Culture is your 'operating system'

[sk0pe]

Is it possible to completely erase everything you ever thought (operating system) and replace it with a completely new operating system ( way of thinking )??

Well what's wrong with the operating system we have Consumer capitilism 5.0 or whatever you wanna call it..? "It's simply dumb, retro, it's very non-competitive, it's messy, it wastes the enviroment, it wastes human resources, it's ineffiecient, it runs on sterotypes, it runs on a low sample rate which is what create's stereotypes, low sample rates make everybody appear alike when in fact the glory is in everybody's differences..
And the current operating system is flawed, is actually has bugs in it that generate contradictions, contradictions such as we are cutting the earth from beneath our own feet, we are posioning the atmosphere that we breath... This is not intelligent behaviour, this is a culture with a bug in it's operating system, that's making it produce irrational,malfuction, irratic behaviour... "



@4min how to get a new operating system.

 

[Keef]

I just loooove videos with mystery music in the background, the voice of the creepy lecturer shifting from left speaker to right, while advocating the use of drugs to wipe the slate clean because an African witchdoctor said so.

Not to mention he's comparing our brain to a machine - a machine designed, built, and programmed by our brains - which it clearly isn't.

I don't even want to listen to the "poisoning the atmosphere" bit. My dad was born in 1949, and he likes to tell me about the first time he ever saw a rabbit in his neighborhood - in his 20s. As a child here in industrial Dayton they would have to take showers before bed after a day playing outside because of the soot created by unfiltered wood and coal boilers used by all the factories and houses. The air we breath and the water we drink today is the cleanest it's ever been since before the industrial revolution.

 

[sk0pe]

An african witchdoctor? Creepy lecturer? Mystery music inserted by youtube moviemaker wannabe..

He is a world famous Ethno-botanist, he has a bachelors degree in Ecology and Conservation, and he was born in Colorado.

McKenna himself had little patience for New Age sensibilities, repeatedly stressing the importance and primacy of felt experience as opposed to dogmatic ideologies - Direct experience - not making your mind up before you have tried or know about something, sound like someone familiar?

Nothing african witchdoctor about him, how ignorant and obnoxious can you be?

He is more articulate and intelligent than you could ever wish to be.

 

[Public'sTwin]

Why don't you just rename this the "stuff by Terence McKenna" thread?—you've been peddling his stuff all over GTP a lot. Might as well have it in one place.

 

[sk0pe]

Why don't you just rename this the "stuff by Terence McKenna" thread?—you've been peddling his stuff all over GTP a lot. Might as well have it in one place.

It's all very relevant to certain subjects... and by all over GTPlanet you mean the opinions section, then yes your right.. But all over gtplanet is a huge exaggeration buddy.

If i could rename it i probably would though haha.

 

[PureAwesomeness]

An african witchdoctor? Creepy lecturer? Mystery music inserted by youtube moviemaker wannabe..

He is a world famous Ethno-botanist, he has a bachelors degree in Ecology and Conservation, and he was born in Colorado.

McKenna himself had little patience for New Age sensibilities, repeatedly stressing the importance and primacy of felt experience as opposed to dogmatic ideologies - Direct experience - not making your mind up before you have tried or know about something, sound like someone familiar?

Nothing african witchdoctor about him, how ignorant and obnoxious can you be?

He is more articulate and intelligent than you could ever wish to be.

A bachelors degree?! We're not worthy!

 

[Pupik]

You could join a monastery or a zen temple or take meth all day long, and wipe one's slate, but the effects might be a bit more permanent in the last case. I haven't looked at the YouTube video, so I'll give my spare change towards the thread title. (I might be missing the mark, but...)

I agree that we do live in a world of stereotypes, archetypes, tropes, symbols, which give rise to illusory feelings, statements, and preceptions, if we do not step back and evaluate our lives as changes occur and growth, wisdom, and maturity take over. On the other hand, they can be powerful things that give meaning to what is essentially a meaningless and cheap life if we strip too much mindfullness from it.

Yet, most of this world lives a life in a statistical bell curve (most lives are intra-personally predictable and only rarely punctuated by major changes) in which we begin to expect the...expected. Since life can be predictable, we find comfort and meaning to our ridgid ways of life; it's safer that way and gives us less stress at times when we know what to expect [or insert cliche here]. Or at least, we leave some tolerance for the unexpected.

