Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by chimpinee 4869 days ago
I agree that people usually misinterpret their experiences where psychedelics and religion are concerned. However it's worth noting that in striving to create and discover interesting things one becomes vulnerable to all manner of possible obsessions and addictions -- most call it going 'crazy' (e.g. Beethoven, van Gogh, Tesla, Michelangelo, Schumann, John Nash and presumably many who ceased to function altogether in their pursuits)

It seems that psychedelic drugs have helped some people historically in locating an internal pointer or state which, if remembered, prevents this from happening. One wonders, for example, if the Beatles or Steve Jobs, notwithstanding their hard work, could ever have become what they did if they hadn't also taken LSD at some point.
1 comments
michaelochurch 4869 days ago
One wonders, for example, if the Beatles or Steve Jobs, notwithstanding their hard work, could ever have become what they did if they hadn't also taken LSD at some point.

Honestly? I think that people who start using these drugs end up giving them too much credit. At some point, they start attributing all interesting or creative thoughts they have to the use of drugs when, while the drug experiences played a role, they weren't as primary as the person (due to the tendency to overvalue intense experiences in explaining personal traits) thinks.

link
cthrowaway2 4869 days ago
"At some point, they start attributing all interesting or creative thoughts they have to the use of drugs".

i have never met anyone like this. i've also never heard of someone taking it to this extreme. i'm inclined to call it a straw man.

what Steve Jobs for instance, actually said, is that LSD is "one of the two or three most important things [he had] done in [his] life".

rather than responding to a generalized anecdotal scenario, it might suit your response better to respond to Steve's quote directly.

the question is, "could Steve Jobs have become Steve Jobs without LSD?"

now, i don't think Steve's quote is enough information for us to answer conclusively. i'm sure Steve himself doesn't even know. but when you compare Steve's feelings to the question your parent prompted, "Honestly?" seems like an awfully short sighted response.

link
michaelochurch 4868 days ago
i have never met anyone like this.

I've met quite a few.

I've also met people who use psychedelics regularly and remain very level-headed and balanced. There is a spectrum.

link