Philosophy and Drugs

Playboy

Just wondering what people’s opinions were on the use of drugs (of any sort) to further their own personal development in a philosophical sense. Do you think that they have the potential to help someone understand the world in a better way? Personally I’m not aware of any famous philosophers who were drug users but I’m sure there were many. What has made me ask this question is an article I came across a couple of years ago that I found fascinating, it concerned the drug ketamine and the experience of going through the k-hole. From other articles I have read on the drug it seems to have a strange history. It has been commonly known as an 'intellectual' drug used by people to try and gain a greater understanding of the reality we live in. The drug supposedly brings you to a point of where you feel like you are just about to figure out the true nature of the universe. But this is where the danger lies, and this is why the drug can become addictive, you keep taking it because you feel like you are getting closer to ultimate 'truth' every time but the drug cant possibly get you to that point. It’s like chasing an impossible dream that is being dangled in front of your nose. But another strange thing is that a lot of the fatalities involving the drug have no explanation. People seem to die under the influence of the drug but there is no obvious cause of death, it seems like they just decided to die and they did. This has led to a lot of speculation on what has happened to these people, with many people believing that people under the influence of the drug might have figured out the meaning of our existence and decided to leave this life voluntarily.

One of the more interesting experiences can be found here

StonedParadoX

i believe you should be able to try any drug you want and not have to worry about the law ****ing you up for the ass for it
its your own fault if you get addicted though

Do you think that they have the potential to help someone understand the worlds in a better way or those users are doomed to a life of misery?

yep i believe that VERY strongly it the potentional is there..weather u decide to abuse that is your descion
smoking pot i believe made me realise how amazing some stuff is
i havent a clue how to put that into propler understanding but if u have smoked some good **** you will know what im on about

Dont believe the bull**** u see on TV , radio or in the news .. like the **** they you see in the papers now about cocaine "getting its tentacles into every town in ireland"

uh i hate that wording ..sure its bad for you but only in excess amounts

most people have **** all will power

Wasnt Frued(sp) plato and some other lad in the drugs scene? ( my moms been studying frued and so on for years and its apparent he took cocaine)

have you taken drugs? cuz it would APPEAR to me you havent because of what you say Drugs DO

in all honestly to get where u get in the drug state u can go through OTHER channels to get there and it aint hard
most people believe to get back to that state u need to keep taking that drug but u dont and thats how people get caught out

Playboy

StonedParadoX wrote:

i believe you should be able to try any drug you want and not have to worry about the law ****ing you up for the ass for it
its your own fault if you get addicted though

That is an extremely simplistic attitude towards the drug problems our society is faced with.

StonedParadoX wrote:

yep i believe that VERY strongly it the potentional is there..weather u decide to abuse that is your descion
smoking pot i believe made me realise how amazing some stuff is
i havent a clue how to put that into propler understanding but if u have smoked some good **** you will know what im on about

This thread is about whether or not some drugs when used responsibly can be a positive influence on a persons personal deelopment, not about how food tastes better and cartoons are funnier when you are stoned.

StonedParadoX wrote:

Dont believe the bull**** u see on TV , radio or in the news .. like the **** they you see in the papers now about cocaine "getting its tentacles into every town in ireland"

The media's propaganda concerning the harmful effects of drugs on people and society is a topic for a different thread in a different forum.

StonedParadoX wrote:

uh i hate that wording ..sure its bad for you but only in excess amounts

People have very different ideas as to what excess is

StonedParadoX wrote:

most people have **** all will power

Speak for yourself

StonedParadoX wrote:

have you taken drugs? cuz it would APPEAR to me you havent because of what you say Drugs DO

That is a personal question. It is suffice for me to say that I know what I am talking about.

StonedParadoX wrote:

in all honestly to get where u get in the drug state u can go through OTHER channels to get there and it aint hard
most people believe to get back to that state u need to keep taking that drug but u dont and thats how people get caught out

Listen Im not talking here about marijuana or amphetamines, Im talking about a specific type of drug called a Disassociative. If you had ever taken Ketamine or PCP you would understand that it would be practically impossible to recreate through other channels the effects these types of drugs have on a person.

SkepticOne

I think the problem is whether the drug simply enhances the feeling of profundity of thoughs. From reading the stuff from that link, I don't think there's much that is particulary profound, tbh, but then I'm not on the drug. Right now, it just sounds like banal hippy stuff.

Playboy

The most interesting thing about the article imo is the deliberate use of a drug by a person who is using it for an intellectual end. Most people dont take drugs for this reason.

nesf

Hmmm. Ok this is just my own perspective.


