thread was bordering on interesting until it was revealed that it was just another "HEY MAN LET'S ALL DO ACID!!" pitch.

I enjoy hallucinogenics as much as the next guy, but THERE IS NOTHING TO YOUR ACID TRIP BESIDES AN ACID TRIP. NO GREATER MEANING, NO "ONENESS WITH THE UNIVERSE", NO REVEALING OF COSMIC TRUTHS.

JUST YOUR SYNAPSES GOING APESHIT AND MAKING YOU FEEL FUNNY AND SEE THINGS.

[Lupernikes_shadowbark]

that's not what I meant but hey...

[Lupernikes_shadowbark]

the OP in this thread was bordering on interesting until it was revealed that it was just another "HEY MAN LET'S ALL DO ACID!!" pitch.

I enjoy hallucinogenics as much as the next guy, but THERE IS NOTHING TO YOUR ACID TRIP BESIDES AN ACID TRIP. NO GREATER MEANING, NO "ONENESS WITH THE UNIVERSE", NO REVEALING OF COSMIC TRUTHS.

JUST YOUR SYNAPSES GOING APESHIT AND MAKING YOU FEEL FUNNY AND SEE THINGS.

or quantum physics??  Doesn't have to be mystical what about quantum standing wavefronts??  This is science is accepted widely and CERN have created huge mo-fo machine to prove it.  So while it sounds mystical, it doesn't have to be

[LMNO]

the OP in this thread was bordering on interesting until it was revealed that it was just another "HEY MAN LET'S ALL DO ACID!!" pitch.

I enjoy hallucinogenics as much as the next guy, but THERE IS NOTHING TO YOUR ACID TRIP BESIDES AN ACID TRIP. NO GREATER MEANING, NO "ONENESS WITH THE UNIVERSE", NO REVEALING OF COSMIC TRUTHS.

JUST YOUR SYNAPSES GOING APESHIT AND MAKING YOU FEEL FUNNY AND SEE THINGS.

or quantum physics??  Doesn't have to be mystical what about quantum standing wavefronts??  This is science is accepted widely and CERN have created huge mo-fo machine to prove it.  So while it sounds mystical, it doesn't have to be

I WILL KILL A MOTHERFUCKER.

[Lupernikes_shadowbark]

*sigh*

[LMNO]

Ok, i'm willing to play.

First, the current model of quantum physics does not use the phrase "quantum standing wavefront."  Please describe what you mean in more detail.

Second, the chemical reactions between LSD and the human brain do not take place at the quantum level.

Third, CERN has nothing to do with either LSD, nor the concept of being one with the universe, nor the semantic or philisophical means of obtaining truth.  It merly hurls tiny particles at each other, and then records what happens when they collide. 



Your turn.

[Lupernikes_shadowbark]

I've never taken LSD and last used weed over 15 years ago so I fail to see the relevence of that comment.

[LMNO]

The Original post talked about LSD and the nature of Truth and The Universe.

ECH said LSD is nothing more than your neurons freaking out.

You said, "what about quantum"?

I actually answered your question, and gave you reasons that quantum has very little to do with it.  Whether or not you took LSD is inconsequential and meaningless.

Please respond to the post.  What do you mean by "quantum standing waveform"?

[Lupernikes_shadowbark]

I did miss that and shall blame the cold.

perhaps my science is out of date but I have read about conciousness being explained as a quantum standing wavefront (I'm not sure what it means but i understand it to mean a wave outside of the normal laws of spacetime, highly compressed information)..my brain is not working at it's best at the moment, please excuse poor construction etc...I think I'll leave this discussion for a day when I'm not feeling half asleep all the time if that's ok?   Not able to think as I normally would. 

[LMNO]

Fair enough.

Just to let you know, however, that no current model of quantum physics attempts to discribe conciousness, at all.

[Cain]

I would be willing to guess that what you have read is New Age authors appropriating quantumn terminology and models without understanding the underlying science (and limits thereof) to explain various wierd shit they do not have a clue about.

Its an old trick.  Its like when the comics used radiation, or radio waves, to explain every piece of wierd shit that happened in the stories, though at least they were honest enough to not claim they were factual depictions.

[LMNO]

Ok, I think he may have been referencing the Wave Structure of Matter hypothesis.

Unfortunately, one of the ideas supporting this hypothesis is based on a very poor interpretation of Heisenberg.

[Lupernikes_shadowbark]

then i stand corrected and respectfully doff my hat....that's all I was asking about really.