I believe you're right about the part where we do create stereotypes to fill voids in the collective unknown; yet media, entertainment, and advertising resorts to them ceaselessly to transcend words and numbers and attempt to tickle one's fancy, with the stain of expectation and predictability being the end result (for better or for worse).

I'm not a gambling man, but people lean towards the safest bet. Rare can people just walk away from one life and join another, at least maybe you can if you're young and unattached to relationships and impressionable enough; although, ask the prisoner or addict in their lowest of low moments whether they would relish the opportunity to start clean again.

What we've learned is hard to undo all at once, it can create an personally emotional and psychological schism that is difficult to overcome, when forced to make even a simple decision with few (if any) consequences. That immobility that happens next is either a stroke of brilliance and inner satori, or a miserable state of mind that cannot move on the next decision that must be made. If my theory is true, then it soon becomes another muddled in-between for most people that essentially replaces Brand X for Brand Y.

 

[sk0pe]

You didn't miss the mark.

People don't stop and question anything, without that questioning of ourselves and our values as a culture we will never mature as a society.
People lean on what's safe, what they know, what they have been told...
Rather than what they have experienced for themselves.

Because people experience so little these days, because they are told what they can and can't experience.

Naturally occuring plants can be made illegal - Does anyone out there actually think this statement is actually reasonable? The very notion that you can make something that nature itself provided illegal is so obnoxious it's laughable, one of the many things that no one stops to question

That's like saying that nature that has given birth to 5 billion years of evolution and 5 billion years of natural chemistry got it all wrong, god got it all wrong when he put these things here.. (oh that's right it's a test, cos god is a prankster aswell as all-knowing).

Why do we as a western society trust that these drugs that have been made by lab coats for depression for 20 or 30 years are more safe than naturally occuring chemicals found in plants that nature has been making for 5 billion years - the very notion is illogical at best.

 

[Pupik]

^ Okay, you're using this argument as a bridge to legalize it. I figured as much, although we have a separate thread for that.

I feel most people wouldn't need the escape nor the excuse, if they put thought and deed to better work and understood that overnight success usually takes ten years.

 

[sk0pe]

^ Okay, you're using this argument as a bridge to legalize it. I figured as much.

I feel most people wouldn't need the escape nor the excuse, if they put thought and deed to better work and understood that overnight success usually takes ten years.

No i actually don't feel the need to legalize anything, as it's all readily availiable anyway, regardless of legality. Legalizing doesn't interest me in the slightest.
But the human act of making something illegal that occurs naturally interests me.

It's clearly a crisis of two things: of consciousness and conditioning. We have the technological power, the engineering skills to save our planet, to cure disease, to feed the hungry, to end war; But we lack the intellectual vision, the ability to change our minds. We must decondition ourselves from 10,000 years of bad behavior. And, it's not easy.

What blinds us, or what makes historical progress very difficult, is our lack of awareness of our ignorance.
Psychology interests me in general, i find it interesting that we tolerate alchohol(drug) and drunkeness but yet don't allow for people to explore there sub-conscious.

Culture is a scheme for maintaining and creating boundaries. It replaces reality with a linguistically supported delusion.
It’s all about personal empowerment, and personal empowerment means deconditioning yourself from the values and the programs of the society and putting your own values and programs in place.

"We have been to the moon, we have charted the depths of the ocean and the heart of the atom, but we have a fear of looking inward to ourselves because we sense that is where all the contradictions flow together." - Terrence Mckenna

 

[Public'sTwin]

The notion of 'culture replacing reality with x delusion' presupposes that somehow, reality had existed before it. By all accounts, there is only a culture which exists in its own shadow, thus rendering all possible experience inextricable from it—and therefore quite real.

Indeed, if reality did exist before culture, culture would necessarily only exist after reality, and thus be innately influenced by reality. That much should be obvious.

To say reality exists is true as a tautology, but to say it exists somewhere else—that culture isn't real—is meaningless. Simply being abstract, or a construction, does not make anything any less impactful: it as equally impactful as all the DMT, shrooms, and LSD that Terence McKenna derives experience from.

