bmcnicho

I would support increasing standards on homeschooling to make sure that actual education was taking place. But regulations shouldn’t be so strict to prevent meaningful alternatives to the public system. Religious homeschooling is a large problem that unfortunately I don’t see good ways of preventing. The public system also has lots of problems, but of course any attempts to substantively improve education would result in giant culture war backlash. The best solution I can see is that at some point Artificial Intelligence could take over education. But because we have compulsory schooling, homeschool can’t be banned. Otherwise children would effectively be enslaved to the state.

@jdc7733 What I’ve experienced so far is phenomenon of imperceptible size, such that it could very well be finite, but I’m not aware of where its limits lie. In these states, the duality between nothingness and somethingness collapses and these things become metaphysically identical. Obviously, these states are very strange and difficult to describe using ordinary language. One time, I experienced a different but related state where the very properties of size and quantity either ceased to exist completely or just became unintelligible. I know from my intuition and other’s reports that psychedelic experiences can be much stronger and stranger than this. So I can’t see why someone in principle couldn’t have a truly infinite experience. However, your post does raise the tricky metaphysical question of how someone could actually know if their experience was infinite. Can infinity be cleanly distinguished from finitude? Could a finite experience merely seem infinite? Or would an experience of infinity be tautologically self-evident in a way that I can’t understand from my current perspective? Maybe the real answer is that whatever it is we’re actually dealing with here lies so far beyond the understandable meaning of these terms that the distinction becomes irrelevant.

@Jowblob What do you mean by this? I think this is true in the sense that your concepts about reality can be permanently altered, but are you suggesting the possibility of literally not being able to return to your body? From what I understand, after the chemical is fully metabolized, the effects end and you’re mostly back to normal. Even after very intense experiences, the mind has a strong tendency to reassert psychological homeostasis in the weeks that follow. I could see there being additional concerns for people already prone to mental illness though.

This is a response to the following blog post: https://www.actualized.org/insights/actualized-quotes-043 Obviously, we have very little idea of what exactly Leo means by this just from one paragraph. However, it does seem to be a plausible result of pushing substances such as DMT, ayahuasca, or mushrooms to their ultimate extent. I’ve taken ayahuasca at moderately high doses 8 times over the past year, and there definitely is an alien strangeness to it that’s difficult to describe or contextualize within any sort of conventional understanding of reality. In one of my recent trips, I delved into the territory of what would be called “regular insanity”. It didn’t get to the point of full blown psychosis, but I did experience extreme confusion, an inability to understand basic concepts of reality, and a sense of radical expansiveness that made thoughts seem irrelevant. Insanity to almost anyone is a quite unpleasant experience, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it lacks value. A key component of generating new insights is first breaking down old frameworks. Ideally, one would strike a balance between chaos and order, such as what occurs in the flow state. This has also been called the zone of proximal development. However, the more radical psychedelic states require pushing further than this. It’s sometimes necessary to go too far to gain a broader understanding of what’s possible. During my trips, I think of this as dancing with the line between sanity and insanity. Even so, it’s difficult for me to think of complete insanity as being anything other than undesirable. If the goal is Truth, then Insanity would certainly be a large component. However, if Truth is Infinity, then your goal would be everything. Having Everything as a goal, though, isn’t a goal at all, it’s the same as not having a goal. Because having a goal implies there’s a difference between what is and isn’t desired. If the main purpose of actualized.org is still personal development, then spirituality can be thought of as self actualization taken to its ultimate extent. However, that would imply that there’s a difference between what can be considered developed versus undeveloped. Therefore, it would be possible for me to claim that Insanity (even of the “Alien” variety) is spirituality gone wrong if it leads to mental dysfunction. It may be foolish for me to ask if Insanity can be achieved “safely”, as it seems to be the precise opposite of safety. This comes across to me as an extreme form of nihilism, as I imagine that one could fully awaken to the fact that they were never a human, but still be content living out the rest of this human dream relatively normally. If Infinity is the Truth, then shouldn’t we try to cultivate the highest of what’s possible? Doesn’t that seem better than succumbing to cosmic madness? Because no matter how high of an awakening you reach, don’t you then have to come back to your life and do something with it?

