addictive drugs
boots
>... I have a close relative who I love very
>much, who's crack-addicted. Real-life stuff. He is not a street
>person, or a welfare-person (we are a family of middle class tax-
>payers) - he's a professional in his field. But we are holding out for
>a cure -- for treatment - somehow.
I hope it will not be found offensive that I've taken this comment as
a springboard for a new thread, but given the usual "liar / am-not /
are-too" nature of posts here in mw lately, some actual discussion
might be, if not useful, at least an interesting change of pace.
During the late '60s and early '70s it came about that I found myself
sharing an apartment with a number of other college students who, as
it turns out, were fairly heavily involved in the drug culture of that
time. Compared to what is available today, the drugs involved
(primarily low-potency marijuana, hashish, LSD, and cocaine) were very
tame, but my experiences then did cause some consideration of the
issues involved.
The real issue, in my view, is that the average person is completely
unaware of just how good life can actually be. The effects of the
more common street drugs tend to give the user a taste of life's
transcendental nature, but since the "high" goes away with the drug's
dissipation, the user assumes that the only way to "get high" is by
taking the drug. For a person whose "normal" life tends to be a
little on the low side, the tendency for addiciton can be enormous.
I'm not talking about physical addiction here, I'm talking about
psychological addiction. As anyone who has tried to stop smoking
tobacco will probably understand, the phycial withdrawl is brief and,
compared to the psychological addiction, almost trivial. It is the
psychological addiction that brings the user back again and again and
again.
The psychological addiction exists because the drug provides something
missing from the user's life. The real solution is to find that
something without the drug.
No, I've never used crack cocaine. I tried plain-old cocaine once,
and decided that it was too good to mess with. There are some things
that are too good ever to try at all, and I believe that crack cocaine
is one of them.
It is possible to find that something without the drugs, but the
question remains, without knowing of its existence will one ever look
for it?
I don't have that answer; I took a risk, got a glimpse of it, and for
one reason or another did not become an addict, though I did become a
searcher who explored many disciplines before eventually finding
something satisfactory.
It is my belief that it is possible to overcome the psychological
addiction to any drug by finding something as good or better that is
not a drug; further, I believe that is the only way anyone ever
overcomes a psychological addiction.
--
The sane answer to insanity is madness.
Father Luke
>In another thread the following was written,
>
>>... I have a close relative who I love very
>>much, who's crack-addicted. Real-life stuff. He is not a street
>>person, or a welfare-person (we are a family of middle class tax-
>>payers) - he's a professional in his field. But we are holding out for
>>a cure -- for treatment - somehow.
>
>I hope it will not be found offensive that I've taken this comment as
>a springboard for a new thread, but given the usual "liar / am-not /
>are-too" nature of posts here in mw lately, some actual discussion
>might be, if not useful, at least an interesting change of pace.
Yeah, but it's a writing group. I'm just saying.
>During the late '60s and early '70s it came about that I found myself
>sharing an apartment with a number of other college students who, as
>it turns out, were fairly heavily involved in the drug culture of that
>time.
Then I might know them.
> Compared to what is available today, the drugs involved
>(primarily low-potency marijuana, hashish, LSD, and cocaine) were very
>tame, but my experiences then did cause some consideration of the
>issues involved.
>
>The real issue, in my view, is that the average person is completely
>unaware of just how good life can actually be. The effects of the
>more common street drugs tend to give the user a taste of life's
>transcendental nature, but since the "high" goes away with the drug's
>dissipation, the user assumes that the only way to "get high" is by
>taking the drug. For a person whose "normal" life tends to be a
>little on the low side, the tendency for addiciton can be enormous.
This is called obsession.
>I'm not talking about physical addiction here, I'm talking about
>psychological addiction. As anyone who has tried to stop smoking
>tobacco will probably understand, the phycial withdrawl is brief and,
>compared to the psychological addiction, almost trivial. It is the
>psychological addiction that brings the user back again and again and
>again.
>
>The psychological addiction exists because the drug provides something
>missing from the user's life.
That would be the physical addiction.
> The real solution is to find that
>something without the drug.
>
>No, I've never used crack cocaine. I tried plain-old cocaine once,
>and decided that it was too good to mess with. There are some things
>that are too good ever to try at all, and I believe that crack cocaine
>is one of them.
>
>It is possible to find that something without the drugs, but the
>question remains, without knowing of its existence will one ever look
>for it?
>
>I don't have that answer; I took a risk, got a glimpse of it, and for
>one reason or another did not become an addict, though I did become a
>searcher who explored many disciplines before eventually finding
>something satisfactory.
>
>It is my belief that it is possible to overcome the psychological
>addiction to any drug by finding something as good or better that is
>not a drug; further, I believe that is the only way anyone ever
>overcomes a psychological addiction.
Well, [it] is my belief is nice, but Boots, overcoming addiction is
simply put more complicated than a non-addict's beliefs about it. It
is akin to being under water, and coming up gasping for air.
I worked a telephone crisis line once. A guy called up. He'd jumped
into the San Francisco bay from the Golden Gate bridge.
"I broke every bone on my right side," he told me. "The pain was
intense. Then there came a point when I knew I wasn't going to make it
to the bottom, and I knew I wouldn't be able to make it to the top
before I ran out of air."
That's what recovery is like. IMHO.
--
Okay,
Father Luke
Milt
>
> - Show quoted text -
Dear Boots,
I think I'll play devil's advocate for a moment. Let's suppose that
people who use drugs (expecially the psychomimetics) are correct in
their assumtion that there is something else "out there" and that
drugs can lead to startling revelations. Backing off to a scientific
theorum which has proven itself correct more often than not: Exact
results can only be repeated under the exact same conditions and in
this case, it would mean an exact dosage of the drug that triggered
the brain to the first "too good" outcome.
Unfortunately, the people who grow, manufacture and distribute drugs
do not have an FDA seal of approval and do not manufacture under
exacting conditions. So, dosage and percentage of drug in any two
doses cannot be affirmed as equal. I take meds for diabetes and I
trust when I take a ten milligram dose of a medication, it will be ten
on Monday, Thursday, and for that matter, on the thirty-second of
February. Rigid tests measure the pill and almost as rigid tests
measure me for the outcome of taking the medication.
The other falacy (now switching from devil's advocate to advocate of
not putting anything into my system not granted an FDA seal of
approval) is the drug-taker's assumption that good feelings are
reality. Feelings and thoughts are altered by certain classes of
drugs. I will not say that occasional use for the purpose of escape
from hard reality is all bad. Some people, who fear pain, fear
rejection, fear being less than the next person use drugs to blow away
doubt and pain ... for a few minutes or hours. That is their
privilege as long as they aren't hurting anyone else. The problem is
that they are hurting others. Do you want to drive next to someone
who is high on LSD, alcohol (the most frequently used drug) or even
pot? Do I want my kids exposed to someone in an altered state of
reality if he is, let's say, their gym teacher or even their English
teacher? Let's take it to the extreme: Would you sign off for brain
surgery if you knew the surgeon just snorted a line of coke because he
had been up all the previous night carrousing?
Heavy drug users tend to be among the most selfish people in the
world. They don't care that they just spent the mortgage money on
coke. Their enablers have always found a way around their "fun."
They don't care if they are nodding out and allowing their kids to do
anything they want. They sure don't care that their spouse is getting
a half a human in the kitchen and the bedroom.
So, there is far more to the equasion than some leftover hippie
wanting the ultimate experience. If you have taken drugs, you have
had your ultimate experience long ago. It never gets better. Later
on, it is simply called "chasing the high."
The argument will not end here. Each of us has a decision to make. I
know that when I was diagnosed with diabetes some years ago, the first
question the doctor asked was: Do you smoke, drink or use drugs. My
answer to each respectively was: "not for many years, a glass at
weddings and no." His answer: "You have just increased your likelihood
of long-term survival by about 50%." Everything you do has effect
upon something else. In this case, a set of past decisions are adding
to the probability that I will outlive the doctor who made the
statement!
If you want a far more comprehensive overview of the subject, read
"Journeys to Recovery: Therapy with Addicted Clients." It is still
available in many college and public libraries. It deals with many of
the underlying issues that make up the rationale that supports the
continued use of drugs and looks at alternatives. It was written for
grad students so anyone should be able to read it with ease. Most of
it is stories rather than cold facts. It should be more fun to read
that way.
Lollipops and unicorns,
Milt
Josh Hill
While I agree with most of what you've said, I think that if we're
honest, we'll admit that artificial stimulation of the pleasure
centers by hard drugs like crack and Heroin can produce euphoria that
isn't achievable by natural means, any more than they can produce the
lethal convulsions of tetanus or the electric chair. But, of course,
the addict's life is a hard and not infrequently short one. The
miseries eventually come to outweigh both the pleasures, however
intense, and the fear of withdrawal, or the experiment is cut short by
prison or death. One needn't think very hard to avoid that.
Unfortunately, some find these drugs so addictive, whether because
they're emotionally needy or because their genes gave them susceptible
receptor sites, that it takes nothing more than a childish "I can
handle this" mistake or a weak moment or not knowing what you're
trying to become addicted. And then you're dealing with an illness,
with chemically-induced damage to the very brain centers that
determine motivation and action.
BTW, as I understand it, addiction can last a lot longer than the
initial withdrawal symptoms, though I'm not sure exactly where to draw
the line between physical and psychological addiction, since
psychological addiction corresponds to physical changes in the brain.
Thus even after homeostasis has been restored in the absence of the
drug, the memories of the pleasure remain, and work to tilt our
behavior back towards abuse. It is this phenomenon I think that not
infrequently causes us to become addicted in the first place, because
the remembered pleasures of that first line or cigarette can lead us
to rationalize our way into trying the second and then the third: "I'm
just going to do it at parties," "I'm going to try it just once more,"
yada.
--
Josh
"Paranoia results from a proper perception
of the food chain." - Boots
Kurt Ullman
Josh Hill <usere...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> BTW, as I understand it, addiction can last a lot longer than the
> initial withdrawal symptoms, though I'm not sure exactly where to draw
> the line between physical and psychological addiction, since
> psychological addiction corresponds to physical changes in the brain.
> Thus even after homeostasis has been restored in the absence of the
> drug, the memories of the pleasure remain, and work to tilt our
> behavior back towards abuse. It is this phenomenon I think that not
> infrequently causes us to become addicted in the first place, because
> the remembered pleasures of that first line or cigarette can lead us
> to rationalize our way into trying the second and then the third: "I'm
> just going to do it at parties," "I'm going to try it just once more,"
> yada.
Most of this is due to the upregulation of receptors in the
brain. This means that there are more places for the drug to latch on to
and more places that feel betrayed when the chemical goes away. This is
the basic idea behind most cravings for instance.
boots
>Not too long ago, boots <n...@no.no> wrote:
>
>>In another thread the following was written,
>>
>>>... I have a close relative who I love very
>>>much, who's crack-addicted. Real-life stuff. He is not a street
>>>person, or a welfare-person (we are a family of middle class tax-
>>>payers) - he's a professional in his field. But we are holding out for
>>>a cure -- for treatment - somehow.
>>
>>I hope it will not be found offensive that I've taken this comment as
>>a springboard for a new thread, but given the usual "liar / am-not /
>>are-too" nature of posts here in mw lately, some actual discussion
>>might be, if not useful, at least an interesting change of pace.
>
>Yeah, but it's a writing group. I'm just saying.
"That's a lie. No it's not! Yes it is and you're a liar!" has
something to do with writing, eh? Really. I'm just sayin'.
>>During the late '60s and early '70s it came about that I found myself
>>sharing an apartment with a number of other college students who, as
>>it turns out, were fairly heavily involved in the drug culture of that
>>time.
>
>Then I might know them.
Could be, I lost touch with the last of that bunch a year or two ago
when common interests dwindled to nada, ran into a guy more recently
who had once been busted for bringing 20 tons of weed across the
border from mexico, you never know what folks were doing back then and
everybody seems to have gone his own direction since.
>> Compared to what is available today, the drugs involved
>>(primarily low-potency marijuana, hashish, LSD, and cocaine) were very
>>tame, but my experiences then did cause some consideration of the
>>issues involved.
>>
>>The real issue, in my view, is that the average person is completely
>>unaware of just how good life can actually be. The effects of the
>>more common street drugs tend to give the user a taste of life's
>>transcendental nature, but since the "high" goes away with the drug's
>>dissipation, the user assumes that the only way to "get high" is by
>>taking the drug. For a person whose "normal" life tends to be a
>>little on the low side, the tendency for addiciton can be enormous.
>
>This is called obsession.
I guess you could call a psychological addiction an obsession, or not,
depending on the particulars. I touched some places that I'd never
imagined to exist, and looked for a long time to find a non-drug way
to get to those places. Some folks decided the drug path was good
enough. I remember the one time I tried coke, I learned two things
more or less instantly, and one of them was that if I made a habit of
using coke I'd die with my brain running out my nose so I didn't go
there. Folks are different.
>>I'm not talking about physical addiction here, I'm talking about
>>psychological addiction. As anyone who has tried to stop smoking
>>tobacco will probably understand, the phycial withdrawl is brief and,
>>compared to the psychological addiction, almost trivial. It is the
>>psychological addiction that brings the user back again and again and
>>again.
>>
>>The psychological addiction exists because the drug provides something
>>missing from the user's life.
>
>That would be the physical addiction.
The physical addiction is one thing, sure. But if there wasn't
something else missing, the physical addiction would be similar to a
one-time humongous hangover. Nobody goes back in search of the
hangover.
The part about being stuck between the bottom and the air sounds a lot
like the life I used to live in cubicle city, not quite bad enough to
kill you but plenty bad enough to make you wish it would. Funny thing
is, there are people who aspire to that life, most people call it
things like "normal" and "affluent", I guess hell is where you find
it. The good thing about feeling that way, absolutely doomed, is that
it is very liberating because compared to the way you feel, all the
chains are like nothing. Some folks call it hitting bottom. There
are lots of ways to get there, but once you get there you know where
up is.
boots
>Dear Boots,
>
>I think I'll play devil's advocate for a moment.
That's one approach to discussion.
> Let's suppose that
>people who use drugs (expecially the psychomimetics) are correct in
>their assumtion that there is something else "out there" and that
>drugs can lead to startling revelations.
Whether there is "something else out there" or not depends on where
you start from. I guess there are probably some people who just
naturally grow up experiencing the whole deal. It's been my
experience and my observation that "most" people are living a lukewarm
immitation of life, but that doesn't make it a fact, they could just
be very good actors in cahoots to put one over on the stoopid
hillbilly.
> Backing off to a scientific
>theorum which has proven itself correct more often than not: Exact
>results can only be repeated under the exact same conditions and in
>this case, it would mean an exact dosage of the drug that triggered
>the brain to the first "too good" outcome.
Repeatability isn't a necessary condition for truth, in fact any
experience that changes the observer is inherently non-repeatable
because the observer is no longer exactly as before.
>Unfortunately, the people who grow, manufacture and distribute drugs
>do not have an FDA seal of approval and do not manufacture under
>exacting conditions.
You appear to place a lot more faith in that bureaucratic organization
than I am willing to grant it, the "FDA seal of approval" means no
more to me than "UL Approved", and what "UL Approved" means is that
someone paid UL to test their product and it failed to kill the
testers.
> So, dosage and percentage of drug in any two
>doses cannot be affirmed as equal.
That's irrelevant since we've both observed that any experiment that
involves change in the experimentor is inherently non-reproducible;
it's easy enough to find a thousand healthy rats of the same
approximate age, but impossible to find two humans with an identical
mental state.
> I take meds for diabetes and I
>trust when I take a ten milligram dose of a medication, it will be ten
>on Monday, Thursday, and for that matter, on the thirty-second of
>February. Rigid tests measure the pill and almost as rigid tests
>measure me for the outcome of taking the medication.
That's clearly your belief, but having worked in a process testing
environment, I'm aware that all such tests have boundaries and the
question of whether to pass or fail a given near-boundary batch is
often (perhaps always) a judgement call that can be influenced by any
number of factors. In fact, one 10mg dose may contain 10.15mg and the
next may contain 9.85mg but you can be assured that no batch ever
contains precisely 10.000000000mg.
>The other falacy (now switching from devil's advocate to advocate of
>not putting anything into my system not granted an FDA seal of
>approval)
You've clearly never eaten a can of FDA-approved soup that turned out
to contain the seeds of botulism. Your faith is admirable from one
perspective, and nearly foolhardy from another. A stamp of approval
is just that, it is not an absolute guarantee that a thing is perfect,
only that at the time it was (presumably) tested it wasn't bad enough
to fail the tests. Every can of soup is not tested, or there would be
none arriving at the grocer's, it is the process that is judged, and
samples of the product, not every bit of it.
> is the drug-taker's assumption that good feelings are
>reality. Feelings and thoughts are altered by certain classes of
>drugs.
