From: Ben Goertzel (ben@goertzel.org)
Date: Mon Sep 09 2002 - 22:31:10 MDT
Gordon Worley wrote:
> Altered states of consciousness are boring.
Well, to each his own, I guess ;)
> Perhaps after a trip or getting high, you will notice that the
> only reason the altered state of consciousness was neat was because you
> could notice that it didn't match up with reality, whereas normally you
> don't notice the mismatch. Most likely not.
I'm not quite sure what you're getting at here...
I didn't believe in an absolutely real external reality BEFORE first taking
psychedelics at age 16, and I didn't believe in it afterwards...
Both before & after my psychedelic experiences, I believed in the
scientific, rationalist perspective as one among a number of valuable &
interesting perspectives that a mind can take on the world
The reasons for altered states of consciousness being interesting, vary
based on the particular altered states in question. But they don't often
have to with any kind of rationalist "matching up to empirical reality."
Experiential truth is not the same as empirical or mathematical truth; all
these kinds of truth have their own validity and interest, in my view.
-- Ben G
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