Terence McKenna: “We Have The Power To Create Paradise On Earth”

[Valerie Villars]

If I may? It does wear off and it certainly doesn't make you enlightened. Life makes you enlightened. For some, certain altered states are just part of the growth.

[Wind]

''We are sick. We are terminal. We've lost our compass. We dont know who we are. We dont know where we wanna go. Our own lives are an experience of inadequacy and tension. We have lost our compass. But its there. And not because the psychedelics are a magical panacea. The psychedelics lift the veil of the intention of the Gaian mind and we are but atoms in that Gaian mind. If we do not follow its purpose, we have no purpose. Who do we think we are? Western science is 600 years old. Human beings have been on this planet 2 million years. Life? 1.4 billion years.

There is an enormous wisdom in biology and we must become able to tap into that. Articulate it and then activate it. We are the crowning achievement of the evolutionary process. Lets not betray it. Lets make it be ascent to angelic being that is I am sure the intention of the Gaian mind and all the rest of the life with which we share this planet.''

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=-kB-Vrrjjyo

[DeDukshyn]

Posted by Bob (here)
Naw Mike I don't accept being lumped into your philosophy that we are all diseased:

humanity is essentially a diseased an broken species completely out of harmony with the rest of the planet and the probably the Universe for that matter.

I have never seen anyone qualified to make that observation. I reject your assumptions as fact. I accept your opinions as your belief.

The human mind is diseased, it is full of contradictions and fallacies, irrational logic, most always a hidden fear disguised as "practicality". Humanity is in a perpetual state of hypnosis, we are programmed from birth by our "cultures" (hence pointless culture and religious wars). Our minds are the product of these programs.

THIS is who you are and who everyone else is.

I reject your insult and insinuation. It lowers the value of humanity, human mind and productivity.

Knowing that DMT and psilocybin are seratonin mimics isn't any kind of experience. Sugar is a seratonin booster ... so what?

Equating DMT and psilocybin as safe as sugar is an insult, and I feel a misrepresentation to the general public.

It seems useless to me to ask you to stay on topic, which according to the OP post 1 and title is Terence McKenna: “We Have The Power To Create Paradise On Earth”

I've made it clear why I feel taking a strong hallucinogen is a form of messing with perceptions from the human mind "as-it-is". An altered state using a hallucinogen is a change. A severe hallucinogen induces a severe alteration of perception.

I pointed out my belief that I feel one who is using a powerful hallucinogenic compound has altered their viewpoint, and that I disagree with taking the advice or conclusions of one using highly hallucinogenic drugs as "gospel", or an accurate view of reality.

I believe one who can find compassion, peace, harmony, interaction with all lifekind without using heavy hallucinogenics has achieved a wonderful feat, demonstrating that the human mind and human kind are not the "diseased" beings you purport us to be.

I believe Paradise on earth can be found not with using hallucinogenics, nor accepting a "guru's" beliefs that it is better to smoke DMT than live life as-it-is - learning to cope, learning to communicate and learning to find love where it may not be obvious at first. We don't need heavy drugs to do that. We don't need the crutches to find paradise, and life to tell about it.

It's clear to me where off topic points have happened.

I appreciate you Mike, and your opinions. We will have to disagree then on heavy drug use. As to your comments about not knowing "drug use" I am a registered MET/EMT have the training, and have had to deal with folks who have over-dosed or experienced severe psychotic episodes.

One can't fix what they don't know is broken. Truth hurts a little. Just look at this world and the topics on this forum. Humans are messed up. The variation is only the type of program and its expression, not the idea that we are or are not programmed - no one escapes this. The variable is what we are programmed with and how that gets expressed.

I never argued you on the "heavy drug use". This is you again creating your own arguments so you can appear to be right. We are going to have to leave it here at agree to disagree on most of this stuff. But at the end of the day you have no experience or input into how a hallucinogenic trip affects the mind (I said mind, not brain, they are not the same thing). You can't really speak to that which you have no experience in.

And I do agree, Heavy drug use is no answer to anything, nor do I believe T.M. ever advocated that everyone start doing trips every day. This isn't, nor ever was the argument. But having the experience of even a single hallucinogenic trip is invaluable, said almost everyone who has gone on such an adventure.

[DeDukshyn]

Posted by dynamo (here)

Posted by Wind (here)
...
I'd say that things like magic mushrooms seem to be quite revolutionary catalysts for healing, spiritual growth and the expansion of consciousness as they produce mystical experiences which people just don't get to normally experience in their daily lives. I've never tried any mind altering substances expect for alcohol (I might be in the minority here), yet I find videos like these and also McKenna's teachings fascinating. Shamanic tools have been there for a reason, nature has provided us with it's healing plants for a reason. Why has that been demonized? I think I know the answer, but I'm just thinking out loud.

