I've done LSD and thought this was particularly interesting and insightful.

I was skeptical of the idea of trying to apply a formal framework to it, but the results of the model are the closest I've seen to an explanation of my experience.

I was particularly fascinated by time. At some point in my first (and only) trip, my unconscious 'timeline' stopped working.

The tricky thing about time is that it is always exactly right now. Conscious experience, as the author recognizes, emerges from processes that happen some time before the experience happens - e.g. I looked around the room to understand my environment, but right now, I can only see my phone and a narrow cone around that - my experience of everything else is an echo of my previous experience.

I'm concerned that the article is pseudo science bullshit - I'd love to hear other opinions from more experienced folks. Any neurologists around?

Edit: I took another look and am also very interested in the briefly mentioned memory trackers. I got the distinct feeling during my trip that I could experience my thoughts 'refreshing' themselves. It strikes me that there must be data structures encoded in the brain, and that these data structures might need to be kept alive through repetition (similar to how you might do to consciously remember a long number, for example). Feelings!= fact, so I'd love to hear other thoughts as well!

Its a bit of a loose tour of theories, but certainly not bullshit. I spot things I disagree with like the widely held idea that Einsteins physics rules out an "absolute frame", the sense of that depends on a certain restriction of what absolute means in relation to a time/space frame. We are in a local time/space frame which is connected to and consistent with nearby and all connected frames. It is absolute in the sense that it is continuous, its just hard to visualize the 'superframe' which is the product of all the local frames. A satellite experiment successfully confirmed the Earths rotation causing our nearby frame to "shift", or rather rotate.

Many would disagree with that contention of mine, the depth of my understanding, and language used - it surely could be improved and occasionally is by an experienced experts advice. Similarly, this article I think will be full of such potential disagreements and corrections but that doesnt mean its not a well written and valuable exploration of the extensive subject of meanings and perceptions of time.

Its a good article with stimulating ideas I should take the time to read properly, but it seems to omit this feature of the arrow of time which I have noticed: In a basic gravitational simulation time would be completely reversible except that quantised integration is lossy.

If data could be recorded to infinite precision it would be possible to integrate the simulation back and forth between any two points in time and thus re-calculate separate states precisely and repeatedly, there would be no irreversible arrow. The only reason I see that for example, a simulated glass will not perfectly reassemble itself after being virtually smashed is that quantization noise accumulates on every iteration, and in accordance with the 'butterfly effect' the noise which enters at the units of least precision, also trickles upward in significance on every iteration. But if a simulation was run using enormous word lengths for all its data then the noise would have longer to travel (up the word-lengths) until it made a significant difference to the virtual model. The model data might also be clipped at intervals in an attempt to remove this 'direction dependent noise'.

Theoretical ideas about time which consider analog system real numbers or values of matter might not notice this effect, that the state of things becoming more intertwinned with each other through time, which ever direction viewed from, requires more and more precision to represent. It would not be a problem with infinite precision math.

I dont know about the precision scheme of the physical universe, it sounds like quantum physics does find limits.

The more slowly decaying past makes the appeal of trance music much easier to understand. It’s a series of loops, every beat a kick, every other a snare, every 4 a baseline, and so on. Everything reinforcing the past until it all locks together. I’ve had experiences where I felt like time stopped entirely on the dance floor — even completely sober, but especially on mdma or lsd.

I think it's pretty accessible? Not sure what you had trouble understanding.

Though I think it would be better without all the stuff about psychedelics. It makes people doubt the whole thing.

That's people's problem then, because if you're trying to study consciousness and the borders of it, the only realistic way to do that is modifying it and seeing how things change. Then theories can be made and tested etc. Psychedelics are naturally great for this as they change consciousness in such radical ways, and many have the feeling that during psychedelic experience they are exposed to the inner workings of their mind rendered in various ways. If there's truth to it, then psychedelics are quite seriously the best scientific tool of the mind we have available.

Reasonable arguments can be made as to how psychedelics are discussed and used to test theories, but the involvement of them in the first place in studying consciousness seems trivially obvious. All other psychoactive substances are applicable as well, but psychedelics seem to be most revealing and applicable.