Or psychoactive drugs don’t teach you anything new but rather modify brain functionality such that you feel different. Gaining new belief or believing you have new beliefs are typically indistinguishable from the inside.
Well, could’t You say the same thing about experiences of any nature? For example: our thoughts always affect our body/mind .. if I take a drug or in the case of ayahuasca an entheogen, it creates a non ordinary state of consciousness, which -if strong enough- can permanently change the way I feel and act. The same you could achieve by meditating on a regular basis or going on a long trip, having a traumatic experience etc .. our brains are being modified constantly by our experiences, not just by drugs. And yeah, a belief is a belief - if it’s a conscious belief you could say ‘I believe in having this belief’ and if it’s unconscious it’s just a belief I am not consciously aware of. But both have the same
Effect on my body and mind
It permanently changes you by causing conditions by which your brain rewires itself. For psychiatric patients that is often a good thing because where they are at is not a good place. But why would you throw a spanner in the works if you're already a well adjusted individual?
If you want to be content and enjoy life, why not get a lobotomy. It's a more consistent result. Oh you don't want to do that to your brain? Well acid may have different mechanisms but can trigger similarly drastic effects, it's just now you've introduced a roll of the die, and I'm not a fan of gambling without a winning strategy.
Given your very clear and strong stance that this is something you won't ever try, of which I don't have any issue with, I won't spend a lot of time debating this statement.
But, your analogy with getting a lobotomy to enjoy life being even remotely equivalent to doing psychedelics is simply wrong. The effects are not similar. You are also drastically overestimating the gambling nature of psychedelics.
You're probably way more likely to wreck your life while drinking alcohol than you are with psychedelics.
What is different between having a new belief and having your brain functionality modified such that you indistinguishably genuinely feel you have a new belief? Wouldn't the act of integrating a new belief also modify your brain functionality somehow? Not trying to start an esoteric argument, I'm interested if there's an actual answer to that.
You can profoundly understand something because you understand the mechanism of its working and have deeply integrated it into your mental model of the world. Or you can "profoundly understand" something by having your brain remember what it feels like to profoundly understand, and enter that state in association with the new belief. Even if the belief is wrong (and you will never see that it is wrong).