good news...marijuana makes u smarter...

[losCHUNK]

you didnt answer my question

[Freakaloin]

fuck u...

[losCHUNK]

why ?

[Duhard]

god canis and the other anti drugs cooks sure got played hard in this thread...ouch

[[xeno]Julios]

an excerpt from the essay i linked to:

There is a myth about such highs: the user has an illusion of great insight, but it does not survive scrutiny in the morning. I am convinced that this is an error, and that the devastating insights achieved when high are real insights; the main problem is putting these insights in a form acceptable to the quite different self that we are when we're down the next day. Some of the hardest work I've ever done has been to put such insights down on tape or in writing. The problem is that ten even more interesting ideas or images have to be lost in the effort of recording one. It is easy to understand why someone might think it's a waste of effort going to all that trouble to set the thought down, a kind of intrusion of the Protestant Ethic. But since I live almost all my life down I've made the effort - successfully, I think. Incidentally, I find that reasonably good insights can be remembered the next day, but only if some effort has been made to set them down another way. If I write the insight down or tell it to someone, then I can remember it with no assistance the following morning; but if I merely say to myself that I must make an effort to remember, I never do.


I find that most of the insights I achieve when high are into social issues, an area of creative scholarship very different from the one I am generally known for. I can remember one occasion, taking a shower with my wife while high, in which I had an idea on the origins and invalidities of racism in terms of gaussian distribution curves. It was a point obvious in a way, but rarely talked about. I drew the curves in soap on the shower wall, and went to write the idea down. One idea led to another, and at the end of about an hour of extremely hard work I found I had written eleven short essays on a wide range of social, political, philosophical, and human biological topics. Because of problems of space, I can't go into the details of these essays, but from all external signs, such as public reactions and expert commentary, they seem to contain valid insights. I have used them in university commencement addresses, public lectures, and in my books.


But let me try to at least give the flavor of such an insight and its accompaniments. One night, high on cannabis, I was delving into my childhood, a little self-analysis, and making what seemed to me to be very good progress. I then paused and thought how extraordinary it was that Sigmund Freud, with no assistance from drugs, had been able to achieve his own remarkable self-analysis. But then it hit me like a thunderclap that this was wrong, that Freud had spent the decade before his self-analysis as an experimenter with and a proselytizer for cocaine; and it seemed to me very apparent that the genuine psychological insights that Freud brought to the world were at least in part derived from his drug experience. I have no idea whether this is in fact true, or whether the historians of Freud would agree with this interpretation, or even if such an idea has been published in the past, but it is an interesting hypothesis and one which passes first scrutiny in the world of the downs.

http://www.marijuana-uses.com/essays/002.html

[werldhed]

That author erred by bringing up Freud, who, unless I've been greatly misinformed, is generally dismissed by professionals as being wrong.

[[xeno]Julios]

That author erred by bringing up Freud, who, unless I've been greatly misinformed, is generally dismissed by professionals as being wrong.

you should read freud - fascinating mind. To call him "wrong" is completely missing the point of his thinking. His views on the naure of the development of female sexuality (i.e. penis envy) seemed more based on an androcentric view of sexuality (not surprising considering he was a male), and were far fetched, but his broader views on sexuality were incredibly penetrating.

Calling him wrong also misses the point that his approach to understanding the human mind was seminal in the history of psychological thought.

but the point of sagan's bringing up freud was to illustrate the role of drugs in freud's introspective insights.

[werldhed]

I'd agree that Freud's ideas were certainly a new way of thinking about things, and in that case Sagan makes a fair point.

I have read Freud, though, albeit a long time ago, and I was unconvinced. Then again, I did study neurobiology at about the same time, and taking a purely physiological approach to the mind probably corrupted me. :icon26:

[[xeno]Julios]

i read one of his lectures in a philosophy of sexuality class. Brilliant stuff.

Of course, I think introspective data, or theoretical speculation, should be corroborated or refined with neuropsychological studies, but for his time he was a remarkably original thinker.

There is also something very intuitive and compelling about the notion that the gratification of infants (and ultimately adults) has something sexual about it.

But to appreciate this, you need to understand sexuality in a broader sense.

[Hannibal]

Then again, I did study neurobiology at about the same time, and taking a purely physiological approach to the mind probably corrupted me. :icon26:

Ruh Roh Raggy, Mind-Brain problem is in da house!


FYI, Freud fully expected that his psychological chit chat would eventually be replaced by a physical theory or two. He would've went that route himself if enough of the 'tools' had existed during the time he was writing. His main contributions, besides ye olde 'fucked up kid---->fucked up adult', are to clinical practice....a frame of reference for thinking about why people act and react as they do. You can dump a good chunk of the explanatory theory and still find a common sense basis for using his clinical insights on the couch (buns up kneelin').

[Pooinyourmouth]

Amazing how this post was started by the dumbest motherfucker on the planet, yet the last few posts seem so far from the original. You would think they where polar opposites. It's like going from a brain case with a negative vacuum (see original post) to normal human conversation.

[mrd]

Amazing how this post was started by the dumbest motherfucker on the planet, yet the last few posts seem so far from the original. You would think they where polar opposites. It's like going from a brain case with a negative vacuum (see original post) to normal human conversation.

[werldhed]

There is also something very intuitive and compelling about the notion that the gratification of infants (and ultimately adults) has something sexual about it.

This is one of those cases where we differ. I guess I'm just not convinced of things like if a child holds his bowels, he'll become anal-retentive later in life. In terms of a cause-effect theory (mental development based on environment), I can appreciate what Freud started. But I think too many people take him literally. Like I said, though... I'm no expert on Freud.