Feelings are real, it is their alignment with reality that can be in
question; if you feel that you can fly that is a real feeling, but you
are probably well-advised not to test it at too great a height.
> I will not say that occasional use for the purpose of escape
>from hard reality is all bad.
That depends on what your "hard reality" consists of. Certainly many
people get drunk on Friday night to help them make the transition from
the world of the office or the factory to another world in which they
can function with some level of happiness. To what degree is that a
valid activity, well I'd say that depends on just how shitty your
"real" life is.
> Some people, who fear pain, fear
>rejection, fear being less than the next person use drugs to blow away
>doubt and pain ... for a few minutes or hours.
Some people who fear death use drugs to blow away the probability of a
near-term death for a few minutes or a few hours... sometimes
FDA-approved drugs, such as drugs to treat diabetes. Drugs consist of
chemical substances. Foods consist of chemical substances. The line
between them can seem clear or fuzzy.
> That is their
>privilege as long as they aren't hurting anyone else.
Everything a person can do is their privilege whether or not it hurts
anyone else, and the consequences of their actions are their own.
> The problem is
>that they are hurting others.
Perhaps, perhaps not, almost any blanket statement is biased toward
incorrectness.
> Do you want to drive next to someone
>who is high on LSD, alcohol (the most frequently used drug) or even
>pot?
I would prefer to drive next to someone stoned out of his mind on acid
than someone in a state of road-rage because of his "hard reality"
stresses. The simple fact of the matter is that I consider every
vehicle in my vicinity to be a moving obstruction that may be guided
by a mental defective or a vicious criminal, and I give none of them
any more of a chance to do me harm if that is absolutely necessary. A
turn signal can be meaningful or not, I believe it indicates that a
turn will be executed when I see the vehicle complete its turn.
> Do I want my kids exposed to someone in an altered state of
>reality if he is, let's say, their gym teacher or even their English
>teacher?
If you have children in the public school system the least of your
worries is a teacher in an altered state of awareness, their
non-altered state of awareness is probably much more dangerous and
abusive. The fact that a state of awareness is "altered" is
meaningless, what is meaningful is what it is altered from and what it
is altered to. Which is more hazardous, a person whose consciousness
is altered to a place where he is better able to cope because he has
take drugs, or a person whose consciousness is less able to cope
because he hasn't taken his psych-meds? Neither is optimal, but I
think making blanket judgements about either is silly.
> Let's take it to the extreme: Would you sign off for brain
>surgery if you knew the surgeon just snorted a line of coke because he
>had been up all the previous night carrousing?
I wouldn't sign off for a brain surgery period. Doctors are, in my
experience, less capable of fixing something than an apprentice auto
mechanic. If I generate myself a brain tumor, so be it. If I die
from cancer, so be it. If I die because a truck runs over me or an
asteroid falls on my head, so be it. The point is, I don't get to
pick how I die, but I do get to pick who I let screw around with
things they don't fully understand. And if you believe that doctors
fully understand the human body you should tell them to immediately
cancel their costly malpractice insurance.
>Heavy drug users tend to be among the most selfish people in the
>world. They don't care that they just spent the mortgage money on
>coke. Their enablers have always found a way around their "fun."
>They don't care if they are nodding out and allowing their kids to do
>anything they want. They sure don't care that their spouse is getting
>a half a human in the kitchen and the bedroom.
I'd say that corporate executives are among the most selfish people in
the world.
>So, there is far more to the equasion than some leftover hippie
>wanting the ultimate experience. If you have taken drugs, you have
>had your ultimate experience long ago. It never gets better. Later
>on, it is simply called "chasing the high."
There is a thing called "chasing the high". The second time that I
smoked pot I was chasing the high, and after the second time I knew
that chasing it via drugs was not the answer. It does get better,
much better, or not, depending on where you were at the beginning and
how you proceed.
>The argument will not end here. Each of us has a decision to make.
Each of us has many decisions to make.
> I know that when I was diagnosed with diabetes some years ago, the first
>question the doctor asked was: Do you smoke, drink or use drugs. My
>answer to each respectively was: "not for many years, a glass at
>weddings and no." His answer: "You have just increased your likelihood
>of long-term survival by about 50%."
Probability does not apply to survival; in the long term nobody
survives, in the short term you can be struck by lightning or run down
by a truck.
> Everything you do has effect
>upon something else. In this case, a set of past decisions are adding
>to the probability that I will outlive the doctor who made the
>statement!
>
>If you want a far more comprehensive overview of the subject, read
>"Journeys to Recovery: Therapy with Addicted Clients." It is still
>available in many college and public libraries. It deals with many of
>the underlying issues that make up the rationale that supports the
>continued use of drugs and looks at alternatives. It was written for
>grad students so anyone should be able to read it with ease. Most of
>it is stories rather than cold facts. It should be more fun to read
>that way.
My dad was diagnosed as having diabetes. He took his meds, he altered
his diet. He quit smoking because he didn't want to get cancer. He
died of a heart attack. My sister-in-law never smoked a cigarette in
her life and she got cancer.
I smoke like a chimney, I eat what I choose, I will die when it is
time but by gawd until then I will live.
>Lollipops and unicorns,
Every time I read that, I wonder what it means. Fucksake.
boots
I don't know that to be a fact because I've never used crack or heroin
thus your references to their stimulation of the pleasure centers are
not meaningful to me other than as abstractions.
I do know for a fact that mental states of euphoria generally believed
to be impossible can be achieved by means other than chemical
stimulation.
> any more than they can produce the
>lethal convulsions of tetanus or the electric chair.
Convulsions and death can occur as natural processes; not all
epileptics live a "normal" span of years, and tetanus can be
considered quite "natural".
> But, of course,
>the addict's life is a hard and not infrequently short one. The
>miseries eventually come to outweigh both the pleasures, however
>intense, and the fear of withdrawal, or the experiment is cut short by
>prison or death. One needn't think very hard to avoid that.
Everybody's life is hard and short, though not everybody realizes it;
is it necessarily better to lengthen the timespan and reduce the heat,
when in the end your goose is cooked either way?
>Unfortunately, some find these drugs so addictive, whether because
>they're emotionally needy or because their genes gave them susceptible
>receptor sites, that it takes nothing more than a childish "I can
>handle this" mistake or a weak moment or not knowing what you're
>trying to become addicted. And then you're dealing with an illness,
>with chemically-induced damage to the very brain centers that
>determine motivation and action.
>
>BTW, as I understand it, addiction can last a lot longer than the
>initial withdrawal symptoms, though I'm not sure exactly where to draw
>the line between physical and psychological addiction, since
>psychological addiction corresponds to physical changes in the brain.
>Thus even after homeostasis has been restored in the absence of the
>drug, the memories of the pleasure remain, and work to tilt our
>behavior back towards abuse. It is this phenomenon I think that not
>infrequently causes us to become addicted in the first place, because
>the remembered pleasures of that first line or cigarette can lead us
>to rationalize our way into trying the second and then the third: "I'm
>just going to do it at parties," "I'm going to try it just once more,"
>yada.
There are certainly a lot of games we can play with ourselves.
Josh Hill
>Josh Hill <usere...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>While I agree with most of what you've said, I think that if we're
>>honest, we'll admit that artificial stimulation of the pleasure
>>centers by hard drugs like crack and Heroin can produce euphoria that
>>isn't achievable by natural means,
>
>I don't know that to be a fact because I've never used crack or heroin
>thus your references to their stimulation of the pleasure centers are
>not meaningful to me other than as abstractions.
The testimony of others should do here. It's not something you ever
want to discover yourself!
>I do know for a fact that mental states of euphoria generally believed
>to be impossible can be achieved by means other than chemical
>stimulation.
Sure. Nirvana/trance state. Not that difficult to do if you're into
that kind of masturbation.
Which being said, I think there's more to life than that sort of
pleasure. Seriously. It's sort of a cheap supermarket food pleasure,
lots of hydrogenated vegetable oil and salt and corn sweetener and
MSG.
>> any more than they can produce the
>>lethal convulsions of tetanus or the electric chair.
>
>Convulsions and death can occur as natural processes; not all
>epileptics live a "normal" span of years, and tetanus can be
>considered quite "natural".
Serious brain damage and neurotoxins are natural, yes, but then so are
opium and cocaine. I think you get my point: you aren't going to get
to this stage on willpower alone, because any prospective ancestors of
yours that had the genetic ability to do that weren't.
>> But, of course,
>>the addict's life is a hard and not infrequently short one. The
>>miseries eventually come to outweigh both the pleasures, however
>>intense, and the fear of withdrawal, or the experiment is cut short by
>>prison or death. One needn't think very hard to avoid that.
>
>Everybody's life is hard and short, though not everybody realizes it;
>is it necessarily better to lengthen the timespan and reduce the heat,
>when in the end your goose is cooked either way?
Nothing is necessary. The rest is instinct, fear of death and joy in
life. If you aren't experiencing that joy -- well, reminds me of
something a friend said when I tried to convince her to get off
Heroin: It's the first time in my life that I've been happy. Shit. I
couldn't argue with that. She caught AIDS, her boyfriend died of it. I
don't know if she's still alive.
--
Josh
"Vista is at best mildly annoying and at worst makes you want
to rush to Redmond, Washington and rip somebody's liver out."
- Stephen Manes
chris....@gmail.com
> It is my belief that it is possible to overcome the psychological
> addiction to any drug by finding something as good or better that is
> not a drug; further, I believe that is the only way anyone ever
> overcomes a psychological addiction.
Filling in the holes with something else.Okay. Then what? When you've
substituted running or Jesus, then everything will be okay?
You don't sound like yourself. I assume your stiffness here comes from
wanting to be tender around Ing's feelings and produce something
positive.
None of it stops up the innate human need to seek information,
pleasure, variety, and risk, never mind getting to the root of our
longing.
Chris.tine
Kurt Ullman
boots <n...@no.no> wrote:
>
> You appear to place a lot more faith in that bureaucratic organization
> than I am willing to grant it, the "FDA seal of approval" means no
> more to me than "UL Approved", and what "UL Approved" means is that
> someone paid UL to test their product and it failed to kill the
> testers.
>
If you boil down THAT IS the FDA's legal mandate (as opposed to trying
to suck up Congress critters and their perpetual twittering).
Father Luke
Duh.
> or not,
>depending on the particulars. I touched some places that I'd never
>imagined to exist,
That was the physical effects. That would be the physical addiciton.
> and looked for a long time to find a non-drug way
>to get to those places.
Say it with me: Obsession
--
Okay,
Father Luke
boots
Or not, depending on the particulars.
>> or not,
>>depending on the particulars. I touched some places that I'd never
>>imagined to exist,
>
>That was the physical effects. That would be the physical addiciton.
That would be what you wish to believe.
>> and looked for a long time to find a non-drug way
>>to get to those places.
>
>Say it with me: Obsession
Say it with me: lost priest argues that what he lost can only be found
his way.
boots
>On Thu, 21 Jun 2007 04:37:50 -0600, boots <n...@no.no> wrote:
>
>>Josh Hill <usere...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>>While I agree with most of what you've said, I think that if we're
>>>honest, we'll admit that artificial stimulation of the pleasure
>>>centers by hard drugs like crack and Heroin can produce euphoria that
>>>isn't achievable by natural means,
>>
>>I don't know that to be a fact because I've never used crack or heroin
>>thus your references to their stimulation of the pleasure centers are
>>not meaningful to me other than as abstractions.
>
>The testimony of others should do here. It's not something you ever
>want to discover yourself!
As mentioned earlier, some things are too dangerous to mess with.
As for "the testimony of others", it's just that.
>>I do know for a fact that mental states of euphoria generally believed
>>to be impossible can be achieved by means other than chemical
>>stimulation.
>
>Sure. Nirvana/trance state. Not that difficult to do if you're into
>that kind of masturbation.
Masturbation is an activity with exactly one participant.
>Which being said, I think there's more to life than that sort of
>pleasure. Seriously. It's sort of a cheap supermarket food pleasure,
>lots of hydrogenated vegetable oil and salt and corn sweetener and
>MSG.
>
>>> any more than they can produce the
>>>lethal convulsions of tetanus or the electric chair.
>>
>>Convulsions and death can occur as natural processes; not all
>>epileptics live a "normal" span of years, and tetanus can be
>>considered quite "natural".
>
>Serious brain damage and neurotoxins are natural, yes, but then so are
>opium and cocaine. I think you get my point: you aren't going to get
>to this stage on willpower alone,
Willpower has little to do with it.
> because any prospective ancestors of
>yours that had the genetic ability to do that weren't.
Sorry, that chunk'o'sentence doesn't compute.
>>> But, of course,
>>>the addict's life is a hard and not infrequently short one. The
>>>miseries eventually come to outweigh both the pleasures, however
>>>intense, and the fear of withdrawal, or the experiment is cut short by
>>>prison or death. One needn't think very hard to avoid that.
>>
>>Everybody's life is hard and short, though not everybody realizes it;
>>is it necessarily better to lengthen the timespan and reduce the heat,
>>when in the end your goose is cooked either way?
>
>Nothing is necessary.
That depends on what path you wish to take.
> The rest is instinct, fear of death and joy in
>life. If you aren't experiencing that joy -- well, reminds me of
>something a friend said when I tried to convince her to get off
>Heroin: It's the first time in my life that I've been happy. Shit. I
>couldn't argue with that. She caught AIDS, her boyfriend died of it. I
>don't know if she's still alive.
It's not that you live or die that matters, it's how.
boots
>On Jun 20, 1:05 am, boots <n...@no.no> wrote:
>> It is my belief that it is possible to overcome the psychological
>> addiction to any drug by finding something as good or better that is
>> not a drug; further, I believe that is the only way anyone ever
>> overcomes a psychological addiction.
>
>Filling in the holes with something else.Okay. Then what? When you've
>substituted running or Jesus, then everything will be okay?
Is running better than good dope? I used to be a runner. Ugh, if
that's as good as it gets, pass the bong. Jesus? No thanks, I don't
knowingly drink blood or eat human flesh.
>You don't sound like yourself. I assume your stiffness here comes from
>wanting to be tender around Ing's feelings and produce something
>positive.
I don't want to cause Ing any further pain, no. Nor do I especially
want to be the guy in the barrel at the next gangfuck.
>None of it stops up the innate human need to seek information,
>pleasure, variety, and risk, never mind getting to the root of our
>longing.
Yah, I'd agree with that, but I don't exactly get the point you're
trying to make by saying it.
Josh Hill
>Josh Hill <usere...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>On Thu, 21 Jun 2007 04:37:50 -0600, boots <n...@no.no> wrote:
>>
>>>Josh Hill <usere...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>>While I agree with most of what you've said, I think that if we're
>>>>honest, we'll admit that artificial stimulation of the pleasure
>>>>centers by hard drugs like crack and Heroin can produce euphoria that
>>>>isn't achievable by natural means,
>>>
>>>I don't know that to be a fact because I've never used crack or heroin
>>>thus your references to their stimulation of the pleasure centers are
>>>not meaningful to me other than as abstractions.
>>
>>The testimony of others should do here. It's not something you ever
>>want to discover yourself!
>
>As mentioned earlier, some things are too dangerous to mess with.
>
>As for "the testimony of others", it's just that.
Ain't seen much of anyone contradicting it. A few, e.g., the friend
who told me once that he'd tried crack once and he didn't think it was
so good. Genetics, I suspect.
>>>I do know for a fact that mental states of euphoria generally believed
>>>to be impossible can be achieved by means other than chemical
>>>stimulation.
>>
>>Sure. Nirvana/trance state. Not that difficult to do if you're into
>>that kind of masturbation.
>
>Masturbation is an activity with exactly one participant.
>
>>Which being said, I think there's more to life than that sort of
>>pleasure. Seriously. It's sort of a cheap supermarket food pleasure,
>>lots of hydrogenated vegetable oil and salt and corn sweetener and
>>MSG.
>>
>>>> any more than they can produce the
>>>>lethal convulsions of tetanus or the electric chair.
>>>
>>>Convulsions and death can occur as natural processes; not all
>>>epileptics live a "normal" span of years, and tetanus can be
>>>considered quite "natural".
>>
>>Serious brain damage and neurotoxins are natural, yes, but then so are
>>opium and cocaine. I think you get my point: you aren't going to get
>>to this stage on willpower alone,
>
>Willpower has little to do with it.
Brain power, then. I'm suggesting that what you're trying to do is
outside the brain's design parameters, because of selection pressure:
pleasure is part of the mechanism of motivation, an animal that can
feel great pleasure whenever it wants will lose its motivation and is
unlikely to reproduce.
>> because any prospective ancestors of
>>yours that had the genetic ability to do that weren't.
>
>Sorry, that chunk'o'sentence doesn't compute.
Drat. Another supremely clever witticism wasted on th' unperceiving
masses!