I do think this is a good sign that psychedelics are gaining more mainstream acceptance. However, I’m not exactly sure what to make of this. I’m concerned that this could result in the website being shut down, or a bunch of people getting into legal trouble. The company is based in Canada, where there’s a pretty active grey market, but they also claim to ship to the US. I think this channel would vet their sponsors well, although it seems dangerous to purchase a schedule 1 substance openly on the clear-net. This isn’t the first I’ve heard of this sort of thing, there’s also podcasts openly discussing microdose sources. It seems paradoxical that there’s potentially severe legal consequences for this, yet a lot of people say that the authorities don’t care much about psychedelics anymore. So I’m wondering if it’s safe to order from websites like this, because right now I have to travel a few hours to get to my current source.

@Cocolove No, this website sells capsules, teas, and chocolate bars.

Holy shit, that was a terrifying one! And that’s a perfect accent for narrating bad trips. My last 2 trips have been negative, but thankfully nothing close to that. I’ve taken a month off so far, and am considering getting back into it with a nice and easy low dose that will hopefully be positive again. I’m now imagining that very few of us have any idea how deep this can go.

I had to read it very slowly, 7 times in a row so far. Very deep and direct. I’m sure that anyone who has the courage to spend some serious time contemplating this could deepen their understanding. https://www.actualized.org/insights/actualized-quotes-040

I don’t think suicidal thoughts are guaranteed in the same way someone with depression would have them, although it’s not uncommon at high doses. I think it has to do with the way the relationship between life and death can be recontextualized. Like I’ve definitely had the thought “Death is Goodness” but with “Death” being a spiritual notion not related to the destruction of the body or unhappiness with oneself as it’s conventionally thought of. The one experience I had that veered into that territory was actually motivated by pure contentedness in the present moment. I viewed reality as inherently perfect, and the thought popped into my head that if I randomly wandered off into traffic, it wouldn’t be a bad thing. Because I wasn’t able to conceptualize anything as being bad at that time. I still had the presence of mind to not take that thought seriously though. A more negative version of these thoughts are definitely possible and worth taking seriously. But I don’t think someone who’s otherwise psychologically healthy needs to worry too much. Trip sitters can definitely be helpful at high doses, even though a lot of us prefer doing these things solo. And yes, I have had some profound revelations, I don’t know if they’re the same ones that you’ve had. I understand now that words can be dangerous. I see people enjoying their realities, and know that language can rewrite reality. It’s difficult, because I see Truth as being the birthright of mankind, but maybe some things should be left to those willing to actively seek it out.

It’s called the Whatever Dating podcast with Brian Atlas. It’s recently surged in popularity with viral clips online. In general, this podcast is very low consciousness. Its main purpose seems to be bringing women on and trying to make them look dumb while spreading red pill ideology. However, they have guests with a wide variety of opinions, so there will occasionally be a worthwhile discussion. 5:34:12 is when Leo is brought up. I think that Leo would have much more important things to spend his time on. However, it did occur to me that going on would be a chance to share better perspectives with a large, misguided audience. This type of content online does seem to be sending a segment of young men in a bad direction.

Lol, are you a Mr. Girl fan? That’s the only place I’ve heard that from. As far as I know none of that was credible. Hypothetically the benefit would be that Leo could give more nuanced, high consciousness perspectives on these topics to a large audience that particularly needs to have better views on these things.

@Danioover9000 No, the super chat was someone else. I guess my wording was unclear. I think Leo going on would hypothetically be a good thing, but probably not be worth the opportunity cost compared to what he would otherwise spend that time doing. I don’t necessarily think that going on a bad platform promotes it. The podcast already has 4 million subscribers and hundreds of thousands of views per episode, so as a guest you’d also be exposing that audience to you. The streamer Destiny was a guest a couple weeks ago, and he provided good pushback to a lot of the bad points. I think it would be hypothetically interesting, because in my opinion Leo would have better points and could potentially be more persuasive than Destiny. The panels usually have 7 to 10 people, and usually only about 1 or 2 are worth listening to, point taken. The red pill stuff seems to be pretty massive online, and it’s part of a larger right wing movement. I guess I don’t know exactly what percent of guys are falling for it, but it’s definitely worth taking seriously.

