Psilocybin (4-phosphoryloxy-N,N-dimethyltryptamine; acronymized as 4-PO-HO-DMT) is a naturally occurring chemical compound (i.e., an indolealkylamine) which has hitherto been detected in more than 200 different fungal species across various genera (n.b., numerous specimina are endemic to the Western hemisphere). Its molecular structure (which closely resembles the neurotransmitter serotonin, viz., 5-hydroxytrptamine) was first isolated and characterized by the Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann (*1906;†2008) in the year 1959 while he worked at Sandoz Pharmaceuticals (at least according to the mainstream narrative, cf. Leopold Perutz). This website summarizes current cutting-edge scientific research on this extraordinary psychoactive compound with a thematic emphasis on its neurological and psychological effects and their relation to the evolution of consciousness.
Germann, C. B.(2019). The Psilocybin-Telomere Hypothesis: An empirically falsifiable prediction concerning the beneficial neuropsychopharmacological effects of psilocybin on genetic aging. Medical Hypotheses, 134, 1–9.
“We introduce a novel hypothesis which states that the therapeutic utilisation of psilocybin has positive effects on genetic aging. ex hypothesi, we predict a priori that controlled therapeutic psilocybin interventions have quantifiable positive effects on leucocyte telomere length (telomeres are a robust predictor of mortality and various aging-related diseases). our hypothesising follows the popperian logic of scientific discovery, i.e., bold (and refutable) conjectures form the very foundation of scientific progress. the ‘psilocybin-telomere hypothesis’ is formalised as a logically valid deductive (syllogistic) argument and we provide substantial evidence to support the underlying premises. impetus for our theorising derives from a plurality of converging empirical sources indicating that psilocybin has persistent beneficial effects on various aspects of mental health (e.g., depression, anxiety, ptsd, addiction, etc.). additional support is based on a large corpus of studies which establish reliable correlations between mental health and telomere attrition (improved mental health is generally correlated with longer telomeres). another component of our argument is based on recent studies which demonstrate that ‘meditative states of consciousness’ exert beneficial effects on genetic aging (i.e., telomeric senescence). similarly, psilocybin can facilitate states of consciousness which are neurophysiologically and phenomenologically significantly congruent with meditative states. furthermore, prior research has demonstrated that a single dose of psilocybin can occasion profound and life changing transformative experiences (≈ 70% of healthy volunteers rate their experience with psilocybin amongst the five personally most meaningful lifetime events, viz., ranked next to giving birth to a child or losing a loved one). we postulate that these profound psychological events leave quantifiable marks at the molecular genetic/epigenetic level. given the ubiquitous availability and cost effectiveness of telomere length assays, we suggest that telomere analysis should be regularly included in future psilocybin studies to provide an adjunctive quantitative biological marker (viz., scientific consilience/methodological triangulation). in order to substantiate the ‘psilocybin-telomere hypothesis’ various potential neuropsychopharmacological and endocrinological mechanisms of action are discussed (e.g., hpa-axis reactivity, adult hippocampal neurogenesis, neurotropic gr…”
Smigielski, L., Scheidegger, M., Kometer, M., & Vollenweider, F. X. (2019). Psilocybin-assisted mindfulness training modulates self-consciousness and brain default mode network connectivity with lasting effects. NeuroImage, 196, 207–215.
“Both psychedelics and meditation exert profound modulatory effects on consciousness, perception and cognition, but their combined, possibly synergistic effects on neurobiology are unknown. accordingly, we conducted a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study with 38 participants following a single administration of the psychedelic psilocybin (315 μg/kg p.o.) during a 5-day mindfulness retreat. brain dynamics were quantified directly pre- and post-intervention by functional magnetic resonance imaging during the resting state and two meditation forms. the analysis of functional connectivity identified psilocybin-related and mental state–dependent alterations in self-referential processing regions of the default mode network (dmn). notably, decoupling of medial prefrontal and posterior cingulate cortices, which is thought to mediate sense of self, was associated with the subjective ego dissolution effect during the psilocybin-assisted mindfulness session. the extent of ego dissolution and brain connectivity predicted positive changes in psycho-social functioning of participants 4 months later. psilocybin, combined with meditation, facilitated neurodynamic modulations in self-referential networks, subserving the process of meditation by acting along the anterior–posterior dmn connection. the study highlights the link between altered self-experience and subsequent behavioral changes. understanding how interventions facilitate transformative experiences may open novel therapeutic perspectives. insights into the biology of discrete mental states foster our understanding of non-ordinary forms of human self-consciousness and their concomitant brain substrate.”
