Your point about it sometimes being desirable to introduce some chaos, in order to shake people out of local maxima, is well taken. However, it irks me when people talk about “drugs” as though that were a natural category, and try to reason about it. You can’t understand much of anything about drugs without zooming in and talking about specific substances, because they produce very different effects and are used in very different circumstances.
Sure, “drugs” is a way too generic term. But that’s still what is said by many people “many great artists take drugs”, so to be able to answer constructively to that kind of remarks, we have to consider it… I my article I used it as “drug = something that increases chaos in the brain”, which is a broad approximation, but applies relatively well to alcohol, cannabis, opiate derivatives and LSD.
I my article I used it as “drug = something that increases chaos in the brain”, which is a broad approximation, but applies relatively well to alcohol, cannabis, opiate derivatives and LSD.
A different way of expressing this notion which might be more useful to you is to consider the idea that most psychoactive substances—by their very nature—create nonlinearity in modes of thought as compared to the ‘sober state’.
The ways in which they do this vary significantly from one to another (LSD by inducing hallucinations, alcohol by reducing inhibitions, methamphetamines/cocaine by inducing euphoric mania, etc… ), but that seems to be the notion you’re after here.
The reason why I would introduce this notion of “nonlinearity in modes of thought”? Because it is more ‘predictively useful’ to an instrumental rationalist than the vague notion of “chaos”. “Thinking sideways” is a powerful and important tool to the instrumental rationalist; by expanding the range of available solutionspace to a given problem, we make ourselves more effective optimizers / problem-solvers.
There is this notion of the rigidly disciplined logician—the ’Straw Vulcan [WARNING: TVTropes.org link!]′ -- which plagues impressions of those who espouse / embody instrumental rationality.
Now, in truth, that is a false iconography; but it is a ‘natural’ one. Very often we work very hard to achieve a level of rigor and discipline in our ways of thinking: we seek to identify when we are indulging in cognitive biases; we develop heuristics for decision making and attempt to purge ‘irrationality’ from our individual mindspaces. And this is seen as eliminating the ability to “think irrationally”, which is then seen as a positive tool for coming to useful ideas, conclusions, or inspirations that are not available to we instrumental rationalists. The easy way to combat this notion is to demonstrate how instrumentality dictates that we learn how to be creative; that we in fact become superior imaginers and train ourselves to broaden our mindsets to a more effective degree of nonlinearity than others can achieve without the use of psychoactive substances.
Your point about it sometimes being desirable to introduce some chaos, in order to shake people out of local maxima, is well taken. However, it irks me when people talk about “drugs” as though that were a natural category, and try to reason about it. You can’t understand much of anything about drugs without zooming in and talking about specific substances, because they produce very different effects and are used in very different circumstances.
Sure, “drugs” is a way too generic term. But that’s still what is said by many people “many great artists take drugs”, so to be able to answer constructively to that kind of remarks, we have to consider it… I my article I used it as “drug = something that increases chaos in the brain”, which is a broad approximation, but applies relatively well to alcohol, cannabis, opiate derivatives and LSD.
A different way of expressing this notion which might be more useful to you is to consider the idea that most psychoactive substances—by their very nature—create nonlinearity in modes of thought as compared to the ‘sober state’.
The ways in which they do this vary significantly from one to another (LSD by inducing hallucinations, alcohol by reducing inhibitions, methamphetamines/cocaine by inducing euphoric mania, etc… ), but that seems to be the notion you’re after here.
The reason why I would introduce this notion of “nonlinearity in modes of thought”? Because it is more ‘predictively useful’ to an instrumental rationalist than the vague notion of “chaos”. “Thinking sideways” is a powerful and important tool to the instrumental rationalist; by expanding the range of available solutionspace to a given problem, we make ourselves more effective optimizers / problem-solvers.
There is this notion of the rigidly disciplined logician—the ’Straw Vulcan [WARNING: TVTropes.org link!]′ -- which plagues impressions of those who espouse / embody instrumental rationality.
Now, in truth, that is a false iconography; but it is a ‘natural’ one. Very often we work very hard to achieve a level of rigor and discipline in our ways of thinking: we seek to identify when we are indulging in cognitive biases; we develop heuristics for decision making and attempt to purge ‘irrationality’ from our individual mindspaces. And this is seen as eliminating the ability to “think irrationally”, which is then seen as a positive tool for coming to useful ideas, conclusions, or inspirations that are not available to we instrumental rationalists. The easy way to combat this notion is to demonstrate how instrumentality dictates that we learn how to be creative; that we in fact become superior imaginers and train ourselves to broaden our mindsets to a more effective degree of nonlinearity than others can achieve without the use of psychoactive substances.
But that’s my take on this situation.