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Mad_Larkin
Registered: 11/29/07
Posts: 18,606
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Re: Humans are MEANT to use psychedelics [Re: asknoquestions]
#8370581 - 05/06/08 08:07 PM (15 years, 10 months ago) |
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I think a plant producing a chemical that makes an animal trip as a "defense machanism" wouldn't be the most effective way of deterring predators.
Poisons, irritants, spines, tough skin. These are all much more effective things to deter a predator, as DimensionX said the animal might not even associate tripping out with having eaten the plant. For the plant, it's kind of an evolutionary dead-end.
Despite my theory being pretty flawed, I still think theres a definate element of fact. Nothing in nature is there by chance, everything serves a purpose or else evolution would have eliminated it as useless.
While it is true some entheogens cause unpleasant physical effects the fact that a lot of them create pleasant physical effects - and not just psychic effects - is pretty telling. Few other plants acctually encourage something to eat it by making it pleasurable for the consumer.
Also, another thought. While I was typing.
Psilocybe mushrooms do not normally give nausea, but a mescaline cactus will. Maybe because you have to kill the cactus to use it but the mushroom mycelium will remain reletively unscathed if not overpicked. I can think of exceptions to this idea but I'm just getting it out there so we can build on it.
Edited by Mad_Larkin (05/06/08 08:11 PM)
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Akira
CosmicConsciousness
Registered: 12/30/05
Posts: 2,283
Loc: Hay Un Mundo Mas Alla
Last seen: 11 years, 1 month
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Re: Humans are MEANT to use psychedelics [Re: Mad_Larkin]
#8370777 - 05/06/08 08:47 PM (15 years, 10 months ago) |
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Quote:
Mad_Larkin said: I think psychedelics were put on the Earth to speed up our evolution. The reason psychedelics are pleasurable to use is because we are SUPPOSED to use them.
Gay men could make the same argument. The only reason it feels so good to take a penis up the butthole is becuase we are supposed to. And all along we straight men thought we were doing things the natural way..:(
-------------------- Orissa India Bulk Grow (Tub Tek) Bulk Steamer Pasteurizer Tek "Our intention is our eternal fingerprint in the universe." We know that God is good, and so are hamburgers and hot dogs. We know that hamburgers and hot dogs definitely do exist, so then by deduction of logic God too must also exist. Hamburgers + Hot dogs = God.... Duh
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deCypher
Registered: 02/10/08
Posts: 56,232
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Re: Humans are MEANT to use psychedelics [Re: tyler_0_durden]
#8371172 - 05/06/08 10:15 PM (15 years, 10 months ago) |
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Quote:
tyler_0_durden said: Unfortunately, the theory of evolution itself is rather flawed, at least, for now.
How is an animal able to choose what mutations benefit them? I know it relates to the ecosystem and how it interacts with other animals/plants, but think about it.
Also, we have never observed any genetic mutations in the entire human population that have had any benefit, since we've had knowledge of DNA's existance. The only mutations we've seen are in birth defects, and most of them aren't very pretty. They don't seem very advantageous to the human that bears them, and those humans that do suffer from said mutations usually are sterile.
Hopefully someday soon we can actually observe an advantageous trait arising in an animal as it's happening. Otherwise, we really are clueless as to how our world really works. We say birds evolved from dinosaurs, but how come we can't find any fossil records of birds with scales? Surely you would think there would be a "middle" species to give us evidence that yes, indeed there has been evolution since the dawn of time.
But, we haven't found them yet.
And of course, as for the other end of the spectrum, we also have not readily observed divine intervention, either.
So who knows??
I don't really want to turn this thread into an evolution debate, but you said a few things that I feel I have to address. You asked how an animal is able to choose what mutations benefit them. The whole point of evolution is that the animal does NOT choose what mutations benefit them, let alone choose what mutations they experience at all. Genetic mutations happen wholly randomly, and it's a matter of pure chance what variations the offspring inherit via mutation. The members of a species who happen to experience a beneficial mutation will have a slightly higher chance of surviving or making more offspring than those who did not experience the beneficial mutation, and so in the long run those offspring with the mutation will have a higher chance of contributing to the gene pool and in so doing pass on the mutation.
You sound like you're implying that we've never observed an advantageous trait arising in an animal as it's happening. There have been many recorded instances of this. The story of the peppered moth in England that was predominantly light-colored prior to the Industrial revolution that evolved to a darker color after the revolution is the usual example--ordinarily, light colored moths blended in with white foliage surround the country-side, but with the advent of industrialization and factories pouring soot into the air, burning coal and soot rapidly blanketed the agriculture, causing light colored moths to die off as they were easily visible to predators. Those with a chance dark color mutation were more likely to survive and reproduce, thus ensuring that within but a few short generations, the peppered moth had almost completely reversed its coloring.