The founder of Psilocybin-Research is Dr. Christopher B. Germann.
(Ph.D., M.Sc., B.Sc. / Marie Curie Alumnus).
The following section provides an prefatory statement by Dr. Germann.
You can alternatively display/download the statement as a LaTeX PDF (opens in a new window) or HTML5 document (integrated AI text-to-speech synthesis)
A psychophysical analogy between psychoactive tryptamines and radioactive isotopes
“Given the significant wicked problems humanity is forced to face in the 21st century Anthropocene, systematic transdisciplinary scientific research on various naturally-occurring “consciousness expanding” psychoactive substances (specifically in the domain of psychology and neuroscience) is, per analogiam, at least as important as basic research on radioactive substances was for the progress of the physical sciences in the 20th century. Research on psychoactive tryptamines could potentially revolutionize our understanding of psychology comparable to the way research on radioactive isotopes revolutionized our understanding of physics. Today’s existential problems are primarily caused by a “mass-pathology of consciousness”. Therefore, “looking inside” (introspection/psychology) is currently much more important than “looking outside” (extrospection/physics). Contrary to wide spread believe, technological solution will not solve our problems which are clearly caused by psychological corruption (a fact which is not easily admitted due to unconscious psychological defense mechanism which prevent an unbiased perception of the real causes of our extremely pressing problems). A deeper understanding of consciousness might simultaneously help to address external problems as inside and outside might not be separable in the Cartesian dualistic sense (viz., the dichotomy between mind and matter, psyche and physis, subject and object, might not be as clear-cut as mainstream science prima facie assumes). Intrinsically motivated, authentic, and non-conformist thinking à la Marie Curie is of crucial importance in this context. Currently, we are utterly nescient about the exact relationship between mind and matter (i.e., psyche and physis; cf. the hitherto unresolved explanatory gap). Ergo, intellectual/epistemological humility is a true scientific virtue which forms the basis of genuine curiosity, and hence creativity, innovation, evolution, and the urgently needed radical Kuhnian paradigm-change. Specifically the potential to induce transformative and enduring states of unity consciousness (s.c., nonduality/Advaita) is of great pertinence in the prevailing capitalistic neoliberal/social-Darwinian climate which indoctrinates immoral/inhuman hyper-competition, careerism, ego-centrism, and psychopathic narcissism (this is then called “success”). Utilized in the right way, minute quantities of a chemically well-defined small class of psychoactive tryptamines (i.e., structural analogues of psilocybin/serotonin) can change human consciousness in profound ways and facilitate deep ontological insights into the interconnectedness of humanity (beyond economic competition) and all of nature (biophilia versus nécrophilia; cf. hologenome theory of evolution). Given that converging evidence from a variety of independent sources indicates that humanity is currently destroying the ecosystem at an exponential rate, a fundamental shift in the regnant cognitive modus operandi is of pivotal importance for the survival of the species homo sapiēns (currently more accurately classified as homo consumens) on this planet which has been termed spaceship earth. Contrary to widespread naiveté, the logical interpretation of this proposal does not rest on the premise that every individual has to partake in this mind-changing endeavor. From a complex systems theory point of view, a phase-shift in the collective unconscious of the species (à la C.G. Jung) might be induced if a proportionally rather small ‘critical mass’ of participants is reached (cf. ‘snowball-effect’ in social psychology, i.e., “spreading activation” in communication networks). We simply do not know enough about consciousness (and de facto physical matter; cf. recent empirical findings in experimental quantum entanglement research, e.g., violations of Bell inequalities; hypothetical dark matter & dark energy, extra dimension/M-theory, etc. pp.) to precluded the possibility of effecting the collective unconscious in hitherto unknown ways prima facie (a close-minded and dogmatic attitude towards the possibilities of science which is unfortunately very dominant in indoctrinated mainstream academic circles). For instance, we find similar models in developmental biology where a small minority of so called ‘imaginal cells’ in the developing chrysalis transform the whole organism beyond recognition into a beautiful colorful butterfly which can fly! Who would have predicted this unfoldment of inherent (dormant) potential a priori? Open-mindedness is a condicio sine qua non for creativity, cognitive innovation and, ergo, scientific progress and and the theoretically infinite unfoldment of human potential.”
