Timothy Leary's Mind Mirror (1985) | Hacker News Reader

Timothy Leary's Mind Mirror (1985)

scalar.usc.edu

53 pointsArtWomb24 comments

Duke: “We’re all wired into a survival trip now. No more of the speed that fueled the ’60s. That was the fatal flaw in Tim Leary’s trip. He crashed around America, selling “consciousness expansion” without ever giving a thought to the grim meat-hook realities that were lying in wait for all those people who took him seriously—all those pathetically eager acid freaks who thought they could buy peace and understanding for three bucks a hit. But their loss and failure is ours, too. What Leary took down with him was the central illusion of a whole lifestyle that he helped create. A generation of permanent cripples, failed seekers who never understood the essential old-mystic fallacy of the acid culture: the desperate assumption that somebody, or at least some force, is tending the light at the end of the tunnel.“ From:

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998)

https://moviewise.substack.com/p/movies-that-are-frightening

> Duke

I sometimes wonder if Gonzo was an alter ego all along, to pin the bad stuff on.

Required co-quote:

"There was madness in any direction, at any hour. If not across the Bay, then up the Golden Gate or down 101 to Los Altos or La Honda.… You could strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning.…

And that, I think, was the handle—that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn’t need that. Our energy would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting—on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave.…

So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark—that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back."

Heck yes. Defeatism is not the point. It's hard & complicated & requires a lot of work. But giving up, shrugging, lying down, letting short lived pleasure rule us was not HST's point.

And Learny himself wanted us to push on. This software saw itself as a toolkit for observing where we are/were and where we ought head.

I would back down from calling it inevitability. The dark conservative clutching forces could overtake hope & growth & possibility, consign our shared fate to shitty sad ruin. Both Leary & HST seemed to be co-aligned though, in believing that a vibrant spirit, aware, with some basic shit at it in the world, could go far, could, if conditions allowed, have potential to make a real difference. Whether we believe that opportunity is open widely & wish to support that, or think that chance is rare & special & only some have it within- it's a self fulfilling prophecy that dictates whether we opt to let & support humanity's chance, or whether we insist it's only a few, whether we dont bother to support & aid one another.

There's a kind of ever-dawning Gaianism I see in both TL & HST. Both require embracing a bigger humanity. Neither is prestined-both rely on consciousness, on deciding, on tuning out to the what is, and becoming consciously a part of what will be. Feom another comment talking about 1968 Leary's The Cyber Punk The Individual As Pilot:

> He gives a definition of cyberpunks in the first sentence (people who use all available data input to think for themselves https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32612648

As I've said yet again elsewhere in these comments, a huge part of this all is finding & deciding what we each are & ought become. Cybernetics we see very closely resembling the controller model of systems like kubernetes.

It's interesting to draw a parallel between the popularization of acid by Leary and the popularization of the Internet by many. John Lilly experimented with hallucinogens, but knew that a lot of preparation was in order.

    sed 's/acid/Internet/'

in Duke's quote. People just flock to the Internet and are immersing themselves in it as their reality, without a full understanding of the long term consequences.

Alternate reality is alternate reality, man.

If you haven’t heard it yet, turn the lights down low, pour out a libation, don a pair of headphones, and listen to the 1966 recording "Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out: Timothy Leary Ph.D. speaks on L.S.D." It’s widely available online. It’s not what you might expect. It’s a great time capsule of Leary’s thoughts and ideas from a unique moment in time, and it really does feel like he’s speaking to people in the far future.

Respectfully, it's about what I expected.

A mostly earnest man addressing the real problems of the military/industrial dystopia, the world's break from reality, with a bit of wisdom and a lot of snake oil. Cannabinoid snake oil ("It's an aphrodesiac, but not like in Reefer Madness, it's more cosmic than that."), lysergic acid diethylamide snake oil. Back to the Garden of Eden lures, generational politics (one's age determines one's potential for spiritual advancement?), dulcet, lyrical, hypnotic sales pitches. It was "don't trust anyone over 30" until they turned thirty, then their mind expanding experiments led to "don't trust anyone under thirty and grab a big pile of money, depriving the subsequent generations of their livelihood". What did they learn during their acid trips?

By Leary's measure, at the time of this recording, Jack Kerouac (a pioneer himself in examining the modern world) would have been 44, past Leary's 40 year old age limit. In Leary's Cyberpunk I learned yesterday that he appealed to "silicon snake oil", the world's current obsession. Dropping out isn't a ticket to Eden, I know through personal experience. No Harvard endowment paid my or Kerouac's bills, nor did free software. "Tune in, turn on, and drop out" if you have to, but "pay attention to what you are doing and who you listen to, and what you are dropping in to" would be a corollary.

In the recording, Leary talks about his experience working in an experimental psychedelic retreat in Mexico. I don’t think this is snake oil. LSD and other psychedelics have been shown to have tremendous therapeutic potential. This is what I meant about Leary talking to us in the future.

I agree that hallucinogens have therapeutic promise. Leary (and John Lilly, and others) was forward thinking in this respect. But they can be dangerous if misused, with the potential to cause chronic psychotic disorders, for example. I am hesitant to mention Charles Manson, but what if the wrong influence is there when your mind is so wide open?

Leary didn't say, "Due to regressive laws in the U.S., which I respect but we need to change, I cannot pursue my double-blind clinical trials of LSD-25 for treatment of depression in America. I have therefore moved my research to Mexico." Leary was infamous for popularizing LSD, and was part of the problem for authority's long road to accept it. I know sometimes civil disobedience is in order, but we are not talking about sarsaparilla root here.

