Talk:Eight-circuit model of consciousness/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

2009

Two Eights make ...

Resolved

 – Trolling.

... the whole idea look like dope-addled tosh! I refer to the two lists of eight under the "Eight circuits" heading. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.108.130.31 (talk) 14:05, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Neutral Check

Resolved

 – Clearly biased statements removed from article.

With unverified statements like, "The 8-circuit model is perhaps one of the most accurate and elegant representations of human consciousness" I think it needs to be checked for neutrality, and possibly weasel words.68.216.106.168 (talk) 09:15, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. The entire article is a mess. I have done my best to remove some of the POV fluff from the first section as a start on the article as a whole; I'm finding it difficult to locate sources for the claims being made but am reluctant to remove things altogether. Could the editors who inserted the unsourced content ("Critics say...", "it is claimed...") possibly provide some source for what they're saying?

My edit was mostly intended to remove some of the more ludicrously POV commentary, such as the following:

The merit of this system lies in its ability to integrate the two quartets well. Most theories deal with one or the other, but not both – mundane psychology does not entertain ideas of transcendent or mystical experience and it has only recent categories such as Spiritual Emergency.

This is an encyclopedia article describing the model, not a personal commentary on its merits and flaws. Provide cites (I am going to seek some out when I have a moment) and keep it neutral. ElijahOmega (talk) 12:15, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

2010

[No 2010 or later threads have been archived yet.]

Clarity, style, intelligibility

Unresolved

 – Article still badly needs copy editing as of date=August 2011.

Largely for clarity, style, and good old intelligibility. Neutrality remains a problem for this page, IMO, as the only references are from those who propose the 'model' themselves. There also a biased undertone in favor of the use psychedelic drugs, NLP, and what I would call (generously) 'alternative philosophies.' Claims about related 'techniques' are problematic. Why isn't religion included, of which 'Crowleyan magic' is just one form? I'm not even sure how I got to this page, but I'm pretty sure the article I linked to it from has almost nothing to do with Leary's 'theory.' If the authors re-edit this page, please resist using idiosyncratic language and punctuation, particularly capitalization. 173.21.106.137 (talk) 05:55, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

I've worked on the capitalization some, but this entire article badly needs copyediting even further than I've gone. There are innumerable cases of grammar errors, poor logical sentence flow, etc., etc. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 21:07, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Poorly referenced

Unresolved

 – Article has been tagged as badly needing sourcing improvement for a long time.

This article is very poorly sourced by the standards of WP:V, WP:RS and WP:CITE. The main problem is that the bulk of the article is just allegedly sourced by a pile of "references" dumped in "Bibliography", with no indication what statements are sourced by what works, further compounded by innumerable editors, most of the anonymous, changing things willy-nilly over several years of now-resolved neutrality turmoil, such that material that once may have been sourced to a specific reference has had numerous interpolations from other (usually unknown) source, been moved, and otherwise altered without the references being kept up to what little extent they can be kept up with proper footnote citations per WP:CITE, AND other "references" have been added that are not necessarily pertinent, reliable or useful, per WP:RS. The upshot being that large amounts of this article could simply be legitimately deleted per policy at WP:V, as unsourced, especially given how long they've been tagged and how much debate this article was seeing several years ago. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 21:07, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Merge/Delete/Do Something

I'm going to suggest that this article be chopped up to remove anything that cannot be given a reliable source, and whatever is left over should be turned into a (thoroughly NPOV) section in either the Tim Leary article, or the Prometheus Rising article.

Other than that, I see no reason why this article shouldn't be nominated for deletion, since it has remained in violation of WP:GNG for some time, with no improvement. Both of the sources this article relies most on are primary. Most of the others appear to be part of a personal website.

On a personal note, besides violating NPOV in language and content, and its subject's doubtful notability, this article is very sloppy work. Undiskedste (talk) 04:46, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

Removal of WP psychology tag

I have decided to remove the Psychology tag from this talk page because of concerns that the article presents a pseudoscientific formulation as a genuine theory in psychology. No sources have been cited to indicate that this model has ever been seriously discussed or even mentioned in any reputable psychology journal or textbook, even to discredit it. Therefore, in spite of its pretensions to be a model of consciousness, I don't think this belongs in the psychology category, any more than, say, palmistry does.--Smcg8374 (talk) 03:56, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Scientific testing

Has anyone, anywhere, done a proper scientific investigation or even discussion of this model? I've had a cursory look but can't find a thing - David Gerard (talk) 16:36, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

Anal

Stale

 – Editorial & sourcing suggestions made, but not followed up even a year later.

The names of the circuits in this article do not correspond with my recollection from reading Prometheus Rising 8 or 9 years ago. For instance, why doesn't the article apply the terms oral and anal. Also, Wilson's spectacular lecture "How to Tell Your Friends From the Apes" really ought to be a reference for this article. __meco (talk) 13:52, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, the order is different from prometheus rising. However, Wilson later changed his version back to learys (i.e. 7. metaprogramming -> 6. metaprogramming , and 6 neurogenetic circuit --> 7)[around 1996 in Quantum Psychology.] Although the order may have not survived the test of time, Wilson still detailed each circuit brilliantly in Prometheus rising.

I will probably add the terms anal, oral, and as well as others used in prometheus rising to the article sooner or later.

Also, never heard of that lecture. I ought to check it out. —Preceding unsigned comment added by James Brown Nine (talk • contribs) 23:20, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Regardless of his difference of the 6th and 7th circuit in "Prometheus Rising" versus "Quantum Psychology", Wilson still uses the same names for the 1st and 2nd circuit in both books. He names the first circuit "The oral bio-survival circuit", and the second circuit "The anal emotional territorial circuit" — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dpowell787b (talk • contribs) 04:27, 25 November 2016 (UTC)

Christopher S. Hyatt

Why is Christopher S. Hyatt mentioned at all? I'm faintly familiar with his work (as a skeptic of it and other stuff like it). He seems to generate mystical/occult/magic[k] books by the dozen, on topics all over the map from Crowleyan Thelema to "Western Tantra" whatever that's supposed to be (I guess that's something like Chinese St. Patrick's Day and Papua New Guinean peyote ceremonies?). I'm having a hard time tracking down any connection at all between the eight-circuit model and Hyatt. Just because Hyatt knew Leary and Wilson at least peripherally, published an interview with Leary, and has been in anthologized publications with both other authors doesn't mean he's connected pro, con or at all to the topic of this article. I'm therefore tempted to delete his mention, unless someone's got a citation to something. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 05:25, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

Hyatt has contributed to the model in his book "Undoing Yourself". - Dpowell787b (talk) 04:47, 25 November 2016 (UTC)

Transhumanism?

This is literally a made-up hypothesis with zero evidence ever, though slight popularity in the pre-New Age Human Potential Movement culture of the 1970s - but the same would apply to astrology, for instance. How does this fit into "transhumanism" per se? Is there evidence of it gaining popularity in the transhumanist subculture as such? - David Gerard (talk) 10:25, 22 August 2016 (UTC)

I can see a relation through Leary's interest in SMI2LE - Leary represents psychedelic 60's transhumanism fairly well. After all, transhumanism seeks to achieve higher states of evolution, and this does not have to be through just technology (Leary would have countered that LSD and various training methods are of course just as much technology as any enhancer or mental exercise). A fair number of transhumanists have a passing acquaintance with the model. mostly through RAW. Still, I think few if any of the transhumanists I have interacted with actually *believe* in the model. Anders Sandberg (talk) 00:08, 14 November 2016 (UTC)

This article should not be affiliated with Transhumanism. Although there are many correlations in regards to the evolution of the human species with both Transhumanism and the Eight-circuit model of consciousness, the association can mislead readers on both ends of each subject. Dpowell787b (talk) 08:18, 25 November 2016 (UTC)

Criticism?

Unresolved

 – The article is based entirely around a primary source bolstered by non-specific references to other questionable sources. It makes outlandish claims without any regard for scientific consensus.=February 2012.

You know this kind of science is technically unethical? (considering that it involves illegal, harmfully addictive drugs?) Surely there is criticism of Leery SOMEWHERE. Tcaudilllg (talk) 05:41, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Criticism of Leary and Leary's stance on mind-altering drugs would be different than criticism of the model. The purpose of the model itself was never to encourage the use of any drug at all but rather to outline the different stages of consciousness in primate evolution and their biological foundations and advancements throughout time. The only reason drugs were mentioned in the model at all was Leary and Robert Anton Wilson theorized certain chemicals provoked such forms of consciousness mentioned in the model. The model was never intended to be pro-drug or anti-drug. If you want to criticize Leary's stance on drugs, do it in the Timothy Leary article.72.240.112.36 (talk) 01:05, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

As of the moment, I cannot find any criticism of this model at all. In the past, this article had criticism incorporated in it, but it was always removed because it contained original research.72.240.112.36 (talk) 17:39, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps mainstream psychologists/neuroscientists consider it unworthy of their attention? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tcaudilllg (talk • contribs) 17:27, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

This is a discussion for improving the article, not a forum for you to express your opinions. If you have anything else to say, it should be directed at improving the article.72.240.112.36 (talk) 05:31, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

This article, in its present form, is proselytizing a non-verifiable contrivance, and alluding to it as a "theory". It is not a theory, as it is not a structure designed to explain a set of empirical observations; what observations could possibly concern "information from beyond ordinary space-time awareness which is limited by the speed of light"?