>>>> But, of course,
>>>>the addict's life is a hard and not infrequently short one. The
>>>>miseries eventually come to outweigh both the pleasures, however
>>>>intense, and the fear of withdrawal, or the experiment is cut short by
>>>>prison or death. One needn't think very hard to avoid that.
>>>
>>>Everybody's life is hard and short, though not everybody realizes it;
>>>is it necessarily better to lengthen the timespan and reduce the heat,
>>>when in the end your goose is cooked either way?
>>
>>Nothing is necessary.
>
>That depends on what path you wish to take.
>
>> The rest is instinct, fear of death and joy in
>>life. If you aren't experiencing that joy -- well, reminds me of
>>something a friend said when I tried to convince her to get off
>>Heroin: It's the first time in my life that I've been happy. Shit. I
>>couldn't argue with that. She caught AIDS, her boyfriend died of it. I
>>don't know if she's still alive.
>
>It's not that you live or die that matters, it's how.
I don't think anything matters in the cosmic sense. Existence and
non-existence are the same. All possibilities occur. Sounds like new
age crap but it ain't: it's modern physics coupled with the
observation that the essence of a conservation law or symmetry is that
things must sum to zip, that what we perceive as asymmetries are
merely complex symmetries only partially glimpsed.
I'd argue that from a subjective perspective, life and death do matter
insofar as they're components of the emotional web that determines
whether we're happy or not.
Josh Hill
>"chris....@gmail.com" <chris....@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>Is running better than good dope? I used to be a runner. Ugh, if
>that's as good as it gets, pass the bong. Jesus? No thanks, I don't
>knowingly drink blood or eat human flesh.
Dude, you have clearly not tried running for Jesus. Try it, preferably
while reading about cats and cooking.
John Ashby
> On Fri, 22 Jun 2007 03:38:53 -0600, boots <n...@no.no> wrote:
>
>>"chris....@gmail.com" <chris....@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>Is running better than good dope? I used to be a runner. Ugh, if
>>that's as good as it gets, pass the bong. Jesus? No thanks, I don't
>>knowingly drink blood or eat human flesh.
>
> Dude, you have clearly not tried running for Jesus.
He'd never get elected.
john
G Suess Christ
"John Ashby" <J.V....@rl.ac.uk> wrote in message
news:f5gmpj$lqu$1...@south.jnrs.ja.net...
If nominated I will not run.
If elected I will not serve, in heaven.
If crucified I will not die.
Josh Hill
wrote:
Don't be too sure:
Jesus of Nazereth?
He sold you loaves -- but gave you only fishes.
He promised water -- and served intoxicating beverages to minors.
He was absent from his resurrection duties for 40 days while he
vacationed with Satan at a Sinai resort.
Boots will do the job you crucify him for.
Boots will be tough on prostitution.
Boots will never comport with publicans.
Boots will never interfere with the duties of law-abiding lenders.
Vote salvation. Vote boots.
gekko
> Is running better than good dope?
Better for you, but running sucks, man. Running hurts. Running makes
your hips and knees hurt. Running ruins your joints and I ain't
talking rolled weed, man. Running is *evil*.
I'm not a fan of dope, either. I don't like the weak, out-of-control-
of-myself feeling it gives me. I don't like the disorientation. But
it doesn't fuck up your joints ...
Is there a "c" somewhere in there?
--
gekko
Honesty IS the best policy unless you're an exceptionally good liar.
Father Luke
>Say it with me: lost priest argues that what he lost can only be found
>his way.
What I am arguing, from experience, is that addiction is a two fold
disease, fuck-o.
--
Okay,
Father Luke
boots
>Not too long ago, boots wrote:
>
>
>>Say it with me: lost priest argues that what he lost can only be found
>>his way.
>
>
>What I am arguing, from experience, is that addiction is a two fold
>disease,
If you want to say something, say it clearly.
What you were arguing is that only your perception of my experiences
is correct.
> fuck-o.
Your expressive abilities are exemplary and command only my utmost
respect, Father luke.
boots
>On Fri, 22 Jun 2007 03:31:37 -0600, boots <n...@no.no> wrote:
>
>>Josh Hill <usere...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>>On Thu, 21 Jun 2007 04:37:50 -0600, boots <n...@no.no> wrote:
>>>
>>>>Josh Hill <usere...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>While I agree with most of what you've said, I think that if we're
>>>>>honest, we'll admit that artificial stimulation of the pleasure
>>>>>centers by hard drugs like crack and Heroin can produce euphoria that
>>>>>isn't achievable by natural means,
>>>>
>>>>I don't know that to be a fact because I've never used crack or heroin
>>>>thus your references to their stimulation of the pleasure centers are
>>>>not meaningful to me other than as abstractions.
>>>
>>>The testimony of others should do here. It's not something you ever
>>>want to discover yourself!
>>
>>As mentioned earlier, some things are too dangerous to mess with.
>>
>>As for "the testimony of others", it's just that.
>
>Ain't seen much of anyone contradicting it.
Sometimes what the general public perceives turns out to be correct,
but it's not always safe to assume that it will be.
> A few, e.g., the friend
>who told me once that he'd tried crack once and he didn't think it was
>so good. Genetics, I suspect.
Maybe he already had something better to compare it with, maybe he was
a mutant, guessing is just that.
>>>>I do know for a fact that mental states of euphoria generally believed
>>>>to be impossible can be achieved by means other than chemical
>>>>stimulation.
>>>
>>>Sure. Nirvana/trance state. Not that difficult to do if you're into
>>>that kind of masturbation.
>>
>>Masturbation is an activity with exactly one participant.
>>
>>>Which being said, I think there's more to life than that sort of
>>>pleasure. Seriously. It's sort of a cheap supermarket food pleasure,
>>>lots of hydrogenated vegetable oil and salt and corn sweetener and
>>>MSG.
>>>
>>>>> any more than they can produce the
>>>>>lethal convulsions of tetanus or the electric chair.
>>>>
>>>>Convulsions and death can occur as natural processes; not all
>>>>epileptics live a "normal" span of years, and tetanus can be
>>>>considered quite "natural".
>>>
>>>Serious brain damage and neurotoxins are natural, yes, but then so are
>>>opium and cocaine. I think you get my point: you aren't going to get
>>>to this stage on willpower alone,
>>
>>Willpower has little to do with it.
>
>Brain power, then. I'm suggesting that what you're trying to do is
>outside the brain's design parameters, because of selection pressure:
>pleasure is part of the mechanism of motivation, an animal that can
>feel great pleasure whenever it wants will lose its motivation and is
>unlikely to reproduce.
It sounds like you're making an assumption here, that the only things
one can gain from a drug experience is physical pleasure. That might
be the general case for all I know, but I personally have never
experienced physical pleasure as a direct result of taking any drug
(or prescription medication for that matter). Enhanced sensitivity in
some cases, but not direct stimulation of pleasure centers. New
perceptions, perspectives, and insights yes; physical pleasure no.
>>> because any prospective ancestors of
>>>yours that had the genetic ability to do that weren't.
>>
>>Sorry, that chunk'o'sentence doesn't compute.
>
>Drat. Another supremely clever witticism wasted on th' unperceiving
>masses!
One tries, one learns, one carries on.
Whatever floats yer boat.
boots
I'd fucking hope not, the initiation into office sounds much to severe
for an aging pussy like me.
boots
>On Fri, 22 Jun 2007 15:36:36 +0100, John Ashby <J.V....@rl.ac.uk>
>wrote:
>
>>Josh Hill wrote:
>>
>>> On Fri, 22 Jun 2007 03:38:53 -0600, boots <n...@no.no> wrote:
>>>
>>>>"chris....@gmail.com" <chris....@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>Is running better than good dope? I used to be a runner. Ugh, if
>>>>that's as good as it gets, pass the bong. Jesus? No thanks, I don't
>>>>knowingly drink blood or eat human flesh.
>>>
>>> Dude, you have clearly not tried running for Jesus.
>>
>>He'd never get elected.
>
>Don't be too sure:
>
>Jesus of Nazereth?
>
>He sold you loaves -- but gave you only fishes.
>
>He promised water -- and served intoxicating beverages to minors.
>
>He was absent from his resurrection duties for 40 days while he
>vacationed with Satan at a Sinai resort.
>
>Boots will do the job you crucify him for.
>
>Boots will be tough on prostitution.
>
>Boots will never comport with publicans.
>
>Boots will never interfere with the duties of law-abiding lenders.
>
>Vote salvation. Vote boots.
If you get boots elected to a crucifixion office, you'd better pray
that he fucking dies deader than a hammer during the initiation,
because if he doesn't he'll find you and jam a very sharp sword up
your fat ass until it reaches the interior of your skull; get thee
behind me, fuckwit.
boots
>And it came to pass that boots <n...@no.no> wrote:
>
>
>> Is running better than good dope?
>
>Better for you, but running sucks, man. Running hurts. Running makes
>your hips and knees hurt. Running ruins your joints and I ain't
>talking rolled weed, man. Running is *evil*.
I wouldn't call it evil, just hugely boring. A good half-hour workout
(ex, kundalini sun salutation) before running can prevent the damage
to knees, ankles, hips etc, and effective pranayama can make it easier
to find that resting-as-you-run place, but it's still a buttload of
work for not that much on the benefits side. I mean, you're gonna die
anyway, so why not do something enjoyable in the meantime instead of
indulging in boring masochism? Fucksake, the best part of a really
good run is a hot shower and nap afterwards.
>I'm not a fan of dope, either. I don't like the weak, out-of-control-
>of-myself feeling it gives me. I don't like the disorientation. But
>it doesn't fuck up your joints ...
People mess with drugs for various reasons. If they make you feel a
loss of control that means you've taken too much. The crap that's
going around these days is so potent that it's very difficult not to
do that. Your body can make the good stuff anyway, why bother with
street drugs when there's no benefit.
>Is there a "c" somewhere in there?
UCDEDBDB? ICDEDBDB. C? EDBDB.
Father Luke
Boots wrote:
>If you want to say something, say it clearly.
Snort.
--
Okay,
Father Luke
boots
>
> Boots wrote:
>
>>If you want to say something, say it clearly.
>
>Snort.
Sorry Pops, I don't use coke, snuff, or anything else that you snort.
Father Luke
boots wrote:
> I don't use coke, snuff, or anything
So, what foundation do you have for discussing addictive drugs, then,
boots? What possible experience are you bringing to the table?
No matter how well thought out your theories are, they are just that:
theories. What personal experience, what life experience, can you
offer, regarding the topic you put forth for discussion, that ring
true for me?
So far you've put a lot of bullshit on the table, and I'm not buying
it.
--
Okay,
Father Luke
$Zero
[...]
> No matter how well thought out your theories are, they are just that:
> theories. What personal experience, what life experience, can you
> offer, regarding the topic you put forth for discussion, that ring
> true for me?
>
> So far you've put a lot of bullshit on the table, and I'm not buying
> it.
DIBS!
-$Zero...
because great thinkers are a dime a dozen...
http://groups.google.com/group/megablog/msg/1dc33bb193ac8f58
boots
> boots wrote:
>
>> I don't use coke, snuff, or anything
...that you snort.
>So, what foundation do you have for discussing addictive drugs, then,
>boots? What possible experience are you bringing to the table?
That's a legitimate question. I've been addicted to a number of
substances that don't qualify as foods. I've learned the difference
between physical addiction and psychological addiction. I've learned
the difference between addiction and preference. From experience.
I'm not, and haven't intentionally presented myself as, any kind of an
expert on being addicted to "hard" drugs such as crack or heroin. On
the other hand, having been physically and/or psychologically addicted
to a few non-food substances, I've reached some level of understanding
of the general process.
Is that useful? Is the thread itself useful? Maybe so, maybe not.
>No matter how well thought out your theories are, they are just that:
>theories. What personal experience, what life experience, can you
>offer, regarding the topic you put forth for discussion, that ring
>true for me?
There's no way for me to tell what might ring true for you.
>So far you've put a lot of bullshit on the table, and I'm not buying
>it.
So far you haven't put anything at all on the table except that you've
worked as some kind of hotline attendant, and any sunday-school
teacher can put that on the table. Most of your commentary in this
thread has been skepticism or insult, Father "fuck-o", so let's try
and move past that to something at least potentially useful, eh?
I can tell you this much, if a person's life is shit and they have
access to drugs that make it seem less like shit, they're prime
candidates for addiction of either the physical or psychological form.
How do you get back from addiction? Well that depends, doesn't it.
If the physical withdrawl doesn't kill you, there's a chance to get
back. The less like shit your life seems, the better your chances
are.
boots
Pussies don't have the guts to come out and say their piece, they just
hang onto what others say; what are you, $Zero? A "great thinker"?
Josh Hill
>Josh Hill <usere...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>On Fri, 22 Jun 2007 03:31:37 -0600, boots <n...@no.no> wrote:
>>
>>>Josh Hill <usere...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>>On Thu, 21 Jun 2007 04:37:50 -0600, boots <n...@no.no> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>Josh Hill <usere...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>>While I agree with most of what you've said, I think that if we're
>>>>>>honest, we'll admit that artificial stimulation of the pleasure
>>>>>>centers by hard drugs like crack and Heroin can produce euphoria that
>>>>>>isn't achievable by natural means,
>>>>>
>>>>>I don't know that to be a fact because I've never used crack or heroin
>>>>>thus your references to their stimulation of the pleasure centers are
>>>>>not meaningful to me other than as abstractions.
>>>>
>>>>The testimony of others should do here. It's not something you ever
>>>>want to discover yourself!
>>>
>>>As mentioned earlier, some things are too dangerous to mess with.
>>>
>>>As for "the testimony of others", it's just that.
>>
>>Ain't seen much of anyone contradicting it.
>
>Sometimes what the general public perceives turns out to be correct,
>but it's not always safe to assume that it will be.
True, but I'm not going by what the general public perceives here.
>> A few, e.g., the friend
>>who told me once that he'd tried crack once and he didn't think it was
>>so good. Genetics, I suspect.
>
>Maybe he already had something better to compare it with, maybe he was
>a mutant, guessing is just that.
Neither really hold.
You're equating stimulation of the pleasure centers with physical
pleasure. But it's not the same thing. Kurt could no doubt explain it.
Me, I can just point to those lab studies of rats that push levers to
get cocaine and some vaguely-remember articles in Scientific American
and all that research that shows that just about all drugs of abuse by
which they actually mean drugs of fun stimulate the dopamine pathways
and create some degree of euphoria, just as pleasurable activities do.
As to physical pleasure, some drugs e.g. cocaine do seem to work
largely as amplifiers of pleasurable stimulation, but if you're
talking really hard drugs you're also talking about a body rush.
$Zero
> $Zero <z...@whooooooosh.com> wrote:
> > Father Luke <FatherL...@peace.baby> wrote:
>
> >[...]
>
> >> No matter how well thought out your theories are, they are just that:
> >> theories. What personal experience, what life experience, can you
> >> offer, regarding the topic you put forth for discussion, that ring
> >> true for me?
>
> >> So far you've put a lot of bullshit on the table, and I'm not buying
> >> it.
>
> >DIBS!
>
> >-$Zero...
>
> >because great thinkers are a dime a dozen...
> >http://groups.google.com/group/megablog/msg/1dc33bb193ac8f58
>
> Pussies don't have the guts to come out and say their piece, they just
> hang onto what others say; what are you, $Zero? A "great thinker"?
yep.
-$Zero...
way too many interesting people to make money at it anymore
http://groups.google.com/group/megablog/msg/8804d46a71eeffb5
$Zero
Laurie Anderson
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FeyGTmw0I0
regarding Paradise.
Father Luke
boots wrote:
>Father Luke <Fathe...@peace.baby> wrote:
>
>> boots wrote:
>>
>>> I don't use coke, snuff, or anything
>
>...that you snort.
One more time?
>>So, what foundation do you have for discussing addictive drugs, then,
>>boots? What possible experience are you bringing to the table?
>
>That's a legitimate question. I've been addicted to a number of
>substances that don't qualify as foods. I've learned the difference
>between physical addiction and psychological addiction. I've learned
>the difference between addiction and preference. From experience.
Your faith in nothing is deceiving you., boots. Addiction is a two
fold process, i.e. A physical addiction coupled with a psychological
addiction.
>I'm not, and haven't intentionally presented myself as, any kind of an
>expert on being addicted to "hard" drugs such as crack or heroin. On
>the other hand, having been physically and/or psychologically addicted
>to a few non-food substances, I've reached some level of understanding
>of the general process.
Do you understand it, or not?
>Is that useful? Is the thread itself useful? Maybe so, maybe not.
>>No matter how well thought out your theories are, they are just that:
>>theories. What personal experience, what life experience, can you
>>offer, regarding the topic you put forth for discussion, that ring
>>true for me?
>
>There's no way for me to tell what might ring true for you.
Present something from your experience, something from anyone's
experience, something besides fantasy. Present facts, details,
concrete evidence, or interesting analogies. Something.
