All-knowing as an effect of consciousness dissociation

[Cosmin_Visan]

One of the experiences that people mention on psychedelics is the feeling of all-knowing. And they really believe that they become all-knowing. I will offer here a different explanation for that feeling. I believe that psychedelics' true effect, let's say like ayahuasca, is dissociation. And we can see this in the ayahuasca images that can be found on the internet. People might tend to interpret those beautiful images as an expansion of consciousness. But I see a totally different thing there. I see consciousness dissociation. Consciousness loses the ability to unify qualia in coherent ways, so it will randomly unify them, putting eyes in the middle of the hands instead of the face, etc. So if this is the real effect of ayahuasca, then the "all-knowing" part of the experience is to be expected to be produced by the same effect. And here is how: consciousness getting dissociated, it will be left only with the eternal Self, which among its properties is also the eternal faculty of Understanding. So you are left with Understanding on its own, with no network of concepts associated to it based on which to make rational evaluations of the truth or falsehood of a certain sentence. Understanding being left on its own, it will only have itself to understand, so it will do that, it will understand itself. Being all there is left to be understood, of course that by understanding itself, Understanding will feel as if it understood everything, because after all, it really is everything that is left. So of course it will feel as if it is all-knowing. But is just a trivial effect of consciousness dissociation. And this can be proved even further. Ask any "all-knowing" guy to tell you what he knows now. He will not be able to tell you anything. He will only be able to give a flower-power answer: "Brooo... I simply knew everything!". Well... yeah... except that "everything" is contextual. When you know nothing, it feels as if you know everything. No big deal.

If it's relevant, I mention that I never took psychedelics. But if you think this is relevant to the discussion, I invite you to also argue why it is relevant, don't just dismiss me with the empty reply "you cannot understand if you don't take them". I expect arguments instead.

[Leo Gura]

Nope, that's not how it works.

Stop spectulating and try it.

[Leo Gura]

@neutralempty No idea what you are saying.

[Corpus]

There is more association going on with ayahuasca than dissociation. A challenging/"bad" trip will confirm this experientially.

[Leo Gura]

If you want some dissociation take some ketamine and compare to DMT.

[Adamq8]

3 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

If you want some dissociation take some ketamine and compare to DMT.

haha indeed ketamine is sick!

My whole world flipped on the side and I could hold my breath forever lol it was fucked up.

Like those christmas balls you shake?

The world was like that ? 

 

[Danioover9000]

@Cosmin_Visan

4 hours ago, Cosmin_Visan said:

One of the experiences that people mention on psychedelics is the feeling of all-knowing. And they really believe that they become all-knowing. I will offer here a different explanation for that feeling. I believe that psychedelics' true effect, let's say like ayahuasca, is dissociation. And we can see this in the ayahuasca images that can be found on the internet. People might tend to interpret those beautiful images as an expansion of consciousness. But I see a totally different thing there. I see consciousness dissociation. Consciousness loses the ability to unify qualia in coherent ways, so it will randomly unify them, putting eyes in the middle of the hands instead of the face, etc. So if this is the real effect of ayahuasca, then the "all-knowing" part of the experience is to be expected to be produced by the same effect. And here is how: consciousness getting dissociated, it will be left only with the eternal Self, which among its properties is also the eternal faculty of Understanding. So you are left with Understanding on its own, with no network of concepts associated to it based on which to make rational evaluations of the truth or falsehood of a certain sentence. Understanding being left on its own, it will only have itself to understand, so it will do that, it will understand itself. Being all there is left to be understood, of course that by understanding itself, Understanding will feel as if it understood everything, because after all, it really is everything that is left. So of course it will feel as if it is all-knowing. But is just a trivial effect of consciousness dissociation. And this can be proved even further. Ask any "all-knowing" guy to tell you what he knows now. He will not be able to tell you anything. He will only be able to give a flower-power answer: "Brooo... I simply knew everything!". Well... yeah... except that "everything" is contextual. When you know nothing, it feels as if you know everything. No big deal.

If it's relevant, I mention that I never took psychedelics. But if you think this is relevant to the discussion, I invite you to also argue why it is relevant, don't just dismiss me with the empty reply "you cannot understand if you don't take them". I expect arguments instead.

