I think DMT is a way-point. The molecular connection that unites us all.

What about other entheogenic and closely related tryptamines? Bufotenine? Psilocin? High enough dosages of both of them induces journeys very close to DMT in nature. I feel DMT is getting too much attention these days... Sure, it's truly magical, but so are bufotenine, psilocin and a whole range of other substances. The real magic in Ayahuasca is, I feel, in the combination of the Ayahuasca vine and entheogenic tryptamines.

We are, everything is, but genetic mutation is quite distinct from natural selection (human-influenced selective breeding is still natural). We can't create new traits, we can only introduce traits from other lines and species and direct the propagation of others--all of this to very limited degree.

yup, purpose driven evolution is definitely problematic [Teilhard de Chardin''s work on it is pretty, but still a bit tricky to accept from a science perspective].
Cairns et al, and Hall et al did some experiments in the 90's that seemed to indicate directed evolution in bacteria
there is still from memory some work being done on this.

and yes, any purpose driven explanation involves teleology [final cause] from my understanding which is a major problem in biology [as time doesn't generally seem to go backwards : )]

however, there is significant evidence for acausal phenomena occuring in organisms e.g. in the form of solitons.

Solitons are a special class of 'wave',
they are also referred to as wave-atoms.
they exhibit properties of fermions (e.g. protons) and as such are best described (in the biological sense according to the literature) as 6 dimensional objects.
the interesting thing about solitons is that not only are our nerve impulses (the action potential) quasi-solitons, but the entire 'mind' is able to be modeled as composed of solitons.
Solitons also occur in -
DNA replication forks
Protein backbones
Lipid membranes
Energy transfer in microtubules
Differentiation waves [in morphogenesis / development of the organism]

So yeah,
hopefully they might offer in some new clues to what's going on with organisms and evolution and provide a different basis for a model taht doesn't fall into the problems of trying to treat organisms as either complex machines, designed, or based primarily around selection/competition.

Also there are many cases of hereditable changes that occur in evolution that do not require any genetic mutation [but appear indistinguishable to the genetic mutation equivalent], e.g. phenocopies. It's quite common in most animals and plants and we're still not really sure what is going on there in most cases.

All molecules contain their own algorithm. They were designed and implemented for many reasons. The human body doesn't produce psilocin, but mushrooms do, and their opinions want us to "save the planet" or " be a better person" etc.
Bufotenine is endogenous, though I haven't worked with it externally, so I have nothing to say about that.

The scaffolding of consciousness that holds this universe together (like mycelium holds the mountain)
drops little indicators all over the place to connect to the grand circuit.



___


P.s.

What does it do in plants?
What IS IT DOING in plants?

Imagine programming possibilities,
like a balance of leaves, stems, and alkaloids

If I designed Earth
I'd drop those keys all over the place
and even in the star shaped seers
just to make them laugh

Designed and implemented by whom? That's what I'd like to know. We're so commonly in such a habit of anthropomorphizing nature and the universe in general that we blind ourselves to the material realities right before our eyes. These realities are beyond simple imagination and only accessible by exploration, and to adequately explore and traverse the frontiers of these realities we need a bit of practical sense and the right tools. The simple fact is that nothing is doing anything at all apart from everything else. There is no design, because there is no designer. There is no implementation, because there is no implementer. Nature does not play by the rules of culture; culture is our own fortunate delusion. Nature is in and of itself and nothing more. To thoroughly understand it, we must realize that we are it, and it is not an it, at all.

Now, if referring specifically to the plants themselves, the same holds true in terms of the fallacy of anthropomorphism; however, devoid of central conscious drive, things do happen in plants, and we must understand that any action on the part of the plant or its components is like that of a machine, albeit an incredibly complex machine. But we must also understand that this isn't a machine in the way that we normally consider machines as designed for intended function, but a machine in the way that an ecosystem is a machine or the solar system is a machine--machine in the most primal of senses.

These molecules, for us, are simply a different set of lenses for our perception. We're either incapable of producing them in our own body, or else incapable of the levels at which we can administer them from outside of our physiology, and since they behave in much the same way as the molecules we normally perceive with, only slightly differently, of course we see things differently. The effect is comparable to that of infrared or night vision, but on a much more internal level. It's like with circuit-bending, you get sounds out of equipment that the equipment is perfectly capable of, but isn't normally wired for; providing new pathways for the circuit broadens the scope of its capabilities.



