I kind of feel bad for putting David through this. Even as we speak, he is no doubt struggling with his conscience: "Shall I maintain this pregnant silence with respect to Brian's admittedly well-aimed sally, or shall I respond?" I've forced him to pit his knee-jerk academic disdain against the long-term needs of futurity, thereby vouchsafing him sleepless nights full of pitiless self-cross-examination: "Is my failure to respond to Brian but a fitting snub to a non-entity in a debate that I, quite frankly, OWN... or does my silence in this quarter betray a desire to deflect all criticism, lest in responding I inadvertently publicize the existence of a trenchant qualification (if not an outright rebuttal) to my current views: to wit my almost unqualified belief in the diagnostic power of methodological naturalism?" I can see David tossing (and sometimes even turning) on his Australian bed as the ruthless catechism continues. One wants to write a letter of apology, but then one would first have to explain the many subtle inferences wherewith one has (or so one definitely believes) divined the angst for which one is seeking expiation. For now, Chalmers and I will have to continue our colloquy through this website, with me typing my no doubt nerve-plucking adumbrations and with Chalmers' rebuttals being inferred on my part through a variety of sensually empowered psychological processes, the precise nature of which, however, are well beyond the scope of this essay. I think we can take it as a given now that Chalmers has resolved to reply explicitly to my qualms, at least in the fullness of time, for what man so harried by the nuanced misgivings detailed above could prevent his own two hands -- will they or nill they -- from reaching out spontaneously (yea, even in defiance of the conscious will itself) for the nearest possible notepad in order to set matters straight at once (at least according to his own materialistic lights) by penning a firm if not an actually angry rejoinder?
Irony of ironies, that the indignant 19th-century hatred of liquor should ultimately result in the outlawing of virtually every mind-affecting substance on the planet EXCEPT for liquor.
Self-medication is not a dirty word. It has always been a fundamental right to take care of one's own health -- until the medical establishment demonized the practice for obvious financial reasons.
Drug Warriors should be legally banned from watching or reading Sherlock Holmes stories, since in their world, it is a crime for such people as Sherlock Holmes to exist, i.e., people who use medicines to improve their mind and mood.
We drastically limit drug choices, we refuse to teach safe use, and then we discover there's a gene to explain why some people have trouble with drugs. Science loves to find simple solutions to complex problems.
The line drawn between recreational and medical use is wishful thinking on the part of drug warriors. Recreation, according to Webster's, is "refreshment or diversion," and both have positive knock-on effects in the lives of real people.
The so-called "herbs" that witches used were drugs, in the same way that "meds" are drugs. If academics made that connection, the study of witchcraft would shed a lot of light on the fearmongering of modern prohibitionists.
This is the "Oprah fallacy," which has led to so much suffering. She told women they were fools if they accepted a drink from a man. That's crazy. If we are terrified by such a statistically improbable event, we should be absolutely horrified by horses and skateboards.
It is folly to put bureaucrats in charge of second-guessing drug prescriptions: what such bureaucrats are really doing is second-guessing the various philosophies of life which are presupposed by the way we use psychoactive drugs.
Americans outlaw drugs and then insist that those drugs did not have much to offer in any case. It's like I took away your car and then told you that car ownership was overrated.
Just think how many ayahuasca-like godsends that we are going without because we dogmatically refuse to even look for them, out of our materialist disdain for mixing drugs with drugs.
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