March 2, 2023, Cybermonk
- Why Cite the Failed, Competing, Less-than-Theory? Feyerabend: Under No Obligation
- Rejecting Clueless Pseudo-Science Lexicon Terms and Pseudo-Explanatory Constructs Such as ‘Naturalism’, ‘Ego Dissolution’, ‘Neuroplasticity’, ‘Nondual Unity Connectedness’, & ‘Default Mode Network’
- How Psychedelic Scientists in Their Sawdust Articles & Pop Books Explain Ego Transcendence
- What Psychedelic Science’s Pseudo-Explanation, Advanced Meditation, and Psychedelic Psychotherapy Accomplishes: Avoiding Ego Death and Transformation from Possibilism to Eternalism
- Voice Recording Against Pseudoexplanatory Psychedelic Science Terms
- Theorists & Scientists, You Need to Cite & Adopt Our Shifting, Mystery Principle X, that We Each Understand Differently (Good Thing We Avoid Undefined Lay Terms, Unlike the Mystics)
- Irony: All Scientific Questionnaires on Philosophy Positions Forcefully Default to Possibilism
- Don’t Be Fooled: “Fatalistic Determinism” is ENTIRELY Different than Eternalism, and Is a Version of Egoic Open-Future Possibilism-Thinking
- See Also for Bad Explanatory Theories
Why Cite the Failed, Competing, Less-than-Theory? Feyerabend: Under No Obligation
In a science article, cite all the previous good articles, and have it peer-reviewed.
These notions are problematic for new theories.
These notions only make sense WITHIN a paradigm, not for bringing a new paradigm.
Use confusion as the basis for clarity?
Rejecting Clueless Pseudo-Science Lexicon Terms and Pseudo-Explanatory Constructs Such as ‘Naturalism’, ‘Ego Dissolution’, ‘Neuroplasticity’, ‘Nondual Unity Connectedness’, & ‘Default Mode Network’
I wanted to work-up the “why branching is central” idea (in Physics/Time & in myth) in a voice recording tonight (March 1, 2023), but am behind schedule tonight due to cross-linking my expose of Matthew Johnson pushing hardcore physicalism & materialism & reductionism under the guise of “naturalism”, which is every bit as much an undefined, quicksand lay term as “mysticism”.
I read Chris Letheby’s Precis summary article that summarizes his book Philosophy of Psychedelics, in Metzinger’s journal Philosophy and the Mind Sciences. I read most of his meta-reply article at the end of that issue.
I probably agree with Letheby’s definition of ‘naturalism’ more than with Matthew Johnson’s definition of ‘naturalism’, but you can already see the problem: who gets to (re-) define the charged, emotion-laden word ‘naturalism’ during the doctrine-war of the “naturalistic” vs. “mystical” scientists in the field of Psychedelic Science?
It is frightening, Johnson’s point that the word ‘spiritual’ has (passive voice) changed its connotations so that NOW, we “naturalist scientists” can embrace a form of “spirituality”, whereas before, we could not embrace the word ‘spirituality’ because “it is a lay, undefined term”.
My worries and objections multiply, as quickly as Johnson can reassure us that spirituality CAN mean — and has shifted to be able to mean — “naturalism”, which word means “physicalism” and “materialism”.
The problem is not merely that I am against “physicalism” and “materialism” or that I am for or against “naturalism” or “spirituality” or “mysticism” or “supernaturalism” — WHAT THE F DO ALL THESE WORDS MEAN?!
- physicalism
- materialism
- naturalism
- spirituality
- mysticism
- supernaturalism
We DO need Philosophy, well done, like more like Letheby does than Johnson, but we can see how these multiple writers expose the problem, and Johnson points out that the word “spirituality” has (passive tense) shifted in connotations. Big problem.
Is Chris Letheby’s Philosophy adequate to deal with the problem of shifting, “lay terminonology usage”?
Problematic lay terminology such as “naturalism” (against Johnson’s magical assumption that somehow, “mysticism” is lay & vague & undefined, but “naturalism” is professional, scientific, specific, and not just a cloudy puff of ideology in the war of junk “science” vs. junk “religion” (3rd option: junk “esotericism”).