Most of what I did study was dreams, and I've heard much more compelling theories for the meaning of them. But that's another topic, I suppose...

[mrd]

There is also something very intuitive and compelling about the notion that the gratification of infants (and ultimately adults) has something sexual about it.

This is one of those cases where we differ. I guess I'm just not convinced of things like if a child holds his bowels, he'll become anal-retentive later in life. In terms of a cause-effect theory (mental development based on environment), I can appreciate what Freud started. But I think too many people take him literally. Like I said, though... I'm no expert on Freud.

Most of what I did study was dreams, and I've heard much more compelling theories for the meaning of them. But that's another topic, I suppose...

Nonsense. Go on... dreams are fun to talk about. What theories have you heard of them?

[[xeno]Julios]

This is one of those cases where we differ. I guess I'm just not convinced of things like if a child holds his bowels, he'll become anal-retentive later in life. In terms of a cause-effect theory (mental development based on environment), I can appreciate what Freud started. But I think too many people take him literally. Like I said, though... I'm no expert on Freud.

I'm not referring to the rules about weaning and the like leading to different personalities.

What I find interesting (and this is part of the insight I'm talking about) is the idea that there is something sexual about oral/anal gratification. The idea is that at the age of the infant, sexuality is undifferentiated - it's an amorphous energy associated with fundamental biological pleasure.

Of course, the theory starts to become more specific once we understand this undifferentiated sexuality differentiating so as to be centrally organized around the genital organs, and this in itself was a very powerful framework for psychological analysis.


This was groundbreaking at the time, because the idea that children were sexual beings was almost alien - many people seemed to be in denial about this basic fact, even though they witnessed their children masturbating.

[werldhed]

@mrd...
Well... (and this isn't nearly as exciting as you probably are thinking...)

REM sleep, when dreams occur, is thought to be a time when recent memories are formed into long-term memories. Long-term and short-term memory occur in different parts of the brain, so when you consolidate your memories into long-term, you access parts of your brain that store other long-term memories. This causes the mingling of recent events, past events, and fantasy in your dreams.

Another theory I've heard of is that dreams are an "unlearning" function. The idea is that the brain accesses info through different overlapping pathways, and some pathways, when overused, can start blocking other pathways. This can lead to a "parasitic" pathway which results in obsessions or paranoia. To counter-act this, the brain randomly activates various memories and thoughts during sleep to ensure this sort "parasite" pathway doesn't establish itself.

[werldhed]

Speaking of dreams, though... It's definitely bedtime for me. And I still have a bunch of reading to do...
:icon29:

[Psyche911]

REM sleep, when dreams occur, is thought to be a time when recent memories are formed into long-term memories. Long-term and short-term memory occur in different parts of the brain, so when you consolidate your memories into long-term, you access parts of your brain that store other long-term memories. This causes the mingling of recent events, past events, and fantasy in your dreams.

There aren't "parts of the brain" dedicated to long or short term memory.

My understanding of current beliefs regarding memories is that a memory is retrieved by the activation of a series of neurons in a certain order. These neurons are not confined to a part of the brain, nor short or long term memory.

Also, memories are encoded into long term memory during the day. Basically, any memories you are not currently aware of or thinking about are in your long term memory. So something that happened this morning that you aren't thinking of, but someone reminds you about is retrieved from your long term memory into your short term memory, where you "think about" it.

The rehearsal of memories strengthens them, resulting in increased accuracy and detail over time. This may be why we dream. So that new "long term" memories are rehearsed in detail in order to strengthen our memory when retrieved in the future.

[[xeno]Julios]

from what i understand there is still a lot of research into the neural substrates of memory.

Much of the research is done with somewhat speculative cognitive models, which are then tested with behavioural studies, and much of it coupled with converging neuropsychological studies.

There are certain areas of the brain that seem to be involved in specific memory functions - the hippocampus is a good example.

From what I recall, one idea is that the hippocampus stores retrieval cues. Once activated, these cues then retrieve the experience of the memory by activating areas of the cortex.

There are also very clear dissociations between short and long term memory, but I'm more fuzzy on the neurological dissociations. I think (not sure) there have been shown to be neurological dissociations, but it's unclear whether these neurological areas are the storage areas or simply areas which are critically involved in STM or LTM.

[Grudge]

Then there are also different types of long term memory, such as procedural, episodic, emotional etc.

Plus, long term memories shouldn't be considered to be "stored" in the brain, as much as "constructed" by the brain, as in - often when it's possible the brain constructs new memories out of parts of existing ones. Memories are seldom 100% correct representations of what actually happened, but that's not needed in an evolutionary perspective, it's much more efficient for an individual in a survival situation to just reinforce or create new references to bits and pieces of a large number of already existing connections, than to store a small number of 100% exact episodic representations.

The increased (percieved) accuracy and detail of memories over time does then not have to be because of rehersal of the memory, it can also be because the memory is "reconstructed" by the brain by bits and pieces that fit into the context, but that may actually not have been part of the situation where the memory whas initially created.

[[xeno]Julios]

episodic memory is especially fascinating. Tulving's mental time travel hypothesis and autonoetic consciousness is thought provoking (but controversial in that he believes only humans possess it).

the idea is that episodic memory allows us to travel backwards in time, by re-experiencing events.

Similar mechanisms may allow us to simulate new events (by a process like Grudge described of construction) and thus plan for the future.

[Duhard]

grey matter doesn't exist...

hmmm..smells like a cia scam and/or a gvt conspiracy to me