Bernardo's active brain comments

[Jim Cross]

So, to be clear:

Does anybody who agrees with BK's general model (as I do) think there is reason to believe we could not develop a tool that will show brain activity associated with psychedelics?

Thanks

Take a look at work by Robin Carharti-Harris. It has been measured.

It is shown that the principle that the entropy of brain activity is elevated in the psychedelic state is increasingly well supported by separate and independent studies and analyses, and evidence for greater brain criticality under psychedelics is also highlighted. It is argued that heightened brain criticality enables the brain to be more sensitive to intrinsic and extrinsic perturbations which may translate as a heightened susceptibility to “set” and “setting”.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/a ... 0818301175

https://pharmrev.aspetjournals.org/cont ... as2EsJJhDs

[Astra052]

So, to be clear:

Does anybody who agrees with BK's general model (as I do) think there is reason to believe we could not develop a tool that will show brain activity associated with psychedelics?

Thanks

Take a look at work by Robin Carharti-Harris. It has been measured.

It is shown that the principle that the entropy of brain activity is elevated in the psychedelic state is increasingly well supported by separate and independent studies and analyses, and evidence for greater brain criticality under psychedelics is also highlighted. It is argued that heightened brain criticality enables the brain to be more sensitive to intrinsic and extrinsic perturbations which may translate as a heightened susceptibility to “set” and “setting”.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/a ... 0818301175

https://pharmrev.aspetjournals.org/cont ... as2EsJJhDs

Something I wish Bernardo would do is make it clear he's talking about lower activation of the default mode network rather than the brain as a whole. The more he says brain activity in general lowers, the more he will discredit himself.

[Lou Gold]

There's no need to be obsessed only with obvious physical correlations. This only reduces Idealism back to gross materialism.
Here's a metaphor. For example, we can imagine that the whole brain has a holistic quantum wavefunction. In normal beta brainwave activity, our experience is closely tied to the way that function decoheres into neuronal activity (please note - activity - not necessarily the atomic structure), thus we experience more or less linear progressions of thoughts as we follow in consciousness the ion trains. We can imagine the holistic wavefunction as potential out of which we experience quite limited part in the decohered patterns. We can think of the physical brain as a scratchboard where we leave marks, streaks, scrapes, that serve to give us support or anchor points, so that we're not lost in the highly dynamic higher order potential. Through psychedelics we may be able to 'zoom out' of the linear firings and become conscious of more holistic parts of the brain wavefunction where we experience the potential itself, a superposition of possible states some of which may be reduced to concrete neuronal firings if we think about them but it's not necessary. This potential doesn't correspond to concrete neuronal firings just as an entanglement within a quantum state doesn't correspond to just one or another particle - these are different levels. There's simply something in the changing chemical makeup within the brain that makes it possible to divert our attention from the linear firings, up into the potential, which is always there anyway.

The key is not to assume that our consciousness is the complete counter-picture of what we perceive with the senses. We need to be more humble and be open that there are processes outside our ego consciousness which support the wave function of the body, and of which we experience consciously only a very limited aperture. Through spiritual development we can gradually organize the dynamic processes within the higher orders of potential such that they achieve certain permanence and stability. This stability then serves as the center around which we can experience our lucid consciousness even without the support of the scratchboard of the brain. The so called 'ego death' in psychedelics, and considered great achievement by many, is nothing else but the proof that our higher order potential is not yet organized and once we lose the support of the brain we also lose self-consciousness, as there's not yet anything within the dynamic flow of the potential that can reflect what we are at that level.

There's no need to be obsessed only with obvious physical correlations. This only reduces Idealism back to gross materialism.

The problem is that the illusion of the material plane really hurts while occupying the material plane. This accounts for both the staying power of Materialism for the many AND the liberating power of Idealism for the "more privileged" few. Yes, deep spiritual works, of which psychedelics are but a single modality, dissolve boundaries and then the experiential learnings can arrive and travel on to all directions (for some).

[Jim Cross]

Something I wish Bernardo would do is make it clear he's talking about lower activation of the default mode network rather than the brain as a whole. The more he says brain activity in general lowers, the more he will discredit himself.

Astra,

I'm impressed. The reference to the DMN is buried in that paper and you picked it up. I think the DMN is somewhat underrated. I think it may be what is primarily responsible for the ongoing stability of normal consciousness. It is a sort of low energy way of maintaining an internal model of the world and most of what we experience is the result of DMN interspersed with new information that is assimilated in bursts that require more energy. Mostly my own thinking as far as I know. It stands to reason that deactivation and/or disruption of it would put the internal model into a chaotic state.

[Astra052]

Something I wish Bernardo would do is make it clear he's talking about lower activation of the default mode network rather than the brain as a whole. The more he says brain activity in general lowers, the more he will discredit himself.

Astra,

I'm impressed. The reference to the DMN is buried in that paper and you picked it up. I think the DMN is somewhat underrated. I think it may be what is primarily responsible for the ongoing stability of normal consciousness. It is a sort of low energy way of maintaining an internal model of the world and most of what we experience is the result of DMN interspersed with new information that is assimilated in bursts that require more energy. Mostly my own thinking as far as I know. It stands to reason that deactivation and/or disruption of it would put the internal model into a chaotic state.

