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And comments on Is it rational to take psilocybin? - Less Wrong
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People's priorities are altered by hallucinogens in part because they broaden one's perspective. Often the specific way this happens is difficult to pin down.
It's similar to going to a foreign country or watching a good movie. You can't always anticipate what you'll get out of it, and even when you do get something out of it that seems important, that thing isn't necessarily immediately useful.
Psychedelic experiences are an exploration of the service corridors of your own brain. It's one place you can't really just read about in a book, because nobody but you can go in there.
If you don't want to see it, because you're worried the new perspective will screw you up, that's a legitimate fear.
Schwa
But I feel like any drastic perspective change will screw me up, whether it be positive or negative. Why would someone make the choice to change their preferences (as opposed to optimize them)?
Because we can have preferences over our preferences. For instance, I would prefer it if I preferred to eat healthier foods because that preference would clash less with my desire to stay fit and maintain my health. There is nothing irrational about wishing for more consistent (and thus more achievable) preferences.
because preferences are malleable because the people who have them are. For me most moves toward rationality is a drastic perspective change. If you fear to change your preferences the slower you go anywhere great.
The argument you made that the only way such a drug can work is by changing your preferences seems pretty weak to me. Does an trip to Peru change your preferences? No - it just tells you a lot of things about the world that you didn't know before.
If the drug reveals new information about the world (possibly how my brain works), then why wouldn't I want to take the drug?
The more obvious negatives: legal concerns; purity - will you be consuming what you think; your reputation - what do your friends think of drug users; bad reactions - most react positively to psychedelics - but not everyone does - depending on how stable your personality and circumstances are, there may be risks; unknown factors - psycheldelic science is young - and on safety grounds, you may be better off with LSD rather than psilocybin - if you can get pure controlled doses.
How certain are you that the only effects the drug has (after it wears off) is reveal new information about the world?
Here is what I think is a possible (other) effect the drug can have:
Imagine that after taking the drug it made you more emotional towards others. This caused you to quit everything you're doing currently and join some charitable organization. Why would you take the drug knowing there is a possibility your goals would completely change?
It could be that it would only happen as a result of revealing new information and therefore, be what you really always wanted to do. This is assuming that the drug only reveals new information. I am not convinced that all the drug might do is reveal new information after it wears off.
I don't know that the only effects are as a result of obtaining new information. My own perception is that the drugs do provide a mountaian of information, that it is difficult to obtain that information in other ways, that the information is sometimes regarded as being useful by the individuals in question, and that the side effects on things like goals are sometimes so slight as to be undetectable by the individual. How frequent are such outcomes? Pretty often it seems to me - and you have a reasonable chance of avoiding negative outcomes if you use some common sense.
Suppose it made you less "emotional towards others". Then you could ignore all those nagging feelings that you ought to be performing charitable works and become a perfect personal utility maximizer.
I've heard cocaine is a pretty good drug for producing this sort of effect, but obviously it has other less desired effects as well. Perhaps some rich Randroid could fund an effort to develop a better anti-altruism drug.
If you are not expecting to have your preferences changed, they probably won't be. I believe that for the study participants they explicitly recruited older, religious people with no previous psychedelic experience. People much more suggestible to the power of magic. What is more likely for you is more of a "huh, it's kind of neat that my brain also functions like this."
I think that for a rationalist to have permanently changed beliefs as a result of a psychedelic experience it would have to represent an improvement in one's rationalism or personal utility function. If you spend the trip mediating on optimizing your preferences, then you're only going to improve them. Most likely, nothing will change, but there is always the possibility that you can be more rational.