Looking at culture as a form in itself, renders the point more obvious: all mediums contain their own, inherent message; partaking in the experience of the form, exposes you to the message that is inextricable from it. To partake in "reality" would expose you to the exact same thing, and wouldn't be meaningfully different from "culture", providing the two are actually somehow mutually-exclusive.

 

[Mike Rotch]

That's like saying that nature that has given birth to 5 billion years of evolution and 5 billion years of natural chemistry...

Evolution?

..got it all wrong, god got it all wrong when he put these things here.. (oh that's right it's a test, cos god is a prankster aswell as all-knowing).

Or creationism?

Might want to pick one and stick to it.

I dont agree or disagree with your original message boiled down to its core philosophical element: who made all the rules and why do we follow them.

But by extending credit for that to some bachelors student, you are removing credibility from your argument.

 

[Tesla]

But by extending credit for that to some bachelors student, you are removing credibility from your argument.

I believe that is how you do it.

 

[Joel]

Naturally occuring plants can be made illegal - Does anyone out there actually think this statement is actually reasonable? The very notion that you can make something that nature itself provided illegal is so obnoxious it's laughable, one of the many things that no one stops to question

Take a look at the drugs thread. There's quite a few questioning it there.

 

[sk0pe]

Evolution?



Or creationism?

Might want to pick one and stick to it.

.But by extending credit for that to some bachelors student, you are removing credibility from your argument.

Lol i mentioned he had a bachelors degree because that 1st guy was saying he was some african witchdoctor...

I didn't want to pick one evolution or creationism, i thought i would say the most credible on first ( evolution ) , then follow it up with god to prevent all the "he put things here as a test" statements

I dont agree or disagree with your original message boiled down to its core philosophical element: who made all the rules and why do we follow them

That's a simple and good way to put the argument/debate, who made the culture and why do we follow it.

My reasoning is if you don't follow the culture your perceived to be an outcast, not 'one of normal society", your not a "normal" person if you don't have the same values that "everyone" else has...

Take a look at the drugs thread. There's quite a few questioning it there.

You only get 2 points of view in a thread like that unfortunately..

The POV from direct experience.
And the anti-drug POV from unconfirmed rumour, all of which they say is unconfirmed rumour because it's only stuff they have read, they've never actually experienced any of it for themselves to make a judgement..
I have read that thread many time, but that debate always goes in circles.
Hence why people who do take natural drugs just don't care about the anti-drug debate anymore, ignorance and lies can only go on for so long, smart people realise this and don't have to fight it, the truth will just eventually come out over time.

It is a fun read, sitting back and enjoying the sideshow that is the anti-drug crusaders though

I ask any of you to ask the 18 year old who is given a rifle and sent to the other side of the world to murder strangers he hasn't even seen or met before - Ask him if culture is his friend? - extreme example but an example of the culture humans have created.

Psychedelics dissolve this cultural programming hence being illegal. You can't be controlled in the current culture if you have had a psychedelic experience.

 

[Keef]

I ask any of you to ask the 18 year old who is given a rifle and sent to the other side of the world to murder strangers he hasn't even seen or met before - Ask him if culture is his friend?

We don't have an involuntary military draft in the United States anymore. Anybody who signs up for the military does it voluntarily and because of the information provided by recruiters, besides society at large, it is impossible to not know what you're getting yourself into.

So I'm not seeing your point with this statement.

 

[sk0pe]

Oh cmon stop kidding yourself, you think these people dreamed of being in the military? Maybe the ones who are born into military familys,indoctrinated with military values.
Not the other 75% or so.

You think people in the army actually think they will end up in a real life combat situation rather than a peacekeeping mission?
You have missed many a documentary featuring soldiers from the Iraq and afghanistan war telling their tale of how they NEVER EVER imagined they would end up in a situation like that,

You think when you sign up to the military they expected they would be sent to a place where civilians can be walking bombs, or every car can be a portable bomb?
Now look at my question again, ask the 18 year old who is given a rifle and sent to the other side of the world to murder strangers he hasn't even seen or met before - Ask him if culture is his friend

You may miss the point, in case you do, it's the very culture he is apart of that got him there in the first place. We have the technological power, the engineering skills to save our planet, to cure disease, to feed the hungry, to end war; But we lack the intellectual vision, the ability to change our minds. We must decondition ourselves from 10,000 years of bad behavior. And, it's not easy

Do you see how culture is apart of it now?