I would ask the same thing! It's not doing much of any importance in there, so get it out of the plants and into your bloodstream!

HAHAHAHAHA, that's incredible, I second that emotion.

Maybe DMT doesn't have any purpose in plants? A virus could have just 'put' it there, and all the other plants died from the virus so the ones that survived began making DMT just because that's what the virus's code made some plants do. Just because an organism makes DMT it doesn't mean there was an advantage in doing so.

I only just heard about how our own genome is 1.5% genes, 9% virus and 34% retrotransposons which used to be thought of as 'junk' but now are believed to be old corrupted viruses that have been in our genome for a very long time (New Scientist 30th Jan 2010- Frank Ryan on viral plagues and evolution). So we are 'half virus'! Some of it now plays a crucial role in our biology and so is part of what makes us 'human'. I find this fascinating. And a bit weird and scary!

Comparing organisms to (incredibly complex) viruses is I think a better analogy than a machine, because a machine has been designed by someone, whereas organisms are built chaotically without the need for a designer.

And that's why I specify them as more of a machine as a system of mechanisms than a machine as designed by someone. I've always considered viruses as more machine-like than even cells (cells are more like little material droplets bearing complex chemical systems)

Oh I forgot... 'computer viruses' are designed by people. That ruins the analogy a little.

I don't really get cells... I always think of them as downtrodden little amoebas just doing what The Man tells them to, and getting exterminated if they don't do what they're meant to! Does a cell know it exists on any level? I'm guessing no but had to ask!

Either this experiment was designed and is currently monitored
or it just happened and no ones watching.

I'm leaning toward the first....

just my opinion. I know there are billions of people who would laugh at me, and I'll laugh too... ;]

yup, totally agree.
there are cases where anthropomorphizing can provide a more accurate explanation than the non anthropomorphic explanation,
but this is generally from my understanding limited to animal behavior.
e.g. descriptions of pigs liking or disliking things etc
there has been more of a move to allow anthropomorphic explanations where they do seem to fit the phenomenon better [i.e. our intuition is often surprisingly correct : ) ]


but culture often does play very much by the rules of nature [e.g emergent behavior, flocking, self organization etc]


I'd personally disagree, there are many well documented aspects of plants that cannot be explained at all by the mechanistic system (e.g. lipid membrane actions and formation with vesicles).
Machine based thinking while really useful as a quick and easy heuristic can ultimately be as misleading as anthropomorphic talk if we're not careful.
ultimately current evidence seems to indicate that organisms are probably a very different system to machines. (which is quite exciting if you are a biologist as there is a whole load of new work and re-interpretation of previous data that can be done).


or acausal phenomenon that can be modeled in many cases as a machine (or designed system).
Mechanistic and functional (design based) terminology can be really dangerous if used willy nilly.
there was a really good paper in 1988 by lambert and hughes in "journal of theoretical biology" called 'keywords and concepts in structuralist and functional biology' that outlined these problems and also showed how use of these styles of language / key words (e.g. function, design, etc) modify and act as lenses on how we see and treat organisms/nature.

I'm happy to put it up as an attachment if anyone is interested : )

yup, it totally does,
it interacts with it's environment,
as cell networks/colonies get larger/more complex other emergent behavior usually kick in which tends to result in things like increasing awareness of the environment in differing ways.

Stuart Kauffman has done some work on this from memory [in his book, the origins of order).

equally there are views (often influenced by german 19th century philosophers such as Schelling or Hegel, or eastern philosophies) that consciousness is an innate state of the universe, ie.. that there is matter, energy and consciousness. i.e. consciousness goes all the way down and is expressed [at a very different / smaller level] by even e.g. weather patterns.'

it's a pretty interesting view : )

I'm not at all schooled in the newer theories of biology, but I've always considered the apparent sentient qualities of single cellular life to be more reflective of the simplicity of our own sentience than to hint at a higher level of consciousness among individual cells. Also, as I've said, I consider our culture to be a "fortunate delusion," meaning that though we pride ourselves on our capacity for rational or otherwise abstract thought, it's likely a more natural phenomenon than we prefer to think. We pride or loathe ourselves as in opposition to nature, but isn't this apparent opposition just yet another function of nature?

A cell's "behavior" can be tracked at the molecular level to a very large degree, but our understanding of that behavior is still limited to our understanding of those chemical mechanisms. Compounding these behaviors in the trillions further complicates our understanding of how these things operate, but even then there is still a core molecular basis behind it. What makes these mechanisms impossible to comprehensively predict is perhaps--as I would venture--the complicit role of the observer, but I digress.