If you want a more common example, take antibacterial soap. The reason why a lot of people are cautioning not to use this sort of stuff too frequently is because the super-bacteria that are resistant to the soap due to chance mutation end up breeding out of control as all their competition is dying off. Evolution in action.
As for humans, that's another matter entirely. With our modern medical technology and huge improvements in hospital treatment and aging prevention, we are able to circumvent evolution of our own bodies in favor of fancy tools and gizmos designed to increase our survival. If we didn't have hospitals or medical care, odds are is that we'd see beneficial mutations popping up over the course of our thousands of years-long species lifespan. However, because it's now the quality of tools at your disposal that determines survival, and condoms make offspring a choice rather than a natural byproduct, we've essentially stopped evolution at the human level.
-------------------- We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.
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zouden
Neuroscientist
Registered: 11/12/07
Posts: 7,091
Loc: Australia
Last seen: 14 years, 5 months
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Re: Humans are MEANT to use psychedelics [Re: deCypher]
#8371268 - 05/06/08 10:37 PM (15 years, 10 months ago) |
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I was about to post and say that mushrooms DON'T benefit from us eating them, but then I realised something... they benefit from other animals eating them. They ingest the spores, which pass through their digestive system and end up deposited in neat piles of their favourite food source. What an excellent system.
Humans aren't meant to use psychedelics - cows are!
-------------------- I know... that just the smallest part of the world belongs to me You know... I'm not a blind man but truth is the hardest thing to see
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Gavn
Im a Fun Gi
Registered: 01/22/08
Posts: 425
Loc: Sydney NSW
Last seen: 11 years, 9 months
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Re: Humans are MEANT to use psychedelics [Re: Mad_Larkin]
#8371558 - 05/07/08 12:24 AM (15 years, 10 months ago) |
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Quote:
Gavn said: though i agree with your theory.. if it were completely true that they wanted us to eat them, them dirty mofos would be growing all throughout my backyard haha
Quote:
Haha, perhaps they don't grow in your backyard but I'm sure you don't have to go far to find mushrooms?
if only i knew where
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Divided_Sky
Ten ThousandThings
Registered: 11/02/03
Posts: 3,171
Loc: The Shining Void
Last seen: 15 years, 9 months
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Re: Humans are MEANT to use psychedelics [Re: Gavn]
#8371615 - 05/07/08 12:39 AM (15 years, 10 months ago) |
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I think a more meaningful and logical rephrasing would read:
"Psychedelics are MEANT to be used by humans."
-------------------- 1. "After an hour I wasn't feeling anything so I decided to take another..." 2. "We were feeling pretty good so we decided to smoke a few bowls..." 3. "I had to be real quiet because my parents were asleep upstairs..."
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Sophistic Radiance
Free sVs!
Registered: 07/11/06
Posts: 43,135
Loc: Center of the Universe
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Re: Humans are MEANT to use psychedelics [Re: fushock]
#8371788 - 05/07/08 02:22 AM (15 years, 10 months ago) |
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I think it's kind of obvious that psychedelics played some role in the evolution of modern human. All of us have ancestors who used psychedelic drugs; this much is obvious, if you've done any reading on the history of it. Witches in Europe, the great philosophers of Greece, the forefathers of Eastern introspection, and shamans in Africa and pre-Columbian America were all using this stuff, and it's no coincidence. It's modern culture that has put a muzzle on this stuff, and again, it's no coincidence. We wouldn't be where we are today if we had never left the introspective, spiritual, shamanic world of our past. And that's why we need it now more than ever.
It's up to us to rediscover the Gaian science our ancestors wielded, and in spite of prohibition, things are really coming along.
-------------------- Enlil said: You really are the worst kind of person.
Edited by Tchan909 (05/07/08 02:39 AM)
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04281969
Hobbyist
Registered: 08/09/06
Posts: 1,406
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Shut up.
Don't think.
Do your job.
Consume.
That is all.
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Boots
Disenchanted
Registered: 07/25/07
Posts: 1,137
Loc: Northwood, Ohio, U.S.A.
Last seen: 15 years, 3 months
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Re: Humans are MEANT to use psychedelics [Re: fushock]
#8372120 - 05/07/08 07:35 AM (15 years, 10 months ago) |
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Interesting theory but it's just that: a theory.