Maybe i should ask it this way, ask one of the 1222 soldiers killed in Afghanistan mainly by IED's if culture is their friend?

 

[Keef]

People sign up with the military with a thorough understanding that many of their rights as an American citizen and even human being have just gone out the window. The military makes sure you know that you are being trained to kill people, and that you may die in the process. Anybody who thinks they're just getting a free ride to college is sorely mistaken, but they still chose that path.

Participation in the military is voluntary.

 

[Mike Rotch]

Oh cmon stop kidding yourself, you think these people dreamed of being in the military? Maybe the ones who are born into military familys,indoctrinated with military values.
Not the other 75% or so.

You think people in the army actually think they will end up in a real life combat situation rather than a peacekeeping mission?
You have missed many a documentary featuring soldiers from the Iraq and afghanistan war telling their tale of how they NEVER EVER imagined they would end up in a situation like that,

You think when you sign up to the military they expected they would be sent to a place where civilians can be walking bombs, or every car can be a portable bomb?
Now look at my question again, ask the 18 year old who is given a rifle and sent to the other side of the world to murder strangers he hasn't even seen or met before - Ask him if culture is his friend

You may miss the point, in case you do, it's the very culture he is apart of that got him there in the first place. We have the technological power, the engineering skills to save our planet, to cure disease, to feed the hungry, to end war; But we lack the intellectual vision, the ability to change our minds. We must decondition ourselves from 10,000 years of bad behavior. And, it's not easy

Do you see how culture is apart of it now?

Maybe i should ask it this way, ask one of the 1222 soldiers killed in Afghanistan mainly by IED's if culture is their friend?

Linking "who made all the rules and why do we follow them" and "people are brainwashed by culture to join the army" is tenuous to say the least.

You are asserting that free will is overridden by what culture deems is 'the right thing to do', which is powderpuff. We are sentient beings, not robot.

I think there has been enough written about WWI and WWII and Vietnam and and and, that soldiers signing up know that they arent going to be playing poker on the beach when they get deployed.

 

[Danoff]

Oh cmon stop kidding yourself, you think these people dreamed of being in the military? Maybe the ones who are born into military familys,indoctrinated with military values.
Not the other 75% or so.

You think people in the army actually think they will end up in a real life combat situation rather than a peacekeeping mission?
You have missed many a documentary featuring soldiers from the Iraq and afghanistan war telling their tale of how they NEVER EVER imagined they would end up in a situation like that,

You think when you sign up to the military they expected they would be sent to a place where civilians can be walking bombs, or every car can be a portable bomb?
Now look at my question again, ask the 18 year old who is given a rifle and sent to the other side of the world to murder strangers he hasn't even seen or met before - Ask him if culture is his friend

You may miss the point, in case you do, it's the very culture he is apart of that got him there in the first place. We have the technological power, the engineering skills to save our planet, to cure disease, to feed the hungry, to end war; But we lack the intellectual vision, the ability to change our minds. We must decondition ourselves from 10,000 years of bad behavior. And, it's not easy

Do you see how culture is apart of it now?

Maybe i should ask it this way, ask one of the 1222 soldiers killed in Afghanistan mainly by IED's if culture is their friend?

My sister joined the Army voluntarily (we do not have a military tradition in our family). She joined during the Iraq war, with full knowledge of the situation. Don't pretend that our military is full of naive individuals who were duped into serving against their will. It cheapens their commitment and service.

Capitalism is not a 10,000 year old institution, we've practiced various versions of it for only a brief blink in the history of mankind. What you propose seems to be more like the Native American ideology, which was practiced for thousands of years with extraordinarily consistently poor results. Take a look at the history of mankind and ask yourself which of the societies have existed you'd like to be a part of. If you answer honestly you will be endorsing capitalism.

 

[sk0pe]

Linking "who made all the rules and why do we follow them" and "people are brainwashed by culture to join the army" is tenuous to say the least.
.

No no no no no and no, the point is why does the human culture need an army to fight a war in the first place. With all our intelligence we have these days vs 500 years ago and longer..

It's like when you sit back and look at why black people in gang neighbourhoods shoot other black people? You think why are they shooting people of the same race in the first place?
You would think if they would be shooting anyone they would be teaming up and going and shooting up the white guys or mexicans or etc..

