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Programming & Metaprogramming in the Human Biocomputer: Theory & Experiments
In this pioneering study, renowned scientist Dr. John C. Lilly explodes our sense of the boundaries of the human brain, as he details his controversial experiments with exploring the mind's vast potential. Starting from the position that man is essentially a biological computer, Lilly explains we are all born with some "programs"--such as eating, sleeping, and feeling pain--ingrained in our genetic code. Our ability to take in new information and to develop ideas beyond these innate programs depends on our capacity for "metaprogramming," or learning to learn. Here Lilly documents both the methods and results of his famous experiments with expanding the mind's metaprogramming power with LSD and sensory deprivation. By altering the brain's normal operations with psychotropic substances or freeing it of the need to create a safe environment, the range of human thought, Lilly contends, can be increased beyond any previous expectations. Combining intellectual creativity and scientific rigor, Programming and Metaprogramming in the Human Biocomputer provides intriguing insights into the workings of the brain and the process of thought.
160 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1968
About the author
John C. Lilly
44 books184 followersJohn Cunningham Lilly was an American physician, neuroscientist, psychoanalyst, psychonaut, philosopher, writer and inventor.
He was a researcher of the nature of consciousness using mainly isolation tanks, dolphin communication, and psychedelic drugs, sometimes in combination.
He was a researcher of the nature of consciousness using mainly isolation tanks, dolphin communication, and psychedelic drugs, sometimes in combination.
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Displaying 1 - 27 of 27 reviews
August 4, 2012
The first third of this book is intended to screen out the people who shouldn't read the rest.
July 14, 2008
If you're looking for a mad scientist who turned his back on the scientific establishment to pursue the wonders of inner space and altered states of consciousness, you couldn't do better (at least in the 20th century) than John Lilly. If you're looking for a book that isn't just another series of head-trips but rather a how-to manual, this is a great one. Lilly embodied both the iconoclast and the scientific observer. Perhaps he came closer than any other to the development of a model of study that embraces both scientific analysis as well as consideration of subjective inner states.
June 9, 2014
I had a copy of this book as well as two others by Lilly that I greatly treasured. After moving house more times than I care to count, I confess to having lost those volumes somewhere along the way. A pity because Lilly's work has always been an inspiration to me. He was a controversial and scholarly researcher who was not afraid to undertake research on a particular issue simply because it made his colleagues uneasy. LSD's potentially useful mental health applications and the value of complete sensory deprivation in a flotation tank to learn more about psychosis brought on by prolonged isolation made a lot of scientists treat Lilly as a pariah. That never deterred him. However, Dr. Lilly was ultimately most famous for his research in interspecies communications using captive wild Dolphins. His methods and procedures were scientifically impeccable but he came to realise that the Dolphins had a level of consciousness on a par with or superior to that of humans. The finding shocked him. The ethical implication of keeping a sentient species captive for his scientific convenience was clear to him: it was not acceptable. What he had learned from his work with the Dolphins in his specially designed tanks was that interspecies communication was not only feasible, it was inevitable once we stop assuming that animals are "inferior" to humans. At the time (early 1960s), the primary differences between Humans and Animals were the human invention of language and the use of tools. Starting in the late 60s and early 70s, however, it became apparent that animals are capable of creating both language and tools and had done so for a long time. As better field observation protocols developed, the assumptions based on unique human language and tool-making began to fall away. Much of the credit for that should go to Dr. Lilly. He had a brilliant mind and an independent spirit that refused to conform to other people's definitions of "normal" which was only a synonym for mediocrity in his book.
I am delighted that Programming and Metaprogramming is back in print. Some books should never go out of print.
I am delighted that Programming and Metaprogramming is back in print. Some books should never go out of print.
December 9, 2012
Reads like a COBOL program. If you liked "The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge", maybe you'll like this.
January 4, 2008
This book that taught me that the space alien voices in my mind are really products of my subconcious and then showed me how to talk to dolphins. That was *before* I took the LSD. Highly recommended reading.
