## 1. [[Psychedelic Aesthetics]]? --- ## Conflicting Intuitions - Conflicting intuitions about aesthetic vs. [[psychedelic experience]]. - Psychedelic users often describe experiences in aesthetic terms. - Critics see substances like LSD and mushrooms as mindless hedonism. - Tripping, like intoxication, is not inherently aesthetic. --- ## Challenges for a [[Psychedelic Aesthetics]] - What is [[the object]] of appreciation? - Aesthetic experiences typically involve shareable objects (e.g., paintings, landscapes). - But individuals' experiences vary considerably? - Related Question: _how_ do we appreciate this object? - Appreciation is often _**very much connected**_ with perception - But perceivable properties don't seem right: - a tab of acid looks and tastes like a postage stamp --- ## Clarifying [[Aesthetic Appreciation]] - Aim: Clarify [[the relationship between]] aesthetic and psychedelic experiences. - Part 1: What is [[the object]]? - Part 2: How do we appreciate it? --- ## 2. [[The Mind Revealing]] Itself to Itself --- ## [[Twin Peaks]] Quote > “A vision I had in my sleep last night - as distinguished from a dream which is mere sorting and cataloguing of the day's events by the subconscious. This was a vision, fresh and clear as a mountain stream - _the mind revealing itself to itself_. In my vision, I was on the veranda of a vast estate, a palazzo of some fantastic proportion.” — Major Garland Briggs --- ## Three Common Intuitions About [[Psychedelic Experience]] 1. Psychedelic means trippy or weird 2. [[Psychedelic experience]] is simply hallucinatory experience 3. [[Psychedelic experience]] is only achievable through taking drugs - e.g. LSD, psilocybin (in magic mushrooms), DMT - Letheby and Lyon offer a more refined account starting from the etymology... --- ## Defining Psychedelic - Following Lyon (2024), 'psychedelic' derives from psychē (mind/soul) + dēlos (revealed/manifest). - A [[psychedelic experience]] reveals hidden parts or aspects of your mind. - Distinguishes a mind-revealing experience from mere drunkenness or hallucination. - It’s about _manifest_ mental content you directly experience. - Learning about the mind doesn't count. - revealing itself *to itself* --- ## A fine grained account - Run-of-the-mill inebriation doesn’t reveal anything about your mind. - Neither do hallucinations. At least, not necessarily - Starting from this definition makes us sure we are providing a [[philosophy of psychedelics]]. --- ## Psychedelics and Attention - This idea of 'mind revealing' can be made clearer by thinking about attention: > "The hypothesis, then, is that psychedelics create a surplus of attentional resources that tend to flow somewhat freely and unpredictably onto various mental representations and processes. By having this effect on attentional resources, psychedelics amplify parts of the mind into awareness that would otherwise remain hidden in the unconscious." - The mind being an object of aesthetic attention involves *paying attention to* aspects of mind. - Note: their are different levels of analysis here –Lyon seems to think that his ideas are compatible with Letheby's [[predictive processing]] account --- ## Psychedelics as Attentional Disruptors - Psychedelics _disrupt_ the brain’s usual controlled allocation of attention. > “The key idea will be that whereas meditation gives us more control over our attention, psychedelics free up our attention so that more of it is available for allocation to our various mental contents and processes.” (Lyon, Ch. 5) - LSD, DMT etc. release additional resources, making _more_ attention available overall. - This freed attention flows less predictably than in meditation, creating a volatile and dynamic attentional landscape. --- ## Attention as a Mental Amplifier - **Mental Amplification:** With more attentional resources available, psychedelics act as “mental amplifiers - **Intensified Mental Representations:** Increased attention directed to any mental content (perceptions, thoughts, emotions, memories) _intensifies_ it. - **Vividness and Salience:** This amplification makes mental representations appear more vivid, salient, and “real.” > “Thus, we can understand psychedelics as being mental amplifiers, since allocating more attentional resources to a mental representation increases the probability that it will appear in awareness or, if it is already in awareness, that it will feature in awareness more vividly.” (Lyon, Ch. 5) --- ## Attention’s Target: Internal and External - **Broad Scope of Attention:** Freed and amplified attention doesn’t just target external sensory input. - **Perceptual States:** Intense focus on the external world can alter sensory experiences—enhanced colors, patterns, etc. - ***Non-Perceptual States: Attention can also be directed inward, amplifying, and so making more vivacious*** --- ## From Disrupted Attention to Opacity - **Heightened Opacity:** “Freer flow” of attention