First off, stop thinking of drugs as being illegal ones. Open your mind a bit and include any kind of drug. There are plenty of legal drugs with similar effects to illegal ones, they just happen to be legal and do other stuff too (a trait shared with illegal drugs btw ).

Does philosophical thought benifit from any kind of mind altering chemical?

Yes and no. And a bit of maybe in there as well.

It all depends on what you are taking, why are you taking it and who you are.

For instance, due to a medical reason, I have suffered from concentration difficulties in the past. Medication I'm on alieviates this to some degree (we'll ignore the other benificial actions taken for now). This drug basically helps me think clearer and more logically. Thus it improved my ability to reason correctly and obviously any philosophical thought would naturally benifit.

Is this a good example? Yes and no. In my case there was a medically diagnosed problem that needed rectifying.

But one could extend this example generally and ask the question: Is there some limitations to reasoning and the ability to think inherent in humans that needs to be alieviated by chemical means?

Or. Is this limitation something that can be removed by years of dedicated training, study and practice?

Is the limitation the same in both cases?


An untrained mind will not (generally) handle deep philosophical thought very well. Mostly because it hasn't been exposed to the concepts it needs to know in order to think about and isolate problems. Also logical reasoning is not something people are born with but is something that needs informal or formal training in order to develop to good levels.

Can drugs circumvent these limitations?

(Here is where it descends into my personal opinion and answers to the above)

Personally I don't think so. I think that drugs provide a "false" view of reality and there can be a percieved increase in depth of thought that actually isn't real. There is extensive evidence for drugs changing thought patterns in users. The most disturbing for me is the evidence that LSD can induce psychotic episodes in regular users. Why someone would voluntarily go through that I do not know. Psychotic episodes are not nice, they are not deep and they are nothing to aspire too. Yes you are "thinking outside the box" but you cannot trust a single thing you think. It's a constant battle between reality outside your mind and the one inside it. Not good.

My own extensive experiences with both legal and illegal drugs have taught me that there is no substitute for training and experience. Drugs do not provide a short cut to good concentration, deep thinking or incisive reasoning. Even the medically prescribed ones for my concentrations problems only helped a little. I still had to train my mind back up from scratch. I could barely read a trash fiction novel 2 years ago. Now I'm back to reading philosophical texts like I could in my younger years. The drugs helped a bit yes, but it was my own hard work that got my mind to a point where it could properly access and process this information.

Maybe I'm overly biased on this issue though. I hope the stuff other than my opinion is of interest to people.

SkepticOne

My problem is what to make of the results. What is the validity of the insights when the instrument used has been altered? I mean, however abstract philosophy might get, it should still have some connection with the ordinary world.

Stuff about the world being an illusion, all things being connected in some way, and so forth are interesting, but what if the drug is causing them to be percieved as deeply profound?

I don't think the idea of using drugs to gain insight into intellectual things is particularly new. Consider Aldous Huxley. I think the reason you don't get philosophers doing it much is because the stuff generated is too specific to the experience itself, too subjective.

I'm not talking specifically about ketamine but about mind altering substances in general as per your original post. Ketamine (from what I can gather) seems to cut you off from ordinary reality so I don't see it as being fundamentally different even if all drugs will give you a unique subjective experience.

Playboy

nesf wrote:

But one could extend this example generally and ask the question: Is there some limitations to reasoning and the ability to think inherent in humans that needs to be alieviated by chemical means?

Or. Is this limitation something that can be removed by years of dedicated training, study and practice?

Is the limitation the same in both cases?

This is the key issue. Are there drugs out there that can help us get closer to 'truth'? If you hold that the realizations people come to and the conclusions they make about themselves and the world are as a result of the experiences they have had and how they have applied their reasoning and logic to those experiences then how can years of study and training bring you any closer to the same conclusions when you are still missing the base experience. The fact is that people have intensely profound and spiritual experiences under the influence of certain drugs. People will tell you that these experiences have changed their life, sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse. I cant but wonder what realizations a trained philosophical mind would come to when under the influence of say ketamine. Is there possibly some fundamental truth hidden in the experiences that the drug has induced.

Playboy

SkepticOne wrote:

Stuff about the world being an illusion, all things being connected in some way, and so forth are interesting, but what if the drug is causing them to be percieved as deeply profound?

What I find interesting is the similarity of the experiences people have on these drugs even when they have not necessarily been exposed to the ideas b4. It reminds me of the near death experiences where people always seem to perceive a white light beckoning them. There seems to be recurring themes of reality being an illusion and the interconnectedness of everything. Also what I find interesting is the fact that these people take literally trance like journeys into their own minds where they actually perceive themselves as existing in an alternate reality or universe. A term ‘psychonaut’ has arisen to describe these people and their journeys.