The sentence, "Leary may have received the basic idea for this system from an anthropologist" attempts to lend scientific credibility through hearsay.

The sentence beginning, "The 8 Circuit model seems to provide a conglomerate model of a series of preceding and interconnecting models within some of the human and medical sciences..." attempts to connect the construct to accepted scientific fields, where there is no connection. Citations should be provided if there are any available.

This article is pseudo-science; it has no supporting evidence, contradicts itself, falls far short of meaningful modeling, and many components are flat out non-verifiable. Recommend deletion as complete bollocks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.93.219.192 (talk) 01:37, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

I agree that the the article smacks of psudo-science, but so does Freud's tripartite model of consciousness, astrology, phlogiston etc. While Leary's model, Freud's, astrology, and phlogiston are generally ignored by the scientific and academic community today, they have been influential for various fringe or non-academic groups. Thus, the article should certainly not be deleted. Also, this discussion section appears to be a call for references to published criticism of the model. I'd be very interested if any such criticism exists as well... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.56.112.48 (talk) 04:36, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

NB: Actually, all of those ideas were very influential in academic and non-fringe circles for their memetic lifespans, too. Many scientific and quasi-scientific ideas are questionable but influential and lead to improved ideas. E.g., I'd rather have an ancient Greek doctor who thought in terms of leeching, "bodily humours" and "bad air" than a tribal shaman who saw everything in terms of the will and influence of various spirits and totem animals or a Dark Age exorcist who thought my ailments were the work of Satanic possession or my own witchcraft. Human wisdom is a perpetually step-wise process (sometimes backwards for a bit as my examples indicate). — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 21:07, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Over two years later, most of this is no longer applicable, since the article text has been improved. I'm marking this as {{resolved}}, though not archiving it yet, in case someone wants to read through it and re-examine the article to see if they feel all the issues flagged here were legimitate problems and have all been fixed (seems that way to me on both counts). I'd suggest posting a new thread about any perceived problem. The vast majority of editors & readers with an issue or two about this article have made article improvement (the actual purpose of talk pages at Wikipedia, which is not a forum) difficult because their posts have mostly been prefaced with or buried under attacks/complaints with regard to Leary, drugs, and/or the validity of his consciousness model as science (I've yet to see anyone cite him saying it was science, actually...), leading inexorably to rancorous debates about pseudoscience, the counterculture, etc., and everything but article improvement. So, please raise issues in a focused manner so they can be more quickly resolved without flamey off-topic arguments about dope, epistemology and spirituality, please. I've moved the bulk of that noise to the archive pages. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 21:07, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

• I am again marking this as unresolved because I just read half of a sloppy article. That's all there was to read: a non-npov, non-cited mess. A criticism section alone would be insufficient to remedy these deficiencies. Links to evidence of claims, language clearly identifying the context of the claims, and neutral (tertiary) analysis - all of these need to be incorporated into the lead and body of the text. Next would be an spov criticism section. It shouldn't be too hard to find sources in physics journals to completely discredit at least half of the claims mentioned in this model. Spiritual components and stipulations in addition to literary works based on the model must also be treated to yet another section. A good treatment of Leary's work would also benefit from page references, perhaps quotation notes. I am sorry to say that the problems in the article are systemic. ˉˉ^anetode╦╩ 07:56, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm afraid that what you are asking for here is broadly outside Wikipedia's remit. It is not for editors to find and cite primary material that might discredit various aspects of Leary's theory. That would be original research by synthesis. If there is no secondary literature criticising the model, for whatever reason, then there cannot be a criticism section. We cannot fill in the criticism ourselves, only report what others have said about the theory, and this does not include things that other people have said that we might think relevant to the theory unless the connection has been drawn in a reliable source. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.226.37.177 (talk) 09:26, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

I absolutely agree that this article has huge problems with NPOV, citations, and original research that is not from any of the authors. Beyond the first paragraph, the entire article needs to be fact checked. With that being said, I've just reversed an edit added to the page about the validity of this model being scientific. Leary has stated that this model is of scientific theories "based off of empirical findings" in various areas of science. (Info-Psychology, pg. 8) Again, a large portion of the content on the page is not his work at all. Please add content with citations from the authors, not criticism and opinions. Dpowell787b (talk) 10:21, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

Reference materials

• Info-Psychology (revised from Exo-Psychology) By Timothy Leary (one of Leary's complete final works on the Eight-circuit model)

Note there are differences in page numbers between prints! (found difference in page numbers between 3rd printing(1992) and 7th printing(2011) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dpowell787b (talk • contribs) 12:40, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

• Exo-Psychology by Timothy Leary. (First major work on the Eight-circuit model of consciousness)
• Evolutionary Agents by Timothy Leary. (one of Leary's last works completed on the Eight-circuit model)
• Game of Life by Timothy Leary with contributions by Robert Anton Wilson
• Prometheus Rising by Robert Anton Wilson
• Quantum Psychology by Robert Anton Wilson
• Angel Tech by Antero Alli. Forward by Robert Anton Wilson. (with reference to Info-Psychology as Leary's work on the Eight-circuit model)
• The Eight-Circuit Brain by Antero Alli (one of the most recent books published on the Eight-circuit model)
• Neurologic?
• Neuropolitics?

"Info-Psychology" from Leary, "Prometheus Rising" from Wilson, and "The Eight-Circuit Brain" from Alli, should be the first reference from each author. Each of these works are non-fiction and have the largest content of the Eight-circuit model in each of the books to the corresponding authors. There is no story, characters(only for examples), or other elements to claim they were written in fiction.Dpowell787b (talk) 10:40, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

Structure of descriptions to be covered for each circuit

• Basic description - all 3 stages for each circuit
• Where is the suggested imprint in ontogeny?
• When is the suggested period in evolution where the circuit emerged?

This list is similar to structure in Leary's books on how he made points on each circuit. Each author mentioned does suggest 24 stages for the circuits. 3 stages for 8 circuits. This should be highly noted.

Wilson and Alli had other takes on the circuits, with different chapter structure to each circuit. For example, a chapter for each circuit included base description, compare and contrast, examples, suggestions, and exercises.

The following list were points to be covered were based on someone's interpretation of Wilson's work. If we were to ask "What methods activate it?" Each author would answer differently. Alli did not suggest drugs for "circuit activation", and contrary to belief, Leary does not suggest a particular drug for each individual circuit. He suggests some drugs for reception of some circuits. Example: Stage 16 neuro-electric drugs (Game of Life, pg 191 or Info-Psychology, pg 124)Dpowell787b (talk) 07:44, 10 December 2016 (UTC)

• Basic description
• When is it imprinted?
• What imprints are possible?
• When did it evolve?
• What methods activate it?

Derived from Hindu tantra

Unresolved

 – No source provided.

Leary did not create the Eight Circuit Model (http://deoxy.org/8origins.htm), as it comes from Hindu Tantra philosophy. Therefore, you can call Leary's theory "pseudoscientific" just as much as you can say that Tantra is pseudoscience. Of course, saying this would be nonsense, because these things are completely unrelated to Cartesian science, both in space and time: which means that you can't say that they pretend to be it. I've seen this kind of discussion happening in several articles, and it resulted in the deletion of the Timewave Zero article - because, you know, the I Ching, which was invented 2800 BCE, does not meet the methods of a guy who was born on the 16th century. If anything, this reveals some cultural bias in Wikipedia users. 187.54.91.216 (talk) 13:57, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Leary's 8 circuits are a PHILOSOPHY. They may be applicable in psychology, but philosophy's what they are. I agree with the user's comment above mine. The 8 circuits can also be mapped on to the days of the week. 1 Moonday (everythings new and magical, what do i need?), 2 Tuesday (teuton tribe, the Teus, god of the tribe Toutatis, let's gain some power/status by joining a gang/tribe), 3 Wodensday (Woden/Odin, the all-father, 'the Word was god and the word was with god' etc, let's rationalise everything with respect to our tribal chief, believe in the leader/law, for personal gain and stability) 4 thorsday (The god Thor, male sexuality, moving heaven and earth for sex, I'll be sensitive to your needs and rational, as long as you don't touch my ego), 5 freiaday (Goddess freia, mature female sexuality, empathetic, I'll be attracted to you if you look like you can take care of my yet to be born child, i'll take care of your ego as long as you can take care of my child), 6 Saturnday (the god saturn, the sober judge, the philosopher, scientist, the one who understands both masculine and feminine perspectives and thinks with clarity), 7 Sunday (The Son/sun, the mystic/magician/shaman, the true artist communicating with a magical effect, spreading the enlightenment gained on previous circuit, wearing different egos, is everyone to everyone, iconic). the 8th circuit is Gaia consciousness, and you don't need to worry about days if you're the earth itself spinning on it's axis, night/day is happening at the same time. Hence non-local. this makes sense to me, because it fits in with so much ancient stuff, yet Leary's concept of what the circuits mean doesn't quite seem to align with this interpretation, which tells me that he probably got this stuff from a source that DID make more sense, as opposed to 'virtually creating' the thing.