Sure, drugs can create the illusion of having "mystical" experiences.
But...what happens when they wear off?
Same old, same old...your personal reality.

Not exactly true ... the insights you gain don't leave - you can program over them with your old beliefs, if you don't change your repetitive and programmed behaviors based on those insights but these are insights gained being referred to, not the drug.

[dynamo]

Posted by DeDukshyn (here)
...
Not exactly true ... the insights you gain don't leave - you can program over them with your old beliefs, if you don't change your repetitive and programmed behaviors based on those insights but these are insights gained being referred to, not the drug.

Ok, sure.
All drugs ever did for me was to give me insight (reaffirmation, so to speak) into what I already knew was, in fact, true.
There are many dimensions that we can not inherently "sense" with the 5 senses we consider "normal".
Drugs are not required to "sense" them is all I'm saying, and all drugs did was give me a distorted view of the other dimensions.
Most were born with enhanced senses, above and beyond the 5 we consider normal.
Many have merely forgotten how to access or use them.

[DeDukshyn]

Posted by dynamo (here)

Posted by DeDukshyn (here)
...
Not exactly true ... the insights you gain don't leave - you can program over them with your old beliefs, if you don't change your repetitive and programmed behaviors based on those insights but these are insights gained being referred to, not the drug.

Ok, sure.
All drugs ever did for me was to give me insight (reaffirmation, so to speak) into what I already knew was, in fact, true.
There are many dimensions that we can not inherently "sense" with the 5 senses we consider "normal".
Drugs are not required to "sense" them is all I'm saying, and all drugs did was give me a distorted view of the other dimensions.
Most were born with enhanced senses, above and beyond the 5 we consider normal.
Many have merely forgotten how to access or use them.

I am not even sure how the argument turned into whether or not drugs are needed for "enlightenment". No one has ever claimed they are.

Consider that when you say: " ... all drugs did was give me a distorted view of the other dimensions." that to someone who does not believe in anything they can't sense with their five sense, this is incredibly profound - in just the sensing more than their believed reality alone. This is exactly the kind of insight I refer to ... you can't "unlearn" that stuff ...

If you've only done drugs for recreational purpose, then obviously that is not the same as when you have an experience purposefully to have an introspective experience.

And to be clear, we are talking about "hallucinogenic" experiences here -- this is completely not at all what any other drugs are like or do to your mind. To compare say cocaine, cannabis, alcohol, heroin, to LSD, Psilacybin, or DMT is to make distinct how these are nothing at all alike in the experience they give.

[Bob]

I'm supporting Dynamo on his OP and thread title literally verbatim.

Seems Dynamo knows his thread's topic and original video well enough plus posted the disclaimer about McKenna not being what he made himself out to be..

(dynamo says - " Recently, I have read that Terrence may be a disinfo agent but I always appreciate positive messages hence I am sharing this video.

Take it as you would any other "fringe information"...")

Dynamo's post title, once again: Terence McKenna: “We Have The Power To Create Paradise On Earth” and a movie showing button pushing images, with a title on the movie "we must change our minds"

We have the power to choose how we look at things, how we interpret things, it is our right to choose, and no-one is going to dictate we need to do it this way or that. Or be forced to use any accelerator or psychotropic, or disassociative, or hallucinative. To try to convince people that they need to change their pace I think is disrespectful. To try to convince people one's belief is crap and their belief is better is questionable. To try to convince people with intense button pushing drama that they need to change their mind is psychodrama. One is going to point that out if if one is awake and aware and seeing as-it-is, with one's own eyes, with one's own mind, unadulterated and clean.

In Post 29 below I post a short 6 minute moving image using the concept of AWAKENING without using psychedelics, a different way to take the HIGH ROAD instead of corelevel confrontational assault bashing humanity.

[Bob]

"In the 1960s, there was a popular belief – popularised by psychedelic pioneers like Timothy Leary and others (including McKenna):

– that hallucinogenic drugs such as LSD could provide ‘chemical enlightenment’, a way of circumventing the years of arduous spiritual practice which monks and other spiritual path seekers put themselves through in order to attain a permanent higher state of consciousness.

Why spend years meditating and practising self-denial when you can just alter your brain chemistry directly, by taking psychedelics? It soon became apparent that this was naive, and that regular LSD usage was much more likely to generate psychological breakdown than spiritual awakening.

And many of those – such as Timothy Leary himself – who originally used LSD as a way of expanding consciousness eventually began to use drugs hedonistically, as a way of escaping boredom and discord, after their ‘chemical enlightenment’ project had failed.

Nowadays, psychoactive substances such as Ayahuasca and DMT are widely used with a spiritual intention, as a means of self-exploration and self-expansion. Ayahuasca in particular has (achieved) a similar status as an ‘elixir of enlightenment’ to LSD in the 1960s.