The same concept applies to the human race, we were very primitive in our thinking in the 1300's 1500's etc, all the times of massive Roman war etc.. This is now 2011, we have come a long long way technologically we are so so much smarter or so we think than the romans and all other less capable peoples before us.

But yet with all our new intelligence, for crying out loud we can go to space!! And yet we still have this primitive desire,this need to impart our ways of life on other countries. We still feel this need to KILL other HUMANS to achieve this goal, we don't place value on human life when it suits our goals.

So now do you see, ask the kid who was blown up by someone he didnt know if culture turned out to be his friend? Ask the person who blew himself up in the process if culture turned out to be his friend?

Was it all worth it? What has it achieved so far? Why do human beings of 2011 still feel the need to kill each other, most of the time over a belief, a religion, an idealogy..
"Belief is a toxic and dangerous attitude toward reality. After all, if it's there it doesn't require your belief- and if it's not there why should you believe in it?" My technique is don’t believe anything. If you believe in something, you are automatically precluded from believing its opposite.

If the world didn't have have religion's imagine how much a better place it would be, religion is a belief that automatically excludes you from believing anything else... Like is said above that is a dangerous attitude towards reality.

If there was no religion, there would be no
No palestine / Israeli war
No hitler
No iraq invasion/disaster
Don't know much about vietnam but i can only asssume religion is involved.
No afghanistan
No Bin laden
No terrorists
No 9/11

I think ideology is toxic, all ideology. It’s not that there are good ones and bad ones. All ideology is toxic, because ideology is a kind of insult to the gift of human free thinking."
- Terence McKenna

 

[PureAwesomeness]

I think ideology is toxic, all ideology. It’s not that there are good ones and bad ones. All ideology is toxic, because ideology is a kind of insult to the gift of human free thinking."
- Terence McKenna

You don't seem to be doing much free thinking yourself. You blindly follow the teachings of Terence McKenna. You claim to not believe anything and then in the next breath dismiss all religions as harmful; that is a belief and a very narrow-minded one at that.

 

[Mike Rotch]

I think ideology is toxic, all ideology. It’s not that there are good ones and bad ones. All ideology is toxic, because ideology is a kind of insult to the gift of human free thinking."
- Terence McKenna

That's also an ideology.

I'm going to exit stage left here. Bringing religion into it is opening a pandora's box as it moves the debate from a philosophical one to well, a religious one.

 

[sk0pe]

claim to not believe anything and then in the next breath dismiss all religions as harmful; that is a belief and a very narrow-minded one at that

You have to understand first what the very concept and definition of the word belief is and you will better understand.
belief [bɪˈliːf]
n
1. a principle, proposition, idea, etc., accepted as true
"if it's there it doesn't require your belief- and if it's not there why should you believe in it?"

Yes harmful to the mind, harmful to the gift of free thinking. A religion doesn't allow for any other belief, and that is a truly toxic way of thinking.
That correct cultural operating system would be to run a thought process of an open mind, open to any and all views and trains of thought, by it's very nature religion excludes other ways of thinking.
That is not a belief, a belief is something that you don't know is real so you have to just believe in it, my thought process isn't a belief if you break it down.
Fact. We do have the gift of free thinking. That's not a belief that's a reality. See? To choose to throw away that free thinking mind for a thought process that excludes all others is toxic and harmful in the long run yes.

Blindly follow the teachings?

That defeats the purpose of his very message.

Everything you know is from direct experience, anything else is unconfirmed rumour.

I watched maybe 10 or 20 of his videos on Psychedelic plant use, Ayahusaca, Psilocybin, DMT etc.. He talks about some very very strange things that happen whilst on these things that i thought was a whole bunch of bs garbage to be honest.. About how you could feel the prescence of mother nature etc..

His philosophy was don't just listen to him tell you, experience it for yourself and make up your own mind of what you think of the experience.
So i did, i researched what Mushrooms containing Psiliocybin looked like, found them and took them in day time, in the safety of my back yard, in nature and just observed..

You realise how utterly useless the human oral language is after an experience like that, as we just don't have the words to describe it. You realise language holds us back from expressing our real ideas.
When you say to someone you love them, that doesn't really mean much it's such a broad term that has endless meaning and intensity's of love, however when you do acts constantly to show that person you love them, that love is conveyed in a very different more sub conscious way..