under psychedelics can lead to _heightened phenomenal opacity_. - **Attention to Process, Not Just Content:** Psychedelics may shift focus to the _processes_ behind experience. - **Analytical Detachment:** This creates a sense of stepping back from direct experience, seeing thoughts as “mere thoughts.” - **Example: Depressive Rumination:** Feeling newly detached from negative thoughts, providing distance and perspective. > “For example, someone who is stuck in depressive rumination can be jolted out of the stream of such thoughts and experience them as mere thoughts. This person then has the mental space to examine those thoughts and change them…” (Lyon, Ch. 5, discussing Letheby) --- ## From Disrupted Attention to Transparency - **Radical Transparency:** The same “freer flow” of attention can also yield _radical phenomenal transparency_. - **Immersion and Unity:** Attention becomes intensely absorbed, dissolving the usual subject-object divide. - **Dissolution of Boundaries:** The separation between self and other, or self and environment, can vanish. - **Example: Unity with Nature:** Feeling “at one” with surroundings, intense interconnectedness with people, music, or the universe. > “For example, people often report feeling more connected and more ‘at one’ with all sorts of things…or getting lost in visual hallucinations, sounds and music, physical sensations, and so on.” (Lyon, Ch. 5) --- ## Transparency & Aesthetic Appreciation - **Profound Transparency:** Psychedelics can make ordinary objects appear extraordinarily rich. - **Intense Sensory Engagement:** Colors, shapes, textures become deeply compelling. - **Heightened Significance:** Everyday sights or sounds gain a powerful sense of meaning. - **Ordinary → Extraordinary:** The mundane can suddenly feel deeply aesthetic under transparency. --- ## Transparency & Nature - **Psychedelics & Radical Transparency**: By disrupting attentional control, psychedelics can induce states of radical transparency. - **Ordinary Objects, Extraordinary Beauty**: In this state, even ordinary objects of perception can become sources of strong aesthetic experience. - **Example: Nature's Intensified Beauty**: Consider the experience of nature under psychedelics, as described: > “It was like being inside of nature, and I could’ve just stayed there forever—it was wonderful. All kinds of other things were coming, too, like feelings of being connected to everything, I mean, everything in nature. Everything—even like pebbles, drops of water in the sea . . . it was like magic. It was wonderful, and it wasn’t like talking about it, which makes it an idea, it was, like, experiential. It was like being inside a drop of water, being inside of . . . a butterfly’s wing. And being inside of a cheetah’s eyes.” (Belser et al. 2017, p. 371) - **“Being Inside of Nature”**: This quote exemplifies radical transparency—a feeling of being within and unified with nature, not merely observing it from a distance. - **Experiential Magic**: The experience transcends intellectual understanding ("not like talking about it, which makes it an idea"), becoming a deeply felt encounter. --- ## Transparency & Music - **Another Example: Music and Unity**: The same principle of psychedelic transparency applies to aesthetic experiences of music. - **Music Not Just Heard, but Lived**: Psychedelic transparency can dissolve the boundary between the listener and the music, creating a sense of unity. - **Text Example: Music as Self**: > “I felt that I was part of the music and I was in the music, it was me. It was it just me listening to music. I was the music. I was the drum, or the flute, or the violin, and I was really part of that.” (Belser et al. 2017, p. 374) - **“I Was the Music”**: This is a profound statement of transparency—the individual identifies with the music itself. - **Embodied Aesthetic Experience**: The experience is not merely auditory but deeply embodied, encompassing the self. --- ## Aesthetic Intensity & Everyday Objects - **Beyond Nature & Music**: Even everyday stimuli (e.g. a lamp, a cup of tea) can appear intensely aesthetic under psychedelics. - **Why?** Freed attention invests these objects with renewed significance. - **Opacity vs. Transparency**: Deep absorption (transparency) in mundane objects fosters striking aesthetic moments. - **Bridge to Psychedelic Aesthetics**: These experiences show how transparency directly heightens the aesthetic appreciation of the world. - **Transparency as an Aesthetic Amplifier**: Psychedelic-induced transparency amplifies aesthetic experiences. - **Ordinary Becomes Extraordinary**: By dissolving distance and mediation, transparency reveals new aesthetic depth in everyday scenes. - **Beyond “Mindless Hedonism”**: This intensified aesthetic dimension challenges the idea that psychedelic experiences are merely hedonistic. - **Opening to Deeper Appreciation**: Psychedelics, through transparency, can open fresh