I don’t think there is any doubt that psychedelics can generate temporary higher states of consciousness (or ‘awakening experiences’, as I prefer to call them). Some writers on mysticism – usually from a religious background – have argued that psychedelic awakening experiences can’t be ‘genuine,’ because they are artificially induced. But this is surely short-sighted and prejudiced.

Psychedelic awakening experiences feature many of the same characteristics of other awakening experiences – intensified perception of one’s surroundings, a sense of connection or oneness to the world and revelations about the nature of reality, and so on. I’ve collected many reports of psychedelic-induced awakening experiences which feature these aspects (some of which I quote from in my book Waking From Sleep).

But although psychedelics can bring temporary awakening experiences, I think it’s very unlikely that they can lead to a permanent higher state of consciousness – that is, a state of ‘enlightenment,’ or in my preferred term, ‘wakefulness.’

The reason for this is that psychedelics are basically dissolutive – that is, they achieve their effect by dissolving away our normal mental structures, and putting our normal psychological mechanisms out of action. (I like to use the term 'self-system' for these structures and mechanisms.)

When the normal self-system dissolves away, our sense of boundary disappears, so that we no longer experience separateness. Our normal concepts of ourselves and of reality fade away too, so that we feel we’re looking at the world and ourselves in a completely new way. The contents of our subconscious mind may open up into our conscious mind, as the boundary between them fades away as well.

This is fine for temporary awakening experiences, but permanent wakefulness can only occur if there is a new self-system to replace the normal one. It’s not enough to dissolve the sense of self – a new self has to replace it.

This is the major difference between prolonged spiritual practice and psychedelics. Prolonged spiritual practice (such as regular meditation or the following of a path such as the eightfold path of Buddhism, or the eight-limbed path of yoga) will gradually form a new self which will slowly supplant your old self – a self-system with much softer boundaries, a much less powerful sense of individuality and separateness, intensified perception, much reduced associational ‘thought-chatter’ and so on. This self-system may be so subtle and integrated within the whole of our being that you might not even notice that it’s there.

In other words, spiritual practice is basically constructive – it gradually changes the structures of consciousness, re-moulding our self-system into a higher functioning form. But psychedelics don’t facilitate the emergence of a new self-system.

With the regular use of psychedelics, the danger is that the structures of the normal self-system will completely dissolve way, and without another self-system to supplant it, there will simply be a psychic vacuum, which equates with a state of psychosis.

And unfortunately there have been many cases of this.

In fact, you could say that this is really the only permanent psychological change which the regular use of psychedelics can bring: not awakening, but psychosis."

ref: Steve Taylor is a senior lecturer in psychology at Leeds Beckett University, UK.

What one is left with then is a PLASTIC MODEL of a mind - moldable by whomever usually the psycho-drama driver, i.e. "programmer" of one's "new mind". Personality identity you were born with gone, shaped into the desire of the will of the chemist, or State, or ??

Who's Paradise are we supposed to go to? Who is going to define that for us? What is Paradise? What is a "degraded Humanity" (to paraphrase other references in the thread) going to consider Paradise? Using a heavy duty hallucinogen is most certainly not going to create a permanent healed individual all the sudden understanding God, or Compassion or Unconditional Love, or tolerance or a higher vision for survival of the species.. (IMHO of course !!)

One doesn't need the hallucinogenic, nor the disassociative to reach "ideal state", with a clean pure body. That is my belief.

I took the spiritual path.

This is the major difference between prolonged spiritual practice and psychedelics. Prolonged spiritual practice (such as regular meditation or the following of a path such as the eightfold path of Buddhism, or the eight-limbed path of yoga) will gradually form a new self which will slowly supplant your old self – a self-system with much softer boundaries, a much less powerful sense of individuality and separateness, intensified perception, much reduced associational ‘thought-chatter’ and so on. This self-system may be so subtle and integrated within the whole of our being that you might not even notice that it’s there.

In other words, spiritual practice is basically constructive – it gradually changes the structures of consciousness, re-moulding our self-system into a higher functioning form. But psychedelics don’t facilitate the emergence of a new self-system.

[Bob]

Understanding awakening without psychedelics - approx 6 minutes playtime - the keyword is AWAKE..

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=Zn6zNfIZ6dA

[DeDukshyn]

Once the ego is dissolved away ... the true self is what remains ... If temporary, you get a glimpse into the distinction between the true self and the programs that constitute the ego. It never ceases to amaze me how backwards things are perceived ... but then again "books smarts" don't know jack compared to experience. Who can argue?

[Valerie Villars]

Posted by DeDukshyn (here)
Once the ego is dissolved away ... the true self is what remains ... If temporary, you get a glimpse into the distinction between the true self and the programs that constitute the ego. It never ceases to amaze me how backwards things are perceived ... but then again "books smarts" don't know jack compared to experience. Who can argue?

I like this post Dedukshun. Very true. Lord knows I tried arguing. It just doesn't work.