~ Christopher B. Germann (Marie Curie Alumnus)
See also Dr. Germann’s thematically related papers on DMT and 5-MeO-DMT (both compounds are structural relatives of psilocybin):
Erritzoe, D., Roseman, L., Nour, M. M., MacLean, K., Kaelen, M., Nutt, D. J., & Carhart-Harris, R. L.. (2018). Effects of psilocybin therapy on personality structure. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica
“Objective to explore whether psilocybin with psychological support modulates personality parameters in patients suffering from treatment-resistant depression (trd). method twenty patients with moderate or severe, unipolar, trd received oral psilocybin (10 and 25 mg, one week apart) in a supportive setting. personality was assessed at baseline and at 3-month follow-up using the revised neo personality inventory (neo-pi-r), the subjective psilocybin experience with altered state of consciousness (asc) scale, and depressive symptoms with qids-sr16. results neuroticism scores significantly decreased while extraversion increased following psilocybin therapy. these changes were in the direction of the normative neo-pi-r data and were both predicted, in an exploratory analysis, by the degree of insightfulness experienced during the psilocybin session. openness scores also significantly increased following psilocybin, whereas conscientiousness showed trend-level increases, and agreeableness did not change. conclusion our observation of changes in personality measures after psilocybin therapy was mostly consistent with reports of personality change in relation to conventional antidepressant treatment, although the pronounced increases in extraversion and openness might constitute an effect more specific to psychedelic therapy. this needs further exploration in future controlled studies, as do the brain mechanisms of postpsychedelic personality change.”
'The hidden Self' by William James (1890)
“Round about the accredited and orderly facts of every science there ever floats a sort of dust-cloud of exceptional observations, of occurrences minute and irregular, and seldom met with, which it always proves less easy to attend to than to ignore. The ideal of every science is that of a closed and completed system of truth. The charm of most sciences to their more passive disciples consists in their appearing, in fact, to wear just this ideal form. Each one of our various ‘ologies’ seems to offer a definite head of classification for every possible phenomenon of the sort which it professes to cover; and, so far from free is most men’s fancy, that when a consistent and organized scheme of this sort has once been comprehended and assimilated, a different scheme is unimaginable. No alternative, whether to whole or parts, can any longer be conceived as possible. Phenomena unclassifiable within the system are therefore paradoxical absurdities, and must be held untrue. When, moreover, as so often happens, the reports of them are vague and indirect, when they come as mere marvels and oddities rather than as things of serious moment, one neglects or denies them with the best of scientific consciences. Only the born geniuses let themselves be worried and fascinated by these outstanding exceptions, and get no peace till they are brought within the fold. Your Galileos, Galvanis, Fresnels, Purkinjes, and Darwins are always getting confounded and troubled by insignificant things. Anyone will renovate his science who will steadily look after the irregular phenomena. And when the science is renewed, its new formulas often have more of the voice of the exceptions in them than of what were supposed to be the rules. No part of the unclassed residuum has usually been treated with a more contemptuous scientific disregard than the mass of phenomena generally called mystical. Physiology will have nothing to do with them. Orthodox psychology turns its back upon them. Medicine sweeps them out; or, at most, when in an anecdotal vein, records a few of them as ‘effects of the imagination’ a phrase of mere dismissal whose meaning, in this connection, it is impossible to make precise. All the while, however, the phenomena are there, lying broadcast over the surface of history. No matter where you open its pages, you find things recorded under the name of divinations, inspirations, demoniacal possessions, apparitions, trances, ecstasies, miraculous healings and productions of disease, and occult powers possessed by peculiar individuals over persons and things in their neighborhood. […] To no one type of mind is it given to discern the totality of Truth. Something escapes the best of us, not accidentally, but systematically, and because we have a twist. The scientific-academic mind and the feminine-mystical mind shy from each other’s facts, just as they shy from each other’s temper and spirit. Facts are there only for those