It is perhaps one of the first lines we learn when studying philosophy and descartes line is famous beyond the study with various pop culture references in media and literature; "I think therefore I am." The idea boils down to an empirical view of the world through what descartes referred to as "methodical doubt." This view and empiricism in general, is flawed in that it is easy to misinterpret complex sensory inputs (like reading an essay, interpreting data, etc.) And many simply refuse to decode them and disregard complex sensory inputs altogether.

As many also know, Descartes empirical view of the world is opposed by the Hegelian view of the world, most famously the master-slave example which shows how recognition from other people is necessary for development of the self as no one is developed in a vacuum as is required by Descartes method.

Now I simply want to apply some things from my personal experiences with the narcotic class known as "dissociative anasthetics" and the famous Ketamine, to these philosophies (Since no other ketamine users have yet.)

To describe the dissociative space is rather quite similar to the "conciousness in a vacuum" described by descartes. Though the experiences vary, those who attain the state of conciousness known as the "k-hole" reach a state in which they are still fully concious but disconnected from the outside world, unable to process or react very much (in many cases, not at all) to outside stimuli. I personally have reached the various points on this spectrum including near threshold for true anaesthetic doses (such as for surgery, used to make it so the conciousness is so cut off it can't even form memories of the event, a pseudoamnesia). In all these states it's similar to what descartes describes. Thought when i found myself reading descartes I had a few issues.

The first being how descartes simply disregards the external. In the dissociative state I've often found myself completely oblivious to the idea of the self, to the external world but I'd retain some concepts such as empathy, the concept of humanity, and various outside concepts but all unassociated with one another to me. It was no different to me than the simple colorful patterned hallucinations. No matter how far I went into this dissociative space, this conciousness vacuum, I could never shake my brain of either human thought patterns or ideas fully separated from the external world. I did not imagine entire new lines of thinking, my logic though sometimes coherent, and other times broken; I could always retain some connection to the real world and some of its concepts, even if it was as simple as the thought of a stop sign when I see the shape of an octagon amongst the hallucinatory shapes.

Though the k hole may not have been EXACTLY what descartes meant, for now i found it is the closest thing we have to experiencing the state of mind required for methodic doubt. And in lower states where I'm still very cut off from external stimuli AND still have my logic intact, I time and time again attempt the process but I am always reminded by the external world.

This is of course what hegel demonstrates when he talks of developing the self in relation to others. The master-slave dialect exemplifies the need for recognition in a relation ship of inequality. Neither party can be fully recognized leading to net loss of recognition. For all people to develop properly, equality is necessity. Though I'm not really here to discuss politics so I'll leave it at that.

It seems that I can only conclude that when in the anesthetic state, it seems that there is a hierarchy in what is necessary to keep a person alive. In that you can reduce cell activity, chemically block the concious from the nerves and nervous system, slow brain activity in regions responsible for logic, recognition and ego. But you will still retain breathing functions, your blood will still flow, your cells will still continue to work, divide and move. It seems conciousness itself is on par with these living functions, or rather more important than functional extremities to immediate survival. The next step on the pyramid next to sensory input ,But with not external world and conciousness to process it, this state of raw data processing seems to be more important in the hierarchy just below the top of the pyramid; breathing and other basic life functions (cardiovascular systems, cell activity, etc.) For why? I cannot tell. But I ultimately conclude that this raw data processing and conciousness has no purpose than to process the external world and other conciousness. If it was not as important as the extremities than it would be below or on the same step in the pyramid. But the body would rather shut down its ability to move externally and potentially lose an arm or leg than to shut down the conciousness and lose out on the ability to process data.


Endnote: any other drug users read philosophy or are we too busy getting high. What do you all think of my analysis?