PSYCHEDELICS - Sciencemadness.org

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____________________________________________________ Psychedelics
and how we perceive (Aaronson, 1967b). Until fairly recently
in the modern world, evidences of non-veridicality were attributed
to magic, an outside force. As magic and supernatural
explanation fell into disrepute, causations internal to the
perceiving organism were posited for those situations in which
external checks were not available to enable the classification
of misperceptions as illusions. Psychodynamic causations are
generally posited if the non-veridicality involves affective factors;
pathophysiological explanations are favored if the nonveridicality
is merely bizarre or if there are other, concurrent
signs of biological disorder. Neurophysiological causation may
be appealed to in either instance, and is usually regarded as
involving a more neutral, more biological, and hence, more
basic, level of explanation.
Neurophysiological explanations are especially favored in
accounting for the effects of drugs. These are biochemical
substances, and it seems somehow more appropriate to ac-
count for their effects in terms of changes in the humors and
secretions of the body, and the responses of muscle and nerv-
ous tissue. Yet the reason these drugs are studied springs
from the changes in behavior and the alterations in conscious-
ness they produce. The best that can be obtained when cor-
relating alterations in consciousness with neurophysiological
changes is a correlation, not a statement of causation.
Merleau-Ponty (1963) has shown the great variability of be-
havior mechanisms involved in producing even the simplest
reflex. In addition, the mere fact that a person's report that
he is perceiving the color red can be correlated with electro-
chemical changes in the topography of his brain tells us noth-
ing about the phenomenal properties of his perception of red,
nor the variety of mechanisms that may be involved in mak-
ing that perception possible. When Milton Erikson (1939)
wished to create color blindness hypnotically, he had to sug-
gest a way not only the ability to see particular colors, but the
memory of having seen them as well.
The primacy of the biological substrate is an assumption,
and the opposite view, that biological changes are the depend-
ent variable to more fundamental, behavioral changes can just
as easily be taken. Indeed, we shift to this opposite view
whenever we warn somebody not to do something because it