who have a mental affinity with them. When once they are indisputably ascertained and admitted, the academic and critical minds are by far the best fitted ones to interpret and discuss them – for surely to pass from mystical to scientific speculations is like passing from lunacy to sanity; but on the other hand if there is anything which human history demonstrates, it is the extreme slowness with which the ordinary academic and critical mind acknowledges facts to exist which present themselves as wild facts with no stall or pigeon-hole, or as facts which threaten to break up the accepted system. In psychology, physiology, and medicine, wherever a debate between the Mystics and the Scientifics has been once for all decided, it is the Mystics who have usually proved to be right about the facts, while the Scientifics had the better of it in respect to the theories.”
(James, 1890, pp. 361–362)
Psilocybin-Research.com
Looking Deep Inside...
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Beckwith, S. V. W., Stiavelli, M., Koekemoer, A. M., Caldwell, J. A. R., Ferguson, H. C., Hook, R., … Sosey, M.. (2006). The Hubble Ultra Deep Field. The Astronomical Journal
The primary foci of CogNovo are the neuronal correlates and psychological mechanisms which underpin creativity, with interdisciplinary investigations into the rôle of creativity in human cognition, and their application in sustainable technological developments and social innovation. The program has been funded by the European Union as part of the Framework Programmes for Research and Technological Development.
(FP7-PEOPLE-2013-ITN-604764).
Legal disclaimer: The interdisciplinary Marie Curie CogNovo program has been intentionally designed by the European Union and the University of Plymouth (United Kingdom) to discuss and disseminate a wide view on a diverse spectrum of topics including psychology, neuroscience, current affairs, basic science, humanities, and the arts, inter alia. Note that the views and opinions expressed on this website do not necessarily represent the opinions of any of the institutions mentioned on this website and belong exclusively to the copyright holder. The CogNovo program explicitly emphasises cognitive and social innovation, the generation of new ideas and perspectives, and the probing of boundaries, but see https://www.cognovo.eu/about/
“The finding that psilocybin increases indirect semantic priming in normal subjects adds to our general understanding of the effects of hallucinogenic agents on cognitive functions. from anecdotal records and very few controlled studies these agents are believed to have subjective effects that sometimes are referred to as ‘broadening consciousness’ and ‘enhancing cre- ativity’ (references in pletscher and ladewig 1994). although most objective measures have failed to support these claims, our data suggest that the agent in fact leads to an increased avail- ability of remote associations and thereby may bring cognitive contents to mind that under normal circumstances remain non- activated; however, the generally decreased psychological per- formance under hallucinogenic agents suggests that the increased indirect priming effect is due to a decreased capacity to use contextual information for the focusing of semantic processing. hence, subjectively experienced increases in creativity as well as the broadening of consciousness have been found to parallel decreases in objective performance measures. from a methodological perspective, our data indicate that indirect semantic priming is a highly sensitive measure that appears to respond not only to pharmacologic intervention, but also to the psychological effects of the setting of the study. the following post hoc suggestion may account for the finding of consistent (though nonsignificant) increases of priming effects under placebo. it is noteworthy that before testing, subjects appeared anxious, tight, and tense, a state known to produce stereotyped verbal associations and decreased priming effects (cf. spitzer 1995). when about 30-40 min after drug intake the subject became aware of either being on placebo or being on psilocybin, they tended to become more relaxed and unwinding, which is a state known to facilitate access to a wider scope of associative material. this is a testable hypothesis and we currently plan to use indirect semantic priming to investigate several nonpharmacologically induced states of anxiety and general arousal. in conclusion, we have demonstrated the effect of a halluci- nogenic agent, known to affect the 5-ht system, on the spread of activation during lexical access. this may serve as an example of how subjective psychopathology, objective psychological mea- surements, and underlying brain physiology (viz., neuromodula- tion) can be linked within a single conceptual framework.”
