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Comment by pravus | Hacker News Reader

No, you can't describe it. Your senses are overwhelmed in ways that don't have a real-world analog so there is no description that you can convey to others that's in any way accurate. It's the entire point of an altered state and is something that has to be experienced.

Many human activities are short-lived mood alterations.

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I see. But to my original question, what is the value prop of experiencing this beautiful indescribable short-lived thing?

The experience itself might be a value prop. But I’m more interested in things that can improve my “normal” life. For context, psychedelics sounds interesting to me cause people say they can affect/improve normal life.

> Many human activities are short-lived mood alterations.

Like a vacation I imagine?

> what is the value prop of experiencing this beautiful indescribable short-lived thing?

Why does there need to be a value prop to it? imo the point (of recreational drug use) is experiencing said beauty for the sake of.

I think of it like this: for psychedelics, the change to your brain chemistry is like changing the hardware architecture leading to changes in software behaviour. The fundamental processes of thought in your mind work differently and so the psychological responses you have to everyday sensory stimulus are completely changed in unexpected ways and you can reach conclusions and insights in thought that you hadn't before. This may be temporary but the experience does change how you understand things once you return to normal brain chemistry function. The simple fact of knowing and experiencing how broad the space of modes is in which your consciousness could operate is very powerful in my opinion.

The same value prop as looking at a painting. There is none if you don't want to look.

What’s the “value prop” of increasing your active spectrum of perception?

A book is a temporary experience, yet you still remember what you read after it's done.

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