Author Topic: Ego loss from an LSD trip = becoming lucid while awake?  (Read 3194 times)

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Offline fuzzy

Lucid dreamers activate a predominance of 13-19Hz beta waves derived from the parietal lobe, perceiving an indepth awareness of self and self representation (that there is evidence they have some control over) - perhaps in Lucid dreams these locations are naturally over stimulated - combining a state of waking and dreaming. With fMRI, embodiment (an awareness of physical body in relation to self) is pinpointed to the temporoparietal junction which absorbs data feeds from lateral visual cortices. As these dreams may help the way we deal with laying down semantic memory and problem solving, one question that arises is how useful this will be in developing independent AI machines (self reflection is closely knitted to reflection about others and morality). Robots need to be able to learn not to be selfish, to learn to 'lose' their ego, or they could become highly disruptive (evil robot!). I hope that AI entities evolve to lose their Freudian ego at an early stage. The question is not whether we can tell if we are in a lucid state or not - its in determining which reality state best maps to the physical laws of the universe. This should be easier for AI to evaluate, or otherwise won't Alice in Wonderland type realities emerge?

Oh god pgbit. Give me more of those sexy sexy words. Ill eat them and lick the plate clean.
« Last Edit: December 29, 2014, 04:17:49 am by fuzzy »
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Offline CLains

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For instance, look at Edward Witten in this youtube video - regarded as one of the most intelligent physicists ever - talking about consciousness. You can see the struggle, the honesty, the lack of thought he has given to the problem, how it bothers him, how he repeats with a slight compulsion that "I tend to believe it will be a mystery," that he presupposes that it will not modify physics, that he presupposes that the problem will nag us with even greater intensity in the future, and so on.

Psychologically it is blatantly obvious what is happening here,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6b3DjOnv3I

Offline CLains

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Frodo, never say we cannot know something unless you know that we cannot know. People said we could never understand the stars, never understand the forces and components of nature, that we could never understand life itself. Then astronomy, physics and biology blossomed and stumbled upon answers to questions that only the most insane among us would pose. With each step we gained the confidence to invent new tools and methods to answer further questions, challenging all received wisdom.

Don't listen to the popular physicists when they embark into philosophy, especially Hawkins who unwittingly lives in the philosophical 1920s while absurdly declaring that philosophy is dead. Fortunately for the likes of Hawkins, the last 60 years or so have required little philosophical weight from physicists as they have been going with the motto "shut up and calculate." Compare this to Einstein who read Kant, Spinoza and Karl Pearson among others and was capable of challenging our deepest notions of objectivity, space, time and energy.

Just like innumerable times before, we need to invent new tools and methods to answer the question: how are SR and OR related? This requires creativity and a natural insight into reality that defies learned wisdom and intelligence. But even without any special talent it requires not more than honesty to see that SR and OR are related at the level of cognitive psychology.

When we understand how and why only some parts of our brain only some of the time give rise to consciousness we will be on our way to answering how SR and OR are related. It will give us confidence to yet ask yet again, why this connection? and what is the stuff of dreams? Personally I believe we will discover something deep in answering these questions that go beyond SR and OR, unlocking answers to questions we did not dare to ask in advance.
« Last Edit: December 29, 2014, 01:53:05 am by CLains »

Offline Frodo

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@CLains This reminded me of an article I've read some time ago: http://content.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,2017262,00.html

It uses a great analogy to show why we can never be sure of what the true reality is.
We may be able to predict everything observable but is that enough to know what reality is?

Quote
...it is cruel to keep a fish in a bowl with curved sides because, gazing out, the fish would have a distorted view of reality. But how do we know we have the true, undistorted picture of reality?

The goldfish view is not the same as our own, but goldfish could still formulate scientific laws governing the motion of the objects they observe outside their bowl. For example, due to the distortion, a freely moving object would be observed by the goldfish to move along a curved path. Nevertheless, the goldfish could formulate laws from their distorted frame of reference that would always hold true.
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Offline CLains

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Seeing the new video from Dan makes me realize the perfect analogy. Dan has made it his life mission to solve the problem of evil without good or evil* - i.e. without simply appealing to altruism or force. This is an optimistic mission, as he confidently sets out to solve the problem in its highest form. Similarly the mission here is to solve the problem of consciousness in its highest form - i.e. without simply appealing to subjective or objective reality. "Don't give up, we can find the solution, let's work together." - BM

*Problem of evil generally refers to why if god exists, is omnipotent and good, would he allow suffering? Here it is how can we create a free society without coercion without coercing people into it?
« Last Edit: December 27, 2014, 09:05:45 pm by CLains »

merockstar

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Xeldal, I haven't seen that movie, I'll check it out when I get to an internet connection that isn't tethering 2g from my cell phone.

