Ep. 99 - Non-Rationality and Psychedelics | Dr. Bernardo Kastrup
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- čas přidán 23. 08. 2024
- Do logic and rationality have limits? Are there ways to "get outside" of rational thinking? Do altered states caused by psychedelics provide true insight about the world, or are they illusory?
These are the questions I discuss with Dr. Bernardo Kastrup, who shares some of his personal experiments and insights gained with psychedelic drugs.
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Psychedelics absolutely can help some people to achieve new understanding. Anyone who denies this hasn’t looked into it. Though they also make people more suggestible, so there’s a big risk of misinterpreting the experience. This is why you hear stories about people overcoming crippling depression with a single psychedelic experience, and you also hear stories of people saying crazy stuff. Psychedelics are just a tool. Tools can be misused. Experiences often reflect existing beliefs, so a Buddhist rarely sees Jesus and a Christian rarely sees Buddha. A person of below average intelligence doesn’t have the same ability to articulate what happened during the experience as someone who is above average. Same for interpretations. Factors like existing beliefs, suggestibility, intelligence, etc all combine together to make each persons experience what it is (in addition to “[mind]set and setting”). Some experiences unlock new understanding. Some don’t. There’s no one-size-fits-all way to characterize psychedelic experiences. Cheers!
I wish Bernardo could go on Joe Rogan's show
Good wish, now there's demand.
indeed!!
That would be nice but Joe has morphed into an Oprah for blokes. He only ever interviews materialists too.
He will
He has an open invitation, but refuses to travel
Bernardo is so damn intelligent and humble all at once
Is he smart
Always appreciate Bernardo Kastrup, but I truly appreciate Patterson here too. Many of us recognize the fixation on verbal rationalism, but rarely is it displayed so humbly with such a sincerely questioning attitude. It is good not to give into "nonsense" too easily! But definitely take that Sunday nap.
To Bernardo, Keep up the straight jacket fight. This woman's cheering you on. I "feel" you're on the right track, and I "intuit" that you're speaking a "meaningful" truth. YOU'RE THE REAL WHOLE MAN! Thanks 😘
To others, sorry can't be explained.
Hey Steve, i really love your work, thank you so much. You've inspired me to go down the path of independent academia and I've been seeing a really steady growth of audience and support. Thank you so much. Much love.
Great work, Kastrup. Break up those paradigms within the constraints of those very paradigms.
Excellent conversation, Steve and Bernardo!
What is, is what it is and it is not what it is not. Yes, this resonates. If I may add the following: "What seems to be is what it seems to be but may not necessarily be what it is."
These podcasts are so good. Hope he comes back.
I'd say we need logic to keep us grounded and stable in the world so that we may handle daily business. But we must maintain hold on wonder and awe to keep life sparkling.
Explaining states of mind/perception to someone who not experienced these is states is probably as hard as explaining how is the experience of vision to someone who was born blind.
But... even not experiencing those states we can think about them in a pure abstract way, bu we will be unable to create intuitions.
Someone blind can understand that vision is simply an mental experience that someone with vision has and that this mental experience allows them to perceive objects without touching or hearing them, for example.
For these special states which does not involve rational thinking I think that the experience that I had when I was very young is a good analogy.
Bernardo is brilliant and that any interview with him on CZcams attracts multiple thousands (if not millions) less than interviews with the current high priests of materialism like Dawkins, Krauss, Carroll, Harris, Greene, et al is a sad commentary on just how much the current zeitgeist is like the zeitgeist when priest-of-old ruled the world.
Atleast Harris is open minded. He had a beautiful podcast with Donald Hoffman some time ago. He also ackowledges validity of spirituality and mysticism.
Also there is nothing wrong with alligning towards materlism and being agnostic about the hard problem of consciousness and keeping your mind open to other possibilities like bernardo's version of idealism. You are acting as if it's a settled debate and people who tend to be on materialism side are all evil or something. It's so not a settled debate. Have some decency in your arguments. Don't attack people who are actually opening the door for secular/athiest folks to think more deeply about Consciousness.