Hey Johnson do you ever — you who lecture us against sloppy use of ‘consciousness’ — do you ever define your pet, loaded word “naturalism”, vs. “supernaturalism”?
Do you ever define “spirituality”, “materialism”, “physicalism”?
The “naturalism” side of the battle DOES NOT magically get a pass.
Does Letheby define all of these terms, as Johnson acts like?
Do Johnson & Letheby share the same , allegedly professional scientially determinate defintions as against “lay language of mysticism”?
What about 10 days from now?
This is largely empty posturing by those who call themselves “naturalists” against those who defend “mystic experiencing”: pretending that the word “mysticism” is undefined but the word “naturalism” is defined.
Ok, Johnson: IF the word ‘naturalism’ is defined (unlike ‘mystiicm’, or “cosmic consciousness”, or “fatalism”) — then tell me:
Is naturalism hardcore extremist materialism and physicalism and cognitive neuro-reductionism, like the replies against Sanders & Zijlmans’ article “Moving Past Mysticism” charge?
Johnson, does the word ‘naturalism’ mean denial that consciousness exists?
Does everyone who advocates the word ‘naturalism’ agree with your answers?
And will they continue to agree, 10 days from now?
Are the just sloppy lay terms you are advocating, or are they scientifically determinate, and if determinate, do these terms mean extremist physicalist reductionism from Cognitive Phen’y to mere Neuroscience?
A giant reductionism project, just like the CEQ is a giant bait-and-switch reductionism project.
THE CREATORS OF THE CEQ DISASTER, REDUCTIONISM, ADVOCATE “NATURALISM” BECAUSE IT USES WORDS IN A DETERMINATE WAY
How about defining the word ‘Dread’ in OAV: or “Unpleasant Experiences” 21-item high-level category in Studerus 2010’s 11-Factors questionnaire:
JOHNSON, PLEASE DEFINE ‘DREAD’ SO AS TO EXPLAIN WHY YOU DELETED 18 OF 21 (86%) OF DREAD PSYCHEDELIC EFFECTS ITEMS, WHILE BRAGGING ABOUT BROADENING THE DREAD CATEGORY.
And then explain how “naturalism” is scientifically determinate use of terms, unlike lay terms such as “cosmic consciousness”.
We are not approaching clarity by following Matthew “Lose the Buddha statue” Johnson; we are increasing confusion and pseudo-explanation.
Matthew Johnson (with Roland Griftiths) is the same guy who brought us the DISASTER that is the CEQ, Challenging Experiences Questionnaire, which summarily, anti-scientifically deletes 18 of 21 = 86% of Dittrich’s OAV Dread questions without any explanation, while claiming to be broadening the defective OAV’s Dread category, PROVING THAT JOHNSON (Mr. “Scientific Naturalism”) UNDERSTANDS NOTHING ABOUT PSYCHEDELIC FREAKOUT.
Evidence that Psychedelic Science (other than the Egodeath theory) understands nothing about Dread experiencing:
Petter Johnstad’s article Day Trip to Hell
https://egodeaththeory.wordpress.com/2023/02/14/idea-development-page-18/#Day-Trip-to-Hell –
Johnstad, Petter (2021). Day trip to hell: A mixed methods study of challenging psychedelic experiences, Journal of Psychedelic Studies, 5(2), 114-127. doi: https://doi.org/10.1556/2054.2021.00155
https://akjournals.com/view/journals/2054/5/2/article-p114.xml#B32
My articles on the CEQ Disaster: Site Nav:
https://egodeaththeory.wordpress.com/nav/#Psychedelics-Questionnaires
My article “folk crude rough knowledge of Surrenderism” compiling quotes from Michelle Janikian’s book Your Psilocybin Mushroom Companion:
Standard Hazy Trip Advice on Surrender to the Shadow, Trust, Submit, and Let Go of Control (Your Psilocybin Mushroom Companion, Janikian 2018)
https://egodeaththeory.wordpress.com/2022/12/07/standard-hazy-trip-advice-on-surrender-to-shadow-trust-submit-and-let-go-of-control/
Houot’s dissertation critical of the Mystics’ Surrenderism model:
Toward a Philosophy of Psychedelic Technology: An Exploration of Fear, Otherness, and Control (Houot 2019)
https://egodeaththeory.wordpress.com/2023/01/22/toward-a-philosophy-of-psychedelic-technology-an-exploration-of-fear-otherness-and-control-houot-2019/
Erik Davis “Stace’s book vouchsafes what ‘mystical’ means? That book is over 50 years old!” 2023-1960 = 63 years old, and it is treated as the lone, single book that’s the foundation of psychedelic science of mystic experience, and it’s out of print, and to bolster that book, see James 1902.