[DeDukshyn]

Posted by Valerie Villars (here)

Posted by DeDukshyn (here)
Once the ego is dissolved away ... the true self is what remains ... If temporary, you get a glimpse into the distinction between the true self and the programs that constitute the ego. It never ceases to amaze me how backwards things are perceived ... but then again "books smarts" don't know jack compared to experience. Who can argue?

I like this post Dedukshun. Very true. Lord knows I tried arguing. It just doesn't work.

Thanks, But just in case you weren't aware, It was a response this from bob's post above specifically:

.. the structures of the normal self-system will completely dissolve way, ...

- you may want to re-check if it still applies, considering this is exactly why the "insight" I refer to from a "trip" has value.

[Valerie Villars]

Thanks. That's how I read it.

[grapevine]

Recommended Viewing
Joe Rogan Experience #2403 - Andrew Gallimore (Author of Death by Astonishment)

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=IErO3RuGTXE

2:35:17

Like other Joe Rogan's interviews this is a long watch/ask, but I'd urge you to take the time to view as it’s about so much more than taking toad venom, and gives rise to countless possibilities for our future. As usual, Joe Rogan’s videos have no timestamp and although I'll try and append some of the points discussed, do bear in mind that my interpretation is woefully inadequate on this subject . . .

“Andrew Gallimore, PhD, is a chemical pharmacologist and neurobiologist and DMT analyst. He is one of the world’s leading experts on psychedelics and the author of several books, including his most recent, “Death by Astonishment: Confronting the Mystery of the World’s Strangest Drug.” Andrew came to DMT, like many others, through the influence of Terrence McKenna, when he was just 15 years old, although didn’t actually take it until a decade later. Even though he was well prepared for it, having seen all the TMcK videos, and given his own learning and research, he was horrified, shocked and knew “this is something else”.

The purpose of DMT in the brain was discussed and the effects of accessing it, ie seemingly more real than the lives we’re living atm/our reality. I was really heartened to learn that animals also have DMT in their brains as well as all living/sentient beings, like plants and trees.

Rogan’s view is that we’re all so hampered by our human experience that we should ALL bite the bullet and take DMT, that when you take DMT our entire reality disappears and is replaced with one which is altogether stranger, that it’s an inner journey rather than an outer journey.

The physical and mental effects of taking DMT were discussed at length and then turned to Consciousness, which is where it really got interesting, and may be our way out of our current world in the cerebral sense.

There was discussion as to whether DMT in the pineal gland was a gateway or just an effect.

“A Fire in a Madhouse”
Terence McKenna's premonitory quote in the 1990s about upcoming decades at 54:31 is remarkable*, and so I later asked chatgpt about Novelty Theory. What came up (indented below) probably deserves its own thread as it’s a relevant and bona fide subject on its own imo but include it here for interest.

* separate video of Terence McKenna quote:

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=K17yJIP7iSQ

Discussion then turned to intelligence in the Cosmos and the Kardashev Scale (copied from CNN website below)

"The Three Original Types
• Type I (Planetary): The civilization is capable of harnessing all the energy available on its home planet, roughly 10¹⁶ watts. This includes all solar, wind, geothermal, and hydroelectric power, allowing for total control over the planet's climate and natural forces.
• Type II (Stellar): The civilization captures the entire energy output of its host star, approximately 10²⁶ watts. A hypothetical example of this is a Dyson Sphere—a massive megastructure built to encapsulate a star and intercept its radiation.
• Type III (Galactic): The civilization commands the energy of an entire galaxy, consuming around 10³⁶ watts. They would utilize interstellar travel and colonize billions of star systems.

Humanity currently rests at approximately 0.7 on the above scale – so a bloody long way to go by any stretch. Andrew Gallimore theorises that instead of growing more and more out there, the space is actually “downwards”, ie quantum, which I thought interesting and that although the DMT trip feels as though you’re travelling – much the same as OBE/NDE experiences, it’s an internal journey."

The above is only the first hour of this interview and this is already a bit too long, but I hope has whetted your appetite enough to watch it. Enjoy . . .

Novelty Theory
“Novelty Theory (more accurately called Timewave Zero Theory) was developed by the ethnobotanist Terence McKenna, largely in the 1970s and 80s. It's a blend of mathematics, philosophy, psychology, history, and psychedelic speculation. It isn't accepted by mainstream science, but it has attracted a devoted following because it's such an imaginative way of looking at history.

The basic idea is surprisingly simple. McKenna believed that the universe has a tendency towards increasing "novelty” by which he meant:

• new ideas
• increasing complexity
• unexpected events
• evolutionary leaps
• technological breakthroughs
• c

hanges in consciousness

The opposite of novelty is what he called habit:

• routine
• repetition
• stability
• tradition
• equilibrium

His claim was that throughout history, novelty has been accelerating.