>>So far you've put a lot of bullshit on the table, and I'm not buying
>>it.
>
>So far you haven't put anything at all on the table except that you've
>worked as some kind of hotline attendant, and any sunday-school
>teacher can put that on the table. Most of your commentary in this
>thread has been skepticism or insult, Father "fuck-o", so let's try
>and move past that to something at least potentially useful, eh?
Uh...
>I can tell you this much, if a person's life is shit and they have
>access to drugs that make it seem less like shit, they're prime
>candidates for addiction of either the physical or psychological form.
>How do you get back from addiction? Well that depends, doesn't it.
>If the physical withdrawl doesn't kill you, there's a chance to get
>back. The less like shit your life seems, the better your chances
>are.
Ever looked into something called "Rat Park?"You should. I'd, uh,
discuss it with you, but I have some coke to snort with my Sunday
school children.
Cunt.
--
Okay,
Father Luke
boots
> boots wrote:
>
>>Father Luke <Fathe...@peace.baby> wrote:
>>
>>> boots wrote:
>>>
>>>> I don't use coke, snuff, or anything
>>
>>...that you snort.
>
>One more time?
As many times as it takes, Father "fuck-o".
>>>So, what foundation do you have for discussing addictive drugs, then,
>>>boots? What possible experience are you bringing to the table?
>>
>>That's a legitimate question. I've been addicted to a number of
>>substances that don't qualify as foods. I've learned the difference
>>between physical addiction and psychological addiction. I've learned
>>the difference between addiction and preference. From experience.
>
>Your faith in nothing is deceiving you., boots.
What is this "faith in nothing" of which you speek, Ff? Really, I'm
interested to know. Do you think that because I view data objectively
before assigning it to a fact/fiction bin that I assign nothing to the
fact bin? Do you think that I'm an atheist? Do you think I have
faith in a nonexistent god? Is there something else you're referring
to here?
> Addiction is a two
>fold process, i.e. A physical addiction coupled with a psychological
>addiction.
You're arguing with yourself over that one, Ff. You might note that
you yourself have used the separate terms "physical addiction" and
"psychological addiction" to describe "addiction", which makes it
pretty clear that there are two different types of, or aspects to,
addiction. They're both based on need though, one is based on the
body's need and the other is based on the mind's need. In the final
analysis they're one thing and it's based on spiritual need, and a
matter of looking wherever you need to look to satisfy that spiritual
need as best you can.
>>I'm not, and haven't intentionally presented myself as, any kind of an
>>expert on being addicted to "hard" drugs such as crack or heroin. On
>>the other hand, having been physically and/or psychologically addicted
>>to a few non-food substances, I've reached some level of understanding
>>of the general process.
>
>Do you understand it, or not?
That depends a bit on what one means by "understand", people have
different criteria for what they consider to be "understood". I'm
fairly critical on that one. I'd say that I "understand" it, but
someone else might not come to the same conclusion. Let's say that
(a) chances are decent that I could smoke crack without having to
break more than a physical addiction, and (b) there is no reward for
taking the risk of finding out. I have what I need, searching in the
crack world would be pointless for me at this stage of the game.
>>Is that useful? Is the thread itself useful? Maybe so, maybe not.
>
>>>No matter how well thought out your theories are, they are just that:
>>>theories. What personal experience, what life experience, can you
>>>offer, regarding the topic you put forth for discussion, that ring
>>>true for me?
>>
>>There's no way for me to tell what might ring true for you.
>
>Present something from your experience, something from anyone's
>experience, something besides fantasy. Present facts, details,
>concrete evidence, or interesting analogies. Something.
What's good for the goose, Father "fuck-o". You haven't offered shit,
unless you count rude insults. I'm a bit surprised that, seeming to
be a fairly good-natured guy, you came after me in this thread like a
rabid fucking dog. I think there's something other than addiction on
your mind. Bring it.
>>>So far you've put a lot of bullshit on the table, and I'm not buying
>>>it.
>>
>>So far you haven't put anything at all on the table except that you've
>>worked as some kind of hotline attendant, and any sunday-school
>>teacher can put that on the table. Most of your commentary in this
>>thread has been skepticism or insult, Father "fuck-o", so let's try
>>and move past that to something at least potentially useful, eh?
>
>Uh...
Don't use up that last synaptic gasp, geenyus.
>>I can tell you this much, if a person's life is shit and they have
>>access to drugs that make it seem less like shit, they're prime
>>candidates for addiction of either the physical or psychological form.
>>How do you get back from addiction? Well that depends, doesn't it.
>>If the physical withdrawl doesn't kill you, there's a chance to get
>>back. The less like shit your life seems, the better your chances
>>are.
>
>Ever looked into something called "Rat Park?"You should.
Never looked at it before. Sounds like a reasonable hypothesis to
test experimentally. However, as those thinking individuals who have
heard of Lamarck's theories about the inheritance of acquired
knowledge might (or more likely, might not) realize, rats are not
humans.
I don't accept the "addiction is a myth" view, drugs have a powerful
physical effect on the body. On the other hand, if addiction was
inherently incurable, nobody would ever recover, or ever have
recovered from addiction.
> I'd, uh,
>discuss it with you, but I have some coke to snort with my Sunday
>school children.
>
>Cunt.
Father "cunt" too, huh? My goodness. Listen, when you've got those
poor little bastards all doped up there in Sunday school, be sure and
tell them that Jesus died for their sins and explain that if they
accept Jesus into their hearts they'll be able to drink blood and eat
human flesh. It'll be interesting to see what you choose to call me
the next time your gasping brain runs out of fuel.
boots
>On Sat, 23 Jun 2007 03:11:08 -0600, boots <n...@no.no> wrote:
>
>>Josh Hill <usere...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>>On Fri, 22 Jun 2007 03:31:37 -0600, boots <n...@no.no> wrote:
>>>
>>>>Josh Hill <usere...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>On Thu, 21 Jun 2007 04:37:50 -0600, boots <n...@no.no> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>>Josh Hill <usere...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>While I agree with most of what you've said, I think that if we're
>>>>>>>honest, we'll admit that artificial stimulation of the pleasure
>>>>>>>centers by hard drugs like crack and Heroin can produce euphoria that
>>>>>>>isn't achievable by natural means,
>>>>>>
>>>>>>I don't know that to be a fact because I've never used crack or heroin
>>>>>>thus your references to their stimulation of the pleasure centers are
>>>>>>not meaningful to me other than as abstractions.
>>>>>
>>>>>The testimony of others should do here. It's not something you ever
>>>>>want to discover yourself!
>>>>
>>>>As mentioned earlier, some things are too dangerous to mess with.
>>>>
>>>>As for "the testimony of others", it's just that.
>>>
>>>Ain't seen much of anyone contradicting it.
>>
>>Sometimes what the general public perceives turns out to be correct,
>>but it's not always safe to assume that it will be.
>
>True, but I'm not going by what the general public perceives here.
Some believers are more authoritative than others, eh? Sorry pal, I
don't care who the believer is, data is data. I've experienced enough
data to know that there are substances that aren't voluntarily going
into this creaking body.
>>> A few, e.g., the friend
>>>who told me once that he'd tried crack once and he didn't think it was
>>>so good. Genetics, I suspect.
>>
>>Maybe he already had something better to compare it with, maybe he was
>>a mutant, guessing is just that.
>
>Neither really hold.
That's an interesting statement of opinion. Lacking any logical or
data-based backing though, it's no more than an opinion. Given that
what a "mutant" might be is totally unknown, simply asserting that
neither really holds strikes me as whistling in the dark.
So you're saying that stimulating the "pleasure centers" doesn't cause
"physical pleasure", it might cause pain instead, or maybe the smell
of almonds?
>Me, I can just point to those lab studies of rats that push levers to
>get cocaine and some vaguely-remember articles in Scientific American
>and all that research that shows that just about all drugs of abuse by
>which they actually mean drugs of fun stimulate the dopamine pathways
>and create some degree of euphoria, just as pleasurable activities do.
Here's that vague term "euphoria" again.
>As to physical pleasure, some drugs e.g. cocaine do seem to work
>largely as amplifiers of pleasurable stimulation, but if you're
>talking really hard drugs you're also talking about a body rush.
I'm getting the feeling that you've petered out here, Josh. Maybe
I'll add some fresh fuel to the fire, see what happens.
Back in olden times when I was a drug virgin, I was of the opinion
that the feeling of getting "high" was purely psychological. This
opinion made the guys I was sharing an apartment with hysterical. I'd
tried (tobacco) cigarettes in my early teen years, and declined to
smoke a joint to find out for sure, having no desire to screw up my
lily-white lungs. Eventually it turned out that the guys decided to
mix up a batch of brownies. An ounce of street-grade marijuana was
put into a standard-sized batch of brownies after being puree'd in a
blender. Given that the batch was cut into about 12 chunks, that was
a fairly serious amount of THC, probably the equivalent of 10-15
joints. The other guys were passing around a joint when the brownies
were cut up and handed out. So I ate a brownie. It tasted like it
was half alfalfa, grittier than all get-out. But hey, chocolate is
chocolate, right? And getting "high" is an illusion, a purely mental
deception. So I swallow the last of the brownie and I sez, see, I'm
not the least bit affected, it's all in your minds. One of the guys
says okay, want another? I was kind of hungry. I think that I ended
up eating 3 of the things. No effect. See, I was right! The guys
shrugged, giggled sort of, and we went about the business of being
college students on a Friday night.
For us, that amounted to going to the data center at school. We all
had jobs there as computer operators, did a little programming, the
usual stuff.
About two hours later, one of the guys went out to the coke machine
and snagged us some drinks. I accepted the bottle, pulled the top
off, and raised it to my lips. At least, I started raising it.
Halfway through the motion the brownies came on. I was literally
frozen in space and time. I couldn't move, I was sitting there with a
coke bottle halfway to my mouth, frozen like a statue or a robot with
its brain in halt mode. After maybe 30 seconds one of the guys
noticed me sitting there with the coke bottle half raised and a stupid
expression on my face, and asked what was up. "I. Can't. Move." was
all I could say. I was stoned for 2 fucking days.
"Pleasure centers"? Nah, I don't think so. Definitely some
enhancement of sensory input, sound had more texture than usual,
things like that. But it showed me a world that I'd never seen
before, or better said, it showed me the world in a way that I'd never
been able to look at it before. Different perception of reality,
different insights, a more direct perception of things than I'd
experienced before.
The next time I was offered a joint, I wasted no time toking up. But
it wasn't the same. Well hey, the first time probably qualified as a
massive overdose. But, I recognized that the first high wasn't going
to be repeated.
I tried whatever was put on the table. Hash, thai-sticks, buttons,
acid, coke. Coke I only tried once. It showed me something new
again. But I could recognize it as too good to use so I never messed
with it again.
The different perspective, that's what it was about for me. Sex while
high was more intense than usual I guess, but hell I was just over
drinking age and at that age sex was all totally intense anyway.
I smoked weed for quite a few years. I didn't expect to get back that
original sense of perspective, but with pot there's a sense of release
from the confinement, a sense that everything is okay.
Was I addicted to THC? I dunno, I was hooked on finding the
perspective that I'd first seen there. But really, I used pot as an
alcohol substitute, a release at the end of the week to get back in
touch with the real world after being stuck in the corporate world.
I fell out of touch with my sources, and didn't really go looking for
others. Pot drifted into the past. But the search for that other
perspective never went away. I looked in new places, lots of new
places. Transcendental meditation, yoga, running, for a while I was
involved in a nutjob sufi group, I was a definite seeker.
Eventually, after almost 40 years, I found what I was looking for. I
didn't find it in drugs, I stopped looking there for it early-on. It's
doubtful that I can even explain what it is, but it's definitely real
and it's the basis of my life. It could be called insanity, freedom,
communion with god, there are any number of terms that could apply to
it at least in part. What drugs showed me was no more than the
possibility of its existence.
Was I ever addicted to drugs? That depends. In my early 30s I went
through a suicidal phase, life was extremely miserable for me. As a
result I started smoking cigarettes, kind of a pussy's method of
suicide. I was hooked on cigarettes for years and years. Finally I
learned that the addictive agents in cigarettes are chemicals used in
the manufacturing process (ammonia etc), and stopped using
store-boughts. I still smoke tobacco, and if I was to quit there's
little doubt that I'd go through a week of withdrawl. But I continue
smoking tobacco because it pleases me, just as I continue using
caffeine because it makes it easier to wake up in the morning. I'm
not concerned about any health risks associated with tobacco, they're
literally not my problem, any more than whether I get struck by
lightning is my problem. But that's a part of the spirtual aspects of
this thing that I can't describe.
Josh Hill
Good God. You and Ing. Do you seriously think I would suggest that you
commit slow suicide unless I saw a profit opportunity? I'm discussing
the sirens, not suggesting that you dive off the fucking boat.
>>>> A few, e.g., the friend
>>>>who told me once that he'd tried crack once and he didn't think it was
>>>>so good. Genetics, I suspect.
>>>
>>>Maybe he already had something better to compare it with, maybe he was
>>>a mutant, guessing is just that.
>>
>>Neither really hold.
>
>That's an interesting statement of opinion. Lacking any logical or
>data-based backing though, it's no more than an opinion. Given that
>what a "mutant" might be is totally unknown, simply asserting that
>neither really holds strikes me as whistling in the dark.
The logical (and alas only intermittently data-based) backing:
A "mutant" is someone with a new or uncommon mutation. But a growing
body of evidence suggests that the physiological response to addictive
drugs varies widely within the general population. Forex, it seems
that 15% of the population finds marijuana addictive, the rest do not.
Similarly, susceptibility to nicotine addiction is now know to range
from none to extreme, and to be strongly dependent on age and sex as
well.
I don't know enough about the subject to know the extent to which this
might apply to crack, but I do know that some people say they find it
addictive on the first use while others try it several times without
getting hooked. I also know that while there aren't really withdrawal
symptoms per se, some people experience serious depression when they
stop using it, while others don't. And I know that genetic variations
or defects, one of which I have myself, can create unusual sensitivity
to cocaine, and affect the potential for addiction in ways you might
not expect.
So: I do suspect genes, for these reasons and others, including my
realization some years back that the friend I mentioned above was
hypomanic and his self-reported inverse response to cocaine -- he told
me once that it mellows him out -- which reminded me of the
paradoxical response of ADHD sorts to ritalin. (Assuming, of course,
that hypomania does have a significant genetic component.)
BTW, the friend in question did have something better or at least
comparable, because he'd dabbled in Heroin. But -- crack doesn't
really have withdrawal symptoms. Many crack addicts experience no
suffering when they're away from the drug, but go right back to it
when they can get it. And it's quite literally so good, at least for
those who are strongly affected by it, that people will live in a
doorway to use it. So even if someone is familiar with something
better, he's going to say this is hot shit.
I'm distinguishing between euphoria and the sensation of physical
pleasure, that is, pleasure which gives the impression of coming from
the body. Head rush vs. body rush, if you will. Haven't you noticed
that dichotomy? I don't know much about the physiological bases of the
phenomena -- did read somewhere that the Heroin body rush is caused by
an initial concentration of Heroin in the brain, and that after a few
minutes most of the Heroin is converted into morphine-like substances,
which cause the lingering high.
>>Me, I can just point to those lab studies of rats that push levers to
>>get cocaine and some vaguely-remember articles in Scientific American
>>and all that research that shows that just about all drugs of abuse by
>>which they actually mean drugs of fun stimulate the dopamine pathways
>>and create some degree of euphoria, just as pleasurable activities do.
>
>Here's that vague term "euphoria" again.
Why vague? Have you never experienced it?
Prolly not, from the sound of it. I've had friends who were clearly
struggling when they stopped.
>I fell out of touch with my sources, and didn't really go looking for
>others. Pot drifted into the past. But the search for that other
>perspective never went away. I looked in new places, lots of new
>places. Transcendental meditation, yoga, running, for a while I was
>involved in a nutjob sufi group, I was a definite seeker.
>
>Eventually, after almost 40 years, I found what I was looking for. I
>didn't find it in drugs, I stopped looking there for it early-on. It's
>doubtful that I can even explain what it is, but it's definitely real
>and it's the basis of my life. It could be called insanity, freedom,
>communion with god, there are any number of terms that could apply to
>it at least in part. What drugs showed me was no more than the
>possibility of its existence.
>
>Was I ever addicted to drugs? That depends. In my early 30s I went
>through a suicidal phase, life was extremely miserable for me. As a
>result I started smoking cigarettes, kind of a pussy's method of
>suicide. I was hooked on cigarettes for years and years. Finally I
>learned that the addictive agents in cigarettes are chemicals used in
>the manufacturing process (ammonia etc), and stopped using
>store-boughts.
The main addictive component is nicotine. It's addictive in any form.