@Recursoinominado Unfortunately yes, at double speed while falling asleep. In general I enjoy debates, even though this was pretty low quality. The issues being discussed do have societal implications that are worth thinking about though.

@funkychunkymonkey Yeah, lower doses are pretty good for contemplation. You have a lot of mental clarity, access to insight, and are a bit less altered than with other substances. With higher doses though, it's easy to get lost in intense visionary states, so you wouldn't be able to consciously deconstruct as much.

I just wanted to share this quick story to emphasize the importance of going into these experiences with the proper mindset. As far as bad experiences go, I'd say I got off pretty easy compared to other trip reports I've seen, but it was enough to make me realize that I need to reevaluate my approach moving forward. My previous trip was 3 weeks earlier and it was my most intense and difficult so far. So that experience made me go into this one with an expanded understanding of what these substances are capable of. Before, I was a bit naive and thought these substances were just a way to access interesting insights, mystical states, and sensory experiences, but I didn't realize their capacity to radially transform reality to a possibly unlimited degree depending on dosage. This caused me to go into this experience with more fear and apprehension than previous trips, but I thought that I should be courageous and force myself to do it anyway. I see now that it was probably a sign that I should've waited until a different day. What was strange about this experience, is that for the first 4 hours, the effects were very mild despite me taking a larger dose than last time. I usually feel full effects by 2 hours in, so I thought that this was because I used a new batch of harmine hcl which was less purely extracted than the previous batch. So maybe I wasn't fully mao inhibited despite weighing out 230 milligrams. It was after midnight at this point, so I fell asleep for about 20 minutes. I woke up in a memory wiped daze and realized I was tripping hard. It caught me by surprise, so I ended up resisting a lot. I was blasted with a cacophony of electronic alien noises of all imaginable sorts and felt like my mind was possessed by a pure trickster energy. My mind was scrambled, basic things no longer made sense and I was made aware of many of my neurotic tendencies in normal life. The sheer strangeness of it is a bit baffling to me. These effects lasted for about an hour and a half and wore off at around the 6-hour mark, which is strange, because by 5 hours in the effects are usually over. I now believe that the harmine was still fully effective, and the first 4 hours were me resisting the effects. With other substances I've taken, it seems like I'm locked into the expected effects of a given dose for the full duration, but ayahuasca confuses me to the extent that I seem to be able to almost completely shut down high doses by not surrendering, although I imagine there would be a dose where this would no longer be the case. I definitely think it was my poor mindset that caused these negative effects and not the substance itself. I'm very conflicted right now, because I am interested in accessing these expanded states of consciousness, but I'm terrified by how radical and strange psychedelics can be. This causes me to enter the experience with a very manipulative and self-contradictory mindset, wanting to dissolve boundaries and expand my awareness in some ways, while wanting to preserve my identity, and sense of reality in other ways. So, I guess I'm imagining a very specific type of experience that I think will benefit me and trying to force it to be that, instead of being open to whatever it has to show me. But this is the one area of life that isn't supposed to be about ego manipulation and survival agenda, so I can't imagine bringing my human toxicity into this mystical state would go well for me in the future. So probably I need to take some time off to reflect and decide firmly how seriously I want to take spirituality and how far I'm willing to go with psychedelics. Part of the problem is that with the state of the world becoming more uncertain, I've been feeling an increased sense of urgency to make quick progress, as I don't know for how long conditions will remain stable for. But this process cannot be rushed, and it won't conform to some timeline I try to impose on it. I'm still fairly young and have a good deal of mental immaturity to work through, so that may hold me back for awhile. The aspect of this work that's most difficult for me is giving up control, probably because I had issues with authority figures growing up and a sense of control is very important to me. But accessing the deepest levels will require giving up control, so I don't know exactly how I'm going to do that.

@funkychunkymonkey Harmala alkaloids are legal and DMT containing plants can be purchased online. Ayahuasca definitely has immense potential, but so far, it's been more difficult for me to deal with than mushrooms. It's very direct and requires complete surrender.

@Karla By the state of the world, I was mainly referring to rapid advancements in artificial intelligence, but also it seems like the US is on the brink of a large economic crash, plus there’s increasing political and climate instability around the world. All these factors combined are making me want to make lots of progress now while things are still stable. I’m a bit skeptical about Kambo. I guess the idea is that physical purging would purify something psychologically, but I’ve also heard that it was more done to eliminate stomach parasites in a jungle environment, which wouldn’t be needed for people today. Sometimes in ceremonies they dose pretty low, you would definitely feel strong effects at a higher dose. I had two previous experiences that went a lot better, they were more of the visionary type of experience that would be expected. This time was just utter chaos.

https://youtu.be/SQQaOMfGsu8 I found this episode of Verkaeke’s series on Socrates to have thought provoking implications for the consciousness work we’re doing here. Leo often speaks about the highest states of consciousness, becoming one with the Absolute/God. Vervaeke illustrates how aiming for the Absolute all at once might be a bit too destabilizing and extreme. The video begins with a nice summary of relevance realization in cognitive science. Basically how the mind needs to focus and reduce its view of reality in very specific ways in order to accomplish tasks and understand the world. But that focus can’t be too narrow, because that would make the mind susceptible to self-deception. So a delicate balance needs to be maintained. The alternative spiritual approach Vervaeke proposes, finite transcendence, involves the successive process of transcending limitations of the mind, to achieve insight, higher consciousness, and more integrated ways of living life. He views God as a universal process that you can participate in, rather than as a state of being. I don’t know if Leo would necessarily disagree with this. Vervaeke might be describing an intermediate process that could eventually lead to the kinds of awakenings that Leo talks about. It did help me understand the potential cause of the chaos and confusion I’ve been experiencing on psychedelics lately. Something like what Vervaeke is describing could be a more balanced and integrated approach than trying to blast myself all at once.

I did some more research, and it seems like the main psychoactive ingredient, muscimol, is safe, but there's other toxic substances in the mushrooms. I guess the main risks I had heard about are the result of ibotenic acid. I'm thinking an extract would be the safest way to consume it. I was looking at tinctures, but it took me a long time to find one that said it was 100% decarboxylated, otherwise there might still be some ibotenic acid left in it.

I’ve heard conflicting things about amanita. It does have anti-cholinergic effects, which can be damaging, but it sounds like the experiences tend to be a lot more positive than other deliriants for some reason. The effects do interest me, but I’m always wary when there’s disagreement over whether something’s safe to consume.

@UnbornTao What are your thoughts on the paradox of “You’re already enlightened” in relation to this?

@Yimpa This sounds a bit like the paradox of “You’re already enlightened.” I understand intellectually that the infinite already exists fully within everything that is finite. We’re not discovering anything that wasn’t already true, of course. But I have a feeling there’s a bit more to it than that, otherwise what is it exactly that we’re trying to awaken to?

So for some reason these entities are insisting that me and her trip together even though we don’t want to. They threatened to keep coming back in her dreams until we agree to. The problem is, me and her aren’t on very good terms right now, and I prefer tripping solo. And even if I did want to, I don’t like the idea of being ordered around by these entities of unknown origin. I think I’m safe from them, as I’ve only had an entity contact once on a high dose of Ayahuasca, while she contacts entities regularly under a wide variety of circumstances. I’m concerned, because I’m not sure how bad this could get, and I probably can’t trip safely until this is resolved. Are there any ways to get these entities to leave us alone? Of course you can find all kinds of spiritual rituals online, but I don’t know how valid any of that is.

@Salvijus She previously thought that these were benevolent entities, but now we’re not sure. She tried calling generally for positive entities to intervene but nothing happened. Entity contacts happen to her regularly under certain conditions, but she isn’t able to initiate the contact. Would doing a prayer work for someone who’s non-religious?

@UnbornTao What I’m imagining and have seen small glimpses of, is becoming one with the Absolute such that I would no longer have a finite form. I’m imagining something immense, chaotic, and unintelligible. That could easily be completely wrong, I’m just extrapolating from the experiences I’ve had so far.