Kuypers, K. P. C.. (2018). Out of the box: A psychedelic model to study the creative mind. Medical Hypotheses, 115, 13–16.
Prochazkova, L., Lippelt, D. P., Colzato, L. S., Kuchar, M., Sjoerds, Z., & Hommel, B.. (2018). Exploring the effect of microdosing psychedelics on creativity in an open-label natural setting. Psychopharmacology, 235(12), 3401–3413.
“Introduction taking microdoses (a mere fraction of normal doses) of psychedelic substances, such as truffles, recently gained popularity, as it allegedly has multiple beneficial effects including creativity and problem-solving performance, potentially through targeting serotonergic 5-ht 2a receptors and promoting cognitive flexibility, crucial to creative thinking. nevertheless, enhancing effects of microdosing remain anecdotal, and in the absence of quantitative research on microdosing psychedelics, it is impossible to draw definitive conclusions on that matter. here, our main aim was to quantitatively explore the cognitive-enhancing potential of microdosing psychedelics in healthy adults. methods during a microdosing event organized by the dutch psychedelic society, we examined the effects of psychedelic truffles (which were later analyzed to quantify active psychedelic alkaloids) on two creativity-related problem-solving tasks: the picture concept task assessing convergent thinking and the alternative uses task assessing divergent thinking. a short version of the ravens progressive matrices task assessed potential changes in fluid intelligence. we tested once before taking a microdose and once while the effects were expected to be manifested. results we found that both convergent and divergent thinking performance was improved after a non-blinded microdose, whereas fluid intelligence was unaffected. conclusion while this study provides quantitative support for the cognitive-enhancing properties of microdosing psychedelics, future research has to confirm these preliminary findings in more rigorous placebo-controlled study designs. based on these preliminary results, we speculate that psychedelics might affect cognitive metacontrol policies by optimizing the balance between cognitive persistence and flexibility. we hope this study will motivate future microdosing studies with more controlled designs to test this hypothesis.”
“5-methoxy-n,n-dimethyltryptamine (acronymized as 5-meo-dmt) is sui generis among the numerous naturally-occurring psychoactive substances due to its unparalleled ego-dissolving effects which can culminate in a state of nondual consciousness (which is phenomenologically similar to transformative peak experiences described in various ancient contemplative traditions, e.g., advaita vedānta, mahāyāna buddhism). the enigmatic molecule is endogenous to the human brain and has profound psychological effects which are hitherto only very poorly understood due to the absence of scientifically controlled human experimental trials. its exact neuronal receptor binding profile is a matter of ongoing scientific research, however, its remarkable psychoactivity is presumably mediated via agonism of the 5-ht2a (serotonin) receptor subtype. anthropological/ethnopharmacological evidence indicates that various cultures utilized 5-meo-dmt containing plants for medicinal, psychological, and spiritual purposes for millennia. in this paper we argue that this naturally occurring serotonergic compound could be fruitfully utilized as a neurochemical research tool which has the potential to significantly advance our understanding of the cognitive and neuronal processes which underpin cognition and creativity. an eclectic interdisciplinary perspective is adopted, and we present converging evidence from a plurality of sources in support of this conjecture. specifically, we suggest that 5-meo-dmt has great potential in this respect due to its incommensurable capacity to completely disintegrate self-referential cognitive/neuronal processes (viz.., ego death). in addition, the importance of unbiased systematic scientific research on naturally occurring endogenous psychoactive compounds is discussed from a jamesian radical empiricism perspective and potential scenarios of abuse are discussed (particularly in the context of military torture).”