As sound a scholarship base as Brinckmann’s “little” (Panof.) 1906 book, which was 1952-1906 = 46 years out of date then, and is 2023-1906 = 117 years old, 86-page book.
BECAUSE OF THE “ACCIDENTAL DEVELOPMENT FROM PINE” ALLEGEDLY SHOWN IN A SINGLE, 117-YEAR-OLD, 86-PAGE BOOK, NOT TRANSLATED TO ENGLISH FROM GERMAN, THAT CONTAINS THE WORD ‘PILZBAUM’ 5 TIMES, WE KNOW THAT MUSHROOM TREES DON’T MEAN MUSHROOMS.
Plus, they have at least traces of branching, so clearly, the non-naturalist medieval artists didn’t mean mushrooms, or they would have naturalistically omitted the branches.
Plus, there’s TOO MANY MUSHROOM TREES for this one mushroom tree to mean mushrooms.
Plus, medieval religious artists had no reason to think of mushrooms.
I wonder why scholarship-obstructionist con artist Gordon “Conflict of Interest” Wasson blocked and censored the letters containing suggested ploys by con artist Erwin “Conflict of Interest” Panofsky? 🤔 🤷♂️
“Within the official clinical discourse, at least in America, the key
to individual healing is largely tied to the capacity of psychedelics to trigger
transcendental unitive and ecstatic experiences whose “mystical” character is
vouchsafed, it must be said, by scholarship that is over half a century old.” – Davis.
My great exclamation about all of these shifting terms of confusion-multiplication:
WHAT’S THAT SUPPOSED TO MEAN?!
I cannot build my theory on some COMMUNITY OF CONFUSION lexicon like “neuroplasticity” and “ego dissolution” and “default mode network” and “nondual unity connectedness”.
I’ve seen what you scientists have done with these “explanatory” terms.
I’ve watched rebuttal videos that reveal these to be pseudo-explanations.
I could cobble those bunk terms together to demonstrate a mock-explanation.
Add everyone else’s explanatory terms to my Forbidden Words list. Not Invented Here.
How Psychedelic Scientists in Their Sawdust Articles & Pop Books Explain Ego Transcendence
You don’t know anything about myth (or direct description of altered-state mental model transformation) unless you know about branching vs. non-branching, which is the main foundation of revelation.
But here’s the inept, ineffective conceptual lexicon put forth by pop sci as a substitute for explanation and comprehension, to shut out & prevent comprehension:
Per naturalism (which is materialist physicalist reductionism & neuroscience), classic psychedelics produce Ego Dissolution, Neuroplasticity, Nondual Unity Connectedness, Default Mode Network.
There, consider ego transcendence explained.
This scientistic explanation is as effective, useful, and relevant as (& explains religious myth as well as) the explanatory framework/model that’s provided by Wilber’s Integral Theory, or the Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, or Alan Watts re: Zen (Zen Master Brad hits you with stick; gives mental model transformation).
What Psychedelic Science’s Pseudo-Explanation, Advanced Meditation, and Psychedelic Psychotherapy Accomplishes: Avoiding Ego Death and Transformation from Possibilism to Eternalism
Like Wasson, I once asserted something that was wrong: I said that 30 to 90 years of meditation accomplishes nothing.
Actually, psychedelic science’s practice of nondual unity connectedness through neuroplasticity suspending the default mode network, through the practice of meditation therapy for 30-90 years, is highly effective at avoiding the threat of ego death and transformation from possibilism to eternalism.