I read once about a study conducted by Philip Morris that found that
another and synergistic addictive component was created when tobacco
was burned, not sure whether it's been confirmed or not.
>I still smoke tobacco, and if I was to quit there's
>little doubt that I'd go through a week of withdrawl. But I continue
>smoking tobacco because it pleases me, just as I continue using
>caffeine because it makes it easier to wake up in the morning. I'm
>not concerned about any health risks associated with tobacco, they're
>literally not my problem, any more than whether I get struck by
>lightning is my problem. But that's a part of the spirtual aspects of
>this thing that I can't describe.
Nicotine produces mild euphoria and other pleasant affects, e.g., by
altering the dosage, it can be either stimulating or sedating. Since
it isn't impairing, if it weren't for the damn fact that smoking kills
you (not a concern to you, I know, but it is to me), I think it would
be pretty much the ideal drug.
BTW, even if you don't care about dying, there are forms of nicotine
available now that don't carry much risk, e.g., the Commit lozenges
that I used myself to stop smoking. Takes a bit of work to get used to
the new dosage and administrative routine, but I didn't find it hard,
and the overall buzz was pretty much the same, just a bit mellower and
more controllable. Also tasted horrible at first, so bad I almost gave
up, but that only lasted a day.
I confess that I've never been much impressed by the spiritual and
mind-expanding qualities of hallucinogens. It seems to me a false
spirituality, and less than an expansion than a shifting -- which can
be interesting and fun, but . . . one seems to lose as much as one
gains, to lose one's sense of narrative and architecture as one is
flooded by perception. I'm reminded of the time I got stoned while an
organist was playing Bach in the background and feeling all the
marvelous architecture slip away. (OK, OK, I wasn't the only kid who
ever got stoned in a cathedral. There were other kids with me, and
they got just as stoned, I tell ya.) Or staying up all night with a
friend creating a tape of video feedback which I thought immensely
beautiful and clever, only to discover the next day that it was a
thorough bore. Which is to say that while I have noticed things I
would otherwise have missed while high, I gave up at least as much as
I gained.
Handing the podium to Stanley Kubrick:
"I believe that drugs are basically of more use to the audience than
to the artist. I think that the illusion of oneness with the universe,
and absorption with the significance of every object in your
environment, and the pervasive aura of peace and contentment is not
the ideal state for an artist. It tranquilizes the creative
personality, which thrives on conflict and on the clash and ferment of
ideas. The artist's transcendence must be within his own work; he
should not impose any artificial barriers between himself and the
mainspring of his subconscious. One of the things that's turned me
against LSD is that all the people I know who use it have a peculiar
inability to distinguish between things that are really interesting
and stimulating and things that appear to be so in the state of
universal bliss that the drug induces on a "good" trip. They seem to
completely lose their critical faculties and disengage themselves from
some of the most stimulating areas of life. Perhaps when everything is
beautiful, nothing is beautiful."
Smoking, a friend got me hooked when I was in fifth grade, didn't even
know it was bad for you. Was never able to quit for more than a year
or two at a time despite Herculean efforts, I'd literally get
catatonic, couldn't move. Then I discovered the lozenges and found it
easy.
Avoided acid for the most part, didn't do it at all when I was a kid
in part because I knew it could fry your brain. Eventually had a
horrible personal example, the permanent damage that an overdose did
to my brother. And while most of the friends who did a lot of it came
out OK, it seems to me that they share a certain credulity that may be
the result of subtle brain damage.
Brief bad addictive experience with meth as a kid, didn't know what it
was, found out the hard way. Ditto with Heroin, though the
circumstances were different. Did lines later on, in my 20's, reacted
exactly as you did, was by then smart enough not to go there, sweated
it out for several years when others were doing it because coke is
that good to me. Bizarre and unintentional experience with crack,
which is one of the reasons it scares me shitless. Been addicted to
alcohol a few times, even got the DT's once, initially because I got
so frustrated that I wanted to damage my brain and be like everyone
else, was only partially successful and later regretted the subtle
damage I had done. Stopped, don't miss it, can drink or not and
usually don't.
It seems to me that what kept me from going too far down that path was
an intense drive and interest and sense of purpose, the same one
that's apparent here, where it's merely Quixotic and silly. A lifelong
love of problem solving and making interesting things and writing
funny things and fighting the good fite for people who would steal my
watch if they got the chance. The miracle of seeing the image appear
on the sheet of paper as the cold smelly developer washed over my
hands, the delight of trying my hand at writing a novel and
discovering that the world became more real than my own and that my
characters took on lives of their own. The miracle of nature, my love
of music. These things were always so strong in me that the drugs
didn't have a chance. It was only later in life, when I was frustrated
at being blocked by my own self-defeating psychology, that I got the
point where I said "To hell with it."
Which isn't to say that -- I'm thinking out loud here and I'm at as
much of a loss to describe it as you are -- there isn't a spiritual
side to what I feel. Mostly through music. It's partly aesthetic, yes,
partly intellectual beauty in the Platonic or Kantian sense, the
pleasure of seeing infinite mathematical complexity laid out before
you by a mind that in its understanding seems to have proceeded
directly from God. But it's also the intense emotionality and
religiosity of the experience. Religion less belief is art.
I'm not sure if that jibes with your own experience. Yours seems more
Zennish -- ascetic, acerbic, restrained, intellectual. Mine seems to
be more Chermanic -- intellectual too, but storm and stressy.
boots
How odd, I was going on about not accepting the "testimony of others"
as Truth; it's their view, it may be true or not, either for you or
universally, but the fact that they testify it doesn't make it
anything besides their testimony.
I'm surprised that you'd make the "profit opportunity" joke, having
gotten your dick stomped for your earlier crack joke.
>>>>> A few, e.g., the friend
>>>>>who told me once that he'd tried crack once and he didn't think it was
>>>>>so good. Genetics, I suspect.
>>>>
>>>>Maybe he already had something better to compare it with, maybe he was
>>>>a mutant, guessing is just that.
>>>
>>>Neither really hold.
>>
>>That's an interesting statement of opinion. Lacking any logical or
>>data-based backing though, it's no more than an opinion. Given that
>>what a "mutant" might be is totally unknown, simply asserting that
>>neither really holds strikes me as whistling in the dark.
>
>The logical (and alas only intermittently data-based) backing:
>
>A "mutant" is someone with a new or uncommon mutation.
Yes, and without any indication of what that might be, basing anything
on its assumed characteristics is silly.
> But a growing
>body of evidence suggests that the physiological response to addictive
>drugs varies widely within the general population. Forex, it seems
>that 15% of the population finds marijuana addictive, the rest do not.
>Similarly, susceptibility to nicotine addiction is now know to range
>from none to extreme, and to be strongly dependent on age and sex as
>well.
>
>I don't know enough about the subject to know the extent to which this
>might apply to crack, but I do know that some people say they find it
>addictive on the first use while others try it several times without
>getting hooked. I also know that while there aren't really withdrawal
>symptoms per se, some people experience serious depression when they
>stop using it, while others don't. And I know that genetic variations
>or defects, one of which I have myself, can create unusual sensitivity
>to cocaine, and affect the potential for addiction in ways you might
>not expect.
>
>So: I do suspect genes, for these reasons and others, including my
>realization some years back that the friend I mentioned above was
>hypomanic and his self-reported inverse response to cocaine -- he told
>me once that it mellows him out -- which reminded me of the
>paradoxical response of ADHD sorts to ritalin. (Assuming, of course,
>that hypomania does have a significant genetic component.)
Your logic amounts to a statement that anytime physical response
varies by population the reason is genetics. That assumes that the
characteristics of the body are solely defined by DNA. That assumes a
certain physical/spiritual hierarchy, places cause/effect in a certain
orientation, and makes all other kinds of assumptions which largely
deny any spiritual aspect of life, asside from suffering. I'm not
saying it's wrong or evil, in fact it seems to be the usual view, but
I am pointing out that it makes certain assumptions about how one can
navigate this flat earth; your philosophical stance appears to be the
polar opposite of that proposed by George Berkeley. Mileage does
vary, as does performance.
>BTW, the friend in question did have something better or at least
>comparable, because he'd dabbled in Heroin. But -- crack doesn't
>really have withdrawal symptoms. Many crack addicts experience no
>suffering when they're away from the drug, but go right back to it
>when they can get it. And it's quite literally so good, at least for
>those who are strongly affected by it, that people will live in a
>doorway to use it. So even if someone is familiar with something
>better, he's going to say this is hot shit.
I'd say that depends on how much better what you have actually is.
It reminds me of an anecdote related in some book or other that I
consumed decades ago. An LSD advocate traveling in India met up with
some yoga guru and gave him some acid to try. The guru took it, and
after a bit he shrugged and said, it's good but it's not a big deal.
Yes, but I wasn't aware that a head-rush equated to euphoria. To me
at least, there are many kinds of mood elevation that could fall into
the category "euphoria". There is a type of euphoria you can induce
by running. There is another type that can be caused by drugs. There
is the type you feel when for some reason everything in your life just
happens to go right. Lots of kinds of euphoria exist, at least in my
experience.
> I don't know much about the physiological bases of the
>phenomena -- did read somewhere that the Heroin body rush is caused by
>an initial concentration of Heroin in the brain, and that after a few
>minutes most of the Heroin is converted into morphine-like substances,
>which cause the lingering high.
>
>>>Me, I can just point to those lab studies of rats that push levers to
>>>get cocaine and some vaguely-remember articles in Scientific American
>>>and all that research that shows that just about all drugs of abuse by
>>>which they actually mean drugs of fun stimulate the dopamine pathways
>>>and create some degree of euphoria, just as pleasurable activities do.
>>
>>Here's that vague term "euphoria" again.
>
>Why vague? Have you never experienced it?
"Vague" because it's too general to be very useful.
I'd prolly agree, but it's not really an issue one way or another. If
someone gives me some excellent peanut-butter cookies, I'll sit down
and chomp on them because I like peanut-butter cookies, but I'm not
going to cause harm to obtain them because they're just not that good.
If somebody hands me a gift-bud, I'll sit down and smoke it tiny bit
by tiny bit because I enjoy it, but I won't go looking for it. Maybe
I'm just cheap, memories of buying an ounce for $15 don't jibe with
street prices of $400+ and frankly though I might walk across the
street for some good weed, that would depend on whether I was getting
ready to stand up anyway.
>>I fell out of touch with my sources, and didn't really go looking for
>>others. Pot drifted into the past. But the search for that other
>>perspective never went away. I looked in new places, lots of new
>>places. Transcendental meditation, yoga, running, for a while I was
>>involved in a nutjob sufi group, I was a definite seeker.
>>
>>Eventually, after almost 40 years, I found what I was looking for. I
>>didn't find it in drugs, I stopped looking there for it early-on. It's
>>doubtful that I can even explain what it is, but it's definitely real
>>and it's the basis of my life. It could be called insanity, freedom,
>>communion with god, there are any number of terms that could apply to
>>it at least in part. What drugs showed me was no more than the
>>possibility of its existence.
>>
>>Was I ever addicted to drugs? That depends. In my early 30s I went
>>through a suicidal phase, life was extremely miserable for me. As a
>>result I started smoking cigarettes, kind of a pussy's method of
>>suicide. I was hooked on cigarettes for years and years. Finally I
>>learned that the addictive agents in cigarettes are chemicals used in
>>the manufacturing process (ammonia etc), and stopped using
>>store-boughts.
>
>The main addictive component is nicotine. It's addictive in any form.
>I read once about a study conducted by Philip Morris that found that
>another and synergistic addictive component was created when tobacco
>was burned, not sure whether it's been confirmed or not.
Anybody who believes any study conducted by Phillip Morris is a
hopeless naif. Go visit your pal google and enter the search terms
"tobacco ammonia". If you're lazy, try this for a start:
http://www.pulitzer.org/year/1996/national-reporting/works/impact.html
There is more to cigarette addiction than has been widely publicized.
I know from personal experience that there is something in the
cigarettes you buy off the shelf that is not in pure tobacco. I had
one hell of a time getting off cigarettes. I currently smoke what is
probably the equivalent of 4 packs of cigarettes a day in terms of
tobacco bulk, but I'm not smoking processed floor-sweepings; if I was
to quit smoking it, there would be physical withdrawl symptoms for 5-7
days and that would be the end of it -- that's not theory, it's
experience. Otoh maybe I'm a mutant, would one necessarily know if he
was a mutant?
>>I still smoke tobacco, and if I was to quit there's
>>little doubt that I'd go through a week of withdrawl. But I continue
>>smoking tobacco because it pleases me, just as I continue using
>>caffeine because it makes it easier to wake up in the morning. I'm
>>not concerned about any health risks associated with tobacco, they're
>>literally not my problem, any more than whether I get struck by
>>lightning is my problem. But that's a part of the spirtual aspects of
>>this thing that I can't describe.
>
>Nicotine produces mild euphoria and other pleasant affects, e.g., by
>altering the dosage, it can be either stimulating or sedating.
It produces quite a number of effects. The AmerInds found it useful
for religious purposes. Again, dosage and chemical composition can
affect mileage.
> Since
>it isn't impairing,
It can be quite impairing. If you are smoking real tobacco in serious
quantities, you need to be sitting down for your first smoke of the
morning.
> if it weren't for the damn fact that smoking kills
>you (not a concern to you, I know, but it is to me), I think it would
>be pretty much the ideal drug.
You have been taught that smoking kills you. Testimony is just that.
>BTW, even if you don't care about dying, there are forms of nicotine
>available now that don't carry much risk, e.g., the Commit lozenges
>that I used myself to stop smoking. Takes a bit of work to get used to
>the new dosage and administrative routine, but I didn't find it hard,
>and the overall buzz was pretty much the same, just a bit mellower and
>more controllable. Also tasted horrible at first, so bad I almost gave
>up, but that only lasted a day.
It's certainly possible to obtain nicotine sans-gestalt.
>I confess that I've never been much impressed by the spiritual and
>mind-expanding qualities of hallucinogens. It seems to me a false
>spirituality,
Simple rule of thumb, if it goes away when you've come down, it's not
going to stick with you.
On the other hand, if it simply opens your eyes to the existence of
something you've never before been aware of, perhaps that isn't all
bad.
> and less than an expansion than a shifting -- which can
>be interesting and fun, but . . . one seems to lose as much as one
>gains, to lose one's sense of narrative and architecture as one is
>flooded by perception. I'm reminded of the time I got stoned while an
>organist was playing Bach in the background and feeling all the
>marvelous architecture slip away. (OK, OK, I wasn't the only kid who
>ever got stoned in a cathedral. There were other kids with me, and
>they got just as stoned, I tell ya.) Or staying up all night with a
>friend creating a tape of video feedback which I thought immensely
>beautiful and clever, only to discover the next day that it was a
>thorough bore. Which is to say that while I have noticed things I
>would otherwise have missed while high, I gave up at least as much as
>I gained.
There are elegant views and solutions that one can experience while
using drugs, or while sleeping for that matter, which on waking can be
seen as the purest horseshit.
>Handing the podium to Stanley Kubrick:
>
>"I believe that drugs are basically of more use to the audience than
>to the artist. I think that the illusion of oneness with the universe,
>and absorption with the significance of every object in your
>environment, and the pervasive aura of peace and contentment is not
>the ideal state for an artist. It tranquilizes the creative
>personality, which thrives on conflict and on the clash and ferment of
>ideas. The artist's transcendence must be within his own work; he
>should not impose any artificial barriers between himself and the
>mainspring of his subconscious. One of the things that's turned me
>against LSD is that all the people I know who use it have a peculiar
>inability to distinguish between things that are really interesting
>and stimulating and things that appear to be so in the state of
>universal bliss that the drug induces on a "good" trip. They seem to
>completely lose their critical faculties and disengage themselves from
>some of the most stimulating areas of life. Perhaps when everything is
>beautiful, nothing is beautiful."
Interesting testimony.
Hubris is crediting yourself with achievements handed to you, humility
is an appreciation for gifts received.
I'm reminded of the several times in "The Mexican" when Ted says,
"Hey, I'm just doing my portion."
Josh Hill
>Josh Hill <usere...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>>Some believers are more authoritative than others, eh? Sorry pal, I
>>>don't care who the believer is, data is data. I've experienced enough
>>>data to know that there are substances that aren't voluntarily going
>>>into this creaking body.
>>
>>Good God. You and Ing. Do you seriously think I would suggest that you
>>commit slow suicide unless I saw a profit opportunity? I'm discussing
>>the sirens, not suggesting that you dive off the fucking boat.
>
>How odd, I was going on about not accepting the "testimony of others"
>as Truth; it's their view, it may be true or not, either for you or
>universally, but the fact that they testify it doesn't make it
>anything besides their testimony.
Which is to say it's so close to 100% that you'd need a scanning
electron microscope to find the crack.
>I'm surprised that you'd make the "profit opportunity" joke, having
>gotten your dick stomped for your earlier crack joke.