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Visionary Tools
Registered: 06/23/07
Posts: 7,953
Last seen: 1 year, 9 months
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Re: Humans are MEANT to use psychedelics [Re: Mad_Larkin]
#8372131 - 05/07/08 07:38 AM (15 years, 10 months ago) |
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I think my opinion has been voiced already, but I love thinky drugs. Even piracetam, which is psychedelic only in the way it can help you further your mental faculties. Psychedelics can be pleasurable, because it's so nice to have some of the reality filters we have so we can get along and do work removed now and then, allowing us further insight into the nature of things.
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asknoquestions
Stranger
Registered: 01/16/08
Posts: 97
Last seen: 14 years, 5 months
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Re: Humans are MEANT to use psychedelics [Re: deCypher]
#8372199 - 05/07/08 08:09 AM (15 years, 10 months ago) |
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Quote:
I don't really want to turn this thread into an evolution debate, but you said a few things that I feel I have to address. You asked how an animal is able to choose what mutations benefit them. The whole point of evolution is that the animal does NOT choose what mutations benefit them, let alone choose what mutations they experience at all. Genetic mutations happen wholly randomly, and it's a matter of pure chance what variations the offspring inherit via mutation. The members of a species who happen to experience a beneficial mutation will have a slightly higher chance of surviving or making more offspring than those who did not experience the beneficial mutation, and so in the long run those offspring with the mutation will have a higher chance of contributing to the gene pool and in so doing pass on the mutation.
You sound like you're implying that we've never observed an advantageous trait arising in an animal as it's happening. There have been many recorded instances of this. The story of the peppered moth in England that was predominantly light-colored prior to the Industrial revolution that evolved to a darker color after the revolution is the usual example--ordinarily, light colored moths blended in with white foliage surround the country-side, but with the advent of industrialization and factories pouring soot into the air, burning coal and soot rapidly blanketed the agriculture, causing light colored moths to die off as they were easily visible to predators. Those with a chance dark color mutation were more likely to survive and reproduce, thus ensuring that within but a few short generations, the peppered moth had almost completely reversed its coloring.
If you want a more common example, take antibacterial soap. The reason why a lot of people are cautioning not to use this sort of stuff too frequently is because the super-bacteria that are resistant to the soap due to chance mutation end up breeding out of control as all their competition is dying off. Evolution in action.
As for humans, that's another matter entirely. With our modern medical technology and huge improvements in hospital treatment and aging prevention, we are able to circumvent evolution of our own bodies in favor of fancy tools and gizmos designed to increase our survival. If we didn't have hospitals or medical care, odds are is that we'd see beneficial mutations popping up over the course of our thousands of years-long species lifespan. However, because it's now the quality of tools at your disposal that determines survival, and condoms make offspring a choice rather than a natural byproduct, we've essentially stopped evolution at the human level.
Thank you.
There is no guiding force to evolution. The only determining factor is if the animal survives or not. That's it.
It is most certainly possible for a trait to serve no purpose and to survive into future generations.
In fact, there is an example of a beneficial mutation in humans. Sickle Cell Anemia is common in malarial zones. Most people have it have a "weak" or half version that doesn't kill. This mutation of the blood happens to make them much more resistant to malaria. If two of these people have children then there is a chance that the child will have full-blown sickle cell, and will more than likely die. Overall, it's an advantage though.
Additionally, we do have fossils of feathered flying dinosaurs.
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zouden
Neuroscientist
Registered: 11/12/07
Posts: 7,091
Loc: Australia
Last seen: 14 years, 5 months
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Re: Humans are MEANT to use psychedelics [Re: asknoquestions]
#8373865 - 05/07/08 04:42 PM (15 years, 10 months ago) |
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Quote:
In fact, there is an example of a beneficial mutation in humans. Sickle Cell Anemia is common in malarial zones. Most people have it have a "weak" or half version that doesn't kill. This mutation of the blood happens to make them much more resistant to malaria. If two of these people have children then there is a chance that the child will have full-blown sickle cell, and will more than likely die. Overall, it's an advantage though.
It's the same with Cystic Fibrosis and resistance to the bubonic plague.
-------------------- I know... that just the smallest part of the world belongs to me You know... I'm not a blind man but truth is the hardest thing to see
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ReoSpeedwagon153
Registered: 02/04/06
Posts: 2,098
Loc: Chetumal, Mexico
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Re: Humans are MEANT to use psychedelics [Re: asknoquestions]
#8376630 - 05/08/08 07:07 AM (15 years, 10 months ago) |
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Quote:
asknoquestions said:
Quote:
Thank you.