He said (paraphrased), "People over 40 want to put me behind bars for helping people discover the cosmic candles of the night sky on the Mexican beaches...the fair-haired elven princess in the tree house...the verdant fields... Why are the mean rational adults picking on me?" which are outside of the generally accepted principles for the treatment of mental illness, I would think. It's way beyond therapeutic use and into snake oil territory when advertised as an aphrodisiac and spiritual guide. Yoga and Buddhist meditation also have therapeutic benefits and very safe--why not use those until (and after) the clinical trials of LSD are completed?

Look, you’re not wrong about anything. In 2022, I agree with every point you’ve made. But I’m not convinced these same points hold in 1966. Hindsight is 20/20, but there’s also the values and zeitgeist of the time that might not align with what we think now. Two million men were drafted to fight a meaningless war for a corrupt political class, contrary to reports from military analysts who told them the war was unwinable and should be stopped. The most loved president in US history had been assassinated. The most educated youth ever had just entered or was leaving college. Free speech movements and civil rights protests were omnipresent. LSD was a catalyst for changing minds that had been hardened by a 1950s, post-war ennui. The mind was restless and wanted change. This endeavor entailed risk and reward. Leary was a man out of his time. People are still arguing about the results of the Concord Prison Experiment. Leary’s biggest mistake is that he stayed in the US. He should have left the country /before/ he ran into legal problems, and he should have did all his research elsewhere. I’m convinced this was his biggest mistake.

> Look, you’re not wrong about anything

Nor you! I was just returning to thank you for posting your original idea to listen to this--I was only clarifying my thoughts before--Leary was human like any of us and I think a progressive, truth-seeking one. It is good to make up our own minds about history with direct sources like this. So, thanks for that and these new comments, which do make sense too.

Per coincident, just yesterday i read his Cyber Punk paper

>The Cyber Punk The Individual As Reality Pilot, By Timothy Leary (1988)

https://archive.org/details/the-cyber-punk-the-individual-as...

Anything interesting in it? Would you recommend it and why?

He gives a definition of cyberpunks in the first sentence (people who use all available data input to think for themselves) and elaborates on the role they have in society. Its a nice frame he paints and might be nice for some peoples self image and perspective onto reality.

I am very cautious of recommending anything, peoples time is precious. And different people will find different things interesting.

I think its relevant on the topic (Learys interaction with the digital), but further then that its up to the interests of the reader.

Thank you for your comments and consideration of our time. I think it was Stanislaw Lem that said there is so much poor quality writing out there, reviewers should present the materials they find good in, rather than the bad--I know that's a bit different than what you are saying, but still relevant.

> think for themselves

That always interests me.

[edit]

I just read this paper in detail. Adding to coincidence here, I kept thinking back to Lem's Pirx the Pilot series and The Cyberiad. It makes me want to read more about the Lindbergh family. Also, it touches on another topic I was thinking about tonight, the thread on HN about Finnish as a universal language when Leary writes:

> French philosophy, for example, has recently stressed the importance of language and semiotics in determining human behavior and social structures.

this also extends to computer languages, IMO. Pointy haired bosses and their languages of choice is the modern equivalent of the mutation of the "pilot" to the "steerer" in his Greek to Roman example. I found this paper thought provoking, but like his LSD campaign, misguided in its exuberance of the benefits of the "Cyborg" experience. There are drawbacks. Who's to say the computer as rudder won't become the steerer, among other "bad things"?

In other words, like hallucinogens, computers and "cyber-enhanced" reality aren't necessarily bad medicine, but they are strong medicine. Playing them off as "cool" and enhancements worth trying without considering the drawbacks as well as benefits at hand is irresponsible.

The Greeks also gave us the example of Pandora's Box.

I extracted all the text from the Apple ][ Mind Mirror floppy disk image:

https://donhopkins.com/home/mind-mirror.txt

"Digital Twins" but, like, less industrialized & from the human's point of view. "Mind-mirror reflects & quantifies your thoughts".

Start by self-rating yourself on these (and maybe more) dimensions: "bossy", "dumb", "free-living", "gung-ho", "square", "low-key", "by-the-book", "grumpy", "proper", "encouraging", "enthusiastic", "worldly", "forceful", "well-informed", "influential", "innovative", "friendly". Register your self-model for the system/with yourself.

And then model the ideal self. Pick what attributes you want to embody. Let this program help you shift from the state you are in to the state you want to be. (The parallel here to, not quite a Kubernetes Controller/Operator, but an assistant to, to encourage forward iteration towards the desired result, is striking. Register intent, iterate towards outcome.)

Source: a TV interview with some screenshots, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9oabRxvjf9k

Interesting, though it has an understandably tedious interface.

Does anyone have examples of other (more modern) software in this category of "software built to help the user change the way they think"? What are people trying and is it effective?

I was hoping to see some replies to this comment, lol. Sadly it just makes me think of companies like Cambridge Analytica and ultimately big tech in general, no doubt using software with similarities to this but not available to, or necessarily used for the personal benefit of, those whose minds are being mirrored.

This page hijacked my browser tab on mobile iOS, kept reloading before I could read anything, could not navigate away, had to close tab.

OK in Firefox desktop Linux.

Surprised you can buy it on steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1603300/Timothy_Learys_Mi...

we lost him too soon, he would have LOVED where computers have taken us (well... some of it...)

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