Think of history like this:
Imagine rolling a snowball down a hill. At first it moves slowly.
Then it gathers speed. Eventually it becomes almost unstoppable.

McKenna thought history behaves in exactly that way:
Millions of years passed before multicellular life. Then mammals. Then humans. Then agriculture. Thousands of years later came cities. Centuries later came science. Decades later came computers. Then the internet. Then smartphones. Now AI.
Each revolutionary change seems to arrive faster than the last.

He argued that this wasn't coincidence—it was a property built into time itself.

The Timewave
This is where it gets strange. McKenna believed he had found a mathematical pattern hidden inside the ancient Chinese I Ching (Book of Changes). Working with mathematician Peter Meyer, he generated what became known as the Timewave.
It looks something like this:

Novelty
^
|
| /\ /\ /\
| / \ / \ / \
| / \/ \/ \
|__/____________________________> Time

When the line falls, novelty increases. When it rises, habit dominates.

He believed the same patterns repeat over different scales of time—rather like fractals. So a week might resemble a century. A month might echo thousands of years.
History "rhymes" because the same structure keeps repeating.


Historical echoes

For example, McKenna suggested that:

• the Renaissance echoed earlier periods of cultural flowering
• world wars echoed previous eras of upheaval
• technological revolutions reflected earlier bursts of innovation

Not because people consciously repeated history . . . but because time itself had structure.

Timewave Zero

The most famous—and controversial—part was his prediction that the curve would eventually reach "Zero."

Zero didn't mean time stopped. It meant novelty became effectively infinite. Everything changes simultaneously. Human consciousness transforms. History as we know it ends. Originally he calculated this date as: 21 December 2012 Coincidentally, this aligned with the end of a major cycle in the Maya Long Count calendar, although that wasn't how the Maya themselves described it.

Many people connected the two ideas. Nothing obviously world-ending happened on that date, so the theory lost much of its momentum. Some supporters later argued McKenna had identified the right pattern but anchored it to the wrong date.

Why people still find it interesting
Even though it isn't considered scientifically valid, Novelty Theory raises intriguing questions.

For example:

• Does technological change really accelerate?
• Is history becoming denser with information?
• Are periods of stability naturally followed by upheaval?
• Do similar historical patterns genuinely recur?

Modern ideas such as exponential computing, AI, network effects, and accelerating technological progress can make parts of McKenna's intuition feel familiar, even if they don't support his mathematical claims.

The criticisms

Most historians, mathematicians, and physicists reject the theory because:

• the mathematics appears arbitrary
• the pattern can be fitted to events after the fact
• there are no testable predictions that have consistently succeeded
• the central prediction tied to 2012 failed

So it's generally regarded as a philosophical or speculative framework rather than a scientific theory.

One of McKenna’s best-known remarks was: "Nature loves courage." And another, which fits Novelty Theory particularly well: "The world is made of language." He saw reality not as a machine winding down, but as a creative process continually generating greater complexity and possibility.

Even many skeptics agree that the pace of human change appears to have accelerated dramatically, although they attribute it to evolution, population growth, technology, and culture rather than to a hidden mathematical property of time itself.”

[mountain_jim]

Posted by DeDukshyn (here)
Once the ego is dissolved away ... the true self is what remains ... If temporary, you get a glimpse into the distinction between the true self and the programs that constitute the ego. It never ceases to amaze me how backwards things are perceived ... but then again "books smarts" don't know jack compared to experience. Who can argue?

Just now discovered (re-discovered?) this thread, and I resonate with the views/explanations DeDukshyn posted here.

In my view, psychedelic experiences, properly conducted, evaluated, and internalized, functioned for me as excellent ego-exposure and re-programming tools, and so much more ("Language about the Unspeakabel", as Terence said) in the spiritual awakening/awareness and personal development areas of this ongoing incarnation.

(an aside: I met Terence after attending a speaking engagement of his in Maui, 1994, Language about the Unspeakable, where he signed my copy of True Hallucinations - Being an Account of the Authors Extraordinary Adventures in the Devil's Paradise.

Easy for me to remember these details as I have a framed event poster from this Magic Maui Weekend hanging in my office

[mountain_jim]

think this might be a good thread to copy this recent post into

Posted by mountain_jim (here)
Clif always good at stirring the pot...


https://x.com/clif_high/status/2066143979461046715?s=20

clif is antiselenite 🏴‍☠️
@clif_high

So the take away is that all physicists should be given mescaline before they can get their PhD.

It will repair their brains, clear their thinking of all that old crapola, and open up the doorway to perception of our actual common shared reality.

Not joking. We should make psychedelic experience a requirement for advanced degrees.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wOhvPx2g0I

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=7wOhvPx2g0I

188,568 views Jan 9, 2026

In this conversation, neuroscientist Dr. Christof Koch, philosopher Dr. Bernardo Kastrup, and Hans Busstra explore what it means to take mystical experience seriously without abandoning scientific rigor.

