From: Cliff Stabbert (cps46@earthlink.net)
Date: Mon Aug 26 2002 - 20:20:28 MDT
Monday, August 26, 2002, 9:01:13 PM, Ben Goertzel wrote:
>> Whether hallucinogens actually makes their users more creative, or
>> only gives them the illusion of being so, is open to debate; I tend
>> to come down on the latter side with filmmaker Stanley Kubrick (who
>> often had to deal with questions about 2001's imagery being LSD-
>> inspired):
BG> Hallucinogens don't MAKE anyone creative, but they have definitely,
BG> in some cases, helped people to break through psychological barriers
BG> and manifest more of the creativity they already had inside them.
That function would be akin to Dali's Critical Paranoia method --
unlocking the barriers to expressing the unconscious. Or at least in
part -- it could also remove blockages (a la Reich) preventing people
from confidently/full-bodily expressing themselves.
BG> Stanislaw Grof's work on psychedelic psychotherapy, though full
BG> of some theoretical BS I don't agree with, is pretty powerfully
BG> informative in this regard...
I recently picked up The Holotropic Mind and have skimmed through
bits. I came away feeling he was more than a little gullible wrt
certain New Age tropes, but making a valiant effort to integrate those
parts of experience so far left in the dark by Science.
If you're familiar with this work: any concepts there of potential AI
interest?
BG> The best results are obtained if one can integrate the psychedelic
BG> insights and experiences into one's everyday life and ordinary
BG> states of consciousness (hence making one's ordinary state of
BG> consciousness less ordinary!). But this is a hard task, much
BG> harder than taking a drug and having a temporary insightful experience...
I've seen hallucinogens described as offering a sneak preview of what
is possible with longer-term, harder work in disciplines such as Yoga
and meditation.
I think the striving towards Rationality described by some could be
conceived as such a discipline, as could hardcore use of e-prime, etc.
cf. "Humility is endless".
>> If we build a human-level AI, could we design some set of inputs such
>> that the AI would "trip"?
BG> I don't think that would be very hard, actually. It wouldn't be a set
BG> of inputs, just an aberrant set of parameter values...
Interesting.
-- Cliff
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