@Enoon: Let me clarify. How would you reach the unknown if DMT isn't at hand? That's the biggest limitation right there; dependence.

@gibran2: The contradiction is only in terms. The core of human beings is similar enough to be considered identical. Now how a man lives his life can obviously give rise to differences. But these differences are only superficial. The similarity is in awareness; the difference comes about with perception.

All men have awareness; how this awareness is tamed through life can give rise to differences in perception.

-f

well there are other entheogens which I believe to work just as well. Personally I don't place dmt higher up than say acid or mushrooms. Sure they're all different but I don't see why they can't help me as well.

Then there's other ways as well. I like to play with belief systems to move my state of mind around until it has no more hold and no more confinements. For this I usually use books and videos.

I also like to research things I find fascinating and philosophise about the implications... from science to philosophy. I do like mixing the two but as a scientist I am careful about that, making sure I always steer clear of saying science proves this philosophy... Anyway this kind of contemplation also yields a lot of new space.

And there's plenty of other ways; just meeting and talking to people, discussing things, arguing about things, or just simply living life... even meditation or black magic will probably give you some new experiences.

Why are you implying I'm dependent on dmt?

It seems like most of the people here really want to discredit me and disprove my ideas. If this is all that my posts are doing, I will gladly stop so you can take a break from trying to discredit me.

I expected that this crowd would flow more easily with novel ideas; but it seems that everyone is more interested in seeing me go down as a liar and a fake.

Bummer.

-f

Enoon, I'm not implying that you are dependent. I'm pointing out that foreign means for altering perception might not always be available. So where does this leave us if we want to go to the other side?

Personally, after I came down from my first ayahuasca experience I brought back a yearning with me. A yearning for the other side. I dedicated quite a bit of energy in the following months to figuring out how to go back there without using any chemical catalysts. In the end, I learned to reach that state through discipline.

-f

No, I can't see from your perspective, that's why I asked for you provide evidence to support your claim. I don't have the same experiential knowledge as you do, so I would never presume to be able to "know" things from your subjective experience.

You said dmt taught you that nothing matters, I must say, my experiences lead me to disagree with you and nod vigorously in agreement with gibran's statement that dmt taught me that everything matters - clearly we are experiencing different realities and your claim to be able to "know" my reality, despite you being so anchored in and staunchly defensive of your own view, is not as persuasive as you may believe it to be.

You responded to my requests to explain your basis for asserting that dmt is limited by making fallacious arguments which hold no water, so I still see no evidence on which you are basing your claim. How do you know...rather...how CAN you know that DMT is limited when all it takes is one future experience that pushes past what you believe to be the limits to disprove your statement to yourself?

how unfortunate that you haven't taken any of the constructive criticism we have offered. as stated above I'm having great fun discussing these things with you, and really am not trying to ridicule you or call you out as a liar or anything like that. I apologize if it came over like that.

I have a question about one thing though. It seems you place value on the thing that underlies all things more than on the thing that is superimposed on this, i.e. you value awareness and the foundation of our existence more than you do the diversity that has sprouted from the grounds of what you call awareness. I find that a lot of people do this - saying that our separate existences are just illusiory or not important. But I really want to know why would the universe bother to make it this way if it wasn't important. If the combination of the underlying unity and the superimposed structures and networks of seemingly separate nodes that IMO are all interconnected both by the underlying as well as the super-structures - if all this wasn't the point of existence in itself? And why call one thing an illusion and at the same time state that all things are equally real... Why is one thing more important than the other?

@SB:

I think we have a misunderstanding here. DMT is a catalyst that takes you into another sphere of perception. That place, which I call the unknown, is truly the vastest thing imaginable. That realm is infinite for all practical purposes. In fact, words completely lose their function within that sphere. But this is not a debate about the unknown. (Which I would gladly accept because the unknown is the most mysterious thing I can think of)

You need to allow for a difference between DMT, as the chemical which disrupts the body's normal functioning in a way as to allow non-ordinary perceptions, and those states of perception themselves.