Our previous episode with Christof Koch: • Famous Neuroscientist on 5-MeO-DMT and Integrated Information Theory | Christof Koch...

Both Koch and Kastrup emphasize that some psychedelic experiences exhibit a striking degree of specificity and convergence across individuals, pointing toward possible archetypal universals. While this raises clear ontological questions—suggesting that the contents of mystical experience may, in some sense, be real—the deeper lesson may be epistemic: alongside knowledge gained through scientific experimentation, there may also exist a form of direct acquaintance with truth; a ‘hyper-real’ mode of knowing that can leave the experiencer puzzled for years, or even a lifetime, and can inspire groundbreaking new science.

Chapter marks:

0:00 From romantic reductionism to idealism?
3:03 Two great unknowns in science: mind and matter.
4:59 How Christof Koch met Bernardo Kastrup.
7:09 Christof Koch before and after a mystical experience.
13:38 How can science study mystical experiences?
15:59 Mary in the black-and-white room.
18:00 Have philosophers gaslit us about qualia?
19:51 Shannon information vs quantum information.
23:54 Information in IIT vs quantum mechanics.
26:14 Is the brain a quantum system?
30:09 Superposition, decoherence, and the quantum–classical cut.
33:39 Christof Koch on quantum AI and Hartmut Neven.
43:04 Does consciousness cause superposition?
44:42 The metaphysics of the many-worlds interpretation.
47:24 Why we don’t really understand quantum computing.
49:42 Quantum computing and interpretations of reality.
51:00 Can many worlds be interpreted idealistically?
53:03 The history of science as convenient fiction.
56:36 Direct acquaintance with truth.
59:22 Hyperreality and mystical experience.
1:03:03 The dome: consensus reality in psychedelic states.
1:05:44 Can we map altered states accurately?
1:11:26 Can we break out of spacetime?



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1V-5t0ZPY7E

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=1V-5t0ZPY7E

333,735 views Feb 21, 2025

In his latest book, neuroscientist Dr. Christof Koch describes how he, during a psychedelic experience on 5-MeO-DMT, felt that he was one with the universe. Essentia Foundation’s Hans Busstra interviews Koch on his new book and Integrated Information Theory (IIT), the scientific theory of consciousness Christof Koch and Giulio Tononi are famous for. Can IIT account for what Koch experienced during his trip?

57:03 Christof Koch on his DMT trip

Koch’s latest book: Then I Am Myself the World: What Consciousness Is and How to Expand It (2024):

Hans Busstra documentary on conscious AI with Bernardo Kastrup, James Lovelock and Roger Penrose: • Technology as religion | VPRO Documentary

Topics covered during the interview:

I. Deep dive into Integrated Information Theory

00:00 Introduction
05:12 Is Integrated Information Theory a materialist theory?
08:46 Unpacking IIT: intrinsic conscious experience as the starting point
11:05 Feelings have a specific structure
14:37 What is 'intrinsic causal power' and why is it important?
18:38 The difference between being in love and the mass of an object
21:05 Unfolding the intrinsic causal power of a system
21:51 Can you give me the algorithm of the taste of garlic?
25:50 Consciousness is NOT the brain
29:16 The unfolded causal structure of a teapot
31:25 The difference between IIT and panpsychism and the consciousness of bacteria and bees
35:03 Consciousness vs Self-Consciousness
36:18 The combination problem and how to establish the boundary of a (conscious) system
39:23 The experiment of brain bridging
41:50 Split brain experiments
49:45 Brains are nog magical: neuro morphic engineering
52:11 What is a whole and what a part?
55:55 How a larger consciousness would wipe out you and me: the Borg example from Star Trek

II. Christof Koch on his psychedelic experience and metaphysics:

57:03 Christof Koch on his DMT trip
59:58 The ontological shock of psychedelics
1:04:24 How to make sense of the psychedelic experience?
1:08:50 Is IIT idealist?
1:13:56 Are hearts conscious?
1:15:16 On the filter hypothesis
1:17:44 What can IIT say about the psychedelic state and NDE's?
1:25:40 What could a couple billion dollars buy when invested in neuroscience?
1:27:31 On the critique on IIT
1:30:40 Why we have to remain skeptical
1:32:51 'Naive' physicalism
1:34:55 On the placebo effect
1:40:38 The Near Death Experience on 5-MeO-DMT
1:44:26 Will psychedelics change your scientific career
1:47:04 On the mental gravity of the self
1:48:16 Closing remarks

[Johnnycomelately]

Posted by Bob (here)
Mckenna was a chemist who used chemicals in various formulations to induce physical-neurological states, hormonal changes and psychic programming, ya "brilliant"

Any well done hallucination with the right support chemicals will evoke any "circuitry" and one can believe yes indeed the marshmellow clouds are pretty and marmalade skies are magnificent. Even locking on permanent hallucinatory stages, the "good trips" are some goals some have sought for, not to actually "change the reality" that one knows is "the way it is", but to give one a re-programming alternative, saying that they believe the other way by the medication (the "medicine")..

