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I wonder what the effects of chemically-induced pseudowisdom are. Real wisdom, after all, is both physiological and mental, a product of experience as well as of neurochemistry. What might be the ill-effects of feeling that one has gained wisdom when in fact one has only altered one's brain chemistry?


Well, if real wisdom requires experience then the harm you are talking about is probably slightly less harmful than the pseudo-wisdom one feels when reading another persons experience in a book. After all reading a book doesn't give us an experience, its all "just" chemistry too..


> After all reading a book doesn't give us an experience, its all "just" chemistry too..

I'd disagree there. It's less experience than actually doing something, but more than just getting a chemical flow across the brain. Reading is a weak sort of experience, no?


I was being toungue and cheek. Of course reading a book is an experience, as is taking drugs. And its not just chemical , you might go to the park and have an adventure between two blades of grass or something. Its not like people just drop a tab, close their eyes and lie in bed. I would say in order of strength of experience I would say something like: [Big Adventure without drugs] > [Small adventure with drugs] > [Reading] > [Dreaming]




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