   What do you mean when you say 'all knowing'? Do you have examples of all knowing?

   Why do they really believe they became all knowing? Is it possible to be all knowing, without belief?

   How do you know you're explanation is valid? What other explanations explain all knowing?

   What makes your belief that the true effects of psychedelics, your example of Ayahuasca, as dissociation, true? If this is true for one type of psychedelic, then is it true for different types of psychedelics?

   Is the images of Ayahuasca the same as the experiences during Ayahuasca? What makes internet images different from first person images?

   Is interpretation of external images the same as expansion of consciousness? What do you mean by expansion of consciousness? Have any evidence of an expanding consciousness?

   What does consciousness disassociation have to do with the mind's ability to unify qualia? Why must there be an expectation that consciousness disassociation and all knowing are connected?

   What do you mean 'eternal self'? What about 'eternal understanding'? How does getting my consciousness to disassociate, lead to the eternal self, and to eternal understanding? 

  Is understanding only self evident, or does it depend on networks of concepts? If understanding is independent of concepts, then how does understanding itself understands itself? And who's claiming this? Your individual consciousness? So now that understanding is capable of understanding itself, independent of other knowledge, then is there more than one consciousness in you then? Making that two consciousnesses? If understanding is dependent on concepts, then what is needed for there to be only understanding?

   Is rationality needed for verifying truth and falsehood of understanding? Is understanding limited to linguistic features?

   What makes understanding a sentient entity, that it only needs nothing more than to understand itself? Is it really so independent that it, understanding, does not require an individuated point of perspective? consciousness, you, to be understood at all? How do you know that understanding can feel, all knowing? How is understanding, a sentient being, knowing all knowing, a trivial effect of consciousness disassociation?

   What makes asking 'all knowing' people valid? Could I ask an A.I. about all knowingness? Or contact an alien?

   What if you're wrong to assume other people can't explain all knowingness? What if all knowingness can't be communicated to others? What if you're bias for only selecting the few that aren't capable enough to explain all knowingness? Why does everything need context? How does everything need context, contradictory with understanding being free from all concepts while disassociating?

   How is taking psychedelics relevant to this discussion? What makes that relevant? is it necessary for this discussion that psychedelics be taken and experienced in your past? Or is it valid enough to talk about psychedelics without directly experiencing psychedelics?

   What if I think it's relevant to have taken psychedelics beforehand to make my points valid? What counts as past experience enough, in terms of time, to be considered valid in talking here? is it in years, months and weeks, or an hour before discussing here?  What if I haven't taken psychedelics, and engage you in this discussion? If I haven't taken psychedelics, and you haven't taken psychedelics, then isn't this a selective bias, since we are just drawing from second hand knowledge without first person experiences? What if I neither taken, or not have taken psychedelics, and instead think very differently than those that've taken, or not taken, psychedelics? Does being very different in terms of thinking, validates my point?

[Cosmin_Visan]

18 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Nope, that's not how it works.

Stop spectulating and try it.

I will ignore your answer until you bring arguments.

[Adamq8]

22 minutes ago, Cosmin_Visan said:

I will ignore your answer until you bring arguments.

 

[caspex]

I think "you cannot understand if you don't take them" is really the only argument that can be made. If you haven't took them then that means you don't have enough experiential knowledge to go by contemplating or speculating. Right now all these speculating may seem like correct but it could very well be the case that if you actually experience a trip, all that speculation be flipped upside down. And I don't think anyone can pose arguments in words to do that for you. I haven't took psychedelics so this is also speculating. 

What you believe about ayahuasca disassociating could very well be proved wrong just by tripping yourself. Having an outside perspective can be helpful but in cases like these, imo, the thing in question should be experienced before talking about it. 

[Cosmin_Visan]

1 hour ago, Swarnim said:

you don't have enough experiential knowledge to go by contemplating or speculating.

What makes you think I don't have enough experiential knowledge ? I can extract from the quale of red alone more knowledge than other people can extract from their entire life. So since my knowledge from the quale of red alone is deeper than the knowledge that someone acquires from psychedelics, I wonder how can those people tell me what is true. What gives them that authority ? If psychedelics would make them that all-knowing as they pretend, then at least they should be able to tell me what is wrong with my argument. But they cannot do that. One more proof that "all-knowing" is just an illusion. But their ego is so big that they don't want to admit that. That will take the superiority out of them.

