Chris Letheby - Physicalism and Psychedelic Consciousness

Physicalism is argued to provide a robust framework for understanding psychedelic experiences. Rather than being fundamentally incompatible with the reported content of these states, physicalist models of phenomenal consciousness account for their nature through the lens of controlled hallucinations. Psychedelic substances essentially perturb the sophisticated intracranial world-modelling system that normally generates a realistic and stable projection of self and environment. This system possesses an enormous combinatorial capacity, allowing it to generate subjective experiences of anything from complex geometric patterns to sensations of universal consciousness. By disconnecting specific sensory feedbacks while maintaining the generative mechanisms that produce a world-model, psychedelics allow individuals to explore vast regions of phenomenal space that typically remain inaccessible due to their adaptive functions in normal waking awareness.