Psychedelia.dk

viden skaben kan en helt masse men den kan ikke engang forklare hvorfor vi sover og det bruger vi halvdellen af vpres liv på

Egentlig er vi jo nået utroligt langt med at udforske ting vi har opdaget i verden, men som vores sanser ikke kan opfatte.
Som fx. stråling, elektromagnetiske bølger, kemi og kvantemekanik.

Hvis der eksisterer lag af virkeligheden, som vi overhovedet ikke på nogen måde kan opfatte, er der jo egentlig ikke nogen mening i at forske idem, for de kan jo ikke kunne bruges til noget konkret.

The Cosmic Serpent.

This book is of for an interesting start. In it Jeremy Narby describes his journey to an indegenous tribe called the Ashaninca. Narby is a student of Anthropology, and is therefore rooted in a school of western rationality. Anthropology, like many other schools in the west, raised its status by becoming “scientific”. This creates a lot of limits, that is at least the starting point of the book.

What Narby meets when traveling to these people is that all their knowledge on plants and how to work the earth etc etc. stems from plant hallucinations, especially ayahuasca who is “the mother plant”. Narby has a hard time believing this since his school of western science denies this form of empirical knowledge. Though, as we shall see through the book, it becomes more and more obvious that there must be something about these plants.

Interesting points Narby raises.

1)

The mirror effect of western scientific research. He makes a point out of the way in which the word “Shaman” has been used, has changed according to the way the study of anthropology changed it scientifical precepts.

For example, when Anthropology was having a “schizophrenic methodology” they viewed the shaman as being schizophrenic. When they seemed more noble, they viewed the shamans as being guiders of the tribe, and when Anthropolgy was a confused study, the shaman did, apparently, everything in the tribe. Etc etc.

2)

That plants communicates.

It is often thought that human beings are the only live creature on earth, that communicates through abstract concepts and symbology. Though it seems like the indians in the peru areas received their knowledge from plants. How so?

Do plants contain information? Or, is it as traditional science says, that only humans have that ability, and that plant–hallucinogens only trigger some mentally disturbing visions and hallucinations? That is yet to be discovered.

Own thoughts so far.

It seems like most books about psychedelic drugs always starts and ends with a critique of the western scientific tradition. It has almost become a cliché.

I agree that science has done its job as a monopoly on the dominating worldview, and that we should move on, with science as a part of the whole.

But what is the problem with science in the context of psychedelic drugs?

I think it is that science leaves out the subject. With this it leaves out the individuals making science. They fail to recognize their own experiential reference frame as being valid, and only viewes neurons, numbers and gasses. They don't forget themselves, but rather they deny themselves any validity. How can a so called sharp scientist not see this obvious paradox. They are so good at seeing logical inconsistencies everywhere else. One would think they would see it there too.

Science as a system in itself can, therefore, in my opinion, not function, because it is a system built to remove contradictories and logical inconsistencies, to show the mechanic logic nature of the world, and by itself being so selfcontradictory, this does not convinve me that this system is of any stable validity.

Of course a scientist, in the sense that he for example studies something, and am aware of his/her own subjective wants, subjective methods, its lacks and benefits, and can put this research in a wider context than usually in the field of science (which is that matter runs everything according to certain mathematical laws, etc.), is a scientist that will be able to use his results in a wider intrepretative and consistent manner.

The view of western science today is highly challenged by the changes in the perception of reality that happens when induced by a psychedelic drug (somewhat also by other drugs, but not to the same degree). In this context I would like to focuse on Narbys point about the message-carrying plant. It might be true that plants carries messages, which manifests in our psyche when we take in this plants. But it might also be, and I base this on the variety of difference experiences and interpretations many people report from a so-called “psychedelic trip”, that the plants trigger a knowledge hidden in nature, in relationship with the individual. Now, nature and individual is not separate here, this is more to show that, there is on a certain level a distinction between the experiencer and the experience in itself.

Nature might manifest and express a message in the experiencer, which on a trip is often more open in his senses and perceptivity. This the experiencer then have to interpretate. He/She even have to interpretate a so called ego-death experience. Or an experience of “pure experience” where there is no limits, and there is nothing but true knowledge. An intrepretation of this of course comes in retrospect, and is therefore not true knowledge any more, but an intrepretation of a pure experience.

This knowledge, or message worded out and reflected, is therefore not the message as such, but more the conclusion throught the subject, working inside nature.