SkepticOne

On a more mundane level, a hypothetical philosopher who, for whatever reason, is extremely nervous or agitated over something won't be able to philosophise properly. A mild tranquiliser may help to create a degree of detachment necessary for the job to be done. This would hold true even if the philosopher has a normally nervous disposition. His/her work may well benefit from drugs. I don't think there can be any objection to chemicals working on the brain in general.

Does philosophy lead to 'truth'? Personally, from the little I've read, I think the value lies in the realisation that there are many ways of thinking and talking about something that can be perfectly rational. If drugs leads you to some insight then great, but the important thing is how you this insight is communicated to people who are not on that particular drug. Will they find it interesting or relevant? Will the person be able to use the insight for life generally?

There is something a little sad about someone who travels universes in their own head. To me it is a bit like someone who plays computer games all day. They may have the feeling of leading armies into battle but they haven't in reality.

SkepticOne

I think what I'm trying to say is that it's about being able to participate in a community of ideas. A mathatician might take some drug and imagine amazing constructions, but he needs then to be able to communicate it to other mathematicians. It is not all about the feeling he gets when he ponders various mathematical ideas.

simu

SkepticOne wrote:

I think what I'm trying to say is that it's about being able to participate in a community of ideas. A mathatician might take some drug and imagine amazing constructions, but he needs then to be able to communicate it to other mathematicians. It is not all about the feeling he gets when he ponders various mathematical ideas.

Yeah - communication is important. Leaving banal experiences like "the interconnectedness of everything" aside, I think it's possible for people to come up with useful concepts, images and so forth whilst under the influence of drugs. I don't see this as being very different from people finding answers to problems and insights (whether philosophical or otherwise) in their dreams or during periods of great hardship or so on, though. However, it is certainly quite difficult (but not impossible) to keep track of thoughts that enter one's head whilst on drugs and any results would certainly have to be looked over once more in the cold light of day and would have to be intelligible to other people.

This thread reminds me of an anecdote B. Russell has in his History of Western Philosophy:

There is a story of a man who got the experience from laughing gas; whenever he was under its influence, he knew the secret of the universe, but when he came to, he had forgotten it. At last, with immense effort, he wrote down the secret before the vision had faded. When completely recovered, he rushed to see what he had written. It was "A smell of petroleum prevails throughout."

Feownah

I think that drugs provide a "false" view of reality and there can be a percieved increase in depth of thought that actually isn't real.

This is true.

aldous_huxley

I am delighted to see an enlightened thread such as this one on boards.


The book I have just read ( Pihkal ) and the one that I am currently reading ( Tihkal ) - both authored by Alexander/Ann Shulgin. Within these pages lie a summary of years of investigation into the use of psycho-active plants and psychedelic chemicals as tools in the pursuit of further enlightenment with regard to the human spirit.

If you are interested in this topic, these books are a must. As a matter of curiousity, anyone read them?

phantom_lord

As far as i know socrates only took one drug and it didn't do much for him. Although a huge amount of writers and philosophers have used cannabis, it's well documented in the book a "history of cannabis".

RedPlanet

In my own opinion i would be skeptical of a philosopher that hasn't tried psycho-reactive chemicals.
I have found LSD in particular very spiritual and have experienced ephiphanies while using this chemical. After which i have always felt a wiser and older being. This is true for a lot of people.
I wouldn't put PCP in the same catagory, never tried ketamin.
Insofar as
"Drugs do not provide a short cut to good concentration, deep thinking or incisive reasoning."
Consider that while some of these may be virtues in your present state of mind, they may consequently prevent you from opening other doors of perception. And that is what psycho-reactive substances do, without parellel or substitute.
I don't really buy the "dangerous side-effects" argument because you probably engage in daily activities that statistically carry a great risk of injury to yourself.
I'm not a philosopher nor study it but if i were, i'd put a drugs experiment at the top of my to-do list.

Edit: good article about LSD here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LSD

iregk

Well you have to ask yourself something. Why are all mind altering drugs illegal?

My belief is that (and this seems to be shared by many of you) there a multiple levels of consciousness and reality. At the moment 99% of the worlds population are stuck in the 5 sense reality that we call the every day earth/life/existence etc... There are other levels where we can see what is really out there, we can feel other emotions and where things that happen in this reality don’t effect others. For the 99% of the population we listen to the news, we watch tv we read papers and get confined to believing that this is all that exists this is life end of story.

