The Risks of Vague, Abstract Descriptors Like “Mystical Supernaturalism vs. Scientific Naturalism”

Cybermonk, 8:24 a.m. February 26, 2023

Contents:

Journal of Consciousness Studies Article Recommends “Avoid terms such as ‘ego dissolution’, they are too vague”

March 4, 2023 update:

Dissolution of What? The Self Lost in Self-transcendent Experiences
44 citations
Authors: Lindström, Lena; Kajonius, Petri; Cardeña, Etzel
Source: Journal of Consciousness Studies, Volume 29, Numbers 5-6, June 2022, pp. 75-101(27)
Publisher: Imprint Academic
DOI: https://doi.org/10.53765/20512201.29.5.075 – Abstract:

“In this study, we investigate the phenomenology of self-transcendent experiences, in which the usual sense of self is lost.

“Based on a taxonomy of nine aspects of self and three types of content of consciousness, we compare ten accounts of such experiences acquired through in-depth interviews.

“Sense of separateness and identification with body and narrative self were reported as lost in all of these.

“However, bodily awareness, spatial self-location, sense of agency, perspectival ownership of experience, thoughts, emotions, sensory impressions, metacognition, and personal identity were variously reported as lost or retained.

“Individual participants emphasized the absence of either of these ‘optional’ aspects as crucial for their judgment that the experience was without self.

“We conclude that there is a large variety in what is felt as being lost in self-transcendent experiences, and we recommend that research and theory avoid general terms such as ‘ego-dissolution’ and instead probe more precisely the different aspects of self.”

In Praise of “Not Invented Here” Rejection of Pre-fab Lexicon Terms that I Didn’t Create

I have decided that in my 2023 article I will not approve, reify, and employ anyone else’s lexicon/ concept labels/ explanatory constructs, such as:

  • mystical supernaturalism
  • scientific naturalism
  • default mode network
  • neuroplasticity
  • ego dissolution
  • unity connectedness

Yesterday (Feb. 25, 2023) was a long day of spoken/ recorded idea development: I read aloud my draft sections (but not art features) and I criticized these pseudo-explanation terms that shut out adequate relevant comprehension.

Key strategic mindset: I have to draw a sharp dichotomy between:

  • Terms that I use; things that I would write
  • Terms that other ppl use/ made/ define/ employ.

eg Brown asked us a question about how to explain mushroom imagery — but his question was LOADED with three distinct, extra, added specifiers that were unnecessary narrowing presuppositions, implying the elaborate, dubious, confused paradigm of “elite, secret, hidden, heretical, deviant” mushroom use.

See Cyberdisciple’s page: “Rejecting the premise of suppression” — or at least, rejecting all of our conceptions/ assumptions/ presuppositions about the nature of “suppression” (or better, more neutrally and agnostically, the forgetting to some degree) of psychedelics in Western religious/ cultural history.

Why were psychedelics forgotten to some degree at some point? To what extent, when? Was it “suppression”, but we’d have to define this “suppression”.

Before even before we can ask that superior-framed question, we must first ask:

To what extent psychedelics in Western history?

We have presupposed wrongly!

Before we ask “why did the Bible eliminate psychedelics?”, we must first ask IF the Bible eliminated or sought to suppress psychedelics.

We CANNOT just take anything for granted!

We tried doing that (eg book Food of the Gods by McKenna) and we were very wrong and we blinded ourselves and falsely claim and cried that “there are no psychedelics in the Bible or chapels or cathedrals or psalters”.

I CANNOT employ any of YOUR explanatory-construct terms, because they are LOADED/ freighted with YOUR confusions.

Like Letcher Hatsis’ term “secret Christian Amanita mushroom cult” that HE invented, that HE bandies about & relies on, that HE tilts at windmills of his own construction, and that HE uses for the result of just confusing himself.

I reject the usefulness of terms like “the Holy Mushroom theory” or speaking in terms of “whether Jesus was a mushroom or not”.

I even have to avoid the great acronym ‘DED’ from Dittrich’s OAV psychedelics psychometrics questionnaire, because DED expands to Angst/Dread “of Ego Dissolution“, and I definitely (and also potentially) disagree with various specified (& under-specified) conceptions around the explanatory construct/ concept/ label “ego dissolution”.