[caspex]

2 minutes ago, Cosmin_Visan said:

What makes you think I don't have enough experiential knowledge ? I can extract from the quale of red alone more knowledge than other people can extract from their entire life. So since my knowledge from the quale of red alone is deeper than the knowledge that someone acquires from psychedelics, I wonder how can those people tell me what is true. What gives them that authority ? If psychedelics would make them that all-knowing as they pretend, then at least they should be able to tell me what is wrong with my argument. But they cannot do that. One more proof that "all-knowing" is just an illusion. But their ego is so big that they don't want to admit that. That will take the superiority out of them.

What makes you think you have enough experiential knowledge then? You assume you know more about something you haven't even tried than someone who has. You might be able to derive more information through contemplation from a certain experience than others, but you still haven't even done psychedelics to derive anything. What you are doing is speculation. And then claiming it as true. You want to be proved wrong. But what if you can't communicate that proof but have to experience it for yourself? In that case, telling you to do psychedelics will only really be the last option. My only argument is that your argument of "don't just dismiss me with the empty reply "you cannot understand if you don't take them". " doesn't work. 

You don't know you have experienced something similar to psychedelics until you have a genuine psychedelic experience to compare from.  

[Cosmin_Visan]

@Swarnim Because from a single quale you can deduce the entire structure of consciousness and you can understand what is possible. Even a blind person if he looks at his auditory qualia he can deduce the structure of visual qualia even if he cannot experience them. Yes, content can only be known through direct experience. But the structure on which content is created can be deduced from any qualia domain one has access to. Thus, even though you need psychedelics in order to experience content, you can still understand their structure from a normal human consciousness. To see in depth these issues, check-out my paper "The Emergent Structure of Consciousness": https://philpeople.org/profiles/cosmin-visan

[Cosmin_Visan]

On 11/19/2020 at 8:56 PM, neutralempty said:

@Cosmin_Visan

You're forgetting that you need to experience content in order to test the validity of your deduced structure.

Of course. Can you give some examples of content that psychedelics offer uniquely that their structure cannot be deduced also from normal consciousness ?

[JosephKnecht]

On 11/19/2020 at 0:33 PM, Cosmin_Visan said:

I can extract from the quale of red alone more knowledge than other people can extract from their entire life. So since my knowledge from the quale of red alone is deeper than the knowledge that someone acquires from psychedelics, I wonder how can those people tell me what is true.

How come you can't extract the knowledge from psychedelics then? If you can extract experience/knowledge by looking at color red, you should be able to extract knowledge by examining psychedelics. The fact that you are here asking this question, tells you that you can't extract the experience without undergoing the experience. 

 

On 11/19/2020 at 1:18 PM, Cosmin_Visan said:

Because from a single quale you can deduce the entire structure of consciousness and you can understand what is possible.

And yet you seem not to understand what is possible on psychedelics. 

The bottom line is, reason and arguments are circular in nature and they can't give you the Truth. Only direct experience can show you what is True. Nobody can give you that experience but yourself. 

Psychedelics might be able to give you that experience, but maybe they won't. 

 

[Cosmin_Visan]

5 hours ago, JosephKnecht said:

How come you can't extract the knowledge from psychedelics then?

I didn't say that. I said that normal consciousness is enough. And as I also asked the previous user, I will also ask you: Can you give some examples of content that psychedelics offer uniquely that their structure cannot be deduced also from normal consciousness ?

[JosephKnecht]

There is nothing that prevents normal consciousness to become aware of itself. The problem arises only when normal consciousness gets too normalized into its own state. For example, if someone gets stuck into a material/physical reality, he can take a material(psychedelics) to wake up to a reality greater than the material world. 

Psychedelics are just medicine for those who get stuck in materialism. Psychedelics offer you a glimpse into a greater reality which sometimes is very hard to be achieved through natural means. 

Here is a video of Ram Das on this topic: 

 

[Cosmin_Visan]

@JosephKnecht And what is the connection between your post and the subject of this topic ? I'm kinda bored by "consciousness is all there is" posts that are 99% around here. I already know that. Do you have something more profound to say ?