Natmanprime (talk) 22:22, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

That some nice original research we can't use. Even the suggestion that Leary was inspired by chakras and yoga has yet to be sourced. We can't be adding more such stuff without it coming from independent, reliable, published sources. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 21:07, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

From what I can tell he was just paraphrasing Prometheus Rising. Not original research. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.100.79.42 (talk) 10:45, 13 July 2017 (UTC)

This is a false claim for origin, yet still holds some relevance. The Deoxy website (http://deoxy.org/8origins.htm) has parts and chapters in the book "What does WoMan want", which is a work of fiction from Timothy Leary. This is the main resource used in this confusion. Leary does show inspiration from the Hindu system, chakras, yoga, and various other sources in the book "Game of Life" on pages 18, 34, and 46. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dpowell787b (talk • contribs) 03:45, 25 November 2016 (UTC)

Science? Pseudoscience? Mysticism? Literature?

Note:This section is a rehash argument from archives (Check "Factual Evidence" and "Pseudoscience" from Archive 1 on the talkpage). Earlier consensus has shown the model not to be pseudoscience. Dpowell787b (talk) 03:30, 10 December 2016 (UTC)

It's important to note it was not presented with scientific evidence, nor that it's even been tested. The article goes on about it as if this is a scientific theory, so stating it's not one is important to put in the intro para.

Note that calling it a "hypothesis model" (which is in any case ungrammatical) is not some sort of get-out.

Of course, if Leary did put any science into it, or if reputable scientific testing was done, this would be very important and useful to add to the article. Though I found nothing first time I looked.

Wilson's use of it is pretty clearly as a literary device - he doesn't advance any science either.

I see non-reliable sources treating it as part of mysticism, but I can't find any RSes there either.

I would simply label it "pseudoscience" except I can't find any RSes that have even bothered with it to that extent either.

I've also posted a request for more eyes on the topic to WP:FTN - David Gerard (talk) 10:22, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

First off, thank you for contributing. The more perspectives on this article, the better. I changed "hypothesis model" to "hypothesis" as indicated. I used the word hypothesis defined as "a supposition or proposed explanation made on the basis of limited evidence as a starting point for further investigation"

The work from Leary is presented with scientific evidence. The first half of the book "Exo-Psychology" is referencing fields of scientific study, for support to the model. Your statement "...nor that it's even been tested" shows a bias against the model, and not helpful to adding to content of the article. Observational sciences, and experimental sciences have different ways of being tested.

Leary did put science into it. Pg. 8 of Info-Psychology should address your concern.Dpowell787b (talk) 10:55, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

Right. Did anyone follow up scientifically or is this just him doing so? Because there's no way on earth a primary source alone would pass WP:MEDRS - David Gerard (talk) 11:23, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

I'm looking at the book now. Page 8 is 0% a claim of science; I've added relevant quotes to the intro, to make it clear what the creator of this theory considered it. If you want to make this claim that what he did was anything in the same field as "science", let alone anything resembling an experimental finding - rather than writing off the top of his head while he was in jail - I'd like you to quote precisely the words you think support this claim - David Gerard (talk) 11:32, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

"They[The theories presented] are scientific in that they are based on empirical findings" (Info-Psychology, pg 8., seventh printing, 2011)(pg. 7, Info-Psychology, third printing, 1992, hyperlink shown above). Thus he is making a hypothesis.Dpowell787b (talk) 11:46, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

No, he talks about fields of science. Where is the testing that was applied to this specific hypothesis? There isn't any. So it's something science-flavoured surrounding a claim without science to it. The word for that would appear to be pseudoscience - David Gerard (talk) 14:09, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

Note there are differences in page numbers between prints! (found difference in page numbers between 3rd printing(1992) and 7th printing(2011) Sorry for the confusion, David. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dpowell787b (talk • contribs) 12:42, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

David Gerard, you are holding a negative bias toward the author/s of the article. For example "If you want to make this claim that what he did was anything in the same field as "science", let alone anything resembling an experimental finding - rather than writing off the top of his head while he was in jail" shows bias. The second example of bias is "...nor that it's even been tested" as stated above.

You've made edits with admitting to not reading the material. This is no different than a Creationist arguing evolution being a "hypothesis", "theory", "proposal", or "conjecture". Or arguing if "Id, ego, and superego" is a scientific model that has been tested.

I feel you are making disruptive editing for your bias, which is not following Wikipedia guidelines.

Although, you have made edits that are directly from the book, with in line citation following it. As a seasoned Wikipedia editor, you are bringing a needed level of skepticism to an article that needs to be debunked. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dpowell787b (talk • contribs) 21:10, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

Your accusations are strange at best, and you really need to reread WP:AGF. You have failed to produce the evidence to support your claims, and the evidence you did produce does not support them. Furthermore, I am far from the only editor to have disagreed with you on this today alone. I strongly suggest you read Wikipedia:Fringe theories/Arbitration cases thoroughly (and not with an eye for loopholes) - David Gerard (talk) 21:27, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

Perhaps hypothesis is the correct term. From Wikipedia's lead: "A hypothesis (plural hypotheses) is a proposed explanation for a phenomenon." The theory is, of course, not a scientific hypothesis, but the term isn't all-inclusive, and without the word 'scientific' being used it seems to fit. The theory has been put forward and then analyzed in several complete books by several competent authors. We all have bias, and in cases like this I try to be honest about mine, and I favor Wilson as an author who, in his fields, writes as plain-spoken and competently as Isaac Asimov did in his. If this page is to be balanced it must contain both criticism and sourced appreciation for this theory (hypothesis?). But that paragraph on astrology should go, as it has nothing to do with this page except for someone piggybacking unrelated concepts upon an established term. Randy Kryn 21:42, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

As a transgressive critique of current scientific understanding (evolving mostly out of the primitive state of neuroscience in the 1960s), Leary was making a proposal that he insisted was not scientific. That's why "hypothesis" is a poor choice of wording, because it is part-and-parcel to the scientific method which Leary held was holding back ideas that could be developed through revelation rather than methodology. It is not fair to Leary to push this "model" into the scientific model side, and so we should avoid words like "hypothesis" which would mislead the reader into thinking he was trying to formulate a scientific proposal. This also goes for technical terms such as nervous system which Leary uses as a placeholder for individual animal consciousness. In the 1960s, systems biology was being reinvigorated by discoveries associated with molecular biology and the like. Use of the term "nervous system" was broader than it is now. It is not fair to the reader to mislead them into thinking that Leary believed, for example, that the eight circuits were literal, measurable electric potentials across potassium-sodium ion channels. jps (talk) 02:23, 9 December 2016 (UTC)

I am reversing you edits for three reasons.

1. Leary was using a hypothesis. - It is true that the words, “idea”, “conjecture”, “proposal”, “scheme”, “proposition”, “suggestion”, “guess”, can all fit as the noun in conflict that keeps being edited (over 10 edits within the last 3 days). All these can be conceptual framework or almost synonyms for "hypothesis".

The term “Evolution”, could be an “idea”, or a “proposal”, (there have been many Creationists trying to argue that term be replaced as well). However, we give credit where credit is due. “Evolution” is a “scientific theory” because it is a well-substantiated explanation based on empirical observations.

I’m not arguing that the Eight-circuit model is a theory, nor arguing that it is correct. It is a hypothesis, just an “educated guess”. Using the definition of hypothesis "a supposition or proposed explanation made on the basis of ’’limited’’ evidence as a starting point for further investigation". This is no different to the starting points of observational science, such as when Piaget’s cognitive theories, or Kohlberg’s stages of moral development were starting out as a hypothesis. It’s observational science versus experimental science, as Piaget and Kohlberg eventually created standardized tests for their hypotheses. I have changed the edit back to hypothesis.

2.Leary was being scientific – From his own words, in the book ‘’Info-Psychology’’, "They[The theories presented] are scientific in that they are based on empirical findings from physics, physiology, pharmacology, genetics, astronomy, behavioral psychology, information science, and most importantly, neurology." (Info-Psychology, pg 8., seventh printing, 2011)(Info-Psychology, pg. 7, third printing, 1992). This is pretty straight forward.

You wrote after an edit on the article, “This is not a hypothesis in the scientific sense. Leary is CLEAR about that.”-jps. Can you find him clearly stating your point, then we can make concise edits the article.

3.Leary was referring to the human nervous system, not “a placeholder for individual animal consciousness” – Leary, et al. reference the nervous system quite often. For example, The imprinting of each circuit – “neurotransmitter sequence at the synapse” (Info-Psychology, pg. 51, Seventh printing, 2011). The second circuit equated to the sympathetic nervous system “flight or fight” – (pg. 12, pg. 149). Organs, systems, and the nervous system – (pg 46. Second paragragh). There are various others, and more from other authors if you need more references. I am replacing the your word "mind" with "nervous system" in the main article.

JPS, I have seen your edits and I want to point out that you are making this article better, from simple grammar to articulate rebuttals to your edits. I want to say that I’m completely open to more discussion for future edits. I want to consider if we should use the phrase "unproven hypothesis"? Hopefully that will not mislead readers? Dpowell787b (talk) 07:17, 9 December 2016 (UTC)

No, "hypothesis" is simply incorrect, for the reasons explained. Consensus is against you here. You are the only one advocating this view. Please stop your edit-warring and WP:OWNership behaviour - David Gerard (talk) 15:19, 9 December 2016 (UTC)

You are correct. I am starting to show some those behaviours. I guess that I assumed that I knew more about Leary's hypothesis, because I actually read the book. Unlike you, who has never fully read any of the books listed, as you have pointed out yourself in comments after editing. You keep attacking (by reversing the conflicted term once again), then tell me to stop the edit war? That's like calling a "cease fire" on both sides after you fired the last shot.

