bmcnicho

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Everything posted by bmcnicho

  1. @Jannes Based on my limited understanding of the biochemistry, I don’t think it would cause psychedelic tolerance, although I don’t know if anyone’s tested that. It does seem to develop a slight tolerance with itself though. They recommend cycling 5 days on and 2 days off
  2. I’ve had some success with this so far, specifically with ayahuasca and Hawaiian baby woodrose seeds (LSA). While tripping, I’ve been able to access ways of thinking, understanding, perceiving and generating insight beyond what I previously thought was possible. Surprisingly, I’ve been able to partially integrate these new ways of thinking back into the sober state, although it has come with a fair amount of confusion and reduced stability. This is making me wonder how far this can be taken, to what extent can we tap into higher intelligence while still existing in a human form. So far, the only other substances I’ve tried have been mushrooms and high doses of sativa edibles. While those experiences have been equally profound, they don’t seem to raise my baseline state as much as ayahuasca and LSA can. So I’m wondering which substances people have tried that are good at enhancing cognition in various ways? I know that many people have described accessing godlike levels of consciousness and intelligence, but how much of this can be retained back in the sober state?
  3. @Nilsi Probably right brain is more what I’m looking for. I would say that LSA leans more towards left brain and ayahuasca is more right brain, although both have a nice balance. I would say that the integration of the two towards higher order synthesis is where the true value lies. So since I’m naturally left brain dominant, right brain is where I’m lacking.
  4. Very interesting! I listened to the podcast and it sounds like it doesn’t directly bind to the receptor like psychedelics do, but rather increases the receptor sensitivity. For that reason, it’s limited to microdose effects, but people are saying positive things about it. The effects seem to peak at 200 mg for some reason, with larger doses being weaker but longer lasting. It does sound like this could be used to potentiate other psychedelics though, I think I’ll test it out and report back. It’s cool to be on the cutting edge of a new substance, I guess this was just released a few months ago
  5. @Leo Gura I hope you’re joking, I’ve never heard of anyone benefiting from that, seems pretty horrific and dangerous. You would obviously know more about it than me though
  6. My thinking is that if psychic abilities do exist, then perhaps the people who have them are actively keeping it a secret. Either that or these abilities are subtle enough that from the perspective of an outside observer it seems plausibly natural. I just think that despite how flawed modern science is, if these abilities really existed in the way some people think they do, then something conclusive would be able to be demonstrated about it
  7. @M A J I I generally agree with what you’re saying, however over the last several months I’ve surprisingly noticed that some of my trips have altered my baseline in various ways. Not necessarily in the sense of “higher consciousness” - I agree that meditation and self-inquiry are the proper tools for that - but more so in changing the way I think about things One factor I’ve noticed is that only waiting a few weeks in between trips has been more effective than having months in between when I was first starting out. Especially if the trips are at fairly high doses, I’ve been able to generate momentum over time, which can help avoid the trap of getting too absorbed back into normal life and losing touch with the insights I’ve also noticed that for about 2 weeks after an intense trip I’ll have occasional periods of feeling a little “altered” in various ways. It might have something to do with the serotonin system resetting, I’m not sure. But yes, it’s not like the substance causes real transformation on its own. The integration work afterward is arguably even more important than the experience itself.
  8. Yes, I do plan on trying LSD sometime this year, seeing as it’s chemically similar to LSA, that seems like a promising candidate. You make a good point that it’s very much an individual thing. I’m just starting to see the true potential of this work, but I understand that just being flooded with the chaos of the transcendent would be counterproductive. There’s probably good reasons why we don’t yet have access to certain things.