A lot of people know this is not true and know of other existences but these are broken into two groups. People that experience it and those that don’t want the others to experience the same. i.e. those in control and power of the world. Mind altering drugs simply free your mind and let you experience what else is out there. But while your out there you are not trapped in the 5 sense world where you are controlled, monitored and basically a slave to the monetary system.

If we all were able to access other levels of reality at will we would no longer be controllable. Could this be why anything that helps you to access these other levels is illegal?

p.s. im not advocating the use of mind altering drugs...

aldous_huxley

Well you have to ask yourself something. Why are all mind altering drugs illegal?

Because a more open minded view of them would lead to the disintegration of a current set of beliefs and values -> which in turn, would lead to the disintegration on the position taken by many people in authority.

jman0

aldous_huxley wrote:

Because a more open minded view of them would lead to the disintegration of a current set of beliefs and values -> which in turn, would lead to the disintegration on the position taken by many people in authority.

Thats one way of looking at it. However the prevalence of alcohol in our society aptly demonstrates i think, the hypocrisy. I believe it has more to do with things like: the Vinters Federation's (capitalist industry) ability to exert political and proganda pressure on people in places of power.
You know, like how the cotton industry was able to make hemp illegal in america despite people like George Washington who were commericial farmers of it.

But these matters are another debate. Drugs like LSD, which can be considered entheogens have been in our society for millenia.
The very fact that LSD actually activates or engages areas of the human brain that normally are not engaged speaks volumes doesn't it?

simu

jman0 wrote:

Thats one way of looking at it. However the prevalence of alcohol in our society aptly demonstrates i think, the hypocrisy. I believe it has more to do with things like: the Vinters Federation's (capitalist industry) ability to exert political and proganda pressure on people in places of power.
You know, like how the cotton industry was able to make hemp illegal in america despite people like George Washington who were commericial farmers of it.

But these matters are another debate.

Yes and such a discussion would be more suited to politics or humanities. Lets stick to discussing drugs and philosophy in this thread!

iregk

aldous_huxley wrote:

Because a more open minded view of them would lead to the disintegration of a current set of beliefs and values -> which in turn, would lead to the disintegration on the position taken by many people in authority.

Exactly as i said. Religion is one of the biggest forms of control in the world, next to the monetary system. Open minded people would bring about a downfall for those in positions of power hence why everyday we are kept in the 5sence reality.

As a great man once said: "I'd rather have a mind opened by wonder, than one closed by belief"

Son Goku

I'll be very brief.

How many of our great thinkers were actually under the influence of drugs when they came up with their insights?
I doubt very many were. In my opinion the sober human mind is the greatest tool for probing reality.

Most insights into the world came from hard work and shear mental effort, not a high.

I know that isn't the best of arguments but it's a summary of my opinion.

iregk

Goku, thats fair enough thats what we are all here for, to experss our opinions.

A fair amount of great thinkings were "off their heads" on mind expanding drugs as were the majority or great artists when they created master pieces. The sober human mind only uses a fraction of its potential power. There is so much room for expansion its unreal.

Son Goku

iregk wrote:

Goku, thats fair enough thats what we are all here for, to experss our opinions.
The sober human mind only uses a fraction of its potential power. There is so much room for expansion its unreal.

Do you know there is large room for expansion?
For all we know, we could be at our limit.

A fair amount of great thinkings were "off their heads" on mind expanding drugs

I wouldn't be sure of that.
Most philosophers and scientists, for instance, didn't really gain their insights from mind-altering subsatnces.

You're probably correct about artists and poets, but how many of the great sociologists, historians, psychologists, philologists, chemists and marine biologists, to choose random subjects, advanced our perception of the world by using drugs?

I'd really doubt the majority did. I think the only area you would find a significant amount who do are in the arts.*

*arts in the sense of poetry, e.t.c, rather than the broader definition which includes history, e.t.c.

SkepticOne

Perhaps we need drugs (or at least some people taking drugs) to appreciate how finely tuned the mind is in its normal evolved state?

At the end of the day it is what you make of yourself in life according to one's own criteria that is important, imo. Drugs are something you experiment with at some stage in life but then you move on. I think the reason people move on is similar to the reason they don't play computer games all day all their life. While these things are fun, they don't have sufficient reality to satisfy people for a sustained period. The urge to get out into the real world eventually takes over.

aldous_huxley

Drugs are something you experiment with at some stage in life but then you move on. I think the reason people move on is similar to the reason they don't play computer games all day all their life. While these things are fun, they don't have sufficient reality to satisfy people for a sustained period. The urge to get out into the real world eventually takes over.