How I think that cells do differ from machines in the way that we commonly think of machines, is that they are more fluid in nature. One or a few sorts of chemicals selectively isolates some other sets of chemicals that interact in such a way that reproduction is possible in certain conditions. Some of the molecules contained in that system are very machine-like on their own and behave in an overtly mechanical way (according to how we tend to think of the term), quite similar to viruses. These are no different than most simpler chemical processes (though often with much larger molecules), but their complexity stirs the imagination, especially since it's so difficult to reproduce synthetically.

My use of terminology regarding mechanisms and machines on this matter us hardly adequate, but the goal of such use is to conjure the sense of dead (another hazardous term, but dead as in never having been alive) material, animate only by mechanical and chemical means. Often, in text books, cells are portrayed in such a way that one could easily mistakenly feel that its components are made of living tissue, however unconsciously, but it is only dead material being portrayed--droplets of fluid, strings of molecules.


I'm not a biologist so my mind must rely on the simplest explanation, and anthropomorphic models are far from that when you consider the complexities of your own particular being. When newer theories take hold of the scientific world more stably, I will learn what I can and adapt as needed.

Yes, me too, keep it simple!

I thought about it, then started to formulate ideas of why there were such things that happened. Insects don't like mimosa because of the tryptomines, and suddenly I feel like maybe if I were born an insect I'd be all unhappy, so for that to work out I mean cosmic like and all that, what do insects feed on to get their DMT? And if insects don't like triptomines than why do I always get bitten by insects that drink my blood? and suddenly all the fun has been taken from it for the moment.
Is life just a battle between mankind and the insects? and like we get all these DMT plants and the insects hate us for it? Am I only just now finding this out? and why does my inner dialogue sound like that girl from sex and the city...the one who writes the column..


Insects:arrow: mammals:arrow: mimosa:arrow: :arrow: Entheogenic Breakdown

But there is what's called the 'complex adaptive machine', and despite the second law of thermodynamics, order does spontaneously arise out of chaos. The blind spot is in viewing evolution and the adaption of function in organisms at an individual level rather than at a probablistic, statistical and group level.

The ant is not the organism; the ant hill is the organism. The ant is an agent or cell that specialises its function to survive.

All life and matter intrinsically tends to group together to form more complex life or matter ... ants become ant-hills; people become societies and nations; iron atoms become iron.

Its a fundamental feature of our reality

check this out:

http://www.newscientist....-computers-revealed.html

plants are quantum computers. Maybe DMT is a quantum molecular processor of sorts.

I think this video is relevant to this thread.

Title: Messages On DNA And Connection To DMT
Uploader: DMT The Spirit Molecule Staff
Upload Date: February 12, 2010 (Less than an hour ago)
Speaker: Dennis McKenna Ph.D.
Duration: 5:19

URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=peRknkX2crk

It would make sense that insects wouldn't go for plants high in tryptamines, if that is the case, because essentially the insects are there to recycle the weakest plants. That is why the farming industry uses all the pesticides, herbicides, etc., because the plants are so weak since they are hybridized and grown in mineral deficient soil. Nature via insects want to recycle them. Hardy plants grown in mineral rich soil aren't attacked nearly as much by insects because they are able to survive and spawn new life.

So a plant high in tryptamines is recognized as a hardy plant, therefore doesn't need to be attacked and recycled by the insects. One way of looking at it at least.

I've always thought that plants that have these neurotransmitters are simply using them, much like we are, to experience their reality. I see it a bit like asking, "Why do plants have chlorophyll? Why would they have something in them that can cleanse and build OUR blood? What's the point to them having chlorophyll?"

Everything in the universe has some kind of sentience and some way of experiencing the rest of the universe and it just so happens that on a chemical level, the universe dishes out some similar compounds to different life forms, and so we end up interacting with each other and discovering new ways of experiencing all that is via alchemical means.


Then again, maybe it just happened accidentally, like in that Bill Hicks bit:


"Then on the seventh day, God looked at His creation and said, 'Ah, my Creation, perfect in every way..."

(God starts looking around, startled. He glances about in a panic)

"Oh my Me... I left fucking pot everywhere. Shit! I never should've smoked that joint on the third day! If I leave pot everywhere, that's going to leave humans with the impression that they're supposed to USE IT. Shit!"


: )

JM