As with your shown bias that I have put in examples above, you also need to check your eyesight for selective reading. I am not the only editor advocating that "hypothesis" is the correct term. The "consensus" is 2 for 2 in this section of the talk page. Please check back the archives of this talk page and review the same old arguments on this very topic, and see all the mess of arguing it has caused before us. Keep in mind again that the word "hypothesis" kept it's place on this article after all that conflict.

"You are the only one advocating this view." - David Gerard... "Perhaps hypothesis is the correct term." - Randy Kryn (Found four replies above)

I know this could be a form of cognitive dissonance for an admin of Wikipedia and large contributor of Wikimedia as a whole, but... dare I say?... You could be wrong? I've openly asked for assistance on editing on this talkpage, because I could be wrong as well. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dpowell787b (talk • contribs) 21:34, 9 December 2016 (UTC)

To lay down my arms in the edit war, I'll take it back to JPS's edit of the word, "proposal", and maybe we can all consider rewriting the first sentence? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dpowell787b (talk • contribs) 21:43, 9 December 2016 (UTC)

I actually read Leary's book in question. It seems to support my analysis. Ironically, even the very quotes you provide support my analysis. It seems it is you who don't understand what Leary was getting at. I am still trying to locate the talk where someone in the audience asked a question of him about how the eight circuits were literal electric circuits like you would have in a home or something like that. Leary nearly bit off their head. They were coming at it all wrong. "Circuits" was a useful metaphor for explaining the phenomenology from psychedelics that Leary was trying to capture. It's much the same way when someone uses the term energy to mean "spirit". They specifically do not mean that such energy can be measured! The smarter spiritualists and psychedelics from the 60s and 70s were extremely honest about this to the tune of being able to attract skeptics such as Feynman to Esalen. What happened subsequently is that the smartest ones died or moved on and we're left now with rank amateurs who interpret the musings of the turn on, tune in, drop out critics into pseudo-academic blather. It is insulting to everyone involved -- insulting to the history of this countercultural critique and insulting to those of us who are trying to keep science based in reality.

Be inspired by science and borrow your metaphors from there all you want. But please do not be hoodwinked into believing that your stories are actually science when they are based on imagination.

jps (talk) 15:11, 10 December 2016 (UTC)

+1. The eight-circuit model is a poetic metaphor. This is how Leary wrote about it originally, and RAW and Alli followed. It is not science and it was never intended as science. Furthermore, there are literally no sources treating it as science. Leary certainly does not write about it as science, and the evidence posited that he did would also make much of science fiction into science fact - David Gerard (talk) 01:08, 11 December 2016 (UTC)

I think you both bring good points to the table. I'm compromising on the term "proposal" versus "hypothesis", because I think this rehashed argument isn't going to be settled (It's too similar to old debates from years ago in the talkpage archives). Just arguing over one word isn't going to improve this article. I don't accept the opposing position, but it's not worth going on about. Agree to disagree.

JPS, I would like if you found the video or talk with Leary discussing the circuits with the person in the audience. Hopefully I can increase my perspective with Leary and the circuits. Thank you for your insights. You are very knowledgeable and articulate, on many subjects.

David, I absolutely agree with you that this article needs to show the position of the Eight-circuit model from the mainstream scientific community. We could point out that there hasn't been any other notable work on the model other than the three main authors. Thanks for leading me to fringe theories and problems in that regard.... I was being sincere when I said you bring some NEEDED skepticism to this article. No hard feelings, mate.

I just want to get back to adding referenced material to the article. This is my last input to the discussion on this particular section of the talkpage, but I will still make edits with solid reasoning and wiki guidelines, and still discuss any other topics on the talkpage as well. I leave with a quote from Leary,

"Science is all a metaphor." - Dr. Timothy Leary Dpowell787b (talk) 09:45, 11 December 2016 (UTC)

How can a metaphor for different parts of the mind (not the brain), written by a Harvard psychologist be "pseudoscience"? The shadow, the id, the ego, the 8 circuits, are all just metaphor, you can't open a brain and point to them to make them "real science". It's a way of describing consciousness and the map is not the territory. The brain is a physical thing that can be labeled correctly or incorrectly. The mind is not. It doesn't stop being science because it's a soft science. It's a psychologist talking about psychology. How does that not fall under psychology tag? Camrev (talk) 22:01, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

So this seems to still be a problem in 2021. To someone like me who has a background in esotericism and magic, this is yet another attempt to frame reality into a simplistic pseudoscientific mind model... —PaleoNeonate – 18:44, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

Proposed deletion

This article has unfixable neutrality issues.

The article's content is not presented as actual science, nor is it presented as philosophy. It is completely unclear from the article what the subject matter is even supposed to be.

The article reads like a summary of the book it originally came from. The only other sources are people who apparently were interested in, but in no way contributed to meaningful debate about the topic. If an idea has not attracted written criticism, it is neither science nor philosophy. Nor is it notable. This is nothing more than one man's personal ideas about human nature; and while the man himself may be notable, the idea clearly isn't. Wikipedia is not a vehicle for promotion of one person's ideas about life.

The fact that a "hypothesis" from someone as notable and controversial as Leary still has not managed to attract any meaningful written discussion should say a lot.

Compare Maslow's hierarchy of needs, which is linked to in this article, for an example of one person's ideas which actually did attract debate and notability.

In short, WP:NPOV, WP:NRVE, WP:NOTOPINION, WP:NOTADVOCATE, WP:PROMOTION.

The talk section of this article is dead. There has been no real discussion in 6 years, and even what was there was not high quality.

There is no reason for this article to exist. It's possible to talk about this topic from a neutral point of view, but it needs a complete and total re-write. GrandMote (talk) 15:24, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

If this truly was "nothing more than one man's personal ideas about human nature", I would suggest merging it with the article on that one man. But if you read this article it's pretty clear that Leary, Robert Anton Wilson, and Antero Alli are three different people who wrote about this model.

The question of whether this is notable is an interesting one. I just did a quick look through google scholar and found an article that mentions Leary's work and its applicability in understanding humans in a holistic way. So I added a quick sentence about that, and also changed "Hypothesis" to "holistic model" because I think that's more accurate. I'll also remove the call for deletion.

Let me know what else you notice that I can improve, and thank you for pointing out some issues with this article! Etippins (talk) 01:35, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

Thanks very much for your kind response. I actually wrote a reply out previously in Notepad but forgot to save it. Haven't had a chance to try and rewrite it until now.

At any rate, I believe notability is still an issue here. The other two authors can both fairly be said to be within Leary's "sphere of influence" (one was clearly said to be Leary's close friend in one of these articles), and to some extent, stood to profit from promoting his ideas. If two of my close friends decide my ideas are interesting and decide to write books about them, that still doesn't make them notable; and all the more so if they stand to profit from them.

As has been mentioned previously, it comes down to what this topic actually is. In the article, Leary is quoted as saying it's "science, to the extent that..." But this does not meet any standard of science, simply because of the lack of discussion and criticism. If someone promotes something as science but is debunked, then it becomes pseudoscience; and Wikipedia has many articles clearly labeled as pseudoscience. The fact that no one has really attempted to prove this theory at all makes it pseudoscience by default. And if we're going to consider this idea from a scientific angle, then it needs to be labeled clearly for what it is: pseudoscience.

At the very least it needs to be stated that in terms of science, it is completely untested, unproven, and undebated.

Or if it's going to be considered philosophy, then Wikipedia's scope gets called into question. Is it Wikipedia's purpose to be repository for any idea any person has had any time about subject, so long as we can somehow call it "philosophy"? It seems to me the answer is "clearly not". But if you have some relevant sources regarding Wikipedia's scope when it comes to philosophy or philosophy of the mind, that would help a lot.

Also, I just want to make it clear that I have no particular issue with this idea whatsoever, although I don't believe in it either. I do happen to have a lot of interest in psychology, and my concern is simply that this is not encyclopedic content. It should be clear straight from the lede of the article if you're dealing with science, philosophy, or whim; and it should be clear whether or not those ideas have been tested, praised, criticized, etc.

But neither the lede nor the body make this clear. Right now the article is just a vehicle for the promotion of this idea. And if indeed the idea is just a whim, then it doesn't belong in an encyclopedia at all.

At least that's my position. GrandMote (talk) 14:52, 31 December 2022 (UTC)

Hello again! Thanks for your previous edits. I actually lost track of this issue for awhile because I was logged out. Reviewing the article again, I think that changing the lede from "hypothesis" to "holistic model" actually does solve a lot of the issues with neutrality.

I think that the issue of notability is still there, however. As I mentioned before, clear guidelines from Wikipedia would help a lot here. Is an idea notable simply because its originator is notable? Timothy Leary is quite famous; any decently well-read individual is aware of him. But is that enough?

As far as its use by other authors is concerned, I think there is issue because one was a personal associate, and the other had a clear motive to profit personally from it. The idea was clearly tied to his business model ans was not "pure" research, as it were.

At any rate, I'm not familiar with this kind of topic within Wikipedia at all, so if there is a better place this discussion could be taken, I think that would be good.

