"In some ways, it's like peeking into the black box of our mind, seeing the puzzle pieces that put our regular perception together."
— Weiner, Sophie
Author
Date
Jun 29, 2015
Metaphor
"In some ways, it's like peeking into the black box of our mind, seeing the puzzle pieces that put our regular perception together."
Metaphor in Context
Anyone who's ever tripped knows that there are a certain set of prototypic psychedelic visuals that are common to most experiences: think of the work of Alex Grey or the popular 1970s pattern paisley. Barrett says there's a decent explanation for this commonality: it hinges on serotonin 2A receptors, which are thought to be one of the primary receptors on which psychedelic drugs work. We have a great number of 2A receptors in the visual cortex. Since the receptors exist low in the processing chain, the information they feed us is largely lines, shapes and colors. It's up to the rest of our brain to interpret this information, but when we're on drugs, our usually strict higher functioning areas are not at their peak capacity. Thus, we end up seeing kaleidoscopic, fractal images as an overlay on surfaces. These visuals are coming directly from the base of the brain. In some ways, it's like peeking into the black box of our mind, seeing the puzzle pieces that put our regular perception together.
Provenance
Reading
Citation
Sophie Weiner, "Why Google's Neural Networks Look Like They're on Acid," Motherboard (Jun 29, 2015). <Link to motherboard.vice.com>
Date of Entry
03/10/2017