I am not even going to argue anymore whether chemicals are limited tools or not as it is ridiculously obvious. But if you are interested in discussing the other side, I will be more than happy to oblige you.

-f

@Enoon: I really wouldn't know how to answer that.

All I can tell you is what I've learned from experience: Everything about existence is a mystery and nothing is any more or less important than anything else. Everything is equal. To me this concludes that on a cosmic scale, nothing matters. For a thing to matter it needs to be more important, more essential than something else.

From another view one could say that "to matter" or "to be important" is a human thing. Why should the cosmos reflect humanity? Humanity is so small compared to the whole...

Not to mention that all of this is rooted in language which only works within the sphere of the known, the daily world.

-f

I can see where you are drawing your conclusions...
"Everything matters" and "nothing matters" are both subjective responses to the same stimuli.


Why does it have to be more essential? Having brakes in a car matters, but I'm not sure they are "more" essential than anything else. When everything contributes, everything matters, regardless of any abstract rank of essentiality.

None of my posts referenced dmt as a chemical, they referenced the dmt-experience (a realm of percetion...which you now acknowledge as potentially infinite, thereby agreeing with me/gibran/whoever where you previously disagreed). You keep contradicting yourself and then tweaking your argument to allow you to continue railing on as to why your knowledge is so complete and the myriad of experiences available boil down to being the same thing...which, imo, is a horribly flawed argument. The fact that universal equality of all things would signal you to claim that everything is meaningless is very sad to me...the fact that you say you've experienced this and yet still can't understand importance in anything but relativistic terms is mind boggling.

Look at a car...which part is more important? The engine? The wheels? The tires? The axles? The gas tank? The gas? Each of these parts is different, serves a completely different function, and ultimately vary in cost and perceived importance. However, the car will not function properly without any of these parts...in that sense they are all of equal importance in allowing the car to run according to the manner in which it was designed.

edit: Eden, I was posting at the same time, lol, I see we had very similar thoughts...long time no see, how ya been?

Hello Eden,

hrm, Having breaks in a car matters to the person driving. But it's still a non-issue since that person is going to die regardless of whether his breaks work or not. The breaks matter because they can save the driver's life. But since the driver is going to die anyway, the breaks really can't save his life.

Death is what makes everything equal. Death is what makes everything unimportant.

-f

And now for an encore I give you:

Dr. Nietzsche and The Nihilists

@SB: Since the beginning of the argument I made sure to emphasize the word chemical as many times as I could and you never corrected me.

I never said everything is meaningless. I just said that nothing is important.

But if all of the car's parts are equally essential, can any one part be considered more important than the others?

-f

They are all different and they are all of equal importance...they all matter if you want the car to run. If you say they don't matter, the only conclusion is that you don't want the car to function as it was designed, the conclusion of "none of these parts matter because they are all of equal importance" is not conducive to a properly running automobile.

And you've said nothing matters several times, I've quoted you, Eden's quoted you, it's pretty apparent that you've made the assertion...

'Nothing matters' and 'everything is meaningless' are not the same thing.

To me the only thing that matters is something that can suspend death indefinitely. Since such a thing does not exist...

How can you sit there and tell me car parts matter when we are going to die? Nope, I don't think car parts matter at all.

-f

@Snozzleberry: If you're done bashing me, could we change the subject to something more interesting?

-f

This conveniently makes any attempts of discussion entirely moot.
It's also fun that you only attempt to state an absurd definition of "mattering" as a method of escaping your own contradiction.
Semantics are useful tools of distraction for someone in such a position.

whoa whoa whoa...I never "bashed" you...at least not to my knowledge...I attacked your arguments and assertions, perhaps with increasing voracity as you (to my mind) failed to defend them, resorting to fallacious logic and distracting tangents and shifting terms...If you really don't want to continue this, I'm amenable to that. I was merely challenging a point of view that I disagreed with and felt was poorly constructed, if you feel that qualifies as bashing, I'm sorry and will refrain from ruffling your feathers.

peace
SB