This is actually a very common and popular take within the psychedelic scene. I think it makes perfect sense and there is science that is suggestive towards it. I don't think we really need to look beyond the DMN to find what we're looking for in terms of understanding why psychedelics may do what they do. Perhaps it throws our internal world into chaos or turning it off shows us more about what's actually going on versus the world the mind creates for itself. Either way I think looking at "is the brain more active or inactive during a trip?" is kinda missing the point. The DMN aspect is the most promising to me.

[Jim Cross]

Perhaps it throws our internal world into chaos or turning it off shows us more about what's actually going on versus the world the mind creates for itself. Either way I think looking at "is the brain more active or inactive during a trip?" is kinda missing the point. The DMN aspect is the most promising to me.

I'm pretty much in agreement. I don't see any evidence of a more porous alter whatever that actually means. I think the experience certainly can open a person up to new viewpoints and approaches, possibly reset things, but I don't see that arising from a mind at large seeping into the alter but rather from the possibilities of restructuring brain patterns.

[findingblanks]

Which means that when we finally have a way to induce a "material" image of psychedelic experience, it will seem that Bernardo has lost the argument. Although then he'll say, "Of course we would *expect* to find a physical image that corresponds with the experience."

[Lou Gold]

Perhaps it throws our internal world into chaos or turning it off shows us more about what's actually going on versus the world the mind creates for itself. Either way I think looking at "is the brain more active or inactive during a trip?" is kinda missing the point. The DMN aspect is the most promising to me.

I'm pretty much in agreement. I don't see any evidence of a more porous alter whatever that actually means. I think the experience certainly can open a person up to new viewpoints and approaches, possibly reset things, but I don't see that arising from a mind at large seeping into the alter but rather from the possibilities of restructuring brain patterns.

Why is brain activity beside point? Under 'normal' DMN non-psychedelic conditions I see and feel more of myself and the surrounding environment when my mind is quiet than when it is busy. In the case of dmt, as I mentioned earlier, the 'spirit molecule' is already within. From a nondual religious pov, so is the 'divine'. Obfuscation and narrowing of focus surely seem as more associated with so-called "increased brain activity" in my direct experience. I am clearer and calmer and more connected when quiet. Is this not the general case?

[Jim Cross]

Perhaps it throws our internal world into chaos or turning it off shows us more about what's actually going on versus the world the mind creates for itself. Either way I think looking at "is the brain more active or inactive during a trip?" is kinda missing the point. The DMN aspect is the most promising to me.

I'm pretty much in agreement. I don't see any evidence of a more porous alter whatever that actually means. I think the experience certainly can open a person up to new viewpoints and approaches, possibly reset things, but I don't see that arising from a mind at large seeping into the alter but rather from the possibilities of restructuring brain patterns.

Why is brain activity beside point? Under 'normal' DMN non-psychedelic conditions I see and feel more of myself and the surrounding environment when my mind is quiet than when it is busy. In the case of dmt, as I mentioned earlier, the 'spirit molecule' is already within. From a nondual religious pov, so is the 'divine'. Obfuscation and narrowing of focus surely seem as more associated with so-called "increased brain activity" in my direct experience. I am clearer and calmer and more connected when quiet. Is this not the general case?

I'm not sure there is always an association of increased brain activity with narrowing of focus. I think some experienced Zen meditators have significantly stronger brain activity when meditating.

Mingyur’s brain circuitry for empathy rose 700-800 times higher than during the rest periods. Mingyur’s results were not isolated. In total, 21 Buddhist monks were formally tested and underwent the same scientific protocol. Each had similar results to Mingyur’s—each able to enter and leave the meditative state at will, marked with a distinct neural signature; each with remarkable mental dexterity and ease at generating compassion and laser-like focus. Once the team had sifted through the raw data, they were astonished. All the yogis had elevated gamma oscillations not just during meditation but even during baseline measurements of their everyday neural activity.

https://braintap.com/study-of-meditatio ... searchers/

I think in general these relationships are just a lot more complicated than we would like.

In the case of psychedelics, what is being found is some parts of the brain are less active and other parts are more active. The conjecture is that the less active parts are related to maintaining the stability of normal consciousness. Other parts then become more active in an attempt to compensate.

[Soul_of_Shu]

I tend to agree that it becomes a moot point whether or not there is some yet to be determined, obfuscated brain activity that correlates with the qualia-rich phantasmagoria of psychedelic experience, and which still leaves materialism with its 'hard problem.' BK's point is only that under materialism, whereby brain activity is supposed to engender that conscious experience, then presumably 'richer' experience would correlate with measurably greater activity, rather than reduced and/or obfuscated activity. However, while this may or may not be the case, under a premise based in the primacy of consciousness, in positing that there can still be qualia-rich experience that is entirely transcorporeal, the challenge becomes how to empirically verify this using science. In this regard, BK and all other proponents of idealism have a lot more elaboration and explication left to do, and which Donald Hoffman is attempting to rectify ...