@@saritajoshi1737 Didn't mean to offend but my beef is that the materialists get virtually all the attention and adulation from the mainstream, and I consider that really, really unfortunate. Btw, I saw the (free) portion of Harris' interview with Hoffman and he was respectful though I'm sure the idea for the interview was his wife's. Also, though I have serious issues with Harris, they barely compare to those of Kastrup. see czcams.com/video/xUz8uRdrpZ0/video.html
He's not brilliant
@@hhhhhhhh6008 he really is though. He is the first one in academic history to succesfully defend a phd thesis on metaphysical idealism
@@purpose6113 that doesn't mean your brilliant lol
woah woah woah. wait a second. this is blowing my mind. it's possible to feel "fresh" when I wake up in the morning?
On this issue of non-contradiction I would encourage you to consider the idea that direct sensory experience is a first class event that can not be contradicted, it is only when we attempt to represent direct sensation to ourselves or others that contradiction becomes possible.
You don't need to trip frequently for two years to get it if you do it with 5-MeO-DMT ;) DMT is only the second most powerful psychedelic. 5-MeO-DMT is also endogenous. DMT evokes hypervisionary states, but 5-MeO-DMT evokes hypermystical states in the sence that it gets straight to the point. :)
Also it is possible to have a full trip on 1 g of shrooms if they are potent and one is sensible. Some mushrooms contain 4 times the dose of psilocybin than others. It's better to start as low as 0.2 g and then work yourself up.
This channel is underrated. You should do video podcats more often to build the audience you so deserve. I love your personality and you are clearly very smart and have knowledge of so many different domains.
At minute 57:30, Steve asks: "Is there a state where the self deception is not arising?"
Yes, there is. But it is not a state (since states are in time and space).
One could say it is a non-state. It is a realization. More precisely, there is nothing to say(from that non-state) since this 'realization' silences the mind, dissolves it, returns it to its source which is no-thing and yet, from this no-thingness, everything arises, but this arising is mind impressions, a sort of narrative that is based on the assumption that reality can arise (while in fact, reality does neither arise nor not-arise).
I hope this seemingly confusing statement makes some sense somehow. :)
problem: too much brain! solution: take some mushrooms. 😁
Yes Steve. When you said the loving experience is the highest 'state' (minute 59:19) this statement resonates here.
But i would add that this (highest) love is objectless. Although it is objectless it can be celebrated in the (so-called) world of form.
So great! Came for part two of the wonderful satsang according to Bernardo. Much love.
Hi Steve, if you don’t want to try psychedelics try the Wim Hof Method. Search for those terms and you’ll find countless resources. You can learn to do it in under 5 minutes. Combine this exercise with the practice of meditation and you can learn to experience the gap between two thoughts.
Well, I would say they it all and plentyful. In the end you will come up with conclusion that at the end of the day it is all the same. We just can't get behind conciseness. No matter what and how impressive the experiences will it still is and can only ever be an experience in and of consciousness. And you will end up with the same question: what is behind all this?! 😘
When he started talking about the psychedelic mind deceiving itself it sounds similar to the way I think about dreams. Dreams are your mind trying to make sense of emotions, sensations, etc that you are feeling while sleeping. The mind just can't seem to rest.
At 20:45 you say the way that it is and the way that is not. The thing can appear one way but it’s constituents maybe completely different so in that sense the thing can be and cannot be the way it is. We have many examples in physics.
I think self projection is more accurate than self deception, though self deception can be a major part of anyones self projection.
They are equal, because the identity of self in general is never really investigated in the first place. Therefore every self projection is based on ideals about what the self should look like and not on what it truly is. 😘
Bravo guys!
Bernardo is even original when talking about psychedelic 'gnosis'. What a mind! What is this higher something trippers report? You write it all down while high but you always crash back down into your ego! When we die do we go to that higher altitude and stay there? Swedenborg writes a scene in heaven and hell describing this very scenario!
In order to 'apperceive' the other side of rationality, above all, a deep interest in causeless peace and happiness is helpful. Experientially and not metaphysically.
Kastrup’s philosophy is very compelling but actually kind of grim from a certain perspective. The foundation of reality can be though of in terms of deception, amnesia, and the vertigo of eternity.
I don't think it is so much that those adjectives describe the foundation of reality, just our perception of reality.
So Steve, there is a difference between saying that A is A and saying that all things are knowable such that a logic-dependent process in the mind of a user can relate all things logically. There are ways of knowing and grasping some things (particularly in non-ordinary states) that are definitely true knowledge but which you could not arrive at in a deductive, methodical process.