Thanks again for your help! GrandMote (talk) 12:45, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

Like space embryos scattered to the stars, we seek a new beginning

Alright, forgive the cheeky analogy, and anyone feel free to change the header to something more practical at some point down the line, but I would like to make one last-ditch effort and finding a way forward here that everyone can live with. I believe there may be potential to build on a core of agreement based around something expressed by Randy in his most recent edit, to the straw poll above. I will recreate those comments and my own response here:

"...[T]his is a model in the company of ancient traditional ways of defining and explaining human consciousness (please read all of the Buddhist, Hindu, and yoga articles etc. concerning the modeling of consciousness, viable stand-alone pages) it does not fit the definition of fringe. The model does not claim to be science or neither proves or asks for the existence or need for experimental replication, thus making no claims based on proof. It simply puts forward a modeling derived from the experiences and thoughts of Leary, and then further built upon ten years later by Wilson (whose writings, as I've discussed, seem applicable enough as a WP:SECONDARY source to fulfill Wikipedia criteria). Leary could be said to be either thousands of years behind or ahead of his time, and his model fits better with the ancient texts as seen through the prism of what he put his brain through (and honestly seemed to come out the better for, what a beautiful human being he was in life). His contemporary addition to the ancient literature, as later added to by the analysis and commentary of Wilson, does not fall within science and so has nothing to do with fringe." -Randy

"I agree with most of this, and especially the last point. If we can find a way to leverage our sources (which may be limited in number and scope, but are also not nothing) to frame the rest of the article in this way, focusing on the 8CMoC as a work of mainly esoteric conjecture, pulling in strands of scientific knowledge, but in ways that actual experts in the relevant fields would never consider empirically valid or factually descriptive, I think it would go a long way to potentially bringing the disparate perspectives here together. I've said, and still maintain, there is no harm in discussing Leary's notions on what the 8CMoC consists of. We just have to first make it clear this was a very unique man, in a very unique set of circumstances, conjuring some very unique ideas. If we do that, it is just as you say: WP:FRINGE ceases to be an issue, and suddenly we do not have to wring our hands nearly so much over WP:V, MEDRS, or weight of the sources, relative to others in the related fields that Leary borrowed terminology from. Even heavy reliance on the primary sources becomes of very little concern if we have already framed the topic appropriately in the opening sections. I think some of the sourcing JoelleJay has provided below go a ways to helping us create that context, especially when combined with what we can source from Leary biographies, including those already used in our Leary BLP. Perhaps Joelle knows of more quotes along those lines? - Snow

Now I obviously cannot speak for everyone here who was prepared to redirect the article, but my impression is that not providing the appropriate encyclopedic context, and the article therefore looking too much like a tacit endorsement of Leary/Wilson's work as science is a big part of why there was so much talk about WP:FRINGE and issues with tone. Now, I do not think it makes sense to have a new straw poll, or even formally cancel the last. But would those who !voted for or contemplated a redirect be willing to temporarily suspend (in the sense of a temporary pause) any implementation of the result, if we created a sandbox version of the article, and worked towards a version like that discussed above? Pinging Steve Quinn, fiveby, Viriditas, carchasm, Shibbolethink, and JoelleJay. Likewise, Randy Kryn, .Raven, could you agree to keep edits to the sandbox for the time being and to work to contextualize this as a non-scientific work, by and large? I'd like to suggest that if a consensus is on board for this, that we try this round robin style: we can't require everyone who wants to contribute ideas to contribute edits, of course, but I think if those who do want to contribute to the content took turns doing full edits, it might be helpful.

I'm also going to ping everyone who previously participated in a discussion on this talk page about the same topics we have been debating here, who also has edited in recent months: something we honestly should have done a while ago in the most recent series of discussions: SMcCandlish, David Gerard, PaleoNeonate, GrandMote, ජපස. I'm going to to call you the Final Five, because talking about the first five members of the group who went before us in this way, on an article about beings evolving into immortal space colonists is *mwa* too good to pass up. :) If the Final Five could please be aware that things have been a little divisive here over the last few weeks, and that we are using an extra dollop of patience and openess for the moment, that would be helpful too. :) SnowRise ^{let's rap} 15:46, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

Sandbox

----->Talk:Eight-circuit model of consciousness/Sandbox: June 2023<------

Okay peeps: the Sandbox is open. Please be polite and attempt to edit in an orderly fashion. Edit warring will not of course be the behavioural violation it would be anywhere else but a sandbox, but we will not get very far if we do not approach this in a collaborative fashion. I have taken the liberty of introducing a prototype version of the lead. I believe that it is a fair reflection of the reality of the field, based upon available sources and my own formal background in some of the related fields. It puts heavy influence on the fact that this is not a scientific model tested under empirical rigor, even constructed in an academic context. What remains to be seen is how WP:verifiable it is. It is also markedly overlong for a lead and will need to be parsed down at least 20-30% to what we feel are the most critical elements. That should not be difficult, given I would expect at least a similar proportion will not be sourceable to WP:RS.

For changes to the statements, I would recommend a round robin approach where we create a queue and each person gets a few hours at a time to edit to their heart's content. There is no need to restrict yourself to the lead if you feel you can flesh out a later section or element. However, you will also notice the huge volume of tags: which anyone should feel free to add at any time. In fact, since I have now been up for more than 24 hours straight, and have maybe another 9 worth of actual non-wikipeidia work and home life obligations in this present day, your mission, for each of you who chooses to accept it, is to replace one tag each in the next day or two. Many of these will be easy: some of the statements are internal statements about what the model's own claims, which can be cited to the primary sources. Some are biographical details easily retrieved from our BLP or other biographies--perhaps Viriditas would be particularly helpful with those as an old hand at the BLP. Others are likely to take some time or be lost-causes. We shall have to see. The ratio we hit in this lead section will be a good barometer for just how robust or skimpy the ultimate article may be able to be.

I do not mean to belabor this: I know there is still a lot of division here and there may not be hope in bringing everyone together in the short term with this project. I live in hope, but if this is clearly not getting us anywhere in the next couple of days, I will my meddling and leave the various factions to return to the rhetorical Thunderdome that this page has been the last couple of weeks. However... if this works, you will all arrange to gather together at the same hour some day and each in your respective locations shall intone as simmultaneously as you can: "All hail the Great Uniting! Hallowed is the Middle Path. Blessed are they who seek the Mesh. Theirs is the glory of never having to load ANI on a weekend. Forever and ever. Consense." SnowRise ^{let's rap} 20:55, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

Queue for editing of substantive statements

Who would like to go first, and how long would you like (3 hour max, please)? SnowRise ^{let's rap} 21:03, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

If I do, will I get attacked again for reinstating the discussion of the model's details – since that may well be what readers want to know when they look up this subject? – .Raven  .talk 21:06, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

Ok, my one rule: aside from any obvious violation of a Wikipedia behavioural policy (something like "The model was not created in 1973 like that long-winded nit said in the previous edit."), no one is to be criticized, lambasted, extolled upon, or castigated for any edit they make to this sandbox, at least for the time being. This is an exercise. If you have something purely constructive/observational to say about someone else's edit, please feel free to do so. If you think someone is screwing the pooch, please keep it to yourself. Each person makes their edits, and then is done until at least two other people have taken a turn. Anybody who comes after them can change any of the content, and then eventually everyone will get a go again. Eventually we will have to shift to a more normal method of rapid fire edits and heavier commentary. For now, please remember, this is a Sandbox, not a public-facing page. There is no harm in temporary changes.

Take it away, Raven--don't forget to say how much time you would like. Anybody can reserve their time next while the current editor is editing. Many thanks in advance to all for making the best effort at making this work. SnowRise ^{let's rap} 21:26, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

3 hours, please. If I finish sooner, I'll mention it. – .Raven  .talk 21:39, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

SnowRise ^{let's rap} 21:44, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

I am unable to save the full text. Commenting out the rest of the text after first paragraph, no problem. Full text, I get "Your edit was not saved because it contains a new external link to a site registered on Wikipedia's blacklist or Wikimedia's global blacklist." I added no links that were not in either your draft, my first edit to the article, or JoelleJay's references, which are what I combined, including much text-shuffling in the receptions/overview sections. I tried putting spaces around the final periods in domain names (".com" → " . com"), but no difference. I'm stuck. So if anyone can take my (now-deleted) save, and add -- before the > at the end of lede paragraph to close the comment-out, then find out why the system warning and fix THAT, I'd be grateful. Otherwise, I'm done for now. – .Raven  .talk 23:14, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

Has anyone else been able to edit this Sandbox? – .Raven  .talk 05:35, 18 June 2023 (UTC)

I'm able to publish edits normally, though there is something peculiar going on with your one edit: the changelog reflected in the diff reflects your edits, at least in part. This is very likely to do with your setup there: gadget or browser or some combination thereof. I notice you used visual editor for the edit--I would start with trying to introduce the edits through the traditional UI. SnowRise ^{let's rap} 14:35, 18 June 2023 (UTC)

Blanking previous comment here. Revised draft POSTED now!

I'd put colons on the templates at the bottom, to keep the categories inactive on the draft (remove them to activate when it becomes a live article!) -- but doing that for the Leary and Wilson templates resulted in transcluding the Leary *article*! There must be blacklisted (but specially permitted) links in that article! Took off those colons, problem fixed! – .Raven  .talk 21:01, 18 June 2023 (UTC)

That's great: I'm glad we have that worked out. :) I don't think I'll have time to give extensive feedback today about my thoughts on the changes, but I'll rapid fire a couple of bullet points. Addition of a reception idea is not a bad idea, and keeping it higher in the order of sections than normal militates against arguments that it buries the lead on the psuedoscientific nature of the model. That said, I do think at least some of the info moved into that section is probably due for the lead, or at least should be summarized there.

Regarding the sections describing the circuits: I think these are too long relative to what we can convince the majority here to accept. As I've said before, I personally think that primary sources can be used to describe these models in their own terms, even if they involve scientifically unsound ideas, provided there is abundant context to frame the fact that we are talking about fringe notions arising out of one man's ideas, not mainstream science arising out of research or academic speculation. In that respect I am closer to your position than that of JoelleJay and some others here. However, there is a limit in how much we can show as both a general WP:WEIGHT matter and also WP:DUE in the specific case of WP:FRINGE topics. I think these sections would go down much smoother if we tried to reduce them in volume a bit. This is also one the few areas where I think compromise would not invalidate anyone's positions on the content and relevant policies, so it's worth trying to move to the middle by deciding what is essential info here. And as a style matter, prose sections should really not be composed of multiple paragraphs of a single or two sentences each, so consolidating those can change the apparent length of a section, so that would be a place to start even before any trimming. More thoughts coming later, but maybe not today. Thank you for your edits, Raven. SnowRise ^{let's rap} 00:01, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

Anyone else want to take a crack next? SnowRise ^{let's rap} 00:01, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

> "That said, I do think at least some of the info moved into that section is probably due for the lead, or at least should be summarized there." — Great! I'm at peace with that. You or anyone else can take a stab at that, unless you want specifically me to... but I can't read minds, so I'd need more details, or if you like, I can simply do syntax/spelling/punctuation/etc. cleanup later. It really is time for others to get a turn. – .Raven  .talk 01:52, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

I'll leave that for people to do piecemeal: I'd like to see what people have in mind before I weigh in on what I think might be essential. It will have to change as the article fills out too, so it's meeting criteria for WP:LEAD, of course, so there's no harm in letting it filter back in organically--might even be advantage in it. SnowRise ^{let's rap} 14:59, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

JoelleJay, I know this is a big ask since you aren't even necessarily convinced this article needs to exist and aren't certain how large you think it can be even if it should exist, but I was hoping you could help with something that at least wouldn't require you to put your skepticism aside: you seem to be more familiar with at least some of the sources than most here: could you maybe fill in a few sources, or dare I ask, add to the Reception section one or three of the statements you think are most illustrative of outside reception, be they positive, negative, or ambivalent, dealer's choice? SnowRise ^{let's rap} 14:59, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

I'm not particularly familiar with them, I just have access to some of the full books through...uh...internet methods. I'm also not efficient at summarizing sources, but if it would help (or be legal?) for me to paste the sections of Higgs and Kaiser/McCray that directly discuss the model I could do that in some subpage. JoelleJay (talk) 17:53, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

Everyone with WP:Library should have access to McCray. You can mail me if you need Higgs rather than posting long excerpts on a subpage. That's how WP:RX works. fiveby(zero) 18:11, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

Great idea! Alas, I only see pdf-code, rather than the pdf. That may just be my system's or browser's problem. Anyone else? – .Raven  .talk 20:49, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

Corpus of sources

Now, questioning the appropriateness of additional cites / bibliography entries / external links:

• Alli, Antero (December 31, 2020). "Neuropharmacy of an Eight-Circuit Brain: On the Induction of Eight Different Types of Trance". Talking Raven.
• Alli, Antero (January 1, 2021). "The Eight-Circuit Brain". Vertical Pool Publishing. [webpage related to book]
• Buyukberber, Can (May 2011). "8th Circuit (VIII Circuit)". Bēhance. [Artwork inspired by Leary's concept]
• Clark, Paul (Feb 4, 2015). "The 8-Circuit Model of Consciousness: A Lurker's Guide". Erowid. (Originally published on Hyperreal).
• Ekeberg, Dennis (2012). "Corpus Technologica: En religionshistorisk analys av Robert Anton Wilsons version av The Eight Circuit Model of Consciousness i ljuset av den västerländska esoterismen" [Corpus Technologica: A Religious-Historical Analysis of Robert Anton Wilson's Version of The Eight Circuit Model of Consciousness in the Light of Western Esotericism]. DIVA (Södertörns högskola) (in Swedish). [Thesis.]
• Greathouse, Jay (July 18, 2022). "The Eight-Circuit Consciousness Model". Epoch Eclipse.
• Huguelit, Laurent (January 2014). The Shamanic Path to Quantum Consciousness (PDF). Bear & Company. ISBN 978-1-59143-167-1. [English translation from French original: Les Huit Circuits de Conscience: Chamanisme Cybernétique et Pouvoir Créateur, 2012, Mama Editions.] {{cite book}}: |website= ignored (help)
• Leary, Timothy (2019). Clark, Matthew (ed.). Eight Circuits of the Brain. Psychedelic Press. ISBN 978-0-9928088-9-1.
• Leszai, Nick Leszai (March 7, 2023). "About Fifth Circuit Coaching". Fifth Circuit. [Links to this Wikipedia article for further information on the Eight Circuit Brain Model.]
• Wilson, Robert Anton (2003). "Maybe Logic: Illustrated Interview". American-Buddha.com. Archived from the original on March 17, 2015 – via Wayback Machine.
• Wilson, Robert Anton (June 27, 2013). "Timothy Leary's Eight Circuits of Consciousness". Dharma Overground. [Extended quote from Cosmic Trigger I: The Final Secret of the Illuminati.]
• Wilson, Robert Anton (April 7, 2016). "Sounds True Session 3: Robert Anton Wilson Explains Everything, -or- Old Bob Exposes His Ignorance". HappySleepy.com.

... ranging from web summaries of the books, to a short printed compilation (for sale) of Leary's writings on just this topic, to artwork inspired by it, to a translation of a French book on the topic (and shamanism), to a taped interview with Wilson. Use the links if you like, folks, go there and read/see/hear the materials if you like, and... if you would, please... tell me which of these you find worth posting. For my education in your preferences, so to speak. I'll probably put more here, on the same terms, eventually. I'd rather discuss here than see edit-wars. Thanks! – .Raven  .talk 01:48, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

Additional threaded comments / Responses to OP

• There is no commentary on this as a religion, science or whatever. Look at the Buddhism article. It is rife with third party independent sources that discuss Buddhism. And many of the sources are discussed from the perspective of psychology. This eight circuits is not Buddhism. It is Leary and Wilson's good idea and part of the New Age movement. Then Randy defines Eight Circuits as concerned with human consciousness. Well that pertains to psychology. Also, it is not clear what eight circuits is other than made up jargon and unsupported claims. Anyone is welcome to create a sandbox page and then propose that for this article. In any case the burden is on Randy. ---Steve Quinn (talk) 16:13, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

• Thank you Steve: I understand your concerns. Personally, I do not propose to present the subject primarily as a religious work. My personal feeling is that the best descriptor for the 8CMoC is that it is a work of modern day western esotericism. After I first used that term in the post above, I did a quick keyword search of the talk page and found that three other users had invoked similar terminology on this talk page at various points. It makes me wonder: if four of us independently arrived at this description, might there be a source out there that has done so as well? I was actually going to start there: most of us have done independent searches for sources on this topic: has anyone seen something to this effect or in the ballpark? Regardless, I do believe there is a way to describe the topic with a lead based in the sourcing we do have confirmed which makes it clear that this is a non-scientific topic, without the need specifically invoke religion ('mysticism' would probably be involved though). SnowRise ^{let's rap} 16:30, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

No, you didn't present this as a religious work, but Randy has when equating this to Buddhism. So, I wasn't challenging you or your definition. Also, even if you want to define it as western esotericism or anything else, third person independent sources will be needed.

If you want to call it Woo-Woo-Wonka, independent sources are needed. That is the point, in order to qualify for an article on Wikipedia. -Steve Quinn (talk) 16:56, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

You're preaching to the choir, Ste-migo. Thankfully, it does not seem I was barking up the wrong tree: for sources explicitly linking the the 8CMoC and/or Leary and Wilson's collaborations to 'esotericism' I found an encyclopedia entry, a research fellowship that explored this precise link and may have generated some published work product of one form or another for us to track down, an essay, and a corpus on new age philosophies. There were at least a half dozen others I found abstracts for but were either behind paywalls nit amongst the databases I have access to, or documents I was having technical issues loading, but which I think do connect the topics, and my search was far from exhaustive (first three pages on Google and Google Scholar results each, using a conominal search for the model and the term. This seems like a promising start for this descriptor at least. SnowRise ^{let's rap} 17:19, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

Many people have referred to Buddhism as a philosophy rather than religion, because it does not involve the worship of any deity/ies. (I tend not to agree with that, being a Religious Humanist myself, and suggest that theism is not a definition of religion.) That Leary has borrowed from "Eastern spiritual traditions which perceive all objects and phenomena as various interrelated aspects of a single supreme reality" makes Randy's comparison apt. – .Raven  .talk 19:38, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