Your not naked when you take your clothes off, your not truly naked in the sense of the word. You still wear your hopes,your fears,your dreams,your ambittions,your hatred,your love,your worries. What i noticed when i took psilocybin was that ALL of these are just stripped away, you have no connection to the feelings of everyday life it is really really rather bizarre, and as i said earlier the human language just can't describe this other than direct experience.

When your on a psychedelic experience you realise the reason you think you can hear this thing talking that feels like "mother nature" (because it feels like your being hugged from 1000 different directions) absolute cuckoo sounding i know, but trust me i was blown away. You realise it's not verbally talking to you, it's kind of visually through the psychedelic experience nature literally does things, shows you things physically to show you what it means, i think the entire message of the psychedelic experience is that nature seeks to communicate.

I realised you are missing out on a bit part of life if you didnt experience these things that occur naturally at least once in your life, it's like going through your whole life without discovering sex, if you discovered it when you were 50 you would be thinking " how the hell did i not know this wonderful thing existed" How did people hide this from me?

2min 10sec lol.
" Nothing has been proven bad against psychedelics other than they give you funny thoughts "

"The LD50 (lethal dose in 50% of rats) is 400times the effective dosage, this is a pharmacological way of saying this is a very very safe drug"

 

[Keef]

You realise language holds us back from expressing our real ideas.

You must be stoned out of your mind right now, honestly. Are you?

Your not naked when you take your clothes off, your not truly naked in the sense of the word.

Oh really? Let's see what Webster has to say about that.

naked

1 : not covered by clothing

So, there you have it. When you have no clothes, you are naked, as clearly stated in the definition of the word "naked". Let us take it a step further - because a person like you would argue such a ridiculous point - and define "clothes".

clothes

[plural] the things that people wear to cover their bodies and that are usually made from cloth

I had to get that from the dictionary they have specifically for people who are learning how to speak English.

So, what is your "sense of the word" naked?

What i noticed when i took psilocybin

You're doing this as part of a scientific experiment, correct? Because discussing the recreational use of illegal drugs is against the AUP.

 

[sk0pe]

So, there you have it. When you have no clothes, you are naked, as clearly stated in the definition of the word "naked". Let us take it a step further - because a person like you would argue such a ridiculous point - and define "clothes".
.

Why do you take everything so literally ? Do you have ausbergers syndrome?

Like someone once said, sit back and enjoy the sideshow of the people who will never realise, who will never think, who follow the current culture as another sheep.

You do realise your one of the people who are talking from a point of view where your so un-informed because you have never had ANY direct experience with the issue what-so-ever, obviously.
I thought it was nuts too, when i heard him say that you would feel this way i thought this guy was a looney tunes character, just another hippy or something. I then realised it was entirely ignorant of me to judge without having tried it for myself.
I was shocked, i was in awe, i was dumbfounded, i was slapped in the face, i was shown the nakedness mentioned.
You have this overwhelming feeling of not worrying about anything, you don't have any thoughts like that you just can't describe it to someone who has never experienced it.
Our language has not come up with a word that conveys this feeling.

Your talking about drugs, drugs has such a negative connotation, when people hear you talk about it they have these images of heroin in their head, like you have some weakness of character, like you feel the need to escape.
It's not that at all, it's that you want to explore everything life has to offer, and these plants have been used for thousands of years safely to alter your state of mind, to show you the notion of heaven and paradise exist within your head.

Drugs is a perfect example of how language holds us back, Psilocybin ,DMT etc are all labelled into this negative connotation called drugs, that includes heroin,cocaine,marijuana etc.. When really all these substances are so different to each other they should never ever be put into the same catergory of definition.
Why do you think people say Alchohol and drugs when they are in a conversation, they have sub-consciously taken Alchohol out of being a drug and put it into it's own separare sub-catergory to make them feel they aren't doing something negative..
If people said they drink drugs rather than alchohol that just has all sorts of negative connotations.

Yo

u're doing this as part of a scientific experiment, correct? Because discussing the recreational use of illegal drugs is against the AUP.