One explanation may be that, though all things are what they are, not all things are causally related METAPHYSICALLY! And if not metaphysically "interactive" then perhaps it is only consciousness that can relate such a-causal entities by means of a non-logical grasping of the meaning of their relationships.
This would not invalidate the so-called "law" of identity, just that such a law only applies to the resident existants of a shared metaphysical domain or world.
Another possibility is that while A is A, when A is a complex, such as say a conscious being or a series of events with more causal inputs than we can understand or ascertain, then logic FOR YOU OR I may be unapplucable, though some different or greater mind may not be so challenged.
There are other possibilities if you think about it. I think part of your challenge here is what we mean by the "law" of identity and also by the notion of "metaphysical." What are the laws of metaphysicality? What are we assuming about being and identity?
So Steve, is there any point in my addressing a thoughtful comment towards you if you don’t respond?
@@morphixnm because tldr
@@flaabr It is not too long for what needs to be understood.
the voice in your head
is not something YOU are doing
it’s something happening TO you
you’ve been hijacked
by your own language machine
waking from the
paleolithic trance of language
is a game-changer
23:32 - "...We don't have the conceptual arsenal..." - Is this where Terrence McKenna kicks in?
I don't think so. He might have had some experiences of it, but from listening to him I find that he doesn't have the conceptual neither. 😘
This is very interesting, but unfortunately, I think I´m just not smart enough to grasp it. However, I need to ask this: When Kastrup (at around 21:00) speaks of the way Patterson frames his logic about "that which is SO, can not be NOT so etc), he (K) refers to how this is only valid within a certain (and limited) framing. Does he mean that the accepted, logic reasoning making up the foundations of our discourse is a "closed, non-satisfactory system"? In the way that the tautology / axioms of how we discuss what we believe to be the actual frames of human logic in reality is non adequate to take us beyond the hindrances of a "full understanding"? If so, do we have to discard all existing dialiectics pertaining to "reasoning" to advance?
Steve, you need to smoke some 5meo-dmt. It will instantly, and I mean INSTANTLY, pull back the curtains for you. It is unfucking believable. I remember the first time I tried it I instantly understood the philosophy of Idealism. I had read about it for years, I have meditated on it, I understood it intellectually but never had I experienced it. It is mind blowing. One thing that stood out to me is the overwhelming experience of the knowledge that it is right here. It is right here! It’s not out there, somewhere else that you now have privy to - it is right here. That probably doesn’t make sense if you haven’t had the experience.
That's right. Believing that you don't know and that it is impossible Fri know it's part and the basis of the ongoing self deception Bernardo talks about and that make this whole experience possible in the first place. Therefore I would not dismiss the value of it as it is the basis for magic. At the end of the day what is it that makes magic work and so appealing? Isn't it that the actual mechanics of it are veiled so that it can appear as something which it is not? 😘
Steve Patterson thought experiments about consciousness question Specific behavior does not indicate that one being is or is not conscious, what reference would you use as an Indicator to identify whether or not one being is conscious or have i gone about solving this problem in a different way than what i should be because if we are to assume that the brain does not at all contribute to any states of consciousness then what are we to do about this problem?
Rationality:
"Its an internally coherent system for everything that is amenable to it... but not everything is amenable to being framed according to that system." ~ Bernardo
" What isn't though?" ~ Steve
**crickets**
Of course. He was tempted, but hesitated, took a detour, and finally goes there at 35:05
@@TheoSakoutis You're correct he did, in describing his psychedelic trips. At 35:05 he explained that psychedelic gnosis is unreliable and the mind's purpose is to deceive itself. YET Bernardo asks us to trust the gnosis he's gained through his trips.
So I've read his book, "Meaning in Absurdity" thinking I'd find sense there where he had so much more room to explain himself. I regret it left me more perplexed, not less.
@@tomgorman4302 Is he asking us to follow his gnosis? I hear him asking us to find out for ourselves..
@@TheoSakoutis Not quite. He explained that psychedelic gnosis is ‘unreliable’ and the mind’s purpose is to ‘deceive itself’. In inviting us to embrace the absurd - because that is the insight he gained from his trips - he is indeed inviting us to trust his gnosis... while also telling us why we can’t trust them or our own mind.
