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.
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!