Getting into the electromagnetics and quantum holographic resonances understanding to "reshape reality" is quite possible, however an individual "trip" doesn't have enough "information force" to make a change. What happens is "they" write a book and try to find groupies to give credence to the hallucinations found. Expecting that the "group trip" thusly evoked will change something. Get enough people to believe it and point out to others "man ur just not with it.. etc." to try to generate peer acceptance..

The right way is get out there and work, get into the politics, show by example alternatives, get into education, find those who have created solid ways to build societies which don't pollute, which can live and work with nature, look towards a future of balance, and no "alpha mentality" trying to rule the rest of the packs.. Get out of tooth and claw and into understanding and sharing.. Observed experience, and IMHO of course..

A hallucination is most indeed a "trip".. in the mechanical sense of the word. As in "tripped or triggered or fired circuits".

IMHO of course One has a right to believe, obviously, and then to observe references in reality, the physical world with examples and repeatability and trackability.

references: http://thescienceexplorer.com/brain-...-brains-we-die

"The DMT TRIP"

in his book The Archaic Revival, “It was really the DMT that empowered my commitment to the psychedelic experience. DMT was so much more powerful, so much more alien, raising all kinds of issues about what is reality, what is language, what is the self, what is three-dimensional space and time, all the questions I became involved with over the next twenty years or so.”

McKenna, along with many others who have tried the drug, insists that the experience is so surreal that it cannot be accurately translated into words — “In other words, what DMT does can’t be downloaded into as low-dimensional a language as English,” describes McKenna.

Scrambling pathways in the brain/hormonal system for a "trip" then associating what one experiences as gospel most certainly can help one to have a locked in belief system based on the content of the trip, or information pathways "tripped" (as in pathways walked).

I marvel in a chemist's dedication to explorations. Tapping into chemicals which kick in dopamine or serotonin or opiode receptors, or THC receptors and calling those experiences "god-like" doesn't really guarantee one "reached god", just that one reached a most interesting "tripped state"..

Show me you can find it without drugs.. Show me one reached those states by EXPERIENCES, going to places, meeting people, interacting with life around one.. Consuming "medicine" is an altered path. IMHO of course.

reference: https://medium.com/@HazelGale/tp-5-a...t-92994b8d4e35

Often, our unconscious mind will utilise this tool in order to sustain a version of reality which fits with our pre-existing belief systems. This saves both time and energy in actively perceiving what’s around us.

Why make the effort to see a kettle as an entirely new entity each time you encounter one, when you can just lump in in with all the other kettles you’ve seen in your life to make a quick judgement about it’s possible functions?

In Neuro-linguistic Programming (NLP), we talk about three processes by which the unconscious mind warps the vast amount of information we have available to us into a select batch of relevant, interesting and/or “true” data.

These processes are known as “deletion, distortion and generalisation”. Negative hallucination (obviously) primarily sits under the heading of “deletion”.

Evoking hallucination allows one to sometimes explore "What if's" - imagination in other words.. Nothing wrong with imagination when one realizes imagination is just that, imaginary.. Saying and trying to get others to believe without questioning "ones imaginary reality" obviously is a way to try to push the envelop.. One can't realize or discriminate tho when "tripping" with "just the right chemicals" that what they call the "thin veil" is really there, between reality perceived and "actuality".. just where is that veil?

Induced States

Here’s a list of the type of things people commonly negatively hallucinate to maintain a “happier” existence:

— Telltale signs of lies/cheating/deception (in order to preserve the appearance of a “happy” relationship);

— Alcohol/drug abuse of loved ones (for the same purpose);

— Signs of significant changes in ones physical state (as in eating disorders like anorexia or obesity, or anything that involves body dysmorphia);

The following are things that one might delete in order to uphold a personal belief:

— Signs/evidence of one’s own skills, abilities and resources (e.g. people who don’t hear or distort compliments because they believe they’re not good at something);

— Positive reinforcement from others (if someone believes he’s ugly, he might delete any evidence to the contrary);

— Opportunities for personal advancement, or visions of a positive future.

Delusions Of Grandeur

In much the same way (but with a seemingly opposite effect), an individual might learn to block out negative feedback in order to sustain positive self-beliefs. Think of the deluded guy down your local pub who seems to have unwavering confidence in his charm, wit and good looks (although none of these things seem obvious to you). The same guy who chats up girl after girl, all of whom look at him with utter disdain before asking him to leave them alone. How does he manage to sustain so many “hits” to his perfect self-image without losing faith?

