01 JUN 2011 by ideonexus
Cannabis Insights
I can remember the night that I suddenly realized what it was like to be crazy, or nights when my feelings and perceptions were of a religious nature. I had a very accurate sense that these feelings and perceptions, written down casually, would not stand the usual critical scrutiny that is my stock in trade as a scientist. If I find in the morning a message from myself the night before informing me that there is a world around us which we barely sense, or that we can become one with the unive...Insights under the effects of cannabis seem crazy, but there are also perceptual enhancements that are verifiable to the sober mind.
01 JUN 2011 by ideonexus
Marijuana Use is Self-Regulating
There is a very nice self-titering aspect to cannabis. Each puff is a very small dose; the time lag between inhaling a puff and sensing its effect is small; and there is no desire for more after the high is there. I think the ratio, R, of the time to sense the dose taken to the time required to take an excessive dose is an important quantity. R is very large for LSD (which I've never taken) and reasonably short for cannabis. Small values of R should be one measure of the safety of psychedelic...Because the period of time between the puff of smoke and its effect on the user, it is easy to regulate how high you want to get when smoking it.
01 JUN 2011 by ideonexus
Carl Sagan's Insights from Smoking Marijuana
I find that most of the insights I achieve when high are into social issues, an area of creative scholarship very different from the one I am generally known for. I can remember one occasion, taking a shower with my wife while high, in which I had an idea on the origins and invalidities of racism in terms of gaussian distribution curves. It was a point obvious in a way, but rarely talked about. I drew the curves in soap on the shower wall, and went to write the idea down. One idea led to anot...It is difficult to record the insights in such a way as to have them appeal to the sober mind, but Sagan, with much effort, got 11 essays out of an insight found while high.