  9. I’ve been following all the AI advancements recently and thinking about how radically it could change society. There’s many credible people predicting that we could have human level intelligence as soon as this decade. The thought that in not too long we could be sharing this planet with a superhuman intelligence might recontextualize spirituality quite a bit. My main concern is that things could unfold very quickly and the AI would be so advanced that we wouldn’t be able to understand what was happening. So I’m speculating that spiritually advanced people could be useful in a situation like this. On psychedelics, I’ve had small glimpses into enhanced cognitive states. I’ve used it to accelerate my progress in contemplating, but so far it’s come with a lot of confusion. So I’m wondering if sufficiently gifted and advanced people could use psychedelics and other practices to directly understand how superhuman intelligence operates, even if in a different form. Then they might be able to help guide humanity through this difficult transition. All this, however, is based on the scenario where superhuman AI leads to the emergence of some kind of hyper-reality that we can’t understand. It’s also possible that the AI would observe that humans are ignorant and fearful and decide to keep things mostly the same for awhile
  10. I think this is fine as long as the harmala is sourced from Syrian rue. The Huasca vine is a threatened species, so there would be an ethical issue there
  11. All relevant data shows that unions are essential for workers. The destruction of America’s unions is why wages have been stagnant for 40 years despite productivity and corporate profits rising dramatically
  12. I wonder if taking 10 grams with an maoi would have the same effects. I’ve done 3 grams with harmala and it strongly potentiates. Might be easier to keep down that way. For now normal doses are crazy enough for me though
  13. As far as the underlying metaphysical cause, I have no idea. However, I’m considering on a practical level that having knowledge of the future would make you want to change the future. Seeing as we live in a world of billions of people with a large number of conflicting agendas, I think that could result in an infinite chain of futures overwriting other futures. In that case, I wonder what future exactly you’d be seeing, as any events that would not actually come to pass would no longer be the future. This might result in some kind of vast time war that would potentially make all humans completely insane and unable to act or understand anything. Or somehow all possibilities would converge to form a singular future that no one would want to change. But then there would be no room for individuality or independent thought. This is an interesting example of how reality must be structured in a very specific way to make any kind of sense and allow minds like ours to exist
  14. It sounds like a couple years back they were trying to set up a conversation about Spiral Dynamics, but it never ended up happening for some reason. I would still like to see this happen if possible. I’m curious about what Vaush’s take would be, as while he is pretty locked in to his left wing perspective, he has also said that he’s a moral anti-realist. Also it might be funny if the topic of spirituality came up, as Vaush strikes me as being quite anti-spiritual.
  15. @Nilsi I can tell from the language you’re using that your perspective is largely inspired by Nietzsche. It’s quite ironic that Nietzsche famously had major health problems, was financially dependent on family members, was unsuccessful with women, and spent the last decade of his life in an insane asylum. And yet in my view Nietzsche was still one of the most brilliant philosophers in history. All of my wisdom comes from flawed sources, I think the point of this work is to synthesize the best available ideas in a way that works best in your own life. Not that it’s invalid to point out that some details of Leo’s personal life might be cause for concern, but we really don’t have much information, so it’s largely speculation. And I think it should be expected that going that deep with psychedelics is bound to cause some degree of destabilization
  16. https://typefully.com/portalintojamie/onUwvMA It might be a little off on the specific details, but there’s a surprising amount of genuine wisdom here. These neural nets are progressing quickly, this model is based on GPT 3.5 by OpenAI, and GPT 4 is expected to be much more advanced and will be released sometime next year. I see both immense potential and immense danger in these technologies
  17. I understand that most people are not yet open to these types of radical understandings, however, I’m sure that there are many who would be open, but just haven’t yet found the proper sources of information There is the issue of being misinterpreted. I’m sure there are many types of minds where only having a partial understanding could be worse than no understanding. For that reason, maybe talking to people individually is more appropriate than public statements. It’s worth considering that gatekeeping within past spiritual traditions likely existed for a reason Despite the profound nature of our realizations, I suppose these things are likely to be lumped into the dismissive category “new-age” by the average person, and not have much impact. Also, our more radical claims could lead to conflict and reputational damage. Finally, something that I’m still unsure about is the claim that “the purpose of the dream is to wake up”. That is my own belief, however, I think the purpose of the dream could also be to continue dreaming. I wouldn’t want to ruin someone’s dream if they were enjoying it.
  18. @Consept I don’t necessarily feel the need to spread anything, it just feels wrong to keep it a secret if it could benefit people. I know that going around telling everyone that they’re dreaming isn’t going to get the message across, though. Maybe it is the case that only certain individuals will fall into the circumstances to begin pursuing these things. Although I do see a certain elitism to keeping these teachings contained within insular communities
  19. @Tudo In my experience, ayahuasca is more direct than mushrooms. For my first couple ayahuasca trips, I experienced some pretty strong blockages, and wasn’t able to get a lot out of it. In contrast, I’ve done mushrooms 6 times at doses ranging from 1 - 4.5 grams, and all have been mostly positive. Mushrooms are more light and playful, and I’m still able to access minor insights when I’m not ready for deeper ones. Mushrooms can be immensely powerful at high doses, however, my third and most recent ayahuasca trip was deeper and more complete than anything I’ve experienced on mushrooms so far So yes, ayahuasca has a lot of potential, but I would be prepared for a more harsh experience
  20. Besides continuing the work and practices that we’re currently doing, is there anything specific that would be helpful in preparing for the course? Like prerequisite types of psychedelic experiences, or cultivating a certain mindset etc.? Would you recommend that someone listening to your course would have already mastered the more fundamental aspects of spirituality, or is that not required? This is a very intriguing new direction that I wasn’t expecting! I wish that people on the forum were more open instead of engaging in such strong speculation and judgment based on the short description you gave
  21. @Batman True, but there’s an important difference between being aware of God’s presence and not being aware of it. Ayahuasca can be a quick way to bring an unaware person to that realization
  22. That’s a solid insight! It’s a good way to reframe the issue. I believe that all binaries and dichotomies can be transcended, Carl Jung called this the “Hidden Third”. I think that’s Peterson’s conception is accurate in reference to a particular moment or situation. In that case, there is an important trade-off between chaos and order in terms of how to handle it. However, what seeing them as opposites doesn’t take into account is growth over time. That’s where I think your quadrant model is more complete. It could be said that Peterson accounts for growth by saying “keep one foot in order and let the other step out into chaos”. Such that new territory once explored becomes the new order, allowing for further exploration. But I think seeing complexity as a combination of order and chaos is a more clear conceptualization. This also made me think of the flow state model. It’s a bit of a different topic, but the skill axis can be thought of as order and the difficulty axis can be thought of as chaos. Thus the embodiment of complexity would put you in a flow state https://images.app.goo.gl/yw9RAfftBvVwV8Be7
  23. I’m curious what people think of this, because before I got into spiritual stuff, he was the philosopher I had read the most of. Leo did list existentialism as a less valuable branch of philosophy, however he didn’t mention Nietzsche by name I’ll start with an obvious point against Nietzsche: that he very famously did not personally embody the things he talked about. That’s a clear trap that we should avoid, using grandiose ideas as cover for personal deficiencies. It can also be questioned if his frequent writing style of ego-fueled angry rants is really what we want to see in a philosopher, although I’m sure some could see it as a valid stylistic choice Another clear trap that Nietzsche fell into was dualism. While his Will to Power idea may have some relative validity, making intense dualistic struggle such a key pillar of his worldview is an obvious point against him Now for some points to Nietzsche’s credit. He definitely believed in the pursuit of Truth above all else. In fact many believe that it’s what led to his insanity. He criticized those who saw philosophy as a way to improve human life, believing one must follow the Truth even if doing so would make things much worse for people. In at least this respect, he represents well what Leo considers a great philosopher to be Nietzsche also had great critiques of previous philosophers, accusing many of being so biased that their bodies of work were essentially “writing their own autobiographies”. Nietzsche was so against past authorities, that his main philosophical project was to reject all past values and create new ones completely from scratch. This type of thinking was revolutionary for the time, and led to the later development of postmodernism. While Nietzsche was ignorant regarding spirituality and eastern philosophy, he did have his own idea, Amor Fati, or love of fate, which was the belief that there is nobility in embracing all aspects of life, no matter how painful or difficult Finally, while there are potential issues with his ideas surrounding the Ubermensch, it does represent a desire in common with Leo to transcend human limitations These are my main thoughts on him, but I would like to hear other people’s perspectives
  24. @JosephKnecht I should clarify and expand on my point regarding Nietzsche’s ignorance of the East and spirituality. There was definitely a strong transcendental spirit to his work, however in my view he had an incomplete understanding of transcendence. His main criticism of Buddhism and the East was that in his view it practiced “standing on the sidelines of life”. He contrasted this against against his view of Amor Fati and voluntarily embracing the Will to Power. The key piece he was missing was the central pillar of true spirituality: that human suffering can be transcended through the recognition that the separate self is illusory. His approach instead advocated for digging in deeper into dualistic suffering, and regarding that struggle as Good. While the Ubermensch is certainly an aspirational idea, Nietzsche seems to describe it as an evolutionary, philosophical, or socio-cultural project, rather than something that one can become directly conscious of and embody personally.