• I think I agree with all of that (SnowRise, RandyKryn) broadly speaking, and I think this topic should be treated about like Freudian/Jungian psychoanalysis. My concerns about redirecting are that it could actually lend more credence to the idea by burying it in squished-down form in Leary's article, with less modern source material making it clear that it's not proper science; and if developed further it could overwhelm Leary's article (thus necessitating a re-split back into separate article); and other writers like Wilson are strongly associated with this topic, which would make the redirect confusing to readers. Even if we wanted to approach this entirely from a FRINGE stance, instead of more anthropologically as an artifact of the "Age of Aquarius", there is no reason to merge it away; lots and lots of fringe topics have their own articles, and they are great loci at which to demonstrate that the topics are pseudo-scientific. I'll remind that all we need for a stand-alone article is in-depth coverage in multiple reliable sources that are independent of the subject. I think this basically makes a stand-alone article inevitable, even if it doesn't end up looking all that much like the exact present text, because various other people will have written about this, even if just to scoff and debunk. E.g., in briefly looking around on Google Scholar, I find (amid some "newage" material) things like an article in Explorations in Media Ecology[1], a chapter in Ketamine for Treatment-resistant Depression[2], a presentation from the International Conference on Arts and Cultural Management[3], books like The New Science of Psychedelics: At the Nexus of Culture, Consciousness, and Spirituality[4], etc., etc. Not sure of the source quality yet, just saying finding independent material to check out is trivially easy. (PS: Yes, there is commentary on this as a religious/spiritual subject; the material I dismiss as "newage", because I'm anti-religious across the board, can also be approached as sincere faith writing.) — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  16:20, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

• Thank you for this SMcCandlish. For some context, there were a couple of people who !voted to redirect on something along WP:N lines, but others, myself included, originally supported a standalone article and agreed the topic was almost certainly notable, but were persuaded to support a temporary redirect as a WP:PAGEDECIDE matter, because we felt that, although there should be an article ultimately, the recent version of the article was too much of an issue in terms of verifiability/MEDRS, weight, and WP:FRINGE. The idea was to leave the talk page and article history in tact until someone sandboxed a reliable, policy-consistent version. We may yet return to that approach if this discussion fails. However, even more ideal in my opinion would be generating said article now, if we can manage a meeting of the minds that has thus far eluded us. I think you have identified two more descriptors likely to fall into an appropriate lead "New Age" and "spiritual". Though I do think we need to be careful of linking the topic too closely with any particular past spiritual traditions, except in the case of those for which we have a clear attribution in a source for such a connection. Even then, such links would probably better for a lower section than the lead, would you agree? SnowRise ^{let's rap} 16:42, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

Regarding rebranding the model as "spiritual" or whatever, I'll note that it's been explicitly characterized both as an effort at abandoning spiritual/religious themes and as Leary's attempt at restoring his scientific credibility. From Higgs pg 236-237:

Instead he went in the other direction, eradicating any vestiges of spiritual thought from his writing and aiming for a scientific, or pseudo-scientific, approach. This was evident when he attempted to remove religious phrases from reissued past writings. A sentence such as "The relentless web of Karma," for example, was somewhat tortuously rewritten as "The relentless web of Mind Mirror,"" and the meaning of the passage, to the casual reader at least, was lost.

This was evidence of an increasing atheism in Leary's philosophy. For Tim, the brain and nervous system were everything. He had no time for calls to any form of divinity beyond it. This is clearly illustrated in the addition of an eighth level to his consciousness levels mindmap, a system that now became known as the Eight Circuit Theory. People like Brian Barritt believed that beyond the seventh level was a profound experience that stripped you of your identity and merged you with some divine other, a "White Light" or "Godhead" that is familiar from most religious teachings. What Tim was doing with his eighth level was effectively reclaiming this experience as a product of the nervous system, describing it as some barely imaginable shift of consciousness to an atomic level, and thus denying the need for any form of external divinity. [...]

This appears to be a product of Leary's main strategy for regaining his credibility: that of seeming to concentrate on issues other than psychedelics. What was controversial, after all, about speculating about the evolution of the human race, both past and future? In this instance his attempt at scientific credibility was doomed to fail, partly because he was the infamous Timothy Leary and his reputation would always tower over him, but mainly because it simply isn't good science to create a theoretical model and claim that it represents different things at the same time. This thinking was, essentially, occult or mystical, and would never be taken seriously by the establishment.

Regarding the other sources brought up:

The Explorations source is probably not RS. The Ketamine piece only has a single sentence on the model: Dr. Timothy Leary, a psychologist and associate of Dr. Lilly, discussed the use of ketamine in his Eight-Circuit Model of Consciousness hypothesis as one of the methods of activating one of the circuits in his book Exo-Psychology, published in 1977. The presentation is also only one sentence The music released under those labels, indeed coined as “cosmic music”, was very influenced by Thimoty [sic] Leary’s “eight-circuit model of consciousness" and shared the distinctive characteristic of relying on repetitive, contemplative music. David Jay Brown is a solidly FRINGE author so wouldn't be an acceptable source.

I do think there's likely enough coverage from Higgs and other biographers to support a reasonably detailed section on the model, but we still need a lot more sourcing providing contextualization re: the mainstream. JoelleJay (talk) 20:26, 18 June 2023 (UTC)

So, this passage is partially convincing but it does still end with the line This thinking was, essentially, occult or mystical, and would never be taken seriously by the establishment. That's my immediate impression of the 8CM: it's a work of obvious mysticism that borrows some secular-sounding vocabulary the same way Christian Science borrows the word "science" for what is essentially faith healing, or the way UFO cults like the Raelians use words like "aliens" and "cloning" to mean something a lot like what Abrahamic religions would call "angels" and "heaven".

Also, that the 8CM is not theistic doesn't mean that it's not occultism or mysticism. There's lots of mystic or occult traditions that don't believe in a god or gods, and even a few atheistic religions (like, hey, Raelianism again). Loki (talk) 02:05, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

For my part, I have not engaged enough with these sources yet to have a very good read on the question of how to frame the amount of mysticism/occultism that should be reflected in our description, and I am happy to defer to the interpretation(s) of those who have for the time being. What I will say though is that what I have read suggests that we will probably want to avoid saying one way or the other in wikivoice and instead include multiple attributed statements that will help the reader contextualize in that way. Not so much in a "teach the controversy" kind of way, because I doubt these sources engage with eachother very much or even necessarily approach the subject from the same disciplines/utilize the same lens/language/framing. But more in a "include a span of voices and hope the collective pastiche presents a fairly accurate picture." kind of way. Does that make any sense to the rest of you? I'm exhausted again, and not trusting my articulation. :) SnowRise ^{let's rap} 10:27, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

One thing which might help would be to first try and describe the history of the "model" from mindmaps to 8-circuits with the changes in between. Maybe due to which sources i read first—or not really having much interest in the subject—i just see the "model" as a vehicle for Leary to express whatever opportunistic idea he had a the time. JoelleJay pointed to some above, and in 1979 Leary was also downplaying the the drug angle and moving from Starseed to O'Neill cylinder space migration, so the description of which drugs activate which circuits are out and we get post-terrestrial levels. Mysticism, philosophy, psychology, scifi, whatever...if someone can read something into a version of Leary's writing then that's what is for them. Telling the story of the versions of the model, what was happening with Leary at the time, and the various notable reactions to each version seems like it could be enough for an article? fiveby(zero) 14:55, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

Structuring the middle sections of the article on that rough kind of evolutionary framework would have other advantages too. For example, the current versions of the circuit subdheaders just read like loose conglomerations of facts, without context or reason. Much of it may well be faithful to various versions of the 'model', but it doen't paint a very clear picture of what any one version says. And given the sources we are working from and Leary's own capability for reinvention of his work, we can't always expect it to be rational and straight forward, but the flip side of that is we might occasionally have to lose statements that we can't put in context, for the sake of the prose. Regardless, it's going to take some research. And we'll have to be careful to respect the concerns of those who want the primary sources to not dominate this article. I think that concern will be alleviated some once we have a much higher proportion of reliable secondary sources worked into the article anyway? Not altogether, surely, but there's also the fact that we have some secondary sources now that talk about various versions. Some of it from the new age corners might end up being a little fawny, but might still be useful for the rare confirmation of what this or that version included. Anyway, a psuedo-narrative/timeline would be worth exploring as a possible structure, I agree. SnowRise ^{let's rap} 15:17, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

Separating the bibliography and maybe using grouped references could help alleviate concerns with citing primary sources? I'm pretty anti-WP where it comes to use of citations, if it's useful to the reader to point to the location within a work with a citation go ahead, even if that work is "unreliable". But both editors and readers need to be aware of how the citation is being used, in a WP:V sense or just a pointer for the reader. Probably the most useful thing for someone researching Leary/Wilson/model would be to point to which work they should go read if they'd like to learn more. So some citations to those works, but limited, at some point the reader is probably better served by told to read NeuroLogic or Prometheus Rising if they are interested rather than trying to include all the details in an introductory encyclopedia article. fiveby(zero) 16:24, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

I've previously noted that Leary is the only "primary" author on his own idea, while Wilson and Alli are "secondary" on Leary's idea but "primary" on their own changed versions – so the same book might be "primary" or "secondary" depending on what it's being cited for – where would we place them in such a separated bibliography?