Carhart-Harris, R. L., Roseman, L., Bolstridge, M., Demetriou, L., Pannekoek, J. N., Wall, M. B., … Nutt, D. J.. (2017). Psilocybin for treatment-resistant depression: fMRI-measured brain mechanisms. Scientific Reports
“Brain diseases and their treatment may help or hurt creativity in ways that shape quality of life. increased creative drive is associated with bipolar disorder, depression, psychosis, temporal lobe epilepsy, frontotemporal dementia, parkinson disease treatments, and autism. creativity depends on goal-driven approach motivation from midbrain dopaminergic systems. fear-driven avoidance motivation is of less aid to creativity. when serotonin and norepinephrine lower motivation and flexible behaviour, they can inhibit creativity. hemispheric lateralization and frontotemporal connections must interact to create new ideas and conceptual schemes. the right brain and temporal lobe contribute skill in novelty detection, while the left brain and frontal lobe foster approach motivation and more easily generate new patterns of action from the novel perceptions. genes and phenotypes that increase plasticity and creativity in tolerant environments with relaxed selection pressure may confer risk in rigorous environments. few papers substantively address this important but fraught topic. antidepressants (ads) that inhibit fear-driven motivation, such as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, sometimes inhibit goal-oriented motivation as well. ads that boost goal-directed motivation, such as bupropion, may remediate this effect. benzodiazepines and alcohol may be counterproductive. although dopaminergic agonists sometimes stimulate creativity, their doing so may inappropriately disinhibit behaviour. dopamine antagonists may suppress creative motivation; lithium and anticonvulsant mood stabilizers may do so less. physical exercise and rem sleep may help creativity. art therapy and psychotherapy are not well studied. preserving creative motivation can help creativity and other aspects of well-being in all patients, not just artists or researchers.”
Psilocybin enhances functional connectivity in the brain
Psychedelic drugs have a long history of use in healing ceremonies, but despite renewed interest in their therapeutic potential, we continue to know very little about howthey work in the brain. Here we used psilocybin, a classic psychedelic found in magic mushrooms, and a task-free functional MRI (fMRI) protocol designed to capture the transition from normalwaking consciousness to the psychedelic state. Arterial spin labeling perfusion and blood-oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) fMRI were used to map cerebral blood flow and changes in venous oxygenation before and after intravenous infusions of placebo and psilocybin. Fifteen healthy volunteers were scanned with arterial spin labeling and a separate 15 with BOLD. As predicted, profound changes in consciousness were observed after psilocybin, but surprisingly, only decreases in cerebral blood flow and BOLD signal were seen, and these were maximal in hub regions, such as the thalamus and anterior and posterior cingulate cortex (ACC and PCC). Decreased activity in the ACC/medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) was a consistent finding and the magnitude of this decrease predicted the intensity of the subjective effects. Based on these results, a seed-based pharmaco-physiological interaction/ functional connectivity analysis was performed using a medial prefrontal seed. Psilocybin caused a significant decrease in the positive coupling between the mPFC and PCC. These results strongly imply that the subjective effects of psychedelic drugs are caused by decreased activity and connectivity in the brain’s key connector hubs, enabling a state of unconstrained cognition.
Carhart-Harris, R. L., Erritzoe, D., Williams, T., Stone, J. M., Reed, L. J., Colasanti, A., … Nutt, D. J.. (2012). Neural correlates of the psychedelic state as determined by fMRI studies with psilocybin. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 109(6), 2138–2143.
