[FRIAM] flattening -isms

[Prof David West]

The Monomyth is definitely "widely found." Campbell talks about the hero with 1001 faces. There are roughly 18,000 different cultures identified (historic and prehistoric). I have no idea what percentage have a hero myth.

DMT experiences are "spookily" similar. You do have a very strong sense that there are "others" there, that they are waiting for you (you are expected), and they are happy to great you. There are "monsters" "evil beings" there as well and they are perceived to be rabidly hostile.

A lot of the symbology present seems to reflect the common, often cross cultural, symbols and sacred geometry that Jung asserted as evidence of a collective unconscious.

DMT is present, manufactured, in the human brain and exists in most plant life. A number of DMT researchers have speculated that the drug, at the dosage in the human brain, is "responsible" for the collective hallucination that all humans seem to experience as Reality. 

The dosage, not the background, cultural or otherwise, seems to determine "which universe/reality" is experienced. You don't get to the realm of the evil ones until you hit the high dosage. Ayuhuasca is pretty much gardens and Gaia.

davew

On Mon, Nov 18, 2019, at 5:28 PM, Steven A Smith wrote:
> 

> On 11/18/19 5:13 AM, Prof David West wrote:
>> Nick said:
>> 
>> *"What struck me about them was how many of them held the view that reality was beyond experience: i.e., that our experience provided clues to reality, but the thing itself was beyond experience. I never could convince them that that their belief in a reality beyond experience had to be based on … experience. So, why not be monists, and talk about organizations of experience. Ultimately, it was their dualism that confirmed me in my monism."*
>> 
>> How about an assertion that there is *_A_* Reality beyond *_"ordinary"_* experience; with "ordinary experience" being the half-dozen or so overt sensory inputs (sight, sound, balance, touch, taste, smell) we typically associate with experience.
> I generally accept Nunez/Lakoff's position/arguement in Where Mathematics Comes From:

> from the Wikipedia article on this book:

>> *Lakoff and Núñez hold that mathematics results from the human cognitive apparatus and must therefore be understood in cognitive terms. **WMCF** advocates (and includes some examples of) a **cognitive idea analysis** of **mathematics <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematics>** which analyzes mathematical ideas in terms of the human experiences, metaphors, generalizations, and other cognitive mechanisms giving rise to them. A standard mathematical education does not develop such idea analysis techniques because it does not pursue considerations of A) what structures of the mind allow it to do mathematics or B) the **philosophy of mathematics <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_mathematics>**. *


> This point may well support Dave's hermeneutical position, though Lakoff/Nunez do assume that there is such a thing as a human body and that all humans roughly share the same physical/sensory/cognitive apparatus.
>  ...

>> The one cultural universal: every culture (obviously not every individual in every culture) incorporates a belief in the "supernatural." In all but, maybe, 2-3, cultures the "supernatural" includes an alternative realm of existence (pre- and/or after-life or "other planes." The, interpretations of this universal are multiple - pretty much one per culture/subculture.
> And where does Joseph Campbell's notion of the Monomyth come in? Is it merely "widely found", or perhaps just "cherry picked" by Western Anthropology?

> I am reminded of the Rick Strassman's research into entheogens, with DMT/Ayhuasca in particular. He seems to suggest/report that it is universal that people tripping on DMT will experience culturally specific interpretations (in the sense of your use of the term I think) of "another plane" and "alien beings" which could range from angels/demons harkening from heaven/hell to multidimensional alien beings and parallel existences.

> - Steve

> 

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