Psychodelics as a cognitive tool

In his article From Altered States to Metaphysics: The Epistemic Status of Psychedelic-induced Metaphysical Beliefs Prof. Paweł Gładziejewski explored perspective thas has not been fully developed in recent literature.

It is believed that serotonergic psychedelic drugs can help reduce various forms of
mental suffering, and the experience they induce contributes to this. An experience that allows you to look at yourself and the world in a different way. But can they positively influence the epistemic role in metaphysical beliefs?

I argue that psychedelic states can be rationally integrated into one’s epistemic life. Consequently, updating one’s metaphysical beliefs based on altered states of consciousness does not have to constitute an instance of epistemic irrationality.

For example, Gładziejewski used the example of an imaginary Mary to show how the use of psychedelics can affect cognition. That Mary, who is a „committed to a thoroughly naturalistic and secular worldview”, after her psychodlic experience happens to earn a new persepctive that were unattainable for her, while still being able to understand and „rationally respond to all the evidence she possessed prior
to her psilocybin”.

He also mentioned scientific model REBUS, which assumes that, psychodelics can „relax” priors of ones mind. „Relaxing” may allow reaching a new regions of the representational state space.

Reasearcher also argues that psychedelic states can provide evidence against certain common metaphysical beliefs, for example

in a deep psychedelic experience, the very subject-object structure is sometimes lost, and one’s sense of being a bounded, separate self becomes dissolved into what feels like an allencompassing unity.

In the article, the researcher raises many other important issues that need to be read in full in order to be understood, so it is worth reading the entire article on the website: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13164-023-00709-6