Ego dissolution is not, in fact, what dread is of.

The DED dimension’s name contains a false — as just as bad, a VAGUE — theory assertion.

Dread is not of “ego dissolution”; Dread is of control instability; dread of catastrophic loss of control.

(This is speaking at a zoom-out level, that must be accompanied by detailed zoom-in specifics.)

Remember, ‘EGO DISSOLUTION’ is not my term, and therefore I must treat it as contaminated and part of the problem, CREATING incomprehension & confusion; PREVENTING successful explanation.

Remember, ‘neuroplasticity’ is not my term; it’s not what I would write; that term is part of YOUR failed, wrong, comprehension-blocking, less-than-“theory”.

Were I to use your terms from your bad, old, wrong, failed theory, I would then be preventing and working against my new, good, correct, true theory, that is successful.

See section “forbidden words” in my page Idea Dev p 18: https://egodeaththeory.wordpress.com/2023/02/14/idea-development-page-18/#Forbidden-word-list

Exhibit A: Matthew Johnson Labels Fatalism as Being Opposed to Naturalism

Page title:
Idea Development page 16
Section heading:
Johnson Falsely Says Fatalism Is a Supernatural Belief
https://egodeaththeory.wordpress.com/2023/01/23/idea-development-page-16/#Johnson-Falsely-Says-Fatalism-Is-a-Supernatural-Belief

Find key word “fatalism” in these various pages.

url https://egodeaththeory.wordpress.com/2023/01/23/idea-development-page-16/#the-Problem-is-Vagueness

Sections there:

  • Johnson Falsely Says Fatalism Is a Supernatural Belief
  • Johnson comments on Letheby’s Redefinition of Pop Word ‘Spiritual’ to Be Naturalistic Instead

The easiest thing in the world would be for Matthew Johnson to write:

“after a psychedelic experience, on average people shifted away from physicalist and materialist views (both consistent with naturalism) and toward eternalism, superdeterminism, no-free-will, double predestination, and hyper-Calvinism (which can be seen as deviations from naturalism).”

These abstract concept labels are arbitrary, so there is nothing stopping some people from claiming that eternalism is opposed to naturalism.

I also note, like the mostly bunk (strawman) pseudo-“replies” to Sanders & Zijlmans claimed, the anti-mystic camp of psychedelic scientists here is, in fact, pushing materialism and physicalism, equating them or at least strongly aligning them with so-called “naturalism”.

The Naturalist scientists, who are starting to advocate a “naturalistic”(???) brand of “spirituality”(???) are:

  • Matthew “Lose the Buddha statue” Johnson
  • Sanders & Zijlmans (Moving Past Mysticism article)
  • Chris Letheby

This decision is just like deciding whether my Theory should embrace and take on Amanita as a passenger to defend and carry. I’ve listed the many problems with doing so.

Amanita doesn’t want to be a passenger; it wants to be the sole pilot and kick the passengers out the door. Amanita doesn’t want to politely share the throne, it wants to be all-dominant, alone on the throne, stealing it from Psilocybin.

Amanita is nothing but the most wild and indeterminate of wildcards. You might as well tell me to marry my theory to an undefined Substance X about which nothing is known. Worse than useless; this dilutes and confuses everything; “why not add Chaos to the theory?”

Amanita represents the Completely Unknown.

Amanita is as purely unknown and indeterminate as, What does Mystery Person X mean by the word “Naturalism”? Johnson defines ‘naturalism’ as the opposite of ‘fatalism’.

Is ‘fatalism’ the same as ‘eternalism’?

I do not agree to this indeterminate, changeable, unsteady marriage of the Egodeath theory (the Theory of Psilocybin Eternalism) to these materialist, physicalist, reductionist, Cognitive Neuro-Reductionism advocates!

“Naturalism” Means Physicalism, Materialism, & Cognitive Neuro-Reductionism

and some Mystery Brand of “Atheism”(???) that’s subject to redefinition every 15 minutes.

The Ugly Truth: the Detractors Are Right: by “Naturalism” — Warning! — Johnson & Letheby Half the Time Push Physicalism, Materialism, & Cognitive Neuro-Reductionism!

