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Comment by __blockcipher__ | Hacker News Reader

The “stoned ape” theory is one of the dumbest theories ever invented. I say that as a big McKenna fan - he’s a great orator and very insightful, but his theory is very transparently a way to elevate the perceived importance of shrooms. There’s a common trip motif that shrooms make one “more human” and the “theory” is just a projection of that.

Mechanistically it just doesn’t make any sense. The reason mushrooms make us trip is because there’s already a network there that they “talk” to (the 5ht_2a receptor system)

And how exactly would non-linguistic animals suddenly gain linguistic ability? They better hope everyone around them is tripping on the perfect dose too otherwise they’re just gonna perceive it as meaningless babblimg

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> And how exactly would non-linguistic animals suddenly gain linguistic ability? They better hope everyone around them is tripping on the perfect dose too otherwise they’re just gonna perceive it as meaningless babblimg

I don't think this has to be an sudden event? Apes are already communicating with each other and have the relevant structures for communication in place. It isn't impossible for me to imagine that mushrooms with their creativity-heightening effects might offer insights to an ape on how to improve the utilization of that which is already there, making their communication more refined, precise and expressive. It also isn't impossible to imagine that in a group of social animals better communication would likely increase the probability of survival and leaving offspring, thus influencing evolution.

"The reason mushrooms make us trip is because there’s already a network there that they “talk” to (the 5ht_2a receptor system)"

But how does binding to the 5-HT[2A] receptor lead to, say, communing with one's dead mother, or to forgiveness of oneself or one's abusive father, or to a creative breakthrough on a problem you've been struggling with for months or years, or to an encounter with one's god, or to the realization that you/we are god, or to curing/treating depression or addiction, etc?

These are open questions that science doesn't have very satisfying answers to yet.

> These are open questions that science doesn't have very satisfying answers to yet.

Agreed.

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It’s nowhere near complete but one place to start is psychedelic (a) increase communication across/between disparate brain regions, (b) synchronize the various waves of brain activity into a single vibration, and (c) reduces the threshold at which pattern matching / classifier networks will fire (thus the increased visual acuity at small doses and pareidolia and other visual effects at high doses)

I remember a study that explained (b), can’t remember anything else about it though :/

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EDIT: https://ai.googleblog.com/2015/06/inceptionism-going-deeper-... is also great to think about. DeepDream produces very psychedelic images and the bit about reversing the network and having it recurse on pattern matching its on output to “massage” the raw input into alignment with a schema (akin to feeding output back into input) is very relevant

they sort of are open. your brain is basically a interpreting and predicting the world 24/7. it work by making meaning of what it perceives. a flood of a neurotransmitter basically alters the way the brain works and whatever experience you have is your brain trying to make senses of the new and unexpected electrochemical activity.

you are not communicating with your dead mother or you are not being a god.

it works for depression because it allows the brain to exercise and form neural pathways that are not normally allowed. even if we think about the brain as one organ, in reality there are a lot of interconnected neural nets that are regulated by a central supervisory net called the DMN. Under psychedelics, the DMN shuts down while the other networks increase activity.

I was careful to say "entertained", so I don't disagree with you, But just to engage further, what other satisfying models are there for non-linguistic animals suddenly gaining linguistic ability?

Evolution. Animals suddenly gain all sorts of competencies when the competitive pressure is on. Most animals already have linguistic ability, I don't think human language is all that special. We can do all sorts of fancy things with our brains that seem to defy explanation through the simple mechanics of evolution, but communicating the state of your brain to another of your species, that feels like basic stuff to me.

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