endlessness wrote:But we are not doing a taste test on pepsi vs coke, we're testing the psychoactive effects of coke vs pepsi. To find out, we need to hide the labels and any other external characteristics so that we know we are testing what we have set out to, which is whether people can really tell the psychoactive (and not taste) differences between sample A and sample B.
You admited yourself the extent in which self-suggestion can play a part in our lives and yet you think isn't what is happening in the mentioned case of jungle vs DMT.... Maybe you're right, but before it is properly tested, we cannot know for sure.
I am not making any claims, I am desiring propper evidence that backs either side of the story, out of interest on this particular question.
1) Not to beat a dead horse Endless, but YOU are "not doing a taste test." I on the other hand
was. I have said this enough times that it makes no sense to go on about it. My only claim was that I can tell them apart blind. I only suggested that it is my
opinion that the effects are also distinguishable, but I made it clear this is inconclusive.
2) I didn't
admit that self-suggestion
can play a part in our lives... I
started off by saying it is the
very foundation of what it means to be human. Not only is it likely involved in your narrow interest here on this thread... but in
every aspect of human perception... including your clinical analysis. Which I also have said a number of times now.
Your belief that your tests can reveal the truth of this matter is also due to the suggestions of your teachers and scientific minded colleagues. In actuality, there is no evidence that we live in a material world governed by such physical laws. It is a learned paradigm that seems to be true, but this is not any kind of proof.
I suppose when I say something clear as day 3 times and someone still doesn't want to acknowledge what I am saying, than I am a fool to think a 4th time will help. But I am that fool... so who knows. In AA and NA they say it is the definition of craziness to repeat the same actions again and again and continue to hope for a different result. I think they are wrong, but it is a mark of true stubbornness or unadulterated idealism... two qualities I have in spades, but which are always outweighed by my fierce pragmatism.
Thus, as a pragmatist, my feeling is that what works is more valuable than the illusion of knowledge. If
I can reliably give
myself a different experience of hyperspace, than everything else is just frosting. Thinking that we can make hard and fast rules that apply to all people, in all situations, for all time is folly AFAICT. There is no diet that works the same for all people. There is no uniformity in our reactions to various drugs either. I know a number of people who get stimulated from valium and sedated from cocaine.
I appreciate your scientific zeal, but that is not my focus. It is
yours. As I have said many times, I am more interested in what we can
do with entheogens than in their composition. Knowing how to make drugs or what their exact constituents are is not mysterious or difficult. It is formulaic and can be done by anyone with the equipment, a modicum of intelligence, and the interest. The activities I engage in while in hyperspace, on the other hand, are not so easily learned or put into practice. They, like lucid dreaming or astral projection... are currently beyond our scientific ability to explain or reproduce reliably in a lab. They are things that take years of practice to do well, and there is no guarantee that even very intelligent people will achieve them.
I began on this thread by agreeing with 90% of what you said, and only adding that I have done dozens of blind
taste tastes, and that it was clear that most people can tell Jungle apart. I said from the beginning that this is because they taste and smell different. In response, you made the claim that people can't even tell wines apart, which is laughable to anyone who drinks wine. (there are wines that have such different consistencies and flavors that they are obvious even to noobs)
You also made the claim that because you and burnt could only identify a small amount of beta-carboline in
your Jungle Spice samples, that this was not enough to account for the different experiences people report. This is not something that you can say with any certainty. Small amounts of certain compounds can certainly have pronounced effects, and the effects we are talking about are not really very extreme. A mere shift in the aesthetics. In fact, given how singular DMT is, this difference amounts to maybe a mere 5% of the experience max.
I have reiterated that:
a) Your Jungle may not be the same as mine, and is likely nowhere near as oily.
b) That the differences might involve supposedly inactive ingredients, and thus not be obvious to your methods of testing.
c) That my re-x's of my Jungle Spice leave a large amount of oily deep purple red stuff that, while perhaps not devoid of DMT, is certainly
not primarily composed of it... and that this "Jim Jam" stuff is psychoactive for me on its own. It doesn't have anything like a DMT high either.
d) That oils account for a larger portion of my Jungle Spice than you are allowing for. Your suggestion that Jungle Spice is only 97% NN DMT and 3% this unknown beta-carboline is at the very least, premature... and in the case of my Jungle Spice, completely inaccurate. Jim Jam accounts for over 30% of my Jungle Spice by weight.
At any rate, I will stop repeating myself. I know what you are trying to say, and I think you know what I am saying... If not, then you are not likely to grok it from further repetition.
Final Point: You may envision yourself as the objective neutral party in a debate between two sides, but that is not how you come off in this thread, or in many others either. Furthermore, there is no real polarized debate here. Merely opinions and speculations. As someone who consistently trumpets the scientific paradigm, you are not the least bit neutral in these discussions, but rather seem inclined to set up a debate on your terms with your worldview as the sole arbiter. I have no problem with this, but you don't seem neutral to me.
I wish you all the best in your clinical aspirations.
Peace & Blessings
HF
"Curiouser and curiouser..." ~ Alice
"Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it." ~ Buddha