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PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   1516 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for March 29, 2026

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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Sigh. It's probably not worth talking about. Any insights gleaned are personal and the kind of stuff I could have told you a week in advance if I was drunk.

I mean, sample size of one and all, but I actually delurked and started posting for a conversation like this one, FWTW.

Well, if one of Odin's ravens thinks so:

The long and short of it was that it went way harder and deeper than I accounted for. I genuinely felt the edges of my mind fraying. I was fighting ego death and struggling to retain the integrity of my consciousness. I might have described myself as "tripping balls" when I enrolled for a psilocybin trial, but it had nothing on what I experienced. Back then, and in this instance, my greatest fear was succumbing to woo or catching religion. I felt the pressure, that sense of cosmic significance. I genuinely told it to fuck itself. At that point, I was envisioning it as some kind of extradimensional tendril cracking open my skull and wrapping itself around my consciousness, while "I" was quite literally shearing it away it with a set of scissors.

Another very literal visual metaphor was trying to keep the "knot" of patterns that constituted myself from being unraveled under the tension.

Words can hardly describe it. I feel like the protagonist of Scott's short story, Samsara, except I actually faced the pressure of imminent enlightenment and chose to walk away. I don't need enlightenment, I need to be less depressed. Jury's out on that one.

We had a kid from a Muslim family pledge our frat a year or two before I joined. He dropped acid with his pledge class, met Allah, dropped out of pledging, and every so often he'd show up at our parties with a big smile holding a can of Lacroix.

There but for the grace of God the Flying Spaghetti Monster go I. I've seen other people lose it with after using psychedelics, or outright go insane. And more who have become "soft" spiritual and woo-ish. I'm not saying I'd rather die than end up like that, but it's very, very low on the list.

Returning to an organized religion is definitely the best outcome out of that possibility set. Oh, you mean I can just download a helpful and prosocial memeplex into my brain and all I have to do is accept Jesus Christ into my heart? Give me the pill - hell, give me two!

Perhaps. It's still more likely to just become a bit wooly, touchy feely and "spiritual but not religious". I would not identify with a version of me that sincerely believes in a deity for anything but incredibly strong empirical evidence. I'd think the old me was, in an important sense, partly dead. Not fully dead. That option beats true psychosis and definitely beats real death.

I'd think the old me was, in an important sense, partly dead. Not fully dead. That option beats true psychosis and definitely beats real death.

FWIW as a former atheist transhumanist and having had it happen to me, that's really not how it feels. I used to believe some stuff, now I'm more doubtful about that stuff and prepared to believe some other stuff. I'm sure you've changed your mind on other things before, it doesn't feel any different from that.

Identifying with a very particular memeset* about the nature of the universe and your place in it so strongly that you cannot conceive of a version of you who believes something different and is still you is a little unhealthy, I think. It can produce a rather clenched-up and self-protecting attitude towards the world (not in a Freudian sense!), and a set attitude of rejection towards trying things that could turn out to be growth or at worst short-lived and mildly-embarrassing fads.

In short there are worse things in the world than letting yourself try a little woo, especially since IMO transhumanism as it actually exists in the world already contains plenty of woo that is made more dangerous by the appearance of being cold and rational.

Disclaimer: none of this is an attempt to convert you to my religion, or any religion. That's not my place, for many reasons. In any case, please forgive me if I have overstepped.

*I refer to transhumanism and more specifically to the very particular pride that comes with thinking, "I am smart enough to see the world like it really is and brave enough to take it head-on without the lies other people tell themselves, and one day we'll fix all the stuff that's rubbish about it."

That's the thing. I don't expect it to be a drastic change, necessarily. Many changes that we/I won't endorse on reflection are gradual and subtle. Becoming religious or spiritual is far from the worst thing that can happen to someone. You seem pretty sane, for what it's worth. I'm not going to call you crazy in a literal or strong sense!

I see high dose or regular usage of psychedelics as carrying an unavoidable risk of both causing a sudden snap and also a risk of "opening" your mind to a degree that I'd rather prefer not to open, mostly due to the risk of my brain falling out. I believe most of the things I believe for very good reason, at least if we're talking about empirical topics and not just ideals or preferences. Think of it like Gandhi in that thought experiment, where he can get a pill that makes him 1% Murder Gandhi in exchange for a million dollars. That 1% MG is more likely to accept the next pill, and so on till he has $100m and a kill count of comparable magnitude.

I see myself as being, in a sense, almost the 0% Gandhi. Each psychedelic I do has a small chance of shifting that, but it's a more probabilistic risk here. I don't think I've drifted so far, but even if you're, say, only 10% as religious/spiritual as a theoretical maximum, that is very far from where I want to be. I think not being depressed is worth, say, $1 million, or a 1% chance of religion, but I'd rather not take the risk if I can help it, which I usually can.

I don't want to relitigate the usual atheism-religion debates, but if you want to explain what made you change your mind, I'm genuinely curious and want to hear it out. FWIW, I have an essay almost ready to post, so if you what to hold off then that's fine too.

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