#145 – Matthew Johnson: Psychedelics
Lex Fridman Podcast
Lex Fridman
4.7 • 13.6K Ratings
🗓️ 14 December 2020
⏱️ 220 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Matthew W. Johnson is a professor and psychedelics researcher at Johns Hopkins. Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors:
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EPISODE LINKS:
Matt’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/Drug_Researcher
Matt’s Website: https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/profiles/results/directory/profile/0800020/matthew-johnson
Study Website: https://hopkinspsychedelic.org/
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OUTLINE:
Here’s the timestamps for the episode. On some podcast players you should be able to click the timestamp to jump to that time.
(00:00) – Introduction
(06:31) – Introduction to psychedelics
(22:33) – Psychedelics expand the mind
(25:44) – The priors we bring to the psychedelic experience
(29:40) – Elon Musk and first principles thinking
(40:10) – DMT
(51:32) – Joe Rogan and DMT
(57:40) – The nature of drug addiction
(1:11:29) – The economics of drug pricing
(1:17:44) – Should we legalize all drugs?
(1:29:46) – What is the most dangerous drug?
(1:32:20) – Does drug prohibition work?
(1:36:14) – Cocaine and sex
(1:43:15) – Risky sexual decisions
(1:54:12) – Psilocybin helping people quit smoking
(2:00:30) – Young Jamie
(2:22:38) – Participating in a study
(2:29:57) – Psychedelics and the human mind
(2:37:20) – The future of psychedelics
(2:40:01) – Neuralink
(2:49:33) – Consciousness
(3:02:15) – Panpsychism
(3:12:20) – Aliens and DMT
(3:22:24) – Mortality
(3:32:12) – Meaning of life
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The following is a conversation with Matthew Johnson, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral |
| 0:04.9 | science at John Hopkins, and is one of the top scientists in the world conducting seminal |
| 0:10.7 | research on psychedelics. |
| 0:13.5 | This was one of the most eye-opening and fascinating conversations I've ever had on this podcast. |
| 0:19.8 | I'm sure I'll talk with Matt many more times. |
| 0:22.7 | Quick mention of the sponsor followed by some thoughts related to the episode. |
| 0:26.8 | Thank you to a new sponsor, Brave, a fast browser that feels like Chrome but has more |
| 0:32.9 | privacy-preserving features. |
| 0:35.0 | In Euro, the maker of functional sugar free gum and mince that I use to give my brain |
| 0:40.6 | a quick caffeine boost, for sigmatic, the maker of delicious mushroom coffee. |
| 0:46.7 | I'm just not realizing how ironic the set of sponsors are, and cash app. |
| 0:52.0 | The app I use to send money to friends. |
| 0:54.8 | Please check out the sponsors in the description to get a discount and support this podcast. |
| 1:00.2 | As a side note, let me say that psychedelics is an area of study that is fascinating to |
| 1:04.9 | me. |
| 1:05.9 | In that it gives hints that much of the magic of our experience arises from just a few |
| 1:10.5 | chemical interactions in the brain, and that the nature of that experience can be expanded |
| 1:16.0 | through the tools of biology, chemistry, physics, neuroscience, and artificial intelligence. |
| 1:23.4 | The fact that a world-class scientist and researcher like Matt can apply a rigor to our study |
| 1:28.7 | of this mysterious and fascinating topic is exciting to me beyond words. |
| 1:34.3 | As is the case with any of my colleagues who dared to venture out into the darkness of |
| 1:39.0 | all that is unknown about the human mind, with both an openness of first principle thinking |
... |
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