> "the reader is probably better served by told to read NeuroLogic or Prometheus Rising" — the Sandbox lede paragraph names several books, three of them wiki-linked to articles. Does this not suggest reading them (the articles and the books)? – .Raven  .talk 17:33, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

I'm not sure that fiveby was suggesting groupings necessarily specifically along the lines the lines of primary/secondary, as that would be atypical for a ref section, so I would recommend we avoid re-igniting that debate needlessly in this context. If we did use that approach, I don't doubt the consensus would be that Wilson and Alli belong in a primary section because even if you can make the argument they are secondary for purpose of review of any one of Leary's works, they are not secondary as to the subject of the article itself, and it is at the article/subject level that we would be sorting. I'd like to hear more from fiveby on the subject, but I suspect they were suggesting sorting by author, which I certainly see no harm in. Three sections for the three authors up top, an amalgamated section for critical commentary and purely secondary below these, maybe? We needn't mark the top three as primary if that matters to anyone, but they should be group together at the least. SnowRise ^{let's rap} 03:23, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

I think organized bibliographies are great for the reader and wish they were more common on WP so thanks .Raven for changing to sfn formatting. Hope this discussion isn't too distracting as i really don't view citations the same way most other editors seem to. I was just trying to address the concerns of those who want the primary sources to not dominate and i agree that they shouldn't for content. Article content should mostly flow from such as Higgs and McCray, but it might be useful for the reader to have quite a few citations to Leary, Wilson, and (maybe) Alli. I don't know if JoelleJay and others would have a problem with a large number of citations to Leary, as long as the bulk of article content were generated from the critical sources? If so, grouped references was just a suggestion for making the use of citations more explicit for the editors and readers. I like the division in the bibliography you've proposed. fiveby(zero) 15:47, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

I'm glad you enjoy sfns. I'd done the same in my (quickly reverted) edit on the main article. I see and understand your revised (separated) bibliography. May I make one suggestion? Have "Original works about the model" (Leary, Wilson, Alli) *first*, and "Other works" second? Does that make sense? – .Raven  .talk 18:07, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

> "as long as the bulk of article content were generated from the critical sources?"

Wow, as much criticism as detailed description? Heavy. Currently we've got the brief "Responses" section moved up right after the lede, which is unusual in itself. If that's expanded to half or more of the total article, we might want to move it after the description, otherwise readers will have to plow through a whole lot of "this is wrong" before they can see what "this" even consists of. Or split it, so that brief notice is up top like now, and full-length debunk-mode comes later. Thoughts? – .Raven  .talk 20:56, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

Critical commentary and critical sources do not mean that: a whole lot of "this is wrong". Criticism is detailed analysis and evaluation on the merits, basically shorthand for independent scholarly sources, those taking a critical look an idea or work as opposed to proponents of the idea. fiveby(zero) 13:18, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

Again, should that be "before they can see what 'this' even consists of", or after, or a bit before and the rest after? – .Raven  .talk 17:40, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

Typically, it's both: at a minimum, the lead needs to frame the critical reception, and often there will be additional contextualization before we get into the weeds of what the proponents of a concept or theory have to say about it in their own terms. Just how much contextualizationis frontended can vary, but for controversial and/or fringe and psuedoscientific topics, it is typically considered prudent to err on the side of caution and make sure there is as much contextualization as necessary to frame anything that follows in the appropriate light, lest we risk presenting fringe notions as legitimate mainstream ideas, once we start talking about them directly in wikivoice.

Further, often we don't like to talk about what proponents have to say about their ideas in their own terms and vastly prefer descriptive sections based primarily on secondary sources, which is part of the pushback here against the previous versions of the article, from what I can tell--which makes a lot of sense. If such a section talking about the topic based primarily upon the works that put those notions out into the world (here, Leary, Wilson, and Alli) is going to be indulged here, it's going to need to come wrapped in a substantial package of critical reception, or else I see no way of selling it to the majority of other editors here who are sketpical that we even have the sourcing to just a policy-consistent article at this time. Despite efforts to bridge the gap between the sides here, there is still a very significant chance of a backslide towards the majority preferring a WP:TNT approach here, if we don't present them something that address the significant issues with WP:FRINGE in previous versions.

In that respect, a lead section that makes the critical takes (critical in the sense that fiveby describes above, whether positive, negative, or mixed) clear (i.e. framing this as esoterism/new age concept/mysticism/psuedoscience/whathaveyou but not science in any event), is the first most important thing. But the concern for context is also why I pointed out that your placing the reception section a little higher than normal, as is sometimes done with other controversial topics, makes a lot of sense too. Wherever it's put though, that section should be made as robust as we can make it, with the current sourcing. SnowRise ^{let's rap} 19:26, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

> "work to contextualize this as a non-scientific work" – I did, with a change to the short description (replacing "Hypothesis" with "Philosophical concept"), adding "as psychological philosophy (abbreviated 'psy-phi')" to the lede paragraph, and revamping another paragraph on Leary's blend of sources including "Eastern spiritual traditions"... which was deleted by others. I've been stressing that here on talk. So has Randy. We've both gotten attacked as PROFRINGE for that, which is bitterly ironic, since calling a religious or philosophical concept even "fringe science", i.e. on the fringes of science, is more promotion of that concept than calling it NON-science. Are you now inviting me to try kicking the football again? – .Raven  .talk 19:33, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

It's probably worth mentioning that this is not even really philosophy, or if it was it would also be WP:FRINGE philosophy. Western esotericism or New Age mysticism is a lot closer to what it seems to be. Leary's intended audience appears to have been people who agreed with him about the spiritual potential of psychedelics, and not academics of any kind. Loki (talk) 19:52, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

> "This is not even really philosophy"
So the sentence that replaced the paragraph about sources should now read:
'The model lacks philosophical credibility....'?
Sources for that, please? – .Raven  .talk 21:11, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

Seems like a request to prove a negative. Suffice to say, the citations to this idea do not come from academic philosophy. Probably best not to mention philosophy at all. jps (talk) 22:35, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

Are [Western] academicians the only philosophers?

From Timothy Leary: "He took LSD and developed a philosophy of mind expansion and personal truth through LSD.[12][13]"
[12] Isralowitz, Richard (May 14, 2004). Drug Use: A Reference Handbook. ABC-CLIO. p. 183. ISBN 978-1576077085. Retrieved April 1, 2016. Leary explored the cultural and philosophical implications of psychedelic drugs
[13] Donaldson, Robert H. (2015). Modern America: A Documentary History of the Nation Since 1945. Routledge. p. 128. ISBN 978-0765615374. Retrieved April 1, 2016. Leary not only used and distributed the drug, he founded a sort of LSD philosophy of use that involved aspects of mind expansion and the revelation of personal truth through 'dropping acid'.

BTW, please notice that at the top of this page is a link to WikiProject Philosophy / Mind, and (perhaps as a result?) the topic has been mentioned on this page before, e.g. User 1: "Leary did not create the Eight Circuit Model... as it comes from Hindu Tantra philosophy. Therefore, you can call Leary's theory 'pseudoscientific' just as much as you can say that Tantra is pseudoscience. Of course, saying this would be nonsense, because these things are completely unrelated to Cartesian science, both in space and time: which means that you can't say that they pretend to be it." / User 2: "Leary's 8 circuits are a PHILOSOPHY. They may be applicable in psychology, but philosophy's what they are." / User 3: "I think what we are really dealing with is an early form of transhumanist philosophy...." – .Raven  .talk 06:21, 18 June 2023 (UTC)

Philosophy is a very broad word and can mean a lot of things. Is the 8CM a personal philosophy? Arguably, sure. But it's definitely not a work of academic philosophy, which is a specific field with standards and journals that Leary never even attempted to publish in.

I think because of this we should avoid saying that the 8CM is a philosophy (outside of quotes), because of the possible confusion with academic philosophy. Loki (talk) 01:47, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

[Western] academic philosophy is only a subset of philosophy overall... unless you're aware of much Western academic coverage of such as Oriental philosophy (Hindu, Buddhist, Taoist), or New Age.

What about saying "New Age philosophy" (of Leary's work generally) or "New Age philosophical concept" (of the 8CM)?

Or perhaps (again of Leary's work generally) "transhumanist philosophy", viz. this saying of an Alphaville album (Afternoons in Utopia): References to the smiles of lovers and friends throughout the album are actually spelled out in the liner notes as an acronym: "SMI²LE," the transhumanist concept of "Space Migration, Increased Intelligence, and Life Extension" made popular by Timothy Leary. [emphasis added] – .Raven  .talk 02:18, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

Leary as co-author vs "collaborator"

@Snow Rise: Currently, as in your first draft, the lede paragraph has "... and later expanded upon in collaboration with Robert Anton Wilson, in his books Cosmic Trigger (1977) and Prometheus Rising (1983)..." [emphasis added] — which I left in place rather than change the boldfaced part to "by", because I'm not sure in what sense you mean "collaboration".

Leary and Wilson co-authored The Game of Life together; both names so credited on the book.

However, only Wilson's name is on Cosmic Trigger and Prometheus Rising as author. Whatever conversations the two men may have had, and despite their co-authoring a previous book, Leary is not credited as a writer on these two books.

Have you any source to indicate Leary participated in their writing? Then in what sense were they written "in collaboration"? Please explain. Thank you. – .Raven  .talk 17:51, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

Hey Raven: I meant rather that the two collaborated on the development of the model itself, but not necessarily those individual books, but I can see how someone would take the meaning you did from the way it was phrased: please feel free to make whatever adjustments you feel are appropriate to make the relationship more clear, which I adapted a bit from a previous version of the lead in order to get all three authors into the lead sentence. So long as the lead reflects that Leary was the primary author (speaking here in the abstract sense, not in regard to our sourcing policy) and Wilson and Alli the secondary and tertiary respectively, I think just about anything should be fine. We don't even necessarily need to list all the books in the lead, especially those without their own articles: it's maybe not the most essential information there, so long as it is reflected below. SnowRise ^{let's rap} 03:15, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

Then "by" instead of "in collaboration with" would probably meet your needs, because then it would be "... and later expanded upon by Robert Anton Wilson [name two books] and by Antero Alli [name two books]" — leaving Leary primary and the other two not. Acceptable? – .Raven  .talk 05:19, 20 June 2023 (UTC)