Personal Science Week - 240822 Psychedelics
Experiments not worth trying
A good personal scientist should find psychedelic drugs intriguing. What is this mysterious world they expose, and what can these substances teach us about everyday reality?
Or maybe some experiments are not worth trying?
It’s easy to find mainstream, popular, successful people who extol the potential benefits of psychedelic drugs, from LSD to mushrooms to MDMA to Ayahuasca. Food author Michael Pollan wrote an excellent book-length introduction How to Change Your Mind (see his resource page for more details). Popular health- and productivity hacker Tim Ferriss regularly interviews experts for his podcast (see more here). Even neuroscience and meditation podcaster and author Sam Harris strongly encourages the mindful practice of psychedelics.
So I perked up when podcaster Joe Rogan discussed the subject this week with contrarian entrepreneur and investor Peter Thiel. Rogan, known for popularizing outside-the-mainstream views, blames government restrictions on nefarious insiders who fear the loss of control that would happen if too many people wake up to a more enlightened view of reality. But Thiel, who is himself a long-time investor and participant in the longevity and health community, pushed back. When pressed on why he hasn’t tried psychedelics himself, despite his very open-minded approach on other subjects, Thiel responded with a reminder of dangers of consequences we don’t understand.
Obviously, those of us who care about health will approach new or risky substances with extreme caution, especially if there is a possibility of long-term damage. Of course, a rich life includes many activities we undertake for recreational purposes, even if they involve risk, but the tradeoff calculation requires special scrutiny when the product is not well-studied or even illegal. In other words you better know what you’re doing.
Technologist Kevin Kelly, despite his close associations with 60s-era hippies while editing The Whole Earth Catalog never touched drugs of any kind until his 50th birthday, when he tried LSD in what he calls “a spiritual event”. (read his recommendations). I’ve met many people like him, who’ve tried hallucinogens with great care, but rarely or never again.
Polymath economist and blogger Tyler Cowen recently explained Why I do not use psychedelics
I also observe that “the doors of perception open only once.” That is, you can’t just keep on using psychedelics to maintain a steady stream of creativity.
But I am most persuaded, at least so far, by Carl Jung’s cautions about psychedelics in a 1954 Letter to Father Victor White
It has indeed very curious effects— of which I know far too little. I don’t know either what its psychotherapeutic value with neurotic or psychotic patients is. I only know there is no point in wishing to know more of the collective unconscious than one gets through dreams and intuition.
“Beware of unearned wisdom”, he concludes.
Experiments not worth trying
Forget psychedelics, plain ole alcohol is by far the most commonly abused drug (See PSWeek231222 for our detailed discussion). But why do some drinks cause more hangovers than others? Food Network explains that it’s the concentration of “congeners”, a yeast by-product, which are lower in lighter-colored drinks like vodka and less likely to induce a hangover the next day. But be warned: the 2009 study that demonstrated the link also found no difference in overall safety impairment. Even if you don’t suffer the morning after, you may still be at risk in other ways because of the way alcohol reduces sleep quality.
Everyone’s heard of the Tuskegee study, as the classic case of the dangers of non-consensual experimentation. But why does that study get so much attention, when hundreds of thousands of people were subjected to even more gruesome experiments by government-funded scientists. In just one example, in US Human Experimentation Without Consent or Contract Alex Tabarrok summarizes a 1940s high-dose radiation experiment conducted on unsuspecting pregnant women at Vanderbilt University. See more in Coyne and Hall Dr. Mengele, USA Style: Lessons from Human Rights Abuses in Post World War II America.
Trying (or not trying) psychedelics should be a deliberative decision, but maybe we should be equally thoughtful about other aspects of the quantified life. Sometimes quantification can make the measurement more important than the activity, which misses what life is all about.
Riikka Livanainen notes that personality differences may play a role. The Personal Quantification Bias: How Tracking Makes Life Worse Even When You Choose It Freely:
There is some evidence that individual differences play a role in how dark the dark side of personal quantification gets. People low in the Big Five personality traits conscientiousness and openness may experience more negative emotions related to behavioral tracking1. On the other hand, individuals high in intrinsic motivation for physical activity and tracker usage (i.e., the desire to geek about performance data as opposed to the desire to lose weight) may not grow as dependent on their wearables¹². So perhaps my nerdy friend who loves playing with his running spreadsheet was onto something.
It’s like the father who is so wrapped up in taking photos of his daughter’s recital that he doesn’t pay attention to her playing.
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Ryan, J., Edney, S., & Maher, C. (2019). Anxious or Empowered? A Cross-Sectional Study Exploring How Wearable Activity Trackers Make Their Owners Feel. BMC Psychology, 7, 1–8.
Scott Alexander has an interesting blog post about a number of scientists who became quite weird after they experimented with psychedelic drugs:
https://slatestarcodex.com/2016/04/28/why-were-early-psychedelicists-so-weird/
Example: Nobel prizewinner Kerry Mullis believes in astrology, denies climate change, and claims he communicated with aliens in the form of a fluorescent green racoon.
Alexander gives a number of other examples (granted, not all of them were quite as bizarre as Mullis) and concludes: "...the field of early psychedelic research seemed to pretty consistently absorb brilliant scientists, then spit out people who, while still brilliant scientists, also had styles of thought that could be described as extremely original at best and downright crazy at worst. I think it’s important to try to understand why."