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Comment by throwawaythekey

7 hours ago

If you accept that drugs/trauma can cause altered states then can't you also accept that some people have the altered state as their default?

Modern politeness encourages us to think of all humans as more or less the same, which I think causes a default minimization of difference mindset.

One thing that really blew my mind in my 20's was learning that asians have a different type of earwax -> usually white and dry instead of yellow and waxy. It really shocked me that I was never taught that in school, and if people are unaware of common physical differences I am sure we are largely unaware of common mental difference.

> If you accept that drugs/trauma can cause altered states then can't you also accept that some people have the altered state as their default?

Indeed, that acknowledgement by the GP undermines his entire argument:

> I see things with my eyes, experience has taught me that when I cover my eyes I cannot see things, when I close my eyes I cannot see things. That is what seeing is. I cannot see with my ears, I cannot see with my fingers.

What he and others here don't grasp is that we see with our brains, and the signals that the brain processes do not have to come from the eyeballs.