/sci/ - Science & Math

>>14874854
>>14871037
>fucking with your sensory input is a proof of anything, got it

Yes, exactly, don't you get it? If your an empiricist/materialist, whatever you see when you fuck with your sensory input is a reflection of the mechanics behind that sensory input, the neural architecture of visual processing and visual perception.

If you're a dualist/idealist, fucking with your sensory input lifts the veil on the nature of reality that is not normally observed.

Psychedelics are a wonderful tool for exploring the nature of reality. They are an alternate perspective. Anyone who thinks/claims they have figured out reality with psychedelics is utterly deluded, but that doesn't stop them from being powerful tools of analysis.

There is an interesting approach among visual neuroscientists involving relating the geometric nature of hallucinations to Euclidian geometry in neural architecture. The geometric patterns people perceive during psychedelic trips are the result of neurons in various stages of visual processing firing in the absence of input, revealing the geometric nature of the retinotopic map and the hexagonal lattice pattern of orientation preference columns in V1.

>>14697794
Now I'm an evolutionary neuroscientist and I research evolutionary constraints upon neural architecture.

The way I see it is, if you pour water into a cube, the water is shaped like a cube, if you pour water into a sphere, the water is shaped like a sphere. The innate properties of the universe, 3D space, molecular interactions, the properties of energy and the cosmic speed limit of light are a container and life is poured into it. Over generations and generations, lifeforms that are more optimally suited and shaped to take maximum advantage of these properties, limitations and affordances, will become more numerous. Over times life takes the shape of the "universal container". By looking at the properties of the universe you can deduce a large part of what shapes life and what life ultimately is, and by looking at lifeform morphology at the micro and macro level, you can also deduce certain intrinsic qualities of the universe.

I haven't had an existential crisis since those events. Everything fuels my curiosity and anything that comes close to an existential crisis is yet a new perspective I gain on the nature of existence, its rules and its paradoxes.

Pic related. Neural architecture of the visual system. Cells in the primary human visual area are organized in a hexagonal lattice pattern with orientation preferences, analogous to pixels on a TV screens. Instead of square pixels with RGB combinations, our "pixels" are columns of cells with preferences for different orientations (see colour references on the right hand side). Images projected upon the retina are translated according to a geometric conversion map and projected upon these cells. In reality we don't see shapes and objects, we see extremely simple geometric basic features like likes and angles and curves. These are assembled into objects after analysis by the primary visual area. So much of this geometric and sequential architecture just comes down to the nature of 3D space. Simple.

>>14685424

>>12341425
Cells in the human visual area form orientation-preference columns in a hexagonal lattice pattern

Psychedelics cause uninhibited signalling for cells in early stages of visual processing, which accounts for the various geometric patterns observed during psychedelic experiences.

humans literally see how their visual areas process retinal input as their hallucinations on psychedelics.