@@tomgorman4302 I think I understand your resistance. Yes the idea that the mind is a self-deceptive process is central in his arguments. He also stated that gnosis through psychedelic states is unreliable, and cautions against their use. It would be a mistake to infer from this that he is denying the value and role of psychedelics in the quest for knowledge. Bernardo makes it clear that his perspective is a product of a combination of factors including rational scientific thinking, and psychedelic experience. He merely scratches the surface on the topic of psychedelics though. Aside from his commentary on finding the Archimedean point in expanded states, he doesn't go too deep into it. I think where feathers get ruffled is when he states that his role is not to emphasize that aspect of his experience, but rather stay within what he refers to as the straight-jacketed confines of logic and rationality. It's almost as if to imply that he has a superior perspective as a result of those experiences compared to those whose arguments have not been informed by similar experience. Is this fair to say?
It’s right here, witnessing the very ‘I’ that can’t seem to grasp it. No psychedelic experience needed. Highly recommend watching a Mooji video on here.
Regarding the manoeuvre of deception of the psychedelic trip away from A to B, it could be argued that the trip realisations themselves may be deceptions from A to B.
Sure, but one could also argue that it can not be known (apart from a social convention), which really is the sober states and which letter the red herring. It could well be that the human minds natural state is psychotic and looking at the state of the world and human history from a metal perspective actually seems to confirm this, and that the mind only sobers up to sees things more clearly when it gets sidetrack trough the use of psychedelics. 😘
How experience can fill the same role as theory is beyond me. Theory is an operator on experience.
I will say one thing, when I was young man I did use cannabis and also took mushrooms, be very careful when taking mushrooms because they will enhance your mood tenfold, so you are feeling down or depressed don't take them, if you are very happy the yes ,fabulous 👌
not a couple centuries away... a couple decades
we are at a turning point in Earth’s development
humans are now waking from the paleolithic trance of language
we’ve been under the spell of language foe at least 200,000 years.
the first signs of waking began a couple thousand years ago...
buddha, jesus, etc.
but the pace has been accelerating exponentially
Earth is waking up
The non-existence of contradictions requires either consent or enforcement.
That's a lot of words just to describe pre-integrated experience.
Bernardo, you do not go far enough. If you want to make an omelet, break eggs! you have two phd's. let loose.
I don't understand why logic is the first thing to go with some philosophers, when there is plenty of room for revision of the higher order language structures.
Agreed. I think I'm convinced by Dr Kastrup that there's something more fundamental than logic, but logic is still incredibly fundamental. There's not much meaningful that can be said "under" or "outside" logic, so if contradictions arise when vocalizing multiple ideas that seem to be true, then there's a high probability that there's a contradiction being introduced many steps after logic has seeded the ideas to begin with
@@user-vx1up7ty7z Logic is self referential - you start with an assumption & the rest of your process is to follow the implications of that assumption. If the assumption is wrong (or at least inadequate), the result will be wrong.
Bernardo's point - as I understand it - is that our minds are inherently delusional. The basis for this, speaking from my education in physics, is that we are not capable of processing more than an infinitesimal amount of the information available to our senses, let alone that amount of information available in the universe - even allowing for the extensions to our senses provided by our measuring tools - which, by definition, only measure what they are capable of measuring! (dark matter & dark energy anyone?). Because our minds cannot process as much information as our senses are capable of taking in, we filter that information. Needless to say, we filter based on what we think (subconsciously) to be important in terms of managing our lives. How we determine what is important is often based on social & cultural indoctrination.
@@user-vx1up7ty7z - Without meaning to, I sent you a private reply (I hadn't previously encountered that option on you tube) . I wouldn't mind making it public & if you agree that there is some merit to my reply & copy it back to me, I'll post it again as a public reply
27:37 sounds like you're talking about the concept of fitrah from Islam (natural disposition/innate knowledge)
So the law of identity does not apply without meta cognition but that does not mean that it’s not there. It’s just that you can’t identify it yet
Do you have a podcast I could listen to?
I think the term you're thinking of at 49.07 is 'double bluff'
Red herring, no?
I've been married but had it annulled. By law, I was never married. I had a ceremony, signed the paper, kissed the bride, put the ring on her finger. But according to the government I have never been married. So I have both been married and never been married, depending on context. If you try to authoritatively disambiguate the world, you are fighting a losing battle.