Nothing recreational about it, and it should never be treated as such.It's a long journey into your conscioousness, It's a 4-6 hour experience that feels like 1000 years of experience crammed into 5 hours or so, that will leave you pondering everything you have seen for the next 1-2 days after, it's not something you just do with your mates for fun, it is the kind of thing you use to explore your very own being, it strips away your ego.
If your in the right setting ( nature ) you will learn a lifetime of knowledge in a day.

You must be stoned out of your mind right now, honestly. Are you?

Irrelevant to the topic.

 

[PureAwesomeness]

You have to understand first what the very concept and definition of the word belief is and you will better understand.
belief [bɪˈliːf]
n
1. a principle, proposition, idea, etc., accepted as true
"if it's there it doesn't require your belief- and if it's not there why should you believe in it?"


You realise how utterly useless the human oral language is after an experience like that, as we just don't have the words to describe it. You realise language holds us back from expressing our real ideas.
When you say to someone you love them, that doesn't really mean much it's such a broad term that has endless meaning and intensity's of love, however when you do acts constantly to show that person you love them, that love is conveyed in a very different more sub conscious way..

I think the second paragraph I quoted highlights the pointlessness of this whole thread. Like McKenna, you clearly have thoughts and ideas that were most likely the product of mushroom consumption in your backyard. Unfortunately, you lack the articulation to convince anyone else here of their merit.

 

[sk0pe]

I think the second paragraph I quoted highlights the pointlessness of this whole thread. Like McKenna, you clearly have thoughts and ideas that were most likely the product of mushroom consumption in your backyard. Unfortunately, you lack the articulation to convince anyone else here of their merit.

I could never convince you of their merit, nothing i could say in words would ever do it justice.
The whole experience is such that describing it sounds like your lying, sounds like you must be making it up.

How can you say my thoughts and ideas are less valid than yours if you have never had this experience? Your talking with one eye closed.

The feeling i got was, since now when i walk down my street the trees appear to be just inamimate objects, not interesting at all. The feeling was like everyday we walk around with a filter on, a filter that supresses for some biological reason the ability to witness these things, the ability to almost access another 'sense' if you will.. These things appear to just open your mind from these filters for just a few hours, the biological reason for this is still unknown.

You explain why Psilocybin bears a close structural resemblance to the neurotransmitter serotonin (5-hydroxytryptamine).Psilocybin being 4-hydroxy-N,N-dimethyltryptamine. Meaning serotonin just has an extra oxygen molecule attached. (hope i haven't lost ya)
Why is it the only substance in nature that imitates a molecule found in the human brain and is so important like serotonin..
It's like serotonin regulates and keeps this state of mind this reality that we call life, and then when you take this serotonin molecule that is just one atom different(psilocybin) suddenly your whole perception of what reality is changes.
Everything you see all of a sudden seems "new" again, you feel like your meeting something for the first time..

All of this detracts from the original post, What is culture, where did it come from, why don't we question it, why don't we seek to change something that is obviously not working.

And the thread would only be pointless if i had pre-conceived ideas and was trying to preach my version of what culture should be, instead i'm not sure what culture should be, i know it shouldn't be the current one though, that much is obvious.
I'm asking the question of what makes people do the things they do in their every day life, why do people live the way they do, the answer because of this invisible thing we have created called "culture"
So naturally you have to investigate this current culture, if you find flaws you should fix them.

It's more a thread to think about why we don't stop and question everyday life, every goes about their buisness going to their jobs, coming home to their kids, paying off the debt for their house thinking and pretending that they have some purpose, that they know what's going on in the big scheme of things.
When in reality no one knows, that's why we always need to stop and question our current way of thinking, to always re-evaluate the situation. Until we know, we are just pretending.

 

[Azuremen]

All of this detracts from the original post, What is culture, where did it come from, why don't we question it, why don't we seek to change something that is obviously not working.

Umm, you realize culture is dynamic and always changing? Culture works fine, and is simply the product of common goals and interests in humanity. It then is passed on because of how people learn, but changes constantly with developments in the world and notions of what is what. Just look at each decade in US history.

 

[Keef]

Sk0pe, words have meanings. And in an argument, like this one, the words you use matter. People tend not to take seriously a person who tells those who have a grasp of their own language that they're taking it "too literally".

Also, we all know what psychedelic drugs do, and...we don't care. I honestly don't understand your point. What, shrooms get you high and make you think colorful thoughts? Cool story bro, I've known that since 5th grade.