My educational background is in mathematics and physics. I think you'll find I can give disciplined, logical thinking a run for your money. Logic after all is only an adherence to predetermined axioms in a consistent fashion, not an algorithm for which axioms you should and shouldn't adopt to begin with.

Just like science cannot claim to hold an opinion on a phenomenon it has not studied, logic should have no opinion on the great sea of life that happens outside formal systems. Should I spend my time by the river or walking among the trees? There's no strictly logical general answer. You can say, "It's thunderstorming, you shouldn't be outside at all," but that presupposes that I care about surviving. If I do not share that axiom ie I want to live as the wild, and brave the storm with my body in danger, that's not strictly speaking illogical. It's just not your logic. The logic does not share the same axioms but may be perfectly consistent unto itself.

> Logic after all is only an adherence to predetermined axioms in a consistent fashion, not an algorithm for which axioms you should and shouldn't adopt to begin with.

I couldn't agree more, particularly the highlighted part. When one gets into these realms, logic is not only not very useful, it is often extremely harmful, because it too will provide answers that are (to my way of thinking anyways), objectively incorrect. To a person using strictly logic (or so they think, unaware of their hidden axioms, or even what an axiom is), their beliefs appear to be facts, and perfectly logical ones at that. Examples are things like the "right" political system, the "right" economic system, the "right" way to raise a child, the "right" way to distribute income, and so on.

And it's hard to blame people if you spend some time seriously thinking about it - almost from the day a child is born, it is subjected to massive amounts of psychological influence (training their mental model): beliefs forced upon them by their parents, their culture, their religion, their teachers, their friends, etc. As they grow older, eventually they enter the adult world where there are also career pressures, relationship pressures, consumption of massive amounts of propaganda ("facts" to non-crazy people) via multiple different (but coordinated) channels, typically repeating and reinforcing all these prior beliefs, driving the "hooks" deeper and deeper into their mind. It's no wonder the world seems like a madhouse right now, and how it is so difficult to get someone to break through the walls that have been built around their mind. It can be done, but logic is not the tool for the job. As the saying goes, you can't change someone's beliefs using logic, if logic was not used to form those beliefs.

As far as axioms (and likely even logic) go, I bet you and I are quite highly aligned. And where we're not, I doubt we'd have much trouble seeing each other's point of view. But that's just my intuition!

How do misunderstandings such as this one arise? In this case, my guess would be:

- in this community, I speak almost exclusively using logic, and "extremist" logic at that (I believe there is a time and place for it) - assuming this is my only mode is perfectly natural (logical).

- my above comments regarding "I wonder if this type of thinking[1] is a side effect of dmt et al" could very easily be misinterpreted negatively. And I guess, parts of them are. In my experience in various plant medicine and spiritualist communities, there seems to be an excess of conformist, woo woo, excessively optimistic thinking (see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil). When a rationalist is exposed to this the first time, it can be quite a shock. But as I spent more time and got to know several people closely, you start to find out what the real deal is (again, in my experiences). Much of it can be posing, conformity, hypocritical, and various other negative behaviors, which are completely counter to anything I've ever heard from the true gurus, who advise having an open and free mind, etc. So this would be one negative opinion I hold on the community as it practices, as opposed to what the "proper" principles are.

I believe that if we are ever to sort out the mess we've created on this planet, a way must be found for these people to communicate with each other. Sure, many people can do this already, but not very many, and certainly not enough to do the trick. I see this as the problem of the 21st, before all others, because it is a root cause of all the other problems that get attention on TV. Whether this ongoing and growing disharmony is completely accidental is a very controversial question, something only a "conspiracy theorist" would believe so they say, but I am a proud, card carrying member of the camp that believes no, this amount of consistent disharmony is not accidental, not at all. How would one ever learn that answer to a question such as that? Any ideas?

[1] Examples from the grandparent comment: "Spiritual journeys heal and cleanse the mind, heal and cleanse the soul", "If something heals you, is it not sacred? And likewise, if something is sacred, it heals you. By definition."