If your goal is to avoid the shadow dragon monster threat of control transgression and instability, and you want to retreat, avoid, replace, and substitute and prevent mental worldmodel transformation, I highly recommend psychedelic meditation therapy for 30 to 90 years.
Advanced psychedelic meditation therapy is the best, most effective method of avoiding ego transcendence and the threat of control instability.
Voice Recording Against Pseudoexplanatory Psychedelic Science Terms
4759.wav (Feb 27 according to deck) is a good roast/critique of “naturalism” and pseudo-explanation by Psychedelic scientists. 33:48 Pretty funny; neutral mood, well delivered, but funny theory-points.
Theorists & Scientists, You Need to Cite & Adopt Our Shifting, Mystery Principle X, that We Each Understand Differently (Good Thing We Avoid Undefined Lay Terms, Unlike the Mystics)
Feb. 26, 2023, 4762.wav, 40 minutes. Not produced or uploaded.
A few snippets transcribed/summarized here:
… You present them as if they are explanatory constructs, but they are MORE misleading, more a detriment than a help, they are what’s blocking comprehension.
The lexicon put forth by the psychedelic scientists are actually hindrances, misleading, SUBSTITUTES for explanation.
COUNT ME OUT.
I have a better explanatory model than all of that, including your confused “naturalism”: the Egodeath theory; the cybernetic theory of ego transcendence; the Theory of Psilocybin Eternalism.
What passes for “explanation” by psychedelic scientists is 2/3 preventing comprehension, wrong, harmful , misleading; and is only 1/3 helpful, true , enlightening, explanation-delivering.
Irony: All Scientific Questionnaires on Philosophy Positions Forcefully Default to Possibilism
Given that the mind starts possibilism and only adult completion of initiation ends in eternalism, means that all of the unenlightened, unreconstructed scientists and philosophers and all of their writings are all firmly, thoroughly biased and saturated in possibilism-thinking, inherently.
Non-enlightened people (psychedelic scientists) don’t realize that the altered state is the eternalism state of consciousness, the eternalism experiential mode.
Timmermann reports that (essentially) people have eternalism-thinking after the trip, and then revert to possibilism-thinking – which firmly fits how the mind works/ transforms; because in the ordinary state, that’s the possibilism experiential mode, which produces possibilism-thinking.
It totally makes sense that an altered state session initially produces eternalism-thinking but that quickly is forgotten, reverting to childhood familiar possibilism-thinking.
Even when they (very rarely) mention eternalism, it’s bound to be a thoroughly possibilism-soaked misconception of eternalism.
eg Timmermann 2021 and the FAD scale article, bandy-about the term “deterministic fatalism”, but, they are bound to think in a thoroughly possibilism-thinking way, even when writing about their fine shades of:
- Scientific Determinism (translation: possibilism-thinking discussing determinism)
- Fatalistic Determinism (translation: possibilism-thinking discussing determinism – confirmed below, find “domino”).
FAD-Plus: Free Will and Determinism Questionnaire (Paulhus 2011)
https://egodeaththeory.wordpress.com/2023/03/03/fad-plus-free-will-and-determinism-questionnaire-paulhus-2011/
Don’t Be Fooled: “Fatalistic Determinism” is ENTIRELY Different than Eternalism, and Is a Version of Egoic Open-Future Possibilism-Thinking
find “domino” in present article. This point is so important, I’m keeping this heading in present article and new FAD q’aire breakout article.
See Also for Bad Explanatory Theories
Quote of Johnson: “physicalism = naturalism; fatalism = supernaturalism”:
Article 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
Surprisingly [why “surprisingly”? telling of Johnson’s presuppositions!], the [Timmermann 2021] study found that after a psychedelic experience, on average people shifted away from physicalist and materialist views (both consistent with naturalism) and toward panpsychism and fatalism (which can be seen as deviations from naturalism).