What exact load of worse-than-dubious package deal are you trying to trick us into, when selling your so-called, continuously redefinable “naturalism“?

Taken-for-Granted Abstract Labels Freighted with Confusions

It was a big realization for Chris Letheby (https://egodeaththeory.wordpress.com/2023/01/23/idea-development-page-16/#the-Problem-is-Vagueness)
that “spirituality” doesn’t necessarily mean supernaturalism; there can be defined such a thing as naturalistic spirituality.

That seems obvious to me and he should have always known that, it’s a matter of definitions; “mere semantics”.

I’ll think twice before framing my successful explanatory theories as “naturalism”, eg the standoff between the mystical psychedelic scientists (Walter Pahnke, Wm Richards, Roland Griffiths) vs. the naturalistic psychedelic scientists (Matthew Johnson, Sanders & Zijlmans) rests on undefined-by-them vague terms such as ‘naturalistic spirituality’ and ‘supernatural’.

These descriptors that are employed by the battling parties are taken for granted and undefined by them, so I should avoid attaching these hazy words and aligning my theory with ‘naturalism’ or “mystical supernaturalism”.

Also remember that the pseudo-“replies” to Sanders & Zijlmans’ article Moving Past Mysticism demonstrate & prove that no one (especially not the mystical scientists camp in this “exchange”) cares about real actual positions; the parties just want to fight between a junk extremist caricature of “naturalism science” (eg hardcore materialist reductionism; consciousness doesn’t exist) vs. a junk extremist caricature of “supernaturalism mysticism” (dogmatic ineffabilism; words cannot explain anything, & we’re happy about that).

Sanders & Zijlmans were relatively clear communicators; the mystical scientists were a disgrace, absolutely strawmanning Sanders, who made many great, quotable points.

I was psyched to see someone, at last, clearly making these points: eg that the mystics are too eager to anti-scientifically revel in & celebrate the alleged inability to explain; the alleged inexplicability of what some people label as “mystical experiencing”.

I definitely am a cheerleader for the STEM manner of explanation & explanatory communication, but this standoff between the mystics vs. the anti-mystic “naturalists” rests on too many dubious dichotomies & undefined abstract labels, to attach their confused dichotomies to my well-defined explanatory model & theory.

Psychedelic Eternalism: Mystical Supernaturalism or Scientific Naturalism?

The Theory of Psilocybin Eternalism:

Call my theory STEM, ok, but careful about calling my explanatory model of mystical transformation “naturalistic” — that term is loaded with undefined dubious dichotomies & connotations.

Which side are you on: a junk definition of ‘religious supernaturalism’, or a junk definition of “scientific naturalism”?

The dichotomy is unhelpful.

Sam Harris assumes no-free-will is pitted against religion, but actually, when you pursue the full advanced experience of no-free-will, it is the heart of religious revelation, cancelling the immature mental model of autonomous control agency that creates the future by steering through time selecting among branching open possibilities.

Van der Borch Miniatures

Balaam, highly underrated story:

Y/I tree pair: Absalom hung on tree

Saint-Sauvin has a possible Y/I tree pair covered by Samorini, Brown, etc: https://egodeaththeory.wordpress.com/mushroom-trees-in-christian-art-samorini/#Figure-9

John Rush gallery of cat-shaped mushrooms:

doubt this is Van der Borch

This seems the best gallery of images found so far:
https://picryl.com/topics/michiel+van+der+borch

I haven’t found a good book link that simply lists a gallery of all the pages of this psalter – or maybe I need to re-find it:
url https://picryl.com/media/abraham-sacrifices-isaac-an-angel-restrains-his-sword-1f23d5

Search:
https://www.google.com/search?q=%22michiel+Van+der+Borch%22

Not very good search:
https://www.google.com/search?q=Van+der+Borch+psalter

See Also

Moving Past Mysticism: Theory of Psychedelic Eternalism Provides Scientific Basis, Superseding “Mysticism, Meditation, & Psychotherapy” Framework
https://egodeaththeory.wordpress.com/2023/01/15/the-theory-of-psychedelic-eternalism-provides-a-scientific-explanatory-basis-for-mystic-state-experiencing/

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Author: egodeaththeory

http://egodeath.com

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