Xeldal

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I think both subjective and objective realities exist.  Neither, alone, encompasses the whole.

You may have heard of the big three.  I, We and It.

or Ken Wilbers variation, the big 4... I, We, It and Its.  4 quadrants to the whole, subjective singular I, plural inter-subjective We.  Objective external singular It and plural Its. 





Your post made me think of a great movie you may have seen:
Waking Life
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xhalb0_waking-life_shortfilms

Also brought to mind Bhanga nana ... or 'body dropped' ... but your likely talking about something else.

merockstar

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Lucid dreamers activate a predominance of 13-19Hz beta waves derived from the parietal lobe, perceiving an indepth awareness of self and self representation (that there is evidence they have some control over) - perhaps in Lucid dreams these locations are naturally over stimulated - combining a state of waking and dreaming. With fMRI, embodiment (an awareness of physical body in relation to self) is pinpointed to the temporoparietal junction which absorbs data feeds from lateral visual cortices. As these dreams may help the way we deal with laying down semantic memory and problem solving, one question that arises is how useful this will be in developing independent AI machines (self reflection is closely knitted to reflection about others and morality). Robots need to be able to learn not to be selfish, to learn to 'lose' their ego, or they could become highly disruptive (evil robot!). I hope that AI entities evolve to lose their Freudian ego at an early stage. The question is not whether we can tell if we are in a lucid state or not - its in determining which reality state best maps to the physical laws of the universe. This should be easier for AI to evaluate, or otherwise won't Alice in Wonderland type realities emerge?

I would agree with all of this. But "ego loss," refers to more of an experience than just what the name claims. There's just no better way to describe it unfortunately.

You're proposing that we should eventually be able to learn how to teach robots to dream, and therefore gain the little understood benefits that we get to our problem solving and memory abilities, am I understanding correctly?

I don't understand what would cause an Alice in Wonderland scenario to emerge though.

merockstar

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Penrose has a cute picture sortof on this topic,

--image redacted--

the person who drew this knew exactly what I'm trying to convey. I've seen that sphere too.

In the spirit of optimism I would propose instead that problems are soluble, and that what we have on our hands here is a genuine problem that is not simply a matter of interpretation or transcendental ordering of different viewpoints. The obvious fact is: We are embodied in consciousness and consciousness exists in the physical universe. When we doubt the physical universe or conscious experience we simply fall prey to the philosophical pessimism of our time where doubt is elevated above honesty and courage to seek out the truth. We hear background noises of material utility coming from the one side and noises of spiritual utility coming from the other, with no sense that any of them has a deep roaring passion to unravel the mystery at hand.

CLains, you always go over my head just a little bit, but I'll try to respond the best I can.

I don't think it's dishonest to express doubts about the physical universe or conscious experience. If we don't know, then we simply don't know until further advances in knowledge are made.  It would be just as dishonest to deny the possibility that this isn't the lowest level of experiences. I don't view it as philosophical pessimism or doubt, but an openness to all possible scenarios, which a SR allows for.

I don't understand the last sentence though.

I wanted to open a thread about this subjective reality article. It makes no sense at all to me.

The argument that subjective reality is superior because it's a "broader view" than objective reality is so weak it's not even funny.
You cannot falsify the fact that an alien entity is dreaming/simulating the universe, and the dreaming entity explication explains the physical perceived world whereas the reverse is not true, therefore* the dreaming entity model is more logical. Seriously? LOL. (And sorry but no, according importance to formal logic is not the equivalent of being narrow minded).

*that where the logic fail lies


I don't think either of us can really refute either possibility. We can only posit what makes the most sense. I will grant that you can't falsify the idea of an entity simulating the universe. Just as you can't falsify the idea of a god. I will acknowledge that I honestly don't know, all I'm trying to say is that the idea of a subjective reality makes a lot more sense to me than it would've if I hadn't ever experienced ego loss.

Quote
Also in dreams things are inconsistent. The physical laws of the dreamed world doesn't applies consistently and even formal logic doesn't always hold. Why don't we perceived the same inconsistence in the Universe in which we live?


Not necessarily, just because the laws in dreams aren't the same as the laws of reality doesn't make those laws inconsistent. It just makes them unknown. Formal logic doesn't hold true in quantum mechanics, does it?

Quote

Regarding ego loss, I don't see the point to use drugs as an argument. Hundred of thousands of people experience ego loss every day, they just physically die. I am not sure it's the evidence of anything though. Also you can experience ego loss by taking heroin or opium, again I don't see what it proves besides the fact that drugs change the way our neurons interact, thus we experience tentative new mental models under their sway (it's a chemical action, there is no magical or mysterious tricks).