Stating that "everything said is said by an observor," Maturana and Varela develop a theory of the observation of observation, in which the world is not given -- as in the traditional representationalist frame -- but is rather brought forth in the dynamic interaction of observer and observed.

"a frog's visual system does not so much represent reality as construct it. As the authors noted, "The frog's eye speaks to the brain in a language already highly organized and interpreted instead of transmitting some more or less accurate copy of the distribution of light upon the receptors."

til det med at videnskaben når etn mur deter faktisk sket for niels bohr da han og nogle af hans forsker venner lavede et forsøg med at skyde nogle partikler i gennem et slags gitter de så at nogle af de parikler manglede på den anden side af gitteret og forskede og forskede de partikler der var någet i gennem gitteret hade dannet et mønster det vil sige nogle strejer de fandt ud af at grunden til de andre partikler ikke kunde ses var at de var i en skæv parelel dimension hvor de så også selv var forskudt og kikkede på de partikler der manglede i denne dimension de forskede mere og fandt frem til at der er mange dimensioner hvor vi også er forskudt af tid og sted men de kunde ikke bruge nogen kendte former for matematik til at beskrive det med og det var uden for deres fatte evne tilsidst så de dropede det hele..

Hvis man tager den tanke og evolutionsteorien i betragtning, kan man så ikke konkludere, at mennesker må være så snævre i alle deres sanser, at det udelukker os som art at finde frem til sandheden igennem videnskab? Vi må på et tidspunkt løbe ind i en mur, fordi vi begynder at gå vores egen formåen imod.

Der er den mur, og vi kan ikke komme videre - så må vi erkende, at vi er begrænsede

Jeg tror at vi på et tidspunkt er nødt til at acceptere spiritualisme, mysticisme og filosofi, og arbejde med disse, hvis vi vil forstå verden bag den mur, vi måske kan støde på

Men de teoretiske modeller fungerer i praksis, og er derfor brugbare.

kan man ... ikke konkludere, at mennesker må være så snævre i alle deres sanser, at det udelukker os som art at finde frem til sandheden igennem videnskab?

Her er nogle løse tanker jeg har gjort mig omkring videnskaben efter at have læst Jeremy Narbys bog The Cosmic Serpent.
De er meget ufærdige, men jeg deler dem her alligevel.

Nemlig, men indikerer det ikke blot, at der er en hel anden verden udover den vi selv kan reagere på? Er de ting vi har fundet frem til, ikke blot en dråbe i havet? Og ligger der mere bag de ting, end vi har fundet ud af?

Og lad os antage, at vi stadig kan udforske en masse i de ting og finde ud af endnu mere - men vil vi ikke, igen, løbe ind i en mur, fordi vi kun er mennesker? Lige meget hvor objektivt vi arbejder i videnskaben, vil det altid være 100% subjektivt fra naturens side, pga. vores sanser og sind. At vi har tendenser til at være subjektive selv i vores arbejde, er en hel anden historie.

Men det er jo den mur, der er interessant at diskutere. Vi må på et tidspunkt støde ind i noget, som går udover vores opfattelsesevne, som ursus siger. Noget, som vi ikke kan måle eller veje, pga. vores sansers begrænsninger.

Er det så ikke en afvisning af virkeligheden? Hvad bliver der af den evige gyldige sandhed, som vi har tillagt videnskaben?

Der er den mur, og vi kan ikke komme videre - så må vi erkende, at vi er begrænsede (og dermed også videnskaben, så længe den bliver udført af mennesker), og at vores sanser har gjort, at det vi har fundet ud af kun er 100% sandt for mennesker, og ikke nødvendigvis andre arter. Det er måske en meget lille del af hele sandheden.

Og skulle man se på verden fuldstændig objektivt, uden at være en art og beboer af denne verden, vil verden måske se fuldstændig anderledes ud.

Jeg tror at vi på et tidspunkt er nødt til at acceptere spiritualisme, mysticisme og filosofi, og arbejde med disse, hvis vi vil forstå verden bag den mur, vi måske kan støde på.

(Nu er jeg jo for nylig blevet kritiseret for ikke at levere kilder, så her er lidt: Ullica Segerstråle, "Defenders of the Truth"; Richard Lewontin, "The Doctrine of DNA"; Charles Darwin, "Origin of the Species"; Richard Dawkins, "The Selfish Gene"; Richard Leakey, "Menneskets oprindelse".)