[FRIAM] post you seem to have missed from FRIAM

[Nick Thompson]

Glen, Marcus, Steve, 

Your reactions to my "puritan" probe completely surprised me, and I realize that I don't have a good grip on your perspectives.  In a good "school", I should be able to anticipate, or even channel, the reactions of other members such that I could, if necessary,  fill in if one of you were absent.   But I can't.  I would like to do better.  

Nick 

Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
Clark University
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com] On Behalf Of glen?C
Sent: Thursday, November 21, 2019 10:20 AM
To: friam at redfish.com
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] post you seem to have missed from FRIAM

And among the reasons I don't have a security clearance is to preserve the *option* of taking cocaine, at will. 8^) I agree with both you and Dave in that I would not choose to take cocaine. But I might choose to take other drugs. E.g. I've taken some THC since it's been legal, here. It's fun for a few hours, but then I almost always get a massive headache. So, I have a built-in Puritanifier ... well, Puritanical is mostly a word used to control *other people* ... So, we're definitely abusing the word, here.

The real question is about thrill-seeking. I can't imagine purposefully avoiding thrilling experiences. I may not seek them out like some do. But avoiding them seems like evidence of PTSD. Of course, given the violence of my childhood, maybe *not* avoiding them is evidence of PTSD. 8^) If so, then seeking it out would be something like psychosis. Regardless, I'm a firm believer in "resets". I enjoy moving, changing jobs, hanging out in unfamiliar places, traveling to foreign lands, etc. And that's how I view the psychedelics (both drugs and practices like meditation or even Cognitive Behavior Therapy), as ways to "reset". Anyone who purposefully avoids resets seems a bit strange to me. If you're simply too lazy to engage in resets, that's more reasonable than purposefully avoiding them.

On 11/20/19 10:07 AM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
> Puritanism?  Among the reasons I don’t take cocaine is that I held/hold a security clearance and I would have been caught within a few months if I had done that.   For example, I also would not think of improving my computer by pouring gasoline on it.   Why would I expect some ham-handed intervention like that to work on my brain?   Why should I go out of my way to find more bad habits within unknown consequences?

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove