I read your argument with interest. You pretty well
covered most of my thoughts on the subject. I think there are real problems of
how science tackles “subjective” states and it doesn’t seem well
equipped for the task at the moment but I really think that this will change
even against the will of many. I know the “new age” argument that science
hasn’t yet found the tools to measure or theories to cover various phenomena
that are anathema to it is weak but it may well be true despite that. That all
things scientific are testable is debatable; Yes we can hear the echoes of the
big bang (a theory currently accepted faithfully by many in the scientific
fields), but of course it is quite possible that a new theory of the origins
of the universe that is different can arise and explain these echoes as some
other measurable manifestation of that theory. It seems to me there are huge
shifts appearing in science (“the new paradigm”) as scientists capable of
being truly sceptical note the superstition (past) science (present) science
fiction (future) progression of their ideas and the level of faith implicit in
them.
Of course all states of mind are drug induced;
“Normal” covers a huge range of mental states mediated by seratonin,
melatonin, endorphins, adrenaline, anandamide, dopamine, GHB, DMT etc. etc. As
“sentients” were all damned to be holistic drug users; we could just chuck
everything into a box labeled “subjective” & be done. I think there is
a huge amount of useful work to be done in neuroscience and other fields with
psychedelics but we are really just at the beginning of this. The whole idea
of psychonautics as it is developing seems to present consciousness as a new
natural science and despite the mystical overtones most seem multidisciplinary
in their nature. It seems to me multiple realities are strongly implied by and
underpin much of science.
As for psychedelics, I suspect that although there are
many scientists who believe the negative propaganda, there are quite a lot of
scientists who would like to work in this area still, but the area is of
course controversial and frowned upon by those who have control of funding and
the like. Apart from above board
organisations like MAPS, there are scientists who are doing this kind of
research quietly on their own anyway and works like the Entheogen Review
suggest that the laity are getting rather more clued up and beginning to fill
this deficit as well.