are the chemicals that LSD are synthesised from in ergot? in otherwords, these strange unquie chemicals in ergot must do SOMETHING for the plant/fungus. what? (aside, im about to trip haaaaard!!! dosed an hour ago )
they protect the plant.in nature, the tripping effect affects the consumer in a negative way. only in our eyes this effect is positive, because we want to be high. anyway, ergot (yes, lsd is synthetised from ergot) is (unlike lsd) very toxic, produces many others harmful effects, it is a poison. The ergotism is a severe disease.
Of what use is psilocin in cubensis mushrooms? of what use is mescaline in peyote? of what use is THC in cannabis? mere knicks in a gargantuan linked chain of chemical necessity. The magic comes from the interface of our neural sockets to these chems, and the purpose of our interface is manifold and lost in time. We evolved cannabinoid receptors when we were still little fish swimming in the ocean. Opioid receptors are even more ancient. As our vocabulary of neural chemical possibilities increased, and with our intelligence we stumbled upon these compounds in the wilderness and in our genius and chance, we naturally time and time again came across compounds whos effect on our organism rested at the level of consciousness, as some compounds effect stomach, others effect saliva production, so some simply cause an effect which cascades into the subjective "I" borne of our grey matter. Consciousness is like a projected image on a screen, our brain is the projector, and many things in nature can jostle the projector and distort the projected image. All things interconnect, all things spill over, your "I" is in the grass, the grass is in your "I".
YES! The plants evolved BEFORE us. We came along in a world where they already existed. The original purpose (for the plants) has absolutely nothing to do with humanity or our egos. That information may or may not be lost to time. Now, there are some who believe that plants high in strong alkaloids MAY have evolved these features in tandem with animals and thus we can think of the psychoactive effect as defense. If the mammal (or other animal) comes along and eats that tasty and juicy looking cactus or mushroom or root bark or flower or . . . .after awhile they will be incapacitated and unable to continue eating the material. Also, in the example of San Pedro cactus - the animal drops the piece out of its mouth or hands/paws (maybe) and this possibly starts a new cactus growing on the spot. Also where she broke or bit the top of the cactus off to eat - a new cactus pup comes out in no time at all. i'm just thankful that it does work. i suppose almost every psychonaut has felt this way about psychedelics before - but i feel passionately that the world NEEDS these medicines and the healing they offer more than ever right now.
Wouldn't you say that consciousness is the more screen than the projected image? I would say that experience is the projected image, the brain is the projector, and consciousness is the screen itself. It's the space that allows for anything to be or not be. And then psychedelics are a sort of fucked up filter perhaps.
You've expanded the analogy with the term 'experience', so it's a different analogy now. It also sounds like you are seperating consciousness from brain, as though consciousness is something amorphous floating away from and distant to the brain, and the brain is an organ which gives consciousness experience. I would argue that consciousness and brain are much more inseperable. If you were just a liver, you would not have "I", presumably. In my analogy, "experience" is the whole picture of the analogy; the projector projecting the image.
Yes i would say that consciousness exists independently of the brain and not vice versa. Not necessarily floating around. It just omnipresently exists. But then again, these debates easily turn into a battle of concepts, which inherently have no value at the end of the day. It is true that if i didn't even have a brain i wouldn't be able to even have a debate with any concepts whatsoever. But if i died right now, i feel as if consciousness would remain. But i don't even really know what i'm talking about, or what that would mean. I feel as if consciousness is beyond comings and goings. Unborn, undying. But it's very hard to talk about any of this because all of it easily just turns into concepts in my head, and without a brain, i wouldn't even be able to have those concepts.