Your refering to the recreational use of substances - I think the original inference to drugs in this thread related to their use as a tool which may (/may not) facilitate self-discovery, etc.

perhaps we need drugs (or at least some people taking drugs) to appreciate how finely tuned the mind is in its normal evolved state? At the end of the day it is what you make of yourself in life according to one's own criteria that is important, imo.

As regards what we 'make of ourselves', for the most part thats something that our peers/society set the parameters on. However, my take on that is that its all a state of mind. ie. I can set my own parameters for what I want to 'make of myself' - and if that incorporates experimentation with drugs (inclusive of recreational use) post 30/40,etc. then thats fine.
Alex Shulgin (as i refered to in my original post) is the wrong side of 80 and whilst he is responsible for the synethesis of in excess of 200 mind altering substances, he only experimented with these drugs in the latter half of his life....and he definitely wouldnt class himself as a 'recreational' drug user - as theres a purpose to his pursuit.

pwd

Psychotropic drugs cause you to view things form a different mindset, therefore they may broaden your perspective somewhat.
Not wishing to wax expertise on the subject that I do not possess, mushrooms (for one) also have an effect of sort of removing the ego, and may allow the user to consider and discuss, in a dispassionate manner, subjects and ideas that they would be very inhibited from thinking about while sober.
I think the anecdote that simu referred to makes a good point - drugs can make you feel like you are gaining insights when you are actually thinking complete nonsense.
Certainly most people who attribute too much usefulness to drugs, or who use them too frequently, tend to be rather delusional and full of rubbish. An altered mindset is not a superior mindset to a sober one, it is just a different one.
There is a tendency for a lot of drug users to feel arrogant and more clued in than non-users. This is particularly prevalent among youngish users of cannibis. This very arrogance can blinker their thinking to a great extent.

SkepticOne

aldous_huxley wrote:

As regards what we 'make of ourselves', for the most part thats something that our peers/society set the parameters on. However, my take on that is that its all a state of mind. ie. I can set my own parameters for what I want to 'make of myself' - and if that incorporates experimentation with drugs (inclusive of recreational use) post 30/40,etc. then thats fine.

So long as it is in moderation it is fine, imo.

18AD

Check out Timothy Leary, Terrence McKenna, Alan Watts (more eastern religious stuff) and Carlos Castaneda. All modern philosophers of a sort, all did quite an extensive amount of hallucinogenic drugs, for insight into the human mind. I'm quite the fan of Tim Leary's "eight circuit model of human consciousness".

Basic reading for most of these can be found at http://deoxy.org/yippie.htm .

zinc

Well I have many thoughts on this topic, mainly because I am a drug user and because I just finished a degree in Philosophy in UCD and am now pursuing a Masters next year.

Although I used many drugs, the usual suspects I waited until I finished my degree to use LSD and Mushrooms. By the way many philosophers used drugs, Derrida said taking LSD was possibly the best day of his life etc.

Philosophy is entirely seperate from personal development once you start to study it, for personal insights philosophy has steadied my head, it has thought me the tools for development but I learned nothing about the meaning of life itself, I learned that like everybody else, from experience which my conclusion lays in, life is nothing more than the sum of experiences.

Now if you want to confront your emotions head on, if you want to experience fear, intense paranoia, intense joy, free association of ideas, to look at nature as beautiful and in the process cleanse your mind of the filth of this reality then do LSD and by god do magic mushrooms.

I equate them with therapy, ritual cleansing of the mind. Forcing yourself to think simple as, you cant stop thinking on these drugs. MDMA/Cociane/whatever are not the same, they are party, fun drugs of which I no longer have an interest in thought I have felt intense joy on MDMA.

Ketamine is very hard to get in Dublin, surprised people get it but Im getting closer to a source on it. I cant wait to try a dissociative.

Son Goku

zinc wrote:

Now if you want to confront your emotions head on, if you want to experience fear, intense paranoia, intense joy, free association of ideas, to look at nature as beautiful and in the process cleanse your mind of the filth of this reality then do LSD and by god do magic mushrooms.

Why don't you just look at nature as beautiful without the drugs?
None of the men who discovered nature's secrets did it through a "hit"
If these drugs really are the key to a higher plateau of thought then why don't you just train your mind so that you don't need the drugs to do it.

Another thing is, why would our hominid brain which evolved as a tool to increase our chance of survival actually be enhanced by a chemical from some plant/other source.

Isn't it much more likely that the brain is just being affected by the drugs and interpreting input incorrectly, rather than being improved.