It only shows that our usual mental models are among many, it's doesn't show anything about the structure of the reality.

Less of an argument, more of an indicator to take into account, I would say. I don't view it as empirical evidence. Not having done opiates in a high enough dose to experience ego loss I can't comment on whether the two are comparable, but based on lower doses of opiates I would guess that this isn't the same kind of ego loss I'm referring to. I think it's certainly possible that a chemical action in your brain can temporarily cause a deeper understanding of reality than we're normally capable of perceiving.
« Last Edit: December 24, 2014, 07:37:15 pm by merockstar »

Offline CLains

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Penrose has a cute picture sortof on this topic,


Offline pgbit

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Lucid dreamers activate a predominance of 13-19Hz beta waves derived from the parietal lobe, perceiving an indepth awareness of self and self representation (that there is evidence they have some control over) - perhaps in Lucid dreams these locations are naturally over stimulated - combining a state of waking and dreaming. With fMRI, embodiment (an awareness of physical body in relation to self) is pinpointed to the temporoparietal junction which absorbs data feeds from lateral visual cortices. As these dreams may help the way we deal with laying down semantic memory and problem solving, one question that arises is how useful this will be in developing independent AI machines (self reflection is closely knitted to reflection about others and morality). Robots need to be able to learn not to be selfish, to learn to 'lose' their ego, or they could become highly disruptive (evil robot!). I hope that AI entities evolve to lose their Freudian ego at an early stage. The question is not whether we can tell if we are in a lucid state or not - its in determining which reality state best maps to the physical laws of the universe. This should be easier for AI to evaluate, or otherwise won't Alice in Wonderland type realities emerge?

Offline BldSwtTrs

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I wanted to open a thread about this subjective reality article. It makes no sense at all to me.

The argument that subjective reality is superior because it's a "broader view" than objective reality is so weak it's not even funny.
You cannot falsify the fact that an alien entity is dreaming/simulating the universe, and the dreaming entity explication explains the physical perceived world whereas the reverse is not true, therefore* the dreaming entity model is more logical. Seriously? LOL. (And sorry but no, according importance to formal logic is not the equivalent of being narrow minded).

*that where the logic fail lies


Also in dreams things are inconsistent. The physical laws of the dreamed world doesn't applies consistently and even formal logic doesn't always hold. Why don't we perceived the same inconsistence in the Universe in which we live?

Regarding ego loss, I don't see the point to use drugs as an argument. Hundred of thousands of people experience ego loss every day, they just physically die. I am not sure it's the evidence of anything though. Also you can experience ego loss by taking heroin or opium, again I don't see what it proves besides the fact that drugs change the way our neurons interact, thus we experience tentative new mental models under their sway (it's a chemical action, there is no magical or mysterious tricks).

It only shows that our usual mental models are among many, it's doesn't show anything about the structure of the reality.
« Last Edit: December 24, 2014, 12:37:57 pm by BldSwtTrs »

Offline CLains

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In the spirit of optimism I would propose instead that problems are soluble, and that what we have on our hands here is a genuine problem that is not simply a matter of interpretation or transcendental ordering of different viewpoints. The obvious fact is: We are embodied in consciousness and consciousness exists in the physical universe. When we doubt the physical universe or conscious experience we simply fall prey to the philosophical pessimism of our time where doubt is elevated above honesty and courage to seek out the truth. We hear background noises of material utility coming from the one side and noises of spiritual utility coming from the other, with no sense that any of them has a deep roaring passion to unravel the mystery at hand.

merockstar

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Just read this on BM's blog: http://bytemaster.bitshares.org/article/2007/09/22/Subjective-Reality-Simplified/

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You blindly accept that you’re the character in the dream, totally unaware that you’re actually the dreamer, and the whole world is contained within your consciousness. But of course you’re wrong, and you’ll never realize that until (1) you wake up, or (2) you become lucid within your dream. So how do you know you aren’t making this same mistaken assumption right now? Have you ever been lucid while awake?

I may or may not have done a high enough dose of LSD at some point in my life to achieve what they call "ego loss."

When this occurred, I felt all knowledgeable, as though everything in the universe made perfect mathematical sense, and everything and everybody are interconnected, forged from one consciousness, like the notion of subjective reality asserts, if I'm understanding it right.

When I read "Have you ever been lucid while awake?" I said "Fuck yes I have! I know exactly what you're talking about!"

Does anybody else agree that ego loss, while not being empirical proof, does represent evidence in favor of this notion of subjective reality?

I may have to start trying to force myself happy...