“Psychedelic drugs have a long history of use in healing ceremonies, but despite renewed interest in their therapeutic potential, we continue to know very little about howthey work in the brain. here we used psilocybin, a classic psychedelic found in magic mushrooms, and a task-free functional mri (fmri) protocol designed to capture the transition from normalwaking consciousness to the psychedelic state. arterial spin labeling perfusion and blood-oxygen level-dependent (bold) fmri were used to map cerebral blood flow and changes in venous oxygenation before and after intravenous infusions of placebo and psilocybin. fifteen healthy volunteers were scanned with arterial spin labeling and a separate 15 with bold. as predicted, profound changes in consciousness were observed after psilocybin, but surprisingly, only decreases in cerebral blood flow and bold signal were seen, and these were maximal in hub regions, such as the thalamus and anterior and posterior cingulate cortex (acc and pcc). decreased activity in the acc/medial prefrontal cortex (mpfc) was a consistent finding and the magnitude of this decrease predicted the intensity of the subjective effects. based on these results, a seed-based pharmaco-physiological interaction/ functional connectivity analysis was performed using a medial prefrontal seed. psilocybin caused a significant decrease in the positive coupling between the mpfc and pcc. these results strongly imply that the subjective effects of psychedelic drugs are caused by decreased activity and connectivity in the brain’s key connector hubs, enabling a state of unconstrained cognition.”
The efefcts of psilocybin on the human psyche
Psychology
Psilocybin has been described as a “consciousness expanding” compound. This generic definition has far-reaching ramifications because consciousness lies at the very core of human experience. Moreover, science itself is a cognitive activity which takes place within consciousness. From a purely rational point of view it is an undeniable fact that consciousness is primary to all human activities (including thought itself). This statement is a logical necessity which can be formalized as a valid syllogistic argument. Without consciousness there is no thought, without thought there is no science. Ergo, the expansion of consciousness has deep implication for the discipline of science as a whole, especially in the context of epistemology and ontology. The profound effects of psilocybin on human consciousness are not easily communicable through abstract symbol systems (i.e., language) and the term “ineffable” is often used to describe this linguistic limitation. That is, the qualitative phenomenology of psilocybin cannot be described in words, especially to someone who is not familiar to its phenomenology due to subjective first-hand experience (the “epistemic gap” can not be bridged by linguistic tools). The problem is reminiscent of a classical Gedankenexperiment in the philosophy of mind which is usually termed “Mary the colorblind neuroscientist” (the “Knowledge Argument” formulated by Jackson, 1982).
This highly influential thought experiment goes as follows:
Mary is a brilliant scientist who is, for whatever reason, forced to investigate the world from a black and white room via a black and white television monitor. She specializes in the neurophysiology of vision and acquires, let us suppose, all the physical information there is to obtain about what goes on when we see ripe tomatoes, or the sky, and use terms like “red”, “blue”, and so on. She discovers, for example, just which wavelength combinations from the sky stimulate the retina, and exactly how this produces via the central nervous system the contraction of the vocal cords and expulsion of air from the lungs that results in the uttering of the sentence “The sky is blue”. … What will happen when Mary is released from her black and white room or is given a color television monitor? Will she learn anything or not?
(Jackson, 1982, p. 130)
The same argument holds true for the phenomenology of psilocybin. Let’s imagine a super-scientists in the year 3082. He knows everything about the neuronal and psychological processes which underpin perception. He knows everything about quantum-process at the microtubular level and how they relate to various states of consciousness. He knows everything about genes and how they relate to all the neurotransmitter systems in the human brain. He is an absolute expert in neurochemistry and and there are no more open questions about the complex interactions between various neurotransmitter systems and how they interact with human consciousness. All this is objectively known. The question is: Does he learn anything new when he takes psilocybin himself? Does he gain additional first-hand knowledge which would otherwise be unavailable to him? We leave the question for the reader to ponder…
For a more recent discussion of the Knowledge Argument see:
Fürst, M.. (2004). Qualia and phenomenal concepts as basis of the knowledge argument. Acta Analytica, 19(32), 143–152.
