Skip to content
0:00 / 0:00

Terence Mckenna - Culture is your operating system

Dani Dögenigt

7.9K subscribers • 1 video on Rounds

YouTube
  • Recommended by 1 person, in Hacker News, across 3 different months.
  • Presented by Terence McKenna, as the video describes them

For anyone, no background needed. Education, not medical advice.

847K views19 years ago1 recommendation

Brain and nervesMental healthPsychedelicsNeuroscience

Terence McKenna discusses how culture acts as a cognitive operating system and how psychedelics can help individuals step outside of it.

Taken from the show "Light of the 3rd Millenium". Pictures are from among various artists like Alex Grey, Mark Henson and google. :) Music is Murcof.

Why it's here

1 person recommends this

What people say. Recommended as a classic talk on how psychedelics alter perception and challenge cultural conditioning.

Alex3917in Hacker News • Recommends

On “Apple brainwashing: How we do it”

If you are interested in learning more about them, this is pretty much the best podcast on the Internet: link And many of the talks on Pyschedelic Salon are also very good, especially the one by the Erowid founders which I submitted this morning, called The Role of Drug Geeks in Society, and also the talk by Dr. Andrew Weil. Also check out some of the talks by Terence McKenna, the man was pretty much a living god: link to this video

Alex3917in Hacker News • Recommends

On “Research into hallucinogenic drugs begins to shake off decades of taboo”

…ou see things that aren't real challenge any hierarchies?" While LSD and psilocybin do sometimes cause people to hallucinate, this is only one small part of the psychedelic experience. The real value is in how the drugs change your thinking. It would take an entire book to explain this, but here are a few YouTube videos to give you the basic idea: link to this video link link It's difficult to explain how exactly they challenge hierarchies, but the 35,000 foot overview would be that psychedelics tend to make one more prosocial, whereas hierarchies tend to be fueled by antisocial behaviors. They also tend to give one self-confidence and internalize one's locus of control, whereas again hierarchies c…

Alex3917in Hacker News • Recommends

On “How to Use Philosophy as a Personal Operating System: From Seneca to Musashi”

If you want to know where the metaphor of philosophy as an operating system comes from: link to this video (The video is called Culture Is Your Operating System, but what he's talking about is the philosophical assumptions that are completely invisible unless you find a way to step outside your culture.)

Alex3917in Hacker News • Mentions

On “Hallucinogens Have Doctors Tuning In Again”

1. Your operating system gets upgraded: link to this video 2. You lose your ability for self-deception, so when you come face to face with your problems you are forced to be completely honest about them. And once you're honest with yourself, it's very hard not to go through with changing your life for the better. 3. You get to diff your ordinary state of consciousness against your altered state of consciousness. This allows you to learn a ton about how your mind works, changes your theories about how lots of phenomena work, changes your assumptions about reality, etc. 4. If you take what Terence McKenna would call a 'heroic dosage', you might come up against 'the cosmic giggle'. That is, you come face…

wil2kin Hacker News • Mentions

On “How to Destroy Someone's Life or They called me a child pornographer”

And as the late Terence McKenna put it: Culture is your Operating System link to this video Stuff to ponder about! :O

labradorin Hacker News • Mentions

On “Geek Mythology: The Religious, and Spiritual Folklore Surrounding Programming”

…ng these ideas more since ChatGPT has shown me how to make certain religious and spiritual ideas more accessible. Levandowski shut down his AI church after he got in trouble with the law for something unrelated. He was too soon, so it's only a matter of time one starts up again. link Bonus link: Terrance McKenna. Culture is your operating system link to this video…