Matthew Johnson, review of Letheby’s book Philosophy of Psychedelics in Metzinger’s Journal of Philosophy and the Mind Sciences
Introduction: Psychedelic Science Needs Philosophy
Matthew Johnson
2022
PDF:
https://philosophymindscience.org/index.php/phimisci/article/view/9452/9159– “”
The Risks of Vague, Abstract Descriptors Like “Mystical Supernaturalism vs. Scientific Naturalism”
https://egodeaththeory.wordpress.com/2023/02/26/the-risks-of-vague-abstract-descriptors-like-mystical-supernaturalism-vs-scientific-naturalism/
FAD-Plus: Free Will and Determinism Questionnaire (Paulhus 2011)
https://egodeaththeory.wordpress.com/2023/03/03/fad-plus-free-will-and-determinism-questionnaire-paulhus-2011/
Psychedelics alter metaphysical beliefs
Chris Letheby & Christopher Timmermann et al.
2021
Cited by Johnson’s review of Letheby’s book.
https://www.google.com/search?q=timmermann+%22psychedelics+alter+metaphysical+beliefs%22
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34815421/
free pdf
Auto citation:
Timmermann C, Kettner H, Letheby C, Roseman L, Rosas FE, Carhart-Harris RL. Psychedelics alter metaphysical beliefs. Sci Rep. 2021 Nov 23;11(1):22166. doi: 10.1038/s41598-021-01209-2. PMID: 34815421; PMCID: PMC8611059.
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-01209-2 –
See Supplementary Materials, “items extracted from the Free Will and Fatalistic
Determinism subscales (containing nine items in total) of the FAD-Plus questionnaire, a validated measure of
lay views on free will and determinism4
(see “Supplementary Methods” for the items used).” =
Supplementary Methods pdf:
https://static-content.springer.com/esm/art%3A10.1038%2Fs41598-021-01209-2/MediaObjects/41598_2021_1209_MOESM1_ESM.pdf, = “Microsoft Word – Psychedelics_alter metaphysical_beliefs_RevisedSI.docx”
You can get a glimpse / peek at FAD in that Timmermann Supplement: see my breakout page “FAD-Plus: Free Will and Determinism Questionnaire (Paulhus 2011)”, I moved info from below to there instead.
Abstract of Timmermann Article
“Abstract [of Timmermann article]:
“Can the use of psychedelic drugs induce lasting changes in metaphysical beliefs?
“While it is popularly believed that they can, this question has never been formally tested.
“Here we exploited a large sample derived from prospective online surveying to determine whether and how beliefs concerning the nature of reality, consciousness, and free-will, change after psychedelic use.
“Results revealed significant shifts away from ‘physicalist‘ or ‘materialist‘ [OH NOES!, says Johnson] views, and towards panpsychism and fatalism, post use.
“With the exception of fatalism, these changes endured for at least 6 months, and were positively correlated with the extent of past psychedelic-use and improved mental-health outcomes.
“Path modelling suggested that the belief-shifts were moderated by impressionability at baseline and mediated by perceived emotional synchrony with others during the psychedelic experience.
“The observed belief-shifts post-psychedelic-use were consolidated by data from an independent controlled clinical trial.
“Together, these findings imply that psychedelic-use may causally influence metaphysical beliefs–shifting them away from ‘hard materialism‘. [Johnson: 😭 😱 🤯 😵]
“We discuss whether these apparent effects are contextually independent.”
This is a fkking smoking gun! (the fact that Johnson wants, and even expects (“Surprisingly, …”), psychedelics to result in belief in hard materialism, which he calls “naturalism” in Science)
The mysticism advocates are right: the “naturalistic science” advocates are caricature-degree EXTREMIST HARD MATERIALISTS and likely to go so far as HARDCORE REDUCTIONISTS from Cognitive Phen’y to brain science (Cognitive Neuro-Reductionism) – I’m thinking of deniers of conscious experiencing.
Clear Description of the Explanatory Paradigm of Transpersonal Psychology
Good description by Winkelman & Roberts of the worldview explanatory paradigm of “Transpersonal Psychology“:
Psychedelic Induced Transpersonal Experiences, Therapies, and Their Implications for Transpersonal Psychology
Thomas Roberts & Michael Winkelman
in book:
The Wiley-Blackwell Handbook of Transpersonal Psychology
2013
https://www.academia.edu/4674528/Psychedelic_Induced_Transpersonal_Experiences_Therapies_and_Their_Implications_for_Transpersonal_Psychology
The Egodeath theory 