“The central attempt of this paper is to explain the underlying intuitions of frank jackson’s ‘knowledge argument’ that the epistemic gap between phenomenal knowledge and physical knowledge points towards a corresponding ontological gap. the first step of my analysis is the claim that qualia are epistemically special because the acquisition of the phenomenal concept of a quale x requires the experience of x. arguing what is so special about phenomenal concepts and pointing at the inherence-relation with the qualia they pick out, i give compelling reasons for the existence of ontologicaily distinct entities. finally i conclude that phenomenal knowledge is caused by phenomenal properties and the instantiation of these properties is a specific phenomenal fact, which can not be mediated by any form of descriptive information. so it win be shown that phenomenal knowledge must count as the possession of very special information necessarily couched in subjective, phenomenal conceptions. in this paper i will defend the view that there is a special sort of knowledge, which can be acquainted only by experience and this knowledge is essentially about non-physical facts. the most famous argument for this claim has been formulated by frank jackson in his article ,,epiphenomenal qualia ’q. the ar-gument runs as follows: mary is a brilliant scientist, who knows all there is to know about the physical world. but she was born and raised in a black-white-environment and has never seen any color in her whole life. one day she leaves her room and experiences for the first time, what it is like to see, for example, the blue sky. now most people have the strong intuition that at this moment, when she is the first time confronted with a blue-quale, she learns something j see frank jackson (1982)”
Letheby, C.. (2016). The epistemic innocence of psychedelic states. Consciousness and Cognition Plain numerical DOI: 10.1016/j.concog.2015.11.012 DOI URL directSciHub download Letheby, C., & Edward, R.. (2015). The Philosophy of Psychedelic …
Bogenschutz, M. P., Forcehimes, A. A., Pommy, J. A., Wilcox, C. E., Barbosa, P., & Strassman, R. J.. (2015). Psilocybin-assisted treatment for alcohol dependence: A proof-of-concept study. Journal of Psychopharmacology …
Deshmukh, S. K., Verekar, S. A., & Natarajan, K.. (2006). Poisonous and Hallucinogenic Mushrooms of India. International Journal of Medicinal Mushrooms , 8(3), 251–262. Plain numerical DOI: 10.1615/IntJMedMushr.v8.i3.70 DOI URL …
Video Lectures
Impact of Psilocybin on Hippocampal Neurogenesis & Extinction of Trace Fear Conditioning
Paper associated with this video lecture:
Catlow, B. J., Song, S., Paredes, D. A., Kirstein, C. L., & Sanchez-Ramos, J. (2013). Effects of psilocybin on hippocampal neurogenesis and extinction of trace fear conditioning. Experimental brain research. 228(4), 481–491. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-013-3579-0
Google-Trends Results for the search-query “Psilocybin”
Quantitative analysis of GoogleTrends Computation in R (statistical open-source software) to analyze the virality of internet memes (per analogiam to spreading information in a neuronal network; i.e., the brain and the world-wide-web share various information-processing similarities). Required R package: https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/gtrendsR/
You can download this ZIP-archive for additional statistics and the associated R-code.
The raw data-set of a Google-Trends analysis with R for three countries (UK, USA, Germany) can be accessed under the following URL as a tab-limited *txt-file: http://psilocybin-research.com/wp-content/uploads/psilocybin-gtrends.txt
Synopsis of recent web-statistics for the search-query “psilocybin”
Neural correlates of the psychedelic state as determined by fMRI studies with psilocybin
Robin L. Carhart-Harris, David Erritzoe, Tim Williams, James M. Stone, Laurence J. Reed, Alessandro Colasanti, Robin J. Tyacke, Robert Leech, Andrea L. Malizia, Kevin Murphy, Peter Hobden, John Evans, Amanda Feilding, Richard G. Wise, and David J. Nutt
Elsey, J. W. B. (2017). Psychedelic drug use in healthy individuals: A review of benefits, costs, and implications for drug policy. Drug Science, Policy and Law, 3, 205032451772323. Argento, E., …
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