On reflection, the method I described seems very cautious, perhaps overly cautious in its approach. Honestly, I think putting aside what I wrote above, my experiences with other (legal) mind-influencing substances has been much more in the style of charging forward, and just experiencing the effect a normal-sized dosage provides and only later, when I’m sober, reflecting on the effect the substance has on me.
So, the exact procedure I describe above may very well not be the way I’d approach psychedelics, although I think perhaps some part or another may provide useful inspiration in engineering a better experience
I’m also not sure how much of a problem “psychedelic woo” may be for someone already well rooted with epistemic defenses- perhaps the things that lead people astray can be untangled by a sufficiently careful thinker experiencing them, especially if psilocybin / peyote is used, as opposed to LSD, which supposedly has stronger negative effects on the mind. But I’m also pessimistic about the average LWer’s epistemic defenses- simply reading The Sequences, without doing any exercises based on the ideas presented therein, won’t give people the skills needed to successfully navigate the challenge of properly making sense of a psychedelic experience. It is a well known phenomenon in learning, that simply reading isn’t enough. One needs to interact with the ideas, be rewarded for demonstrating understanding, and having their lack of understanding highlighted where it’s missing. That’s how people form strong connections to their ideas (Anki would be sufficient for this, based on my own experiences with Anki, although there may be even better ways of accomplishing this, at the cost of higher effort needed in implementation).
I think the version of my presented idea, which I still endorse, is that before experiencing psychedelics, if one wishes to gain the benefits, while avoiding well-known long-term pitfalls, one should strive to have a robust understanding of epistemic defenses—to have actually interacted with the ideas, felt the ideas push back against them, not just have read about them. This is not to (as my post above suggests) prevent irrational thought during the trip itself, but rather to ensure that one is properly prepared, once sober, to reflect critically about their experiences, and avoid common epistemic mistakes people make post-psychedelics
This is not to (as my post above suggests) prevent irrational thought during the trip itself, but rather to ensure that one is properly prepared, once sober, to reflect critically about their experiences, and avoid common epistemic mistakes people make post-psychedelics
This seems like the right place to intervene. Psychedelic trips are somewhat similar to mystical experiences, and there the problem tends to be taking what was experienced and trying to turn it into something like a universal truth. So, it quickly jumps from “I felt warm and connected” to “I was in the presence of God” or whatever else is ready at hand in the person’s mind. Stated otherwise, you mostly have to watch out for overfitting the data to a pattern you want to be true.
On reflection, the method I described seems very cautious, perhaps overly cautious in its approach. Honestly, I think putting aside what I wrote above, my experiences with other (legal) mind-influencing substances has been much more in the style of charging forward, and just experiencing the effect a normal-sized dosage provides and only later, when I’m sober, reflecting on the effect the substance has on me.
So, the exact procedure I describe above may very well not be the way I’d approach psychedelics, although I think perhaps some part or another may provide useful inspiration in engineering a better experience
I’m also not sure how much of a problem “psychedelic woo” may be for someone already well rooted with epistemic defenses- perhaps the things that lead people astray can be untangled by a sufficiently careful thinker experiencing them, especially if psilocybin / peyote is used, as opposed to LSD, which supposedly has stronger negative effects on the mind. But I’m also pessimistic about the average LWer’s epistemic defenses- simply reading The Sequences, without doing any exercises based on the ideas presented therein, won’t give people the skills needed to successfully navigate the challenge of properly making sense of a psychedelic experience. It is a well known phenomenon in learning, that simply reading isn’t enough. One needs to interact with the ideas, be rewarded for demonstrating understanding, and having their lack of understanding highlighted where it’s missing. That’s how people form strong connections to their ideas (Anki would be sufficient for this, based on my own experiences with Anki, although there may be even better ways of accomplishing this, at the cost of higher effort needed in implementation).
I think the version of my presented idea, which I still endorse, is that before experiencing psychedelics, if one wishes to gain the benefits, while avoiding well-known long-term pitfalls, one should strive to have a robust understanding of epistemic defenses—to have actually interacted with the ideas, felt the ideas push back against them, not just have read about them. This is not to (as my post above suggests) prevent irrational thought during the trip itself, but rather to ensure that one is properly prepared, once sober, to reflect critically about their experiences, and avoid common epistemic mistakes people make post-psychedelics
This seems like the right place to intervene. Psychedelic trips are somewhat similar to mystical experiences, and there the problem tends to be taking what was experienced and trying to turn it into something like a universal truth. So, it quickly jumps from “I felt warm and connected” to “I was in the presence of God” or whatever else is ready at hand in the person’s mind. Stated otherwise, you mostly have to watch out for overfitting the data to a pattern you want to be true.