There is no guiding force to evolution. The only determining factor is if the animal survives or not. That's it.
Sorry about continuing this debate about evolution, but where is the original topic going here anyway?
My, that is quite a sweeping statement about what I was under the impression was still a matter of research.
We don't know what possesses DNA to try out multitudinous life forms by seemingly random mutation.
Was the first single celled organism a random occurrance? Did the self replicating molecule that randomly arose from complex amino acids in a primordial soup also encase itself in a cell wall with cytoplasm and flagellae based on its own code which it just randomly made?
Or is there something more complex going on here?
-------------------- “I thought naming myself ‘ReoSpeedwagon153’ on a forum was a funny idea in 2006.”
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zouden
Neuroscientist
Registered: 11/12/07
Posts: 7,091
Loc: Australia
Last seen: 14 years, 5 months
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DNA doesn't "try out multitudinous life forms by seemingly random mutation", the mutations just happen because DNA replication is imperfect.
-------------------- I know... that just the smallest part of the world belongs to me You know... I'm not a blind man but truth is the hardest thing to see
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recycledsoul
Stranger
Registered: 05/06/08
Posts: 54
Last seen: 15 years, 8 months
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Re: Humans are MEANT to use psychedelics [Re: zouden]
#8376665 - 05/08/08 07:31 AM (15 years, 10 months ago) |
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if you cut part of the cactus off it still grows i think pyshcadelics are a blessing, a tool to help us regain awareness and get in touch with our true selves. but keeping using them habitually or even continually is really useless if you are aware that you can meditate and reach deeper, higher states
-------------------- Listen to what the universe wants you to do, be happy listen to what the mind wants you to do, be miserable just be Here. Reality as it is, dont change it as you would like it to be, just observe, no repression, no expression
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ReoSpeedwagon153
Registered: 02/04/06
Posts: 2,098
Loc: Chetumal, Mexico
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Re: Humans are MEANT to use psychedelics [Re: zouden]
#8376695 - 05/08/08 07:47 AM (15 years, 10 months ago) |
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I'm just saying that the mutations may only seem random, or that's just the only way we have to understand them right now.
Mutation seem to lead to 'preconcieved' forms in animals and plants. The mutations seem random, but their eventual evolutionary changes really aren't.
Yes, natural selection is one way to glibly answer this problem, but I think that only provides a partial answer. There is much more going on with the adaptation, evolution, and diversification of life forms than simple random mutation and natural selection.
-------------------- “I thought naming myself ‘ReoSpeedwagon153’ on a forum was a funny idea in 2006.”
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deCypher
Registered: 02/10/08
Posts: 56,232
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Quote:
ReoSpeedwagon153 said: There is much more going on with the adaptation, evolution, and diversification of life forms than simple random mutation and natural selection.
Uh huh. Care to elaborate?
-------------------- We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.
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LSDreamer
Materialist
Registered: 03/11/08
Posts: 10,059
Last seen: 16 days, 2 hours
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Re: Humans are MEANT to use psychedelics [Re: deCypher]
#8377072 - 05/08/08 11:13 AM (15 years, 10 months ago) |
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Evolution being a random, unguided force isn't a mark against it. Quantum physics provides a very compelling argument for the existence of an almost limitless number of unique universes. Now, think how big a universe is. With an incredibly large number of universes, and a an incredibly large number of galaxies, stars, planets, etc. the idea that we sprang into existence via random chance doesn't seem so far-fetched.
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LSDaytripper
Believer
Registered: 08/04/07
Posts: 649
Loc: Ohio
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Re: Humans are MEANT to use psychedelics [Re: 04281969]
#8377766 - 05/08/08 02:00 PM (15 years, 10 months ago) |
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Quote:
04281969 said: Shut up.
Don't think.
Do your job.
Consume.
That is all.
But you have to admit it is kind of fun to think and hypothesize about this kind of stuff. And in my opinion, the best part is that we will never know the true answer. Unless you believe in a life after death where all the secrets of life are revealed to you, or something. But for now it's just fun to guess, even if we're all completely wrong.
-------------------- ***** (10:42:46 PM): This is so strange ***** (10:42:53 PM): Becuase I feel that I am very altered ***** (10:42:57 PM): But at the same exact time ***** (10:43:28 PM): I am closer to the real me, the real me who decides who I am, the entire me
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04281969
Hobbyist
Registered: 08/09/06
Posts: 1,406
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Re: Humans are MEANT to use psychedelics [Re: LSDaytripper]
#8378165 - 05/08/08 03:58 PM (15 years, 10 months ago) |
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Obey your corporate masters or you will be removed from society.
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