I didn't see that as a dick stomping, just as someone not getting the
joke. And there's always someone who doesn't get a joke.
Not necessarily. Environmental factors, nutrition, illness -- all
could potentially play a role. Hence my caveat about the cause of
hypomania.
> That assumes that the
>characteristics of the body are solely defined by DNA.
Ditto.
> That assumes a
>certain physical/spiritual hierarchy, places cause/effect in a certain
>orientation, and makes all other kinds of assumptions which largely
>deny any spiritual aspect of life, asside from suffering. I'm not
>saying it's wrong or evil, in fact it seems to be the usual view, but
>I am pointing out that it makes certain assumptions about how one can
>navigate this flat earth; your philosophical stance appears to be the
>polar opposite of that proposed by George Berkeley.
Sure. To the extent that spirituality has any meaning to me, it's as a
subjective phenomenon. Which doesn't make it unreal -- it remains
physical, it is part of the material universe, it is when viewed from
the right coordinates necessarily an expression of truth. But it does
subsume it to the world of phenomena, makes it a subset, if you will.
> Mileage does
>vary, as does performance.
>>BTW, the friend in question did have something better or at least
>>comparable, because he'd dabbled in Heroin. But -- crack doesn't
>>really have withdrawal symptoms. Many crack addicts experience no
>>suffering when they're away from the drug, but go right back to it
>>when they can get it. And it's quite literally so good, at least for
>>those who are strongly affected by it, that people will live in a
>>doorway to use it. So even if someone is familiar with something
>>better, he's going to say this is hot shit.
>
>I'd say that depends on how much better what you have actually is.
>
>It reminds me of an anecdote related in some book or other that I
>consumed decades ago. An LSD advocate traveling in India met up with
>some yoga guru and gave him some acid to try. The guru took it, and
>after a bit he shrugged and said, it's good but it's not a big deal.
But acid isn't in that class of drugs. In any case, I'm not arguing
that hard drugs are /better/ than a happy life, because I think
there's more to our subjective experience of life than dopamine and
endorphins. Hard drugs are like the cheap concentrated fats and sugars
in supermarket food. The food may be richer and sweeter than the food
in a fine French restaurant, but the food in the restaurant is
infinitely better -- more complex, more sophisticated, more varied.
Sure. It's a fairly general term, although research seems to be
showing that euphoric states have more in common than one might
suppose, e.g., to cause heightened activity in the same brain centers
and the release of the same neurotransmitters. Whether you're running
a race or smoking a cigarette, you're feeling, in part, the effects of
epinephrine.
Why? As I recall it was one of their secret studies, not something
that was designed to fool the public. The tobacco companies did good
work. They knew smoking caused cancer, they knew that it was
addictive, yada years before academia and government woke up to those
facts or had the resources to prove it. Famously, they withheld their
findings from the public.
> Go visit your pal google and enter the search terms
>"tobacco ammonia". If you're lazy, try this for a start:
>http://www.pulitzer.org/year/1996/national-reporting/works/impact.html
Yes, know about that. It's just a way to release more nicotine. But
studies show that within a reasonable range the amount of nicotine
doesn't matter all that much, since smokers simply smoke more or less
to obtain their usual dose.
>There is more to cigarette addiction than has been widely publicized.
>I know from personal experience that there is something in the
>cigarettes you buy off the shelf that is not in pure tobacco. I had
>one hell of a time getting off cigarettes. I currently smoke what is
>probably the equivalent of 4 packs of cigarettes a day in terms of
>tobacco bulk, but I'm not smoking processed floor-sweepings; if I was
>to quit smoking it, there would be physical withdrawl symptoms for 5-7
>days and that would be the end of it -- that's not theory, it's
>experience.
I dunno. I've smoked both freebased cigarettes and additive-free
cigarettes, and couldn't stop either. But who knows? There are lots of
variables here.
>Otoh maybe I'm a mutant, would one necessarily know if he
>was a mutant?
Dude, there are some people who can /not/ get addicted to cigarettes
-- they lack nicotine receptor sites -- and there are some people who
smoke through tracheotomies. Some people smoke only half as many
cigarettes as average because they have a genetic variation that means
they remove nicotine at only half the rate of the general population.
A girl of any age or a boy under 12 can become addicted to cigarettes
after trying only a few, a boy older than 12 typically has to smoke
regularly for more than half a year to become addicted. We're all
mutants. One sign that someone is the sort of mutant who becomes
addicted -- he gets sick to his stomach when he first tries smoking.
The people who did that study were testing the seemingly reasonable
proposition that kids who have a negative reaction to smoking would be
less likely to take it up. The opposite happened.
>>>I still smoke tobacco, and if I was to quit there's
>>>little doubt that I'd go through a week of withdrawl. But I continue
>>>smoking tobacco because it pleases me, just as I continue using
>>>caffeine because it makes it easier to wake up in the morning. I'm
>>>not concerned about any health risks associated with tobacco, they're
>>>literally not my problem, any more than whether I get struck by
>>>lightning is my problem. But that's a part of the spirtual aspects of
>>>this thing that I can't describe.
>>
>>Nicotine produces mild euphoria and other pleasant affects, e.g., by
>>altering the dosage, it can be either stimulating or sedating.
>
>It produces quite a number of effects. The AmerInds found it useful
>for religious purposes. Again, dosage and chemical composition can
>affect mileage.
>
>> Since
>>it isn't impairing,
>
>It can be quite impairing. If you are smoking real tobacco in serious
>quantities, you need to be sitting down for your first smoke of the
>morning.
You mean if it makes you dizzy? Used to do that to me as a kid. Don't
think I ever had to sit down for it or stop what I was doing, though.
If you're using so much that you're OD'ing, e.g., faintness, sweating,
rapid and irregular heartbeat, etc., you could be putting yourself in
immediate danger.
>> if it weren't for the damn fact that smoking kills
>>you (not a concern to you, I know, but it is to me), I think it would
>>be pretty much the ideal drug.
>
>You have been taught that smoking kills you. Testimony is just that.
>
>>BTW, even if you don't care about dying, there are forms of nicotine
>>available now that don't carry much risk, e.g., the Commit lozenges
>>that I used myself to stop smoking. Takes a bit of work to get used to
>>the new dosage and administrative routine, but I didn't find it hard,
>>and the overall buzz was pretty much the same, just a bit mellower and
>>more controllable. Also tasted horrible at first, so bad I almost gave
>>up, but that only lasted a day.
>
>It's certainly possible to obtain nicotine sans-gestalt.
>
>>I confess that I've never been much impressed by the spiritual and
>>mind-expanding qualities of hallucinogens. It seems to me a false
>>spirituality,
>
>Simple rule of thumb, if it goes away when you've come down, it's not
>going to stick with you.
>
>On the other hand, if it simply opens your eyes to the existence of
>something you've never before been aware of, perhaps that isn't all
>bad.
There's a third possibility: that you retain bogus spirituality. I've
seen that happen to many who used acid, and I think I've seen it with
Ecstasy. As distinguished from the genuine doors of perception stuff.
>> and less than an expansion than a shifting -- which can
>>be interesting and fun, but . . . one seems to lose as much as one
>>gains, to lose one's sense of narrative and architecture as one is
>>flooded by perception. I'm reminded of the time I got stoned while an
>>organist was playing Bach in the background and feeling all the
>>marvelous architecture slip away. (OK, OK, I wasn't the only kid who
>>ever got stoned in a cathedral. There were other kids with me, and
>>they got just as stoned, I tell ya.) Or staying up all night with a
>>friend creating a tape of video feedback which I thought immensely
>>beautiful and clever, only to discover the next day that it was a
>>thorough bore. Which is to say that while I have noticed things I
>>would otherwise have missed while high, I gave up at least as much as
>>I gained.
>
>There are elegant views and solutions that one can experience while
>using drugs, or while sleeping for that matter, which on waking can be
>seen as the purest horseshit.
Sure.
boots
>On Mon, 25 Jun 2007 05:15:37 -0600, boots <n...@no.no> wrote:
>
>>Josh Hill <usere...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>>>Some believers are more authoritative than others, eh? Sorry pal, I
>>>>don't care who the believer is, data is data. I've experienced enough
>>>>data to know that there are substances that aren't voluntarily going
>>>>into this creaking body.
>>>
>>>Good God. You and Ing. Do you seriously think I would suggest that you
>>>commit slow suicide unless I saw a profit opportunity? I'm discussing
>>>the sirens, not suggesting that you dive off the fucking boat.
>>
>>How odd, I was going on about not accepting the "testimony of others"
>>as Truth; it's their view, it may be true or not, either for you or
>>universally, but the fact that they testify it doesn't make it
>>anything besides their testimony.
>
>Which is to say it's so close to 100% that you'd need a scanning
>electron microscope to find the crack.
You seem to be farting at the mouth there, Josh.
>>I'm surprised that you'd make the "profit opportunity" joke, having
>>gotten your dick stomped for your earlier crack joke.
>
>I didn't see that as a dick stomping, just as someone not getting the
>joke. And there's always someone who doesn't get a joke.
I wonder what that says about the jokes.
Like "testimony", huh?
> Which doesn't make it unreal -- it remains
>physical, it is part of the material universe, it is when viewed from
>the right coordinates necessarily an expression of truth. But it does
>subsume it to the world of phenomena, makes it a subset, if you will.
It's yours to subsume as you choose. The question of what subsumes
what is a valid one, and becoming more valid as people dig deeper into
that quantuum soup stuff.
>> Mileage does
>>vary, as does performance.
>
>>>BTW, the friend in question did have something better or at least
>>>comparable, because he'd dabbled in Heroin. But -- crack doesn't
>>>really have withdrawal symptoms. Many crack addicts experience no
>>>suffering when they're away from the drug, but go right back to it
>>>when they can get it. And it's quite literally so good, at least for
>>>those who are strongly affected by it, that people will live in a
>>>doorway to use it. So even if someone is familiar with something
>>>better, he's going to say this is hot shit.
>>
>>I'd say that depends on how much better what you have actually is.
>>
>>It reminds me of an anecdote related in some book or other that I
>>consumed decades ago. An LSD advocate traveling in India met up with
>>some yoga guru and gave him some acid to try. The guru took it, and
>>after a bit he shrugged and said, it's good but it's not a big deal.
>
>But acid isn't in that class of drugs. In any case, I'm not arguing
>that hard drugs are /better/ than a happy life, because I think
>there's more to our subjective experience of life than dopamine and
>endorphins. Hard drugs are like the cheap concentrated fats and sugars
>in supermarket food. The food may be richer and sweeter than the food
>in a fine French restaurant, but the food in the restaurant is
>infinitely better -- more complex, more sophisticated, more varied.
Sorry, to me the phrase "fine French restaurant" leans toward
oxymoronism. French food without a complete list of ingredients
written in English is like taking an unknown drug or playing russian
roulette, you don't know whether you'll be going up down or sideways,
shitting remnants of lamb or brains or snail or who knows whatever.
Each to his own, I consider the French people to be very strange but
sort of lovable in spite of or perhaps because of it.
Is epinephrine then a good drug? Where is the line between a "good
drug" and a "bad drug"? Is it legislative, scientific, moral, or
what?
"Studies show" that your ass has a hole in it.
>>There is more to cigarette addiction than has been widely publicized.
>>I know from personal experience that there is something in the
>>cigarettes you buy off the shelf that is not in pure tobacco. I had
>>one hell of a time getting off cigarettes. I currently smoke what is
>>probably the equivalent of 4 packs of cigarettes a day in terms of
>>tobacco bulk, but I'm not smoking processed floor-sweepings; if I was
>>to quit smoking it, there would be physical withdrawl symptoms for 5-7
>>days and that would be the end of it -- that's not theory, it's
>>experience.
>
>I dunno. I've smoked both freebased cigarettes and additive-free
>cigarettes, and couldn't stop either. But who knows? There are lots of
>variables here.
What's a "freebased" cigarette?
>>Otoh maybe I'm a mutant, would one necessarily know if he
>>was a mutant?
>
>Dude, there are some people who can /not/ get addicted to cigarettes
>-- they lack nicotine receptor sites -- and there are some people who
>smoke through tracheotomies. Some people smoke only half as many
>cigarettes as average because they have a genetic variation that means
>they remove nicotine at only half the rate of the general population.
>A girl of any age or a boy under 12 can become addicted to cigarettes
>after trying only a few, a boy older than 12 typically has to smoke
>regularly for more than half a year to become addicted.
> We're all mutants.
Ain't that an interesting thought though.
Oh. My. Gawd. Immediate danger. "Warning, Will Robinson!"
Oops, I forgot, you're one of those folks who believes that life can
be SAFE.
The concept "safety" is one of those concepts people carry around like
a teddy-bear to keep the boogiemen away.
It's as real as you make it.
>
>>> if it weren't for the damn fact that smoking kills
>>>you (not a concern to you, I know, but it is to me), I think it would
>>>be pretty much the ideal drug.
>>
>>You have been taught that smoking kills you. Testimony is just that.
>>
>>>BTW, even if you don't care about dying, there are forms of nicotine
>>>available now that don't carry much risk, e.g., the Commit lozenges
>>>that I used myself to stop smoking. Takes a bit of work to get used to
>>>the new dosage and administrative routine, but I didn't find it hard,
>>>and the overall buzz was pretty much the same, just a bit mellower and
>>>more controllable. Also tasted horrible at first, so bad I almost gave
>>>up, but that only lasted a day.
>>
>>It's certainly possible to obtain nicotine sans-gestalt.
>>
>>>I confess that I've never been much impressed by the spiritual and
>>>mind-expanding qualities of hallucinogens. It seems to me a false
>>>spirituality,
>>
>>Simple rule of thumb, if it goes away when you've come down, it's not
>>going to stick with you.
>>
>>On the other hand, if it simply opens your eyes to the existence of
>>something you've never before been aware of, perhaps that isn't all
>>bad.
>
>There's a third possibility: that you retain bogus spirituality. I've
>seen that happen to many who used acid, and I think I've seen it with
>Ecstasy. As distinguished from the genuine doors of perception stuff.
There are more than three possibiliies. Also, "bogus sprituality"
doesn't require drugs, a few crystal pyramids or a ouiji board or a
ticket to Jesus can generate "bogus spirituality". Who defines what
spirituality is "bogus"?
>>> and less than an expansion than a shifting -- which can
>>>be interesting and fun, but . . . one seems to lose as much as one
>>>gains, to lose one's sense of narrative and architecture as one is
>>>flooded by perception. I'm reminded of the time I got stoned while an
>>>organist was playing Bach in the background and feeling all the
>>>marvelous architecture slip away. (OK, OK, I wasn't the only kid who
>>>ever got stoned in a cathedral. There were other kids with me, and
>>>they got just as stoned, I tell ya.) Or staying up all night with a
>>>friend creating a tape of video feedback which I thought immensely
>>>beautiful and clever, only to discover the next day that it was a
>>>thorough bore. Which is to say that while I have noticed things I
>>>would otherwise have missed while high, I gave up at least as much as
>>>I gained.
>>
>>There are elegant views and solutions that one can experience while
>>using drugs, or while sleeping for that matter, which on waking can be
>>seen as the purest horseshit.
>
>Sure.
Science is interesting... folks have various beliefs about it and what
it is and what it is not. For example, the concept of "repeatability"
versus "independent verifiability". Some folks think that for
something to be true, it has to be independently verifiable. I guess
then that a guy on the third moon of Jupiter working all alone cut off
from everybody else could never do science since nobody could
independently verify his results. Repeatability on the other hand
does not require more than one individual. But then you get into the
question of whether a thing is fact or superstition.
It's as real as you make it Josh, your world is very strange to me,
and doubtless mine is very strange to you; of course being part of the
majority of opinion holders, your world is by definition "sane".
Josh Hill
>Josh Hill <usere...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>On Mon, 25 Jun 2007 05:15:37 -0600, boots <n...@no.no> wrote:
>>
>>>Josh Hill <usere...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>>>Some believers are more authoritative than others, eh? Sorry pal, I
>>>>>don't care who the believer is, data is data. I've experienced enough
>>>>>data to know that there are substances that aren't voluntarily going
>>>>>into this creaking body.
>>>>
>>>>Good God. You and Ing. Do you seriously think I would suggest that you
>>>>commit slow suicide unless I saw a profit opportunity? I'm discussing
>>>>the sirens, not suggesting that you dive off the fucking boat.
>>>
>>>How odd, I was going on about not accepting the "testimony of others"
>>>as Truth; it's their view, it may be true or not, either for you or
>>>universally, but the fact that they testify it doesn't make it
>>>anything besides their testimony.
>>
>>Which is to say it's so close to 100% that you'd need a scanning
>>electron microscope to find the crack.
>
>You seem to be farting at the mouth there, Josh.
