OrphanWilde comments on How to Not Lose an Argument - Less Wrong

109 Post author: Yvain 19 March 2009 01:07AM

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Comment author: gwern 15 August 2012 11:49:41PM *  6 points [-]

I'm amazed. I totally can't understand this kind of thinking (which you believe to be human nature)....everything he says about religion is so self-evident to me that I find it astonishing that there are people in the world to whom it isn't....In fact, I hold the belief in God for little less than a mental disease. That is because there is virtually no evidence to support the existence of God, and a lot of evidence that seems to suggest that God doesn't exist....However, should I be shown proof that God exists, I would accept it without any resistance whatsoever.

If you really believe that then you can test this with hallucinogens; in a non-trivial fraction of users (in good settings), they induce mystical or religious experiences and so there's a good shot they would do so for you. Have such an experience and still maintain your atheism, and maybe I will credit your claims to be atheistic based on purely rational grounds. Otherwise, you just look to me like, say, SF author John Wright: a strident atheist until he had some hallucinations after surgery and immediately flipped his views to become a strident theist.

Seriously. Standard hallucinogens like psilocybin or LSD are easily obtained, cheap, and safe for at least a few doses.

What's stopping you? Don't you believe your beliefs why you don't believe?

Comment author: OrphanWilde 16 August 2012 01:08:36AM 0 points [-]

Psilocybin can also induce suicidal despair in a non-trivial fraction of users. I would highly recommend against its use by anybody who isn't extremely emotionally stable to begin with.

Comment author: gwern 16 August 2012 01:40:05AM 2 points [-]

Cites or numbers for non-trivial? I looked for info on psilocybin and suicide, and the only review I found cited listed, after I jailbroke a copy, just one suicide and few deaths.

I haven't looked into psilocybin in as much detail as LSD, but I had assumed it was considered very safe since it seemed to be the hallucinogen of choice in recent American research.

Comment author: OrphanWilde 16 August 2012 11:30:59AM 1 point [-]

Personal experience. Psilocybin trips vary wildly, but everybody who uses it regularly eventually encounters an episode of extreme despair. (It's not as bad as LSD, wherein you can very easily get caught in a mental loop - which if you're thinking negative thoughts will send you into an emotional deathspiral - but it's definitely a tangible risk)

It's not that it induces despair, per se, but it heightens emotional response to stimuli considerably. (Particularly in the very high dosages necessary to induce hallucinations.) It's necessary to strictly control your environment.