A test is can you actually build? Do you have to rely on your "group support", or passive-aggressiveness to convince others that you are right?, or do you have to badger another with your "so called wisdom? (to remain allegedly alpha?), do you have compassion for others, or do you put them down consistently? To have to ramble about "god" without saying IT IS YOUR OPINION (but you state it as "fact")...

Workability is a way to function in the world, AS-IT-IS and then come up with ways to make it better for the group, oneself, one's family. Contributing to society in a positive way in other words. Mentally masturbating is "fun" a "trip", but staying perpetually in that state "with tripped out rewired (shorted out) neurons" gets one no-where for oneself nor society.

The understanding IMHO from McKenna was one has a way of turning on the IMAGINATION, which then can be used in perspective, constructively.. Believing tho that the "world" is alterable by that single tripped out mind I believe IS a dis-service. Time and again we can see examples of some one having "tripped out" (probably the internal DMT circuit), and then convinced people enmasse to "do something" (or not do but resist).. A drama most certainly. Best thing to do? Maybe or maybe not, reality will be the test over time..

reference:
https://terencemckenna.wikispaces.co...ld+Be+Anything

The World Could Be Anything

July 1990

The ramblings of hallucination - or contemplating the unperceivable...

“Man thinks. God knows.” And, then, someone had bought a second copy of the bumper sticker and cut it apart and reversed it and put it under it, so it said, “Man thinks. God knows. God knows Man thinks.” [Audience laughs]

Now, it seemed to me there was a lot going on in [audience laughter] what was attempting [Terence chuckles] to be expressed here. First of all, something about God, that God knows, that God exists in a superior state of intellection. Plato said, "Time is the moving image of eternity." My notion of God’s cognition is simply the regarding of all points in the spacetime continuum with equal clarity. God knows. The limited program of knowing is thought, cognition. Man thinks. This is what man can do in imitation of the all-knowing and omniscient example of God. But, implicit is that this is somehow in a- a limited undertaking, this thinking of man. And some of you may recall the famous comment of Pascal that, "Man is a reed bent by the wind." And then, Pascal added, "But a thinking reed."

So, then, the second half of the conundrum was that, “God knows. man thinks.” Now this, I thought, was very interesting, because it seems to imply a relationship between the limited project of knowing, which is human thought, and the completed project of knowing, which is omniscience. God knows Man thinks. In a way, what this is saying, is that God knows that man is making his way toward God. God knows man thinks. God knows that man is participating in the same project of being, that God regards from this higher dimensional space. And, so, then, this meditation on these four lines closes with a recurso which returns you then to this realization that what we are talking about is 'the project of knowing', Heidegger called it, carried out on two levels: on the level of omniscience and on the level of limited being.

If you are happy with " your mind " as-it-is, you don't need some chemist saying HEY TAKE THIS, it will change your mind for you.

No thanks, quite happy with the As-Is mind and no, one doesn't have to "change one's mind" or believe any guru that tells you to do so using their way of "short circuiting" neuronal activity. (Blow your mind concept) - "turn on tune out?" (*) I don't think so. IMHO of course (ROFL)

One doesn't need the drugs, nor the guru to find one's imagination, or creativity, or compassion.

ref: (*) Timothy Leary - "Turn on, Tune in Drop out" - it was popularized by Timothy Leary in 1966. In 1967 Leary spoke at the Human Be-In, a gathering of 30,000 hippies in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco and phrased the famous words, "Turn on, tune in, drop out".

LSD was one of the CIA's favorite drugs in the "Agent Cocktail" (aka "Juice") used to reprogram agents who would need alternative believable personalities, which would be unshakable or "believable" during cold war espionage and other missions..

So, this thread has been a druggie thread since post #3, by old unsubscribed* Bob. *Those days must have been epic for confrontations on here.

I don’t have much to add. Various unmedicated thoughts have gotten me in as much trouble.

Advice from my old friend’s lady, about weed: “DON’T SMOKE WHEN YOU’RE STONED!”. I figure that applies to higher power drugs too.

[Sue (Ayt)]

"Terence McKenna died of glioblastoma multiforme, an aggressive and rare form of brain cancer. He passed away on April 3, 2000, at the age of 53, at a friend's home in San Rafael, California."

In the John Travolta movie, "Phenomenon", the main character also gained great insights from that same rare from of brain cancer, before he passed away.
Some have speculated that the fictional movie was loosely based on Mckenna.
It did have me wondering if Mckenna's chemical use was related to his early demise. But it was a wonderful movie, if anyone hasn't seen it.

[Bill Ryan]

Posted by Sue (Ayt) (here)
In the John Travolta movie, "Phenomenon", the main character also gained great insights from that same rare from of brain cancer, before he passed away.
Some have speculated that the fictional movie was loosely based on McKenna.

I never knew that!
.

Posted by Sue (Ayt) (here)
But it was a wonderful movie, if anyone hasn't seen it.

Yes, it absolutely was.