That elusive something BK is referring to is kind of like that 1 in 10 "N2O whip-it". When stuck exactly in between unconsciousness & the experience itself for both an instant & an eternity. Its been vaguely described as simultaneously continuous yet fragmented zero & infinity & everything & nothing & light & dark & good & evil & but it all doesn't even matter in the slightest etc. The easiest way to "get there/know it/remember it(if only briefly)" is via a pretty precise IM dose of ketamine, even MUCH more so than DMT, for this particular thingy anyway. It is by far the most interesting substance "out there" imho. btw I'm not pro drug or anything generally speaking but if you've never used psychedelics(& pretty frequently) you're potentially(VERY likely) completely missing out on quite a bit of the BIGGER picture(s). On the other hand they are NOT for everyone. But for a young & curious person who might consider themselves a BIG thinker RE: consciousness, life, the universe & everything, they can be priceless. & honestly, I doubt that I'd trade my psychedelic experiences for anything. Well, in hindsight maybe a select half for like a few mill. But NEVER ALL of them.
maybe you'd be interested in reading the true sanskrit's "difference beyond being" on substack 🙂.
Sacred fungi?! Will you ever have me on your audio cast?! Cheers and limitless peace.
H.P. Blavatsky writes: “The Mind is the great slayer of the Real.”
Just finished. To be fair, I sided more with Steve here, and now I'm curious to read the book he mentioned. Steve, where do you stand after this conversation?
Yes Steve, you can "just dismiss" as ridiculous, even the "greatest" mathematician in the world, who wants to come along and tell us, "You know what, 2+2 doesn't necessarily have to equal 4"... This just makes them an "educated" fool who is deceived or deceiving themselves.
give the holy medicine to everybody!
The word you’re reaching for is Transrational . See Ken Wilber
The psychedelic experience is independent of the mind,of perception.
It occurs independent of the mind.
The mind doesn't create the reality under a psychedelic experience.
The mind does not deceive the individual under a psychedelic experience.
It is a deception by the intelligences inhabiting the psychedelic realm.
Whatever happens in the psychedelic realm it is not the result of the mind.
The mind is merely an observer,an experiencer.
The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao; the name that can be named is not the eternal name. The Nameless is the origin of Heaven and Earth; the Named is the mother of all things.
Lao Tzu
I think bernardo is wrong about the meditative state (between two thoughts) being somehow illogical. There is nothing illogical about that. But logic can't take you there. It's outside of conceptual framework. But saying it is beyond logic is absurd.
Look, I'll settle this. As a gay man I often find that if you push hard enough, if you glean hard enough, you can manipulate enough wrap around for a high discerning tool shed, analogous to an uproarious up down up down up down. Poink? Doink. Binkibinkibinkibinkibinkibinki.
Finds time for afternoon naps!? Is there anything he can’t do!?
Hey Steve. I'll try my best to describe the ineffable nature of this self deceptive existence that Kastrup was also attempting to describe. Maybe this can help to some extent, but it's simply something that we can't make sense of using words and logic.
Let's call all of existence God (picture it in a pantheistic way).This God is nothingness, but this nothingness is also something - a singularity, if you will. This infinitesimal singularity is infinite, in that it is not bound within anything. The way in which this infinite nothingness experiences itself is through an infinite amount of ever-changing self deceptive consciousness, you and I as human egos being just two of those things. It is necessarily self deceptive, because for it to experience everything, it MUST experience things as IF they are separate and real and not as they actually are (infinite nothingness). Evolution selects for propagation of self deceptive experience, because infinite nothingness alone isn't much of an experience.
For whatever reason, many psychedelics (usually a high dose) can temporarily strip away that self deceptive veil and reveal the nature of our existence that is oneness, infinite, and nothingness. This is usually called ego death. The self deceptive ego takes hold again after these trips, because we have to be self deceptive to continue to experience our separate forms. Once you have an experience like this, you'll understand why people like Dr. Kastrup believe that human logic is incomplete.
We are not robots stop with logic as related to the human experience our consciousness is only partly explainable unfortunately maybe upon physical death we complete the other components or they are explained but we cannot look at life as we know it as logical because its not. There is no logical requirement for us to be here
Don’t be a weenie like Lawrence Krause, Steve. Try DMT once at least.
Many dreams/ psychedelic subjective experiences are opposite to each orher - so how to determine what is real without rational analysis? You want people to trust in a substance to uncover ‘reality’? Sounds like a combo of solipsism and circular reasoning. Sorry to see bernard lost in all this new age bullshite
You exist right now, don't you? Do you need reason to _know_ that?