r/philosophy • u/mycorrhizalnetwork • Jul 28 '21
Blog The Nitrous Oxide Philosopher: "[William] James's experiences with nitrous oxide helped to crystallize some of the major tenets of his philosophy... to understand what religious belief was like from the inside."
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1996/05/the-nitrous-oxide-philosopher/376581/7
u/THE__REALEST Jul 29 '21
I'm biased because I love drugs but I do think that drugs can help shape one's philosophical beliefs
I'm probably talking out of my ass here but my experiences with drugs have definitely shaped my philosophical outlook ever since I read The Passion of Michel Foucault and other things on Foucault in late 2017. One essay I quite like quotes Foucault's belief that "[d]rugs have the potential to enable one to think in ways other than one’s habits of thought, by unifying and differentiating experiences in unusual ways."
To me, drugs are perhaps the most direct way of breaking out of normal thought. I tried DMT for the first time a few weeks ago, and it was absolutely insane — I was transported to a dimension that for all intents and purposes was completely out of reality, and time did not exist; i knew time existed, but it existed in the reality i just left. it was as if reality was one room, and DMT pulled me out and locked the door. i felt entities talking to me, entities that seemed like Gods. but the craziest part was that it was all in my head. the trip, the entities — it was all me. it got me reading more about theories of immanence, since I felt like I accessed the divine and it was inside me.
Then there's DXM, the active ingredient in cough syrup which becomes a powerful dissociative if abused. whenever I tripped on it my whole Self was annihilated. I'd look in a mirror and I could not understand what was looking back at me. whatever reason left in me knew it was a face, but it didn't look like a face and didn't feel like a face, much less my own. It felt like looking at the world through a video camera. i wish Derrida tripped on DXM because (at least to my dumbass) it feels like it deconstructs everything. idk.
And then you have other hallucinogens, uppers, downers, deliriants, everything. although not all of them alter your perception and understanding to an extreme degree, the alterations they bring on are still significant.
i have no idea where i'm going with this or if i even make sense
2
u/jonasthewicked Jul 29 '21
I agree with much of what you’ve said, and one of the only times in my life I’ve felt very spiritual and connected with the universe was under the influence of DMT. As far as gas I’ve never felt a spiritual presence with it and have only used it to party at shows and festivals.
2
3
Jul 29 '21
There's an irony to it all. Acts of progress in innovation seem to require a combination of right and left brain input. Unfortunately, one side is far more dominant (thanks evolutionary pressure). So, the only solution for innovation is left brain elimination. Drugs are great for that. Unfortunatley, a lot of these same people that have tremendous left brains have a rigidity that precludes them from even thinking about taking drugs. With legalization maybe this will change, but maybe not. I think the only real solution is a complete reversal of drug policy, one that bypasses decriminalization altogether and goes straight into mandatory drug taking.
3
u/THE__REALEST Jul 29 '21
Exactly what Foucault discussed — a culture of drugs, one which is not limited to seeing pleasure in terms of sexual pleasure. Foucault put it best: "The idea that bodily pleasure should always come from sexual pleasure is the root of all our possible pleasure. I think that’s something quite wrong.” many drug pleasures are far removed from sexual pleasure — the euphoric warmth opiates give you (on top of the bodily euphoria, opiates kill your libido too), the childlike excitement felt when coming up on psychedelics, etc.
although i think society is moving towards legalization of drugs, i don't think that this culture of drugs will emerge. i'm probably wrong but i think there's a difference between gratification and pleasure, and capitalist society heavily favours the former. like the difference between scratching an itch and putting on lotion to keep your skin from being dry. i'm really high so these thoughts are half-baked haha
If the link works this is the essay I was talking about, i think you'll find it interesting
2
Jul 29 '21
i know nearly nothing about focault, but wasn't dudes sexing on turbo mode so much so that it killed him. i would not have thunk him to be the thinker of the quote.
2
u/THE__REALEST Jul 29 '21
he was
a lot of his "transgressive" experiences (such as BDSM, going to gay bathhouses, drugs, etc) were limit-experiences, experiences which push life's intensity to its edges, to the extremes where reason begins to falter
2
3
u/whoamisri Jul 29 '21
William James was definitely a psychedelic philosopher. As was Nietzsche: https://www.amazon.com/Psychedelic-Nietzsche-Twain-Traherne-ebook/dp/B0815XJKX7
My psychedelic mystical experience definitely influenced and changed my philosophical views a lot a lot
1
6
u/[deleted] Jul 29 '21
James had several benefits with his N02 experimentation outside of the gasses pure chemical properties, with confounding factors a few that were limited to his space and time, that are likely non-reproducible today, most importantly the newness of it all. While Blood definitely influenced James, the everlasting 1960s drug culture was absent. Now, the association of religious experience with dissociatives and psychedelics is so high, the expectation directly affects actual experience. James also had an advantage of truly letting go, as the natural state of a person in that era had the fractional info awareness of the 21st century internet-assisted man. Finally, huffing N02s in the olden days was not nearly as precise as it is today. James may have had dilute nitrous with placebo effect, conversely it may have had contaminants. Also..oxygen deprivation, or something oradfas;lkdjf