Tova Hella

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September 2009

Welcome to Wikipedia. Although everyone is welcome to contribute constructively to the encyclopedia, your addition of one or more external links to the page Lysergic acid diethylamide has been reverted.
Your edit here was reverted by an automated bot that attempts to remove links which are discouraged per our external links guideline from Wikipedia. The external link you added or changed is on my list of links to remove and probably shouldn't be included in Wikipedia. I removed the following link(s): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZdz0G4lG6k (matching the regex rule \byoutube\.com). If the external link you inserted or changed was to a media file (e.g. a sound or video file) on an external server, then note that linking to such files may be subject to Wikipedia's copyright policy and therefore probably should not be linked to. Please consider using our upload facility to upload a suitable media file. Video links are also strongly deprecated by our guidelines for external links, partly because they're useless to people with slow internet connections.
If you were trying to insert an external link that does comply with our policies and guidelines, then please accept my creator's apologies and feel free to undo the bot's revert. However, if the link does not comply with our policies and guidelines, but your edit included other, constructive, changes to the article, feel free to make those changes again without re-adding the link. Please read Wikipedia's external links guideline for more information, and consult my list of frequently-reverted sites. For more information about me, see my FAQ page. Thanks! --XLinkBot (talk) 11:02, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

LSD and creativity

Unless there are some new studies on the subject, I don't think there is much here. There were some creativity studies in the 1960s, but I don't think they were very scientific. Creativity can be enhanced through many techniques, including meditation. However, there is no good evidence that any particular drug has the same outcome. That is to say, one person might smoke cannabis and write a book or song, while another might fall asleep. The simplest explanation is that creative people are creative, not that a drug or technique is responsible for creativity. I believe that there are some studies that claim some form of relaxation can help, and this may be one reason people attribute creativity to drug use. Of course, some people may in fact feel "relaxed" on drugs, but many others don't. So, it's not the drug, but the relaxed state that is responsible for creativity and this does not require drugs to achieve. Attributing creativity to any specific drug isn't supported by any good evidence. Anecdotal evidence shows that some form of drug use might break the bonds of conventional, everyday waking consciousness, such that new ideas might emerge in light of the experience. Again, drugs aren't required for this state of mind, as there are many techniques available to reach this point. When you claim that people take LSD for creativity, what you are really saying is that they are craving a new experience, similar to visiting a new country or taking a vacation. This might or might not lead to creative thoughts, so I think you need to choose your words more carefully and rely only on good, reliable sources. Viriditas (talk) 13:03, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

I think it's very careless of you to quote the old 1960s studies in favor of creativity when the modern source you use specifically says, "This phenomenon was studied in a number of small trials and case studies in the 1960s. Results were inconclusive, and the quality of these studies - by modern research standards - was merely anecdotal."[1] You are picking and choosing what you want to hear and that's not good. Please take a moment to read WP:NPOV to see how this place works. Yes, we would all love it if psychedelics enhanced creativity, but there's no good evidence that they do. What we seem to find, however, is that creative people take psychedelics. Post hoc ergo propter hoc. Viriditas (talk) 22:57, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

It is a fact that many people use LSD for the purpose of enhancing creativity and aesthetic appreciation. For example, much LSD is used at music events, and many artists/intellectuals claim to be powerfully influenced by LSD. So "Enhancement of creativity and aesthetic appreciation" is a valid entry on a list of Uses of LSD. It is excessive to add "Claims of..." when other disputed uses are also listed. The study that I describe was a carefully designed, randomized, placebo-controlled, and published in a top-ranked psychiatry journal. It is not an anectdote. Tova Hella (talk) 23:57, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Let's start at the top. It is not a fact that "many people" (quantify please) use LSD (you can't even prove that the drug they are using is LSD) for the purpose of enhancing creativity (creativity is notoriously difficult to define and to measure). You seem to be using words without really stopping to think about what they mean. Now, let's talk more about the study you say is important and not anecdotal. Let's be specific. Which study are you referring to here? Viriditas (talk) 01:00, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

I have replied on Talk:Lysergic_acid_diethylamide. Please add comments there, so that others can participate. Tova Hella (talk) 15:03, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Ok. Good idea. Viriditas (talk) 18:53, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

ArbCom elections are now open!

Hi,
You appear to be eligible to vote in the current Arbitration Committee election. The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to enact binding solutions for disputes between editors, primarily related to serious behavioural issues that the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the ability to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail. If you wish to participate, you are welcome to review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. For the Election committee, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 14:13, 24 November 2015 (UTC)