I was merely saying that the testimony is so plentiful and so
consistent that the proposition is almost a done deal. Asymptotic. Or
assymptotic, if you like.
Testimony doesn't constitute proof, but then, neither does any
observation of phenomena. There comes a time when you have to doff
your intellectual galoshes because arcane possibilities won't milk the
cow.
>>>I'm surprised that you'd make the "profit opportunity" joke, having
>>>gotten your dick stomped for your earlier crack joke.
>>
>>I didn't see that as a dick stomping, just as someone not getting the
>>joke. And there's always someone who doesn't get a joke.
>
>I wonder what that says about the jokes.
Just I think that no matter how obvious a joke, someone is going to
miss it. I've done it, you've done it, everyone has. If you're
standing in front of a room wearing a pointy had and a big red nose,
well, people will at least know you're joking. But if your humor is a
little bit dry, those who don't get the joke won't necessarily know
that a joke was intended.
>>> That assumes a
>>>certain physical/spiritual hierarchy, places cause/effect in a certain
>>>orientation, and makes all other kinds of assumptions which largely
>>>deny any spiritual aspect of life, asside from suffering. I'm not
>>>saying it's wrong or evil, in fact it seems to be the usual view, but
>>>I am pointing out that it makes certain assumptions about how one can
>>>navigate this flat earth; your philosophical stance appears to be the
>>>polar opposite of that proposed by George Berkeley.
>>
>>Sure. To the extent that spirituality has any meaning to me, it's as a
>>subjective phenomenon.
>
>Like "testimony", huh?
Why not? I accept that people feel a spiritual this or that, because
lots of people say they do and I don't have any reason to disbelieve
them. I also accept that people experience this and that from drugs,
because even if I don't have any personal experience with a drug I
don't have any reason to disbelieve the many independent accounts.
Both are subjective experiences, and both are well-described and even
fairly well communicated through the experience of art: R. Crumb and
John Lennon give you a fairly good idea of what acid does, Mozart of
what it is to be tipsy.
>> Which doesn't make it unreal -- it remains
>>physical, it is part of the material universe, it is when viewed from
>>the right coordinates necessarily an expression of truth. But it does
>>subsume it to the world of phenomena, makes it a subset, if you will.
>
>It's yours to subsume as you choose. The question of what subsumes
>what is a valid one, and becoming more valid as people dig deeper into
>that quantuum soup stuff.
I've suspected for many years now that neither really subsumes the
other.
- Mathematics and physics are inextricably intertwined, in that there
is always a mathematical description for a physical phenomenon, and
not infrequently the mathematics had been discovered before it proved
to be applicable to physical phenomena, e.g., Riemann geometry.
- The fact that all physical laws appear to be described by finite
symmetry groups suggests that the universe (or the metaverse, if you
will) sums to nothing.
- Quantum mechanics provides a mechanism consistent with both
observation and thought by which that nothing becomes something, or
rather, all possible somethings. Existence becomes inevitable.
Another way of looking at it is that the ideal is merely the
understood.
Heh, well, I ordered something in a French restaurant once and it
turned out to be these little livers. Yuck.
But that of course represents nothing more than my cultural bias, lack
of sophistication, and perhaps the fact that the yucky liquid iron
supplements I had to take as a kid turned me off to liver forever.
When you think about it, eating a ground-up steer is just as
disgusting.
>>>Yes, but I wasn't aware that a head-rush equated to euphoria. To me
>>>at least, there are many kinds of mood elevation that could fall into
>>>the category "euphoria". There is a type of euphoria you can induce
>>>by running. There is another type that can be caused by drugs. There
>>>is the type you feel when for some reason everything in your life just
>>>happens to go right. Lots of kinds of euphoria exist, at least in my
>>>experience.
>>
>>Sure. It's a fairly general term, although research seems to be
>>showing that euphoric states have more in common than one might
>>suppose, e.g., to cause heightened activity in the same brain centers
>>and the release of the same neurotransmitters. Whether you're running
>>a race or smoking a cigarette, you're feeling, in part, the effects of
>>epinephrine.
>
>Is epinephrine then a good drug? Where is the line between a "good
>drug" and a "bad drug"? Is it legislative, scientific, moral, or
>what?
Epinephrine can be lethal or lifesaving, depending on dose and
circumstance. And I suppose that's true of many other drugs. Heroin is
a marvelous pain killer, and would be used for that purpose if it
hadn't been banned.
So -- good or bad drug -- it depends on the circumstances, doesn't it?
Some of them social. What I do not believe is that we should ban
recreational drugs merely because they're pleasurable and nanny people
over drugs that aren't particularly harmful. I'd make a serious
attempt to ban only the most harmful drugs on the street -- Heroin,
crack, meth -- and even then, I'd make Heroin available to registered
addicts. (I'm not even sure that, from an objective perspective, these
drugs should be banned, but on an emotional level I think that anyone
who sells them should be drawn, quartered, disemboweled, shot, and
dumped into a foetid cesspit.)
>>> Go visit your pal google and enter the search terms
>>>"tobacco ammonia". If you're lazy, try this for a start:
>>>http://www.pulitzer.org/year/1996/national-reporting/works/impact.html
>>
>>Yes, know about that. It's just a way to release more nicotine. But
>>studies show that within a reasonable range the amount of nicotine
>>doesn't matter all that much, since smokers simply smoke more or less
>>to obtain their usual dose.
>
>"Studies show" that your ass has a hole in it.
Are the studies then wrong?
>>>There is more to cigarette addiction than has been widely publicized.
>>>I know from personal experience that there is something in the
>>>cigarettes you buy off the shelf that is not in pure tobacco. I had
>>>one hell of a time getting off cigarettes. I currently smoke what is
>>>probably the equivalent of 4 packs of cigarettes a day in terms of
>>>tobacco bulk, but I'm not smoking processed floor-sweepings; if I was
>>>to quit smoking it, there would be physical withdrawl symptoms for 5-7
>>>days and that would be the end of it -- that's not theory, it's
>>>experience.
>>
>>I dunno. I've smoked both freebased cigarettes and additive-free
>>cigarettes, and couldn't stop either. But who knows? There are lots of
>>variables here.
>
>What's a "freebased" cigarette?
With ammonia. Nicotine is an alkaloid, and IIRC the ammonia works by
freebasing it.
>>You mean if it makes you dizzy? Used to do that to me as a kid. Don't
>>think I ever had to sit down for it or stop what I was doing, though.
>>If you're using so much that you're OD'ing, e.g., faintness, sweating,
>>rapid and irregular heartbeat, etc.,
>
>> you could be putting yourself in immediate danger.
>
>Oh. My. Gawd. Immediate danger. "Warning, Will Robinson!"
>
>Oops, I forgot, you're one of those folks who believes that life can
>be SAFE.
>
>The concept "safety" is one of those concepts people carry around like
>a teddy-bear to keep the boogiemen away.
>
>It's as real as you make it.
He who doesn't calculate risks exit gene pool.
>>There's a third possibility: that you retain bogus spirituality. I've
>>seen that happen to many who used acid, and I think I've seen it with
>>Ecstasy. As distinguished from the genuine doors of perception stuff.
>
>There are more than three possibiliies. Also, "bogus sprituality"
>doesn't require drugs, a few crystal pyramids or a ouiji board or a
>ticket to Jesus can generate "bogus spirituality". Who defines what
>spirituality is "bogus"?
I do. I mean, if my horoscope always told me that I was handsome,
successful, and well-beloved by kings and the masses both, I'd believe
in astrology, but I've noticed that it's never more accurate than
chance alone. And when you do acid you lose the ability to make that
distinction.
Like the friend who insisted I accompany him to the roof to see the
flying saucers. They turned out to be flocks of geese passing through
a spotlight. The illusion wore off in my friend's case, as it usually
does, but I've known intelligent, educated people who became
permanently credulous, who thought (actual example) that their late
grandmother was talking to them from the dead or ('nother actual
example) went to faith healers long after they'd stopped doing acid.
AFAIK, no one thinks that an experiment has to be reproduced or
independently verified to be true, or results that aren't reproducible
are necessarily, as opposed to probably, false. Reproduction reduces
the chance that the results of an experiment are tainted by random or
systematic error.
If I were a scientist on a moon of Jupiter, I'd make my experiments,
yes, but I'd lament the fact that I didn't have someone checking my
results in their own lab, because they might notice an experimental
bias that I'd missed.
"As a lawyer you look for evidence that supports your client's
position, as a scientist I look for evidence that demolishes mine."
-- John Ashby
>It's as real as you make it Josh, your world is very strange to me,
>and doubtless mine is very strange to you; of course being part of the
>majority of opinion holders, your world is by definition "sane".
I've always thought of myself as being in a tiny minority. Most of the
people in the world are religious, for example, or at least harbor
some kind of belief in the metaphysical. But I've never seen any
evidence that it's anything more than nuts and bolts.
boots
>On Tue, 26 Jun 2007 05:41:52 -0600, boots <n...@no.no> wrote:
>
>>Josh Hill <usere...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>>On Mon, 25 Jun 2007 05:15:37 -0600, boots <n...@no.no> wrote:
>>>
>>>>Josh Hill <usere...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>>Some believers are more authoritative than others, eh? Sorry pal, I
>>>>>>don't care who the believer is, data is data. I've experienced enough
>>>>>>data to know that there are substances that aren't voluntarily going
>>>>>>into this creaking body.
>>>>>
>>>>>Good God. You and Ing. Do you seriously think I would suggest that you
>>>>>commit slow suicide unless I saw a profit opportunity? I'm discussing
>>>>>the sirens, not suggesting that you dive off the fucking boat.
>>>>
>>>>How odd, I was going on about not accepting the "testimony of others"
>>>>as Truth; it's their view, it may be true or not, either for you or
>>>>universally, but the fact that they testify it doesn't make it
>>>>anything besides their testimony.
>>>
>>>Which is to say it's so close to 100% that you'd need a scanning
>>>electron microscope to find the crack.
>>
>>You seem to be farting at the mouth there, Josh.
>
>I was merely saying that the testimony is so plentiful and so
>consistent that the proposition is almost a done deal. Asymptotic. Or
>assymptotic, if you like.
A vote then, innit; yes indeed, the world is flat, and dubya is the
best man for the job.
>Testimony doesn't constitute proof, but then, neither does any
>observation of phenomena.
I dunno. Lots of scientific types seem to think highly of phenomena.
Proof is what you require it to be, ask any Mooney.
> There comes a time when you have to doff
>your intellectual galoshes because arcane possibilities won't milk the
>cow.
Nobody ever won Lotto because of the probabilities. What was arcane
in the 19th century is common knowledge now. What was esoteric then
may be exoteric now. Big words mean little, little words usually mean
more or less what they say, but there are always exceptions on both
ends and in the middle.
If I was capable of briefly describing my worldview, it would be
closer to Berkeley's than to Hillary's. The cow milks itself.
>>>>I'm surprised that you'd make the "profit opportunity" joke, having
>>>>gotten your dick stomped for your earlier crack joke.
>>>
>>>I didn't see that as a dick stomping, just as someone not getting the
>>>joke. And there's always someone who doesn't get a joke.
>>
>>I wonder what that says about the jokes.
>
>Just I think that no matter how obvious a joke, someone is going to
>miss it. I've done it, you've done it, everyone has. If you're
>standing in front of a room wearing a pointy had and a big red nose,
>well, people will at least know you're joking. But if your humor is a
>little bit dry, those who don't get the joke won't necessarily know
>that a joke was intended.
I guess I'd be forced to agree, though I'll bet Red Skelton ran into
fewer tough audiences than most of us. 'Course he did look a bit like
a clown. When he chose to.
>>>> That assumes a
>>>>certain physical/spiritual hierarchy, places cause/effect in a certain
>>>>orientation, and makes all other kinds of assumptions which largely
>>>>deny any spiritual aspect of life, asside from suffering. I'm not
>>>>saying it's wrong or evil, in fact it seems to be the usual view, but
>>>>I am pointing out that it makes certain assumptions about how one can
>>>>navigate this flat earth; your philosophical stance appears to be the
>>>>polar opposite of that proposed by George Berkeley.
>>>
>>>Sure. To the extent that spirituality has any meaning to me, it's as a
>>>subjective phenomenon.
>>
>>Like "testimony", huh?
>
>Why not? I accept that people feel a spiritual this or that, because
>lots of people say they do and I don't have any reason to disbelieve
>them.
So there's no spiritual side whatsoever to Josh?
> I also accept that people experience this and that from drugs,
>because even if I don't have any personal experience with a drug I
>don't have any reason to disbelieve the many independent accounts.
>Both are subjective experiences, and both are well-described and even
>fairly well communicated through the experience of art: R. Crumb and
>John Lennon give you a fairly good idea of what acid does, Mozart of
>what it is to be tipsy.
Are blind men more or less likely to be clean shaven than men with
average vision? (If you think this is non-sequitur... well, you're
right, but it seems like an interesting question.)
>>> Which doesn't make it unreal -- it remains
>>>physical, it is part of the material universe, it is when viewed from
>>>the right coordinates necessarily an expression of truth. But it does
>>>subsume it to the world of phenomena, makes it a subset, if you will.
>>
>>It's yours to subsume as you choose. The question of what subsumes
>>what is a valid one, and becoming more valid as people dig deeper into
>>that quantuum soup stuff.
>
>I've suspected for many years now that neither really subsumes the
>other.
I suspect that if you are sufficiently committed to any worldview it
makes you effectively blind to others, the trick seems to be remaining
uncommitted for as long as you can abstain from voting.
>- Mathematics and physics are inextricably intertwined, in that there
>is always a mathematical description for a physical phenomenon, and
>not infrequently the mathematics had been discovered before it proved
>to be applicable to physical phenomena, e.g., Riemann geometry.
>
>- The fact that all physical laws appear to be described by finite
>symmetry groups suggests that the universe (or the metaverse, if you
>will) sums to nothing.
>
>- Quantum mechanics provides a mechanism consistent with both
>observation and thought by which that nothing becomes something, or
>rather, all possible somethings. Existence becomes inevitable.
>
>Another way of looking at it is that the ideal is merely the
>understood.
A lot of it amounts to double-entry accounting.
If you squint just right everything is fairly disgusting, and the word
"squat" looks extremely strange.
Maybe a license, they do that with handguns. I'm kind of a
laizzes-faire fellow, I'd let anybody who wants one have a gun,
anybody who wants any drug have it, change the words "badge",
"authority", and "bureaucrat" to the word "target", and let the
details work themselves out. I think they'd work themselves out
fairly quickly, actually. Crack dealers would probably have a very
limited lifespan. Assholes in general might find themselves an
endangered species. At some point people would probably find carrying
guns cumbersome and you might be left with a world fit for humans.
> but on an emotional level I think that anyone
>who sells them should be drawn, quartered, disemboweled, shot, and
>dumped into a foetid cesspit.)
Show me a cesspit that isn't foetid and I'll show you a brand new
cesspit.
>>>> Go visit your pal google and enter the search terms
>>>>"tobacco ammonia". If you're lazy, try this for a start:
>>>>http://www.pulitzer.org/year/1996/national-reporting/works/impact.html
>>>
>>>Yes, know about that. It's just a way to release more nicotine. But
>>>studies show that within a reasonable range the amount of nicotine
>>>doesn't matter all that much, since smokers simply smoke more or less
>>>to obtain their usual dose.
>>
>>"Studies show" that your ass has a hole in it.
>
>Are the studies then wrong?
Many of them are conducted (or financed) by folks with an ax to grind,
whether they realize it or not. Studies themselves are just studies,
but studies-for-a-purpose/profit make the whole species subject to
skepticism.
>>>>There is more to cigarette addiction than has been widely publicized.
>>>>I know from personal experience that there is something in the
>>>>cigarettes you buy off the shelf that is not in pure tobacco. I had
>>>>one hell of a time getting off cigarettes. I currently smoke what is
>>>>probably the equivalent of 4 packs of cigarettes a day in terms of
>>>>tobacco bulk, but I'm not smoking processed floor-sweepings; if I was
>>>>to quit smoking it, there would be physical withdrawl symptoms for 5-7
>>>>days and that would be the end of it -- that's not theory, it's
>>>>experience.
>>>
>>>I dunno. I've smoked both freebased cigarettes and additive-free
>>>cigarettes, and couldn't stop either. But who knows? There are lots of
>>>variables here.
>>
>>What's a "freebased" cigarette?
>
>With ammonia. Nicotine is an alkaloid, and IIRC the ammonia works by
>freebasing it.
I don't like ammonia. I high school, my drafting teacher said "Here,
take a whiff of this". Being a trusting naif, I inhaled a big double
lungful. He thought it was very funny, and I thought that killing him
slowly would be fun but not worth the consequences.
>>>You mean if it makes you dizzy? Used to do that to me as a kid. Don't
>>>think I ever had to sit down for it or stop what I was doing, though.
