Psychotropic Drugs, Veridicality, Criteria

It is gratifying to know that I am getting through to some people as is evidenced by the fact that they recall my old posts; and also that I am helping them think critically as is evidenced by the fact that they test my different posts on  a given topic for mutual consistency.  This from a Pakistani reader:

You stated in your post on the neurosurgeon's death experience:

"If it could be shown that the experiences were generated by a minimally (mal)functioning brain, then then this would be  a reason to doubt the veridicality of the experiences.  (Analogy: if I know that my unusual experiences are the result of the ingesting of LSD-25, then I have reason to doubt the veridicality of the experiences.)"

 

This reminded me of a post from last year about Moses on Mount Sinai in which you had argued in a somewhat opposite direction:

"the question is whether one can validly infer the nonveridicality of an experience if the experience was had while the subject of the experience was under the influence of a drug.

Surely this is a non sequitur. Right now, under the influence of caffeine, I note that my coffee cup is empty. This is consistent with the perceptual experience of the cup's being empty being veridical, which it is. So from the mere fact that a subject is 'on drugs,' it does not follow that that any of the subject's experiences are nonveridical. Now caffeine is a very mild drug. But suppose I was I was on a combination of caffeine, nicotine, marijuana, and methampehtamine. Even then one could not infer that the perception in question was nonveridical. Even on a dose of LSD-25 most of one's perceptual experiences remain veridical."

 

I hope you can shed some light on how you reconcile these two opinions about the veridicality of experiences under psychotropic medication. Furthermore, what are the criteria which one may use to determine whether a particular experience is veridical or not?

 

    

RESPONSE

 

 

 

 

Q1.  If a subject is under the influence of a drug or dreaming or in any extraordinary physical state, does it follow that any of his thoughts or experiences are nonveridical? 

 

In the passage quoted from the old post I returned a negative answer to that question.  The answer seems to me to be consistent with an affirmative answer to the different question:

 

 

Q2. If a subject is under the influence of a drug or dreaming or in an extraordinary physical state, is that a reason to question the veridicality of any of his thoughts or experiences?

 

 

 

 

I illustrate the consistency with an anecdote.  The last time I 'dropped acid' as we used to say was at the end of the 1970s, around Christmas time 1979 to be exact.  Not to get high but to open what Aldous Huxley called "the doors of perception."  I was holed up in a cabin in the mountains in California, having just flown in from the midwest.   I was philosophizing  in front of the fire (a bit like Descartes) when the LSD started to take effect.  Above the fireplace there was a mounted moosehead.  At some point it seemed to begin  moving back and forth.  So I thought to myself, "These visual perceptions of the moving moosehead are not likely veridical given what I've just put into my system."  But then I remembered that I was in California, earthquake country.  So I decided after some back-and-forth that the moosehead really was moving due to a California earthquake and that my visual perceptions were veridical.

 

 

 

 

 

Now did the fact that I was under the influence of a powerful drug give me a reason to question the veridicality of my moosehead perceptions?  Of course.  That was the point I made yesterday.  But I could not have validly inferred the nonveridicality of the experience from the fact that I had LSD in my system.  This is obvious since I was under the influence of the drug and the perceptions were veridical.  (I later verified that there indeed had been an earthquake at the time in question.)

So a negative answer to (Q1) is logically consistent with an affirmative answer to (Q2).

What criteria did I use to determine that my moosehead perceptions were veridical?  Coherence, mainly.  The possibility of the motion being earthquake-caused cohered with what I saw; other objects in the environment did not appear distorted, etc.

 

 

 

 

As for our neurosurgeon, did he prove the existence of heaven?  Not quite!  How does he or we know that his experiences were veridical?  Was his cortex completely shut down as he claimed?  How would he know that?  And doesn't the fact that it came back to life suggest that it was not completely shut down?  Now if his experiences were brain-mediated, then there is reason to suspect that they were not veridical.