[ilyt]

>This assumes that the sober state of mind takes precedence over the altered state of mind. But there's no evidence that the one is superior to the other.

First, define "superior".

Second, if you have 20 sober people looking at thing and reporting it looks the same, then you drug them and every one of them reports someone else, I'm giving that to the "sober mind", even when some tiny minority might be reporting in "sober" state what others would classify as "drugged"

[pmoriarty]

This assumes we all share the same reality, and further assumes that the criteria sober people use to judge reality must be the right one.

Ask people in a different state of mind and they can give you plenty of other criteria... such as that what they are experiencing is to them "more real than real", or that they're able to commune with their god in that state while they're unable to in a sober state, or that they're able to communicate with their dead relatives in the altered state, or that it's more spiritual, etc...

Why should some sober people's consensus trump the criteria of people in altered states of consciousness?

[bheadmaster]

> Why should some sober people's consensus trump the criteria of people in altered states of consciousness?

Because hallucinating people usually aren't in consensus about what is real, while sober people are. Consensus is the only criteria for reality we have, don't we?

Not saying that consensus makes it a reality, but it's the best indicator of whatever we're calling reality.

[quechimba]

In the Amazon rainforest, the consensus is that spirits are real.

Why would they be hallucinating? Most people don't drink ayahuasca.

[bheadmaster]

As I said, consensus doesn't make reality, only indicates it. Sometimes the consensus is wrong - in the middle age, consensus was that the Earth is in the center of the universe.

But it's still the best indicator we have. And consensus is measured by numbers, so Amazon rainforest guys aren't really more meaningful than flat earthers, alien abductees and scientologists. Of course, number is only a shorthand - in the age of modern science, all knowledge about reality must fit into the general framework that explains and predicts reality in order to be worthy of being considered true, regardless of how many people believe it. But that boils down to consistency again.