>>>If you're using so much that you're OD'ing, e.g., faintness, sweating,
>>>rapid and irregular heartbeat, etc.,
>>
>>> you could be putting yourself in immediate danger.
>>
>>Oh. My. Gawd. Immediate danger. "Warning, Will Robinson!"
>>
>>Oops, I forgot, you're one of those folks who believes that life can
>>be SAFE.
>>
>>The concept "safety" is one of those concepts people carry around like
>>a teddy-bear to keep the boogiemen away.
>>
>>It's as real as you make it.
>
>He who doesn't calculate risks exit gene pool.
He who calculates risks exits the gene pool. The final outcome seems
to be a given. Better to live a few years fully than to be a
centinerian nanny who has been afraid to live for his entire period of
incarceration. I'd refer to the quote "live fast, die young, leave a
good-looking corpse", but that would be hypocritical since I never had
a chance in hell of leaving a good-looking corpse; it's better to do a
thing well for a short time than to live for eternity in a state of
mediocricy.
>>>There's a third possibility: that you retain bogus spirituality. I've
>>>seen that happen to many who used acid, and I think I've seen it with
>>>Ecstasy. As distinguished from the genuine doors of perception stuff.
>>
>>There are more than three possibiliies. Also, "bogus sprituality"
>>doesn't require drugs, a few crystal pyramids or a ouiji board or a
>>ticket to Jesus can generate "bogus spirituality". Who defines what
>>spirituality is "bogus"?
>
>I do.
Yes you do, as does each of us.
> I mean, if my horoscope always told me that I was handsome,
>successful, and well-beloved by kings and the masses both, I'd believe
>in astrology, but I've noticed that it's never more accurate than
>chance alone. And when you do acid you lose the ability to make that
>distinction.
I dunno, when I took acid it just made it seem like I should be in a
hurry to do something, anything. Never had any kind of hallucination
or significantly altered perceptions on acid. For all I know it could
have been speed or something else, street drugs aren't all that
reliable.
>Like the friend who insisted I accompany him to the roof to see the
>flying saucers. They turned out to be flocks of geese passing through
>a spotlight. The illusion wore off in my friend's case, as it usually
>does, but I've known intelligent, educated people who became
>permanently credulous, who thought (actual example) that their late
>grandmother was talking to them from the dead or ('nother actual
>example) went to faith healers long after they'd stopped doing acid.
Faith healing seems to keep the Christian Scientists' church going.
Health is a funny thing. My wife is going to the hospital today for
some tests to see if she has permission to be okay. I haven't seen a
doctor this millennium, I despise doctors. If I cut myself open
through stupidity maybe somebody will stitch me up, beyond that I'll
take what I get, maybe I'll get sick and exit the planet early. But
mostly I do not allow sickness the time of day, I have no use for it.
You mean "reproduction" as in that sex thingy, right?
Look, see my clown nose?
The concept of "random chance" is a weasel-clause in the contract
science has made with the world of phenomena.
>If I were a scientist on a moon of Jupiter, I'd make my experiments,
>yes, but I'd lament the fact that I didn't have someone checking my
>results in their own lab, because they might notice an experimental
>bias that I'd missed.
>
>"As a lawyer you look for evidence that supports your client's
>position, as a scientist I look for evidence that demolishes mine."
>-- John Ashby
>
>>It's as real as you make it Josh, your world is very strange to me,
>>and doubtless mine is very strange to you; of course being part of the
>>majority of opinion holders, your world is by definition "sane".
>
>I've always thought of myself as being in a tiny minority.
Short, like Sylvia, are ya?
> Most of the
>people in the world are religious, for example, or at least harbor
>some kind of belief in the metaphysical. But I've never seen any
>evidence that it's anything more than nuts and bolts.
I've never seen any evidence that reality is more than nuts and bolts
either. It's a question of how the mechanism is built, and how it
actually works, and what its boundaries are. Experience has taken the
idea that physical reality as commonly understood by modern science is
the be-all and end-all and pretty much shoved a refutation up my nose.
Ever think about what it would be like to be an infant, who is just
beginning to recognize that the warm things around him are people, and
the stranges noises they make might represent information?
Superstition and science, ju-ju and drugs, put it all in a blender and
set to "puree" for 90 seconds; toss the result.
Josh Hill
>Josh Hill <usere...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>I was merely saying that the testimony is so plentiful and so
>>consistent that the proposition is almost a done deal. Asymptotic. Or
>>assymptotic, if you like.
>
>A vote then, innit; yes indeed, the world is flat, and dubya is the
>best man for the job.
We're talking a subjective experience, not something that requires
analysis. There isn't all that much room for error.
>>Testimony doesn't constitute proof, but then, neither does any
>>observation of phenomena.
>
>I dunno. Lots of scientific types seem to think highly of phenomena.
>Proof is what you require it to be, ask any Mooney.
Think highly of just means highly probable in this context. Seemingly
good results are not infrequently found to be bogus. From a
philosophical perspective, no observation can be said to be absolute.
>> There comes a time when you have to doff
>>your intellectual galoshes because arcane possibilities won't milk the
>>cow.
>
>Nobody ever won Lotto because of the probabilities. What was arcane
>in the 19th century is common knowledge now. What was esoteric then
>may be exoteric now. Big words mean little, little words usually mean
>more or less what they say, but there are always exceptions on both
>ends and in the middle.
>
>If I was capable of briefly describing my worldview, it would be
>closer to Berkeley's than to Hillary's. The cow milks itself.
A vision that's difficult to understand when you're the sort of person
who was lying awake last night thinking about causality, causation,
and time reversal symmetry. It's all billiard balls to me. What
interests me is that in one direction, the balls gang up on the cue. A
matter of entropy, but why? How does it fit into the larger symmetry?
One senses, one suspects, but one doesn't know, at least if you're me.
>>>>>I'm surprised that you'd make the "profit opportunity" joke, having
>>>>>gotten your dick stomped for your earlier crack joke.
>>>>
>>>>I didn't see that as a dick stomping, just as someone not getting the
>>>>joke. And there's always someone who doesn't get a joke.
>>>
>>>I wonder what that says about the jokes.
>>
>>Just I think that no matter how obvious a joke, someone is going to
>>miss it. I've done it, you've done it, everyone has. If you're
>>standing in front of a room wearing a pointy had and a big red nose,
>>well, people will at least know you're joking. But if your humor is a
>>little bit dry, those who don't get the joke won't necessarily know
>>that a joke was intended.
>
>I guess I'd be forced to agree, though I'll bet Red Skelton ran into
>fewer tough audiences than most of us. 'Course he did look a bit like
>a clown. When he chose to.
I read a funny Mark Twain piece about an impossibly dour Connecticut
audience once. And the thing is, when I moved to Connecticut, nobody
got my jokes. I'd say something that would have had them in stitches
back in New York -- OK, OK, maybe elicited a mild chuckle -- and
they'd look at me with this puzzled expression and think about it and
then say "Oh, was that a joke"? Then, at some point, things changed.
Now I can make 'em smile, a smile being in Connecticut the equivalent
of a belly laugh. Don't even know what I did. Absorbed the gestalt,
somehow. I guess.
>>>>> That assumes a
>>>>>certain physical/spiritual hierarchy, places cause/effect in a certain
>>>>>orientation, and makes all other kinds of assumptions which largely
>>>>>deny any spiritual aspect of life, asside from suffering. I'm not
>>>>>saying it's wrong or evil, in fact it seems to be the usual view, but
>>>>>I am pointing out that it makes certain assumptions about how one can
>>>>>navigate this flat earth; your philosophical stance appears to be the
>>>>>polar opposite of that proposed by George Berkeley.
>>>>
>>>>Sure. To the extent that spirituality has any meaning to me, it's as a
>>>>subjective phenomenon.
>>>
>>>Like "testimony", huh?
>>
>>Why not? I accept that people feel a spiritual this or that, because
>>lots of people say they do and I don't have any reason to disbelieve
>>them.
>
>So there's no spiritual side whatsoever to Josh?
Deep spiritual side, I think. I just don't ascribe it to anything
supernatural or metaphysical.
>> I also accept that people experience this and that from drugs,
>>because even if I don't have any personal experience with a drug I
>>don't have any reason to disbelieve the many independent accounts.
>>Both are subjective experiences, and both are well-described and even
>>fairly well communicated through the experience of art: R. Crumb and
>>John Lennon give you a fairly good idea of what acid does, Mozart of
>>what it is to be tipsy.
>
>Are blind men more or less likely to be clean shaven than men with
>average vision? (If you think this is non-sequitur... well, you're
>right, but it seems like an interesting question.)
Less. But, as you say, it doesn't seem to have much to do with nuns or
secretaries.
>>>> Which doesn't make it unreal -- it remains
>>>>physical, it is part of the material universe, it is when viewed from
>>>>the right coordinates necessarily an expression of truth. But it does
>>>>subsume it to the world of phenomena, makes it a subset, if you will.
>>>
>>>It's yours to subsume as you choose. The question of what subsumes
>>>what is a valid one, and becoming more valid as people dig deeper into
>>>that quantuum soup stuff.
>>
>>I've suspected for many years now that neither really subsumes the
>>other.
>
>I suspect that if you are sufficiently committed to any worldview it
>makes you effectively blind to others, the trick seems to be remaining
>uncommitted for as long as you can abstain from voting.
I think that one can choose to see life through either dull bovine
eyes or canny predatorial ones. It's not a matter of any particular
philosophy or worldview, but of whether you have the intellectual
courage to question and challenge your own assumptions.
>>- Mathematics and physics are inextricably intertwined, in that there
>>is always a mathematical description for a physical phenomenon, and
>>not infrequently the mathematics had been discovered before it proved
>>to be applicable to physical phenomena, e.g., Riemann geometry.
>>
>>- The fact that all physical laws appear to be described by finite
>>symmetry groups suggests that the universe (or the metaverse, if you
>>will) sums to nothing.
>>
>>- Quantum mechanics provides a mechanism consistent with both
>>observation and thought by which that nothing becomes something, or
>>rather, all possible somethings. Existence becomes inevitable.
>>
>>Another way of looking at it is that the ideal is merely the
>>understood.
>
>A lot of it amounts to double-entry accounting.
The scary thing is that I think that all of it does.
>>>>>Yes, but I wasn't aware that a head-rush equated to euphoria. To me
>>So -- good or bad drug -- it depends on the circumstances, doesn't it?
>>Some of them social. What I do not believe is that we should ban
>>recreational drugs merely because they're pleasurable and nanny people
>>over drugs that aren't particularly harmful. I'd make a serious
>>attempt to ban only the most harmful drugs on the street -- Heroin,
>>crack, meth -- and even then, I'd make Heroin available to registered
>>addicts. (I'm not even sure that, from an objective perspective, these
>>drugs should be banned,
>
>Maybe a license, they do that with handguns. I'm kind of a
>laizzes-faire fellow, I'd let anybody who wants one have a gun,
>anybody who wants any drug have it, change the words "badge",
>"authority", and "bureaucrat" to the word "target", and let the
>details work themselves out. I think they'd work themselves out
>fairly quickly, actually. Crack dealers would probably have a very
>limited lifespan. Assholes in general might find themselves an
>endangered species. At some point people would probably find carrying
>guns cumbersome and you might be left with a world fit for humans.
Doesn't work very well in places like Iraq.
>> but on an emotional level I think that anyone
>>who sells them should be drawn, quartered, disemboweled, shot, and
>>dumped into a foetid cesspit.)
>
>Show me a cesspit that isn't foetid and I'll show you a brand new
>cesspit.
Exactly. I don't want them taking advantage of a technicality.
>>>>> Go visit your pal google and enter the search terms
>>>>>"tobacco ammonia". If you're lazy, try this for a start:
>>>>>http://www.pulitzer.org/year/1996/national-reporting/works/impact.html
>>>>
>>>>Yes, know about that. It's just a way to release more nicotine. But
>>>>studies show that within a reasonable range the amount of nicotine
>>>>doesn't matter all that much, since smokers simply smoke more or less
>>>>to obtain their usual dose.
>>>
>>>"Studies show" that your ass has a hole in it.
>>
>>Are the studies then wrong?
>
>Many of them are conducted (or financed) by folks with an ax to grind,
>whether they realize it or not. Studies themselves are just studies,
>but studies-for-a-purpose/profit make the whole species subject to
>skepticism.
Yes, except that in this case both the pro- and anti-financed studies
show the same thing.
>>>>>There is more to cigarette addiction than has been widely publicized.
>>>>>I know from personal experience that there is something in the
>>>>>cigarettes you buy off the shelf that is not in pure tobacco. I had
>>>>>one hell of a time getting off cigarettes. I currently smoke what is
>>>>>probably the equivalent of 4 packs of cigarettes a day in terms of
>>>>>tobacco bulk, but I'm not smoking processed floor-sweepings; if I was
>>>>>to quit smoking it, there would be physical withdrawl symptoms for 5-7
>>>>>days and that would be the end of it -- that's not theory, it's
>>>>>experience.
>>>>
>>>>I dunno. I've smoked both freebased cigarettes and additive-free
>>>>cigarettes, and couldn't stop either. But who knows? There are lots of
>>>>variables here.
>>>
>>>What's a "freebased" cigarette?
>>
>>With ammonia. Nicotine is an alkaloid, and IIRC the ammonia works by
>>freebasing it.
>
>I don't like ammonia. I high school, my drafting teacher said "Here,
>take a whiff of this". Being a trusting naif, I inhaled a big double
>lungful. He thought it was very funny, and I thought that killing him
>slowly would be fun but not worth the consequences.
Weird drafting teacher. We had a fat guy with a beard.
>>>>You mean if it makes you dizzy? Used to do that to me as a kid. Don't
>>>>think I ever had to sit down for it or stop what I was doing, though.
>>>>If you're using so much that you're OD'ing, e.g., faintness, sweating,
>>>>rapid and irregular heartbeat, etc.,
>>>
>>>> you could be putting yourself in immediate danger.
>>>
>>>Oh. My. Gawd. Immediate danger. "Warning, Will Robinson!"
>>>
>>>Oops, I forgot, you're one of those folks who believes that life can
>>>be SAFE.
>>>
>>>The concept "safety" is one of those concepts people carry around like
>>>a teddy-bear to keep the boogiemen away.
>>>
>>>It's as real as you make it.
>>
>>He who doesn't calculate risks exit gene pool.
>
>He who calculates risks exits the gene pool. The final outcome seems
>to be a given. Better to live a few years fully than to be a
>centinerian nanny who has been afraid to live for his entire period of
>incarceration. I'd refer to the quote "live fast, die young, leave a
>good-looking corpse", but that would be hypocritical since I never had
>a chance in hell of leaving a good-looking corpse; it's better to do a
>thing well for a short time than to live for eternity in a state of
>mediocricy.
But there's quite a range between burning one's candle at both ends
and not burning it at all, isn't there. If I could point to the
burning their candle at both ends people as examples of short sweet
ecstatic happiness, I might feel differently, but from what I've seen,
they were anything but: prison isn't pleasant, or eating out of
garbage cans, or dying of AIDS.
>>>>There's a third possibility: that you retain bogus spirituality. I've
>>>>seen that happen to many who used acid, and I think I've seen it with
>>>>Ecstasy. As distinguished from the genuine doors of perception stuff.
>>>
>>>There are more than three possibiliies. Also, "bogus sprituality"
>>>doesn't require drugs, a few crystal pyramids or a ouiji board or a
>>>ticket to Jesus can generate "bogus spirituality". Who defines what
>>>spirituality is "bogus"?
>>
>>I do.
>
>Yes you do, as does each of us.
>
>> I mean, if my horoscope always told me that I was handsome,
>>successful, and well-beloved by kings and the masses both, I'd believe
>>in astrology, but I've noticed that it's never more accurate than
>>chance alone. And when you do acid you lose the ability to make that
>>distinction.
>
>I dunno, when I took acid it just made it seem like I should be in a
>hurry to do something, anything. Never had any kind of hallucination
>or significantly altered perceptions on acid. For all I know it could
>have been speed or something else, street drugs aren't all that
>reliable.
Does sound like speed.
Has roots much deeper than that, I think.
>Ever think about what it would be like to be an infant, who is just
>beginning to recognize that the warm things around him are people, and
>the stranges noises they make might represent information?
Pretty much the way I feel every day.
>Superstition and science, ju-ju and drugs, put it all in a blender and
>set to "puree" for 90 seconds; toss the result.
Ever notice that we spawn superstitions constantly, even the most
rational of us? Forex, Vista has decided it doesn't want to copy a
directory to my external SATA drive. After a while, it pops up a
message that says there isn't enough memory to complete the operation,
even though, of course, there is. And I have lots of theories about
why it does that and how to fix it, none of them very satisfying
except the one that involves Bill Gates and a red hot fireplace
implement. Superstition is born of necessity, of the need to do
something, anything, to survive in a baffling world.