avenues for significant aesthetic appreciation in the everyday world. ## Aesthetic Opacity and "Design-Scene Properties" • **Beyond Transparency:** While transparency enhances immersion, aesthetic appreciation isn't _only_ about losing oneself in the experience. • **Aesthetic Opacity & Reflection:** Sometimes, aesthetic appreciation involves a degree of _opacity_ – a reflective awareness of the medium, the process, or the "making" of the artwork. • **Nanay's "Design-Scene Properties":**  Philosopher Bence Nanay highlights "design-scene properties" as crucial to pictorial art appreciation. • **Interrelation of Surface and Depiction:** These are relational properties involving "the interrelationship between the marks on the surface and what is depicted in them." (Budd, as quoted by Nanay) ## Understanding "Design-Scene Properties" • **Relational Properties:** Design-scene properties are not just about the depicted scene or the surface marks _in isolation_. • **Interdependence:** They are about the _relationship_ between the two – how the "design" (surface marks) _realizes_ or _gives rise to_ the "scene" (depicted content). • **Miró Drawing Example:** Nanay uses Miró's drawings to illustrate: > "When we are admiring a Miró drawing and the way two simple curved lines somehow manage to depict an expressive human face, what we are attending to is exactly a design-scene property: the relational property partly determined by the shape property of the two-dimensional curved line on the canvas and partly determined by the three-dimensional depicted face." (Nanay 2017, pp. 59-60) • **Appreciating the "How":** We appreciate _not just_ the depicted face, but _how_ those simple lines _achieve_ the depiction – the artist's skill, the suggestive power of minimal marks. ## Cézanne Landscape Example • **Cézanne's Landscapes:** Nanay further illustrates with Cézanne's landscapes: "And when we are appreciating Cézanne’s landscapes, one thing that enhances our aesthetic appreciation is to see the interrelationship between the three- dimensional depicted fascicles of pine needles and the two-dimensional single brushstrokes on the canvas." (Nanay 2017, pp. 59-60) • **Brushstrokes and Pine Needles:**  Appreciation involves noticing the _connection_ between the distinct brushstrokes on the canvas and the depicted three-dimensional pine needles. • **Emergence of Scene from Design:** We appreciate how the scene (landscape, pine needles) _emerges_ from the "design" – Cézanne's characteristic brushstrokes, color choices, and composition. • **Opacity Enhances Appreciation:**  This awareness of design-scene properties – this move towards opacity – _enhances_ our aesthetic experience of the painting. ## Aesthetic Opacity in Psychedelic Experience? • **Transparency is Not the Whole Story:**  We've seen how psychedelic _transparency_ intensifies aesthetic experience. But what about _opacity_? • **Can Psychedelics Induce Aesthetic Opacity?** Can psychedelic experience also lead to aesthetic appreciation through a kind of "psychedelic opacity"? • **Shifting Attention Inward:** If psychedelics "free up" attention and allow it to be directed inwards, could this include attention to the "design" of our _own minds_? • **Mind as "Canvas":** Can we become aware of the "marks on the surface" – the processes, structures, and mechanisms – of our own consciousness, and find aesthetic interest in _how_ our minds generate experience? These slides build upon the previous section on transparency and introduce the idea of aesthetic opacity through Nanay's "design-scene properties." They set the stage for the next step: exploring how this framework can be applied to understand a unique form of "psychedelic aesthetic appreciation" directed towards one's own mind. Let me know if you'd like any adjustments or further slides to develop this idea! # Older stuf ## Predictive Processing 101 - Brain constantly “guesses” incoming sensory data (top-down modeling). - High-level priors shape perception, filtering improbable signals. - Mismatches generate error signals, refining the brain’s model. - Explains why some mental content stays hidden under normal conditions. --- ## Relaxing Priors & Altered Networks - Psychedelics loosen entrenched priors, allowing new or repressed material to surface. - Disruption of the Default Mode Network (DMN) can reduce rigid self-representations. - Salience Network changes let unexpected stimuli seem newly significant. - Brief neuroscience note: binding to serotonin receptors shifts brain dynamics. --- ## Examples of Mind Revelation - Emotional Insights: Surprising realizations of hidden desires or anxieties. - Unusual Perceptions: Geometric patterns in darkness, vivid imagery. - Shows glimpses of the brain’s active, constructive visual processes. - Tip-of-the-Tongue & Memory Recall: Suddenly surfacing forgotten details. - Perspective Shifts: Ego dissolution or “zooming out” on life priorities.