December 20, 2010
An outstanding book about our human nature - a deep analysis without taboos or dogmas.
July 5, 2023
John C. Lilly seems to be the only person who has done serious studies on the effects of psychedelics. Every other "researcher" either sets out to prove they're harmful by looking at it from the outside and comparing it to psychosis without having tried it themselves, or otherwise their only goal is to advertise them to the masses by appealing to religious and supernatural mythologies. The most famous authors on psychedelics from the 1970s onward (Terence McKenna, Robert Anton Wilson, Rick Strassman, etc.) are all a bunch of delusional pseudoscientists trying to build a cult around themselves. Prior to the hippie era, more educated people like Timothy Leary, Aldous Huxley, and Alan Watts were more into making comparisons between the psychedelic experience and Buddhism than seeking out the differences between the psychological processes of the high and sober mind. These early writers did not veer into pseudoscience territory talking about aliens, ESP, or other idiotic things you're tired of hearing from your stoner friends, but they never tried to discuss the effects of psychedelics psychologically, philosophically, or scientifically. John C. Lilly was the first and probably the last person to attempt this with moderate success. Clearly psychedelics does something other than cause a list of symptoms, but that's no reason to go to the extreme of saying it allows you to communicate with beings from other worlds. Instead of naively believing in the hallucinations, John C. Lilly correctly identifies them as projections from one's inner imagination onto the white noise generated by the psychedelics.
I once theorized that lethal doses of psychedelics that aren't due to accidents in the external world come from the subjective experience itself, the white noise and hallucinations becoming so intense that the subject loses control or allows themselves to dissociate to such a degree that they end up forgetting everything, even how to breathe. Even on smaller doses, one could reprogram some of the vital programs required to survive, leading to immediate or gradual death. Or they could simply abandon their body and die. It would be difficult to prove or disprove this without risking considerable psychological damage but it's interesting to see the same idea introduced in this book, which states that when the white noise becomes too intense it could lead to unconsciousness or even death at high levels.
The problem with scientists studying psychedelics in general in that they aren't willing to admit that there's such a thing as free will, and that through the use of free will people can make changes within themselves. The reason why results are so varied and unpredictable is because there's no formula to people's choices. Observing from the outside a living being as if they're a piece of stone, scientists get frustrated and confused by the fact that humans don't operate like inorganic matter. I blame this on the way they're taught in industrial-age universities, with years of research in the lab or in school memorizing theorems and playing with corpses. Suddenly introduced to the real world they're often unwilling to face the new complexities of having to deal with other egos doing their own thing independently of the data collected and patterns observed by statisticians who desperately wish to reduce humans into algorithms. Because of this limitation in the scientific method, they're compelled to deny the subjective experiences of others, and even themselves, preventing them from understanding anything beyond the superficial view of an outsider voyeuristically projecting their own observations onto all of humanity, just like how paranoiacs might hear conversations in TV static just because it occurs to them to listen for it.
Anyone interesting in psychedelics or human consciousness should read this. The only real problem is that it seems like it's just an introduction to the ideas presented, and it needs to be expanded and elaborated upon in a much larger book.
Once one abandons the use of projection of external reality equivalents from storage, new phenomena appear. Thought and feeling take over the spaces formerly occupied by external reality equivalents. (In the older terminology ego expands to fill the subjectively appreciated inner universe). "Infinity" similar to that in the usual real visual space is also involved and one has the feeling that one's self extends infinitely out in all directions. The self is still centered at one place but its boundaries have disappeared and it moves out in all directions and extends to fill the limits of the universe as far as one knows them. The explanation of this phenomenon is that one has merely taken over the perception spaces and filled them with programs, metaprograms, and selfmetaprograms which are now modified in the inner perception as if external reality equivalents. This transform, this special mental state, to be appreciated must be experienced directly.
In one's ordinary experience there are dreams which have something of this quality and which show this kind of a phenomenon.
At this level various evasions of realization of what is happening can take place. One can "imagine" that one is traveling through the real universe past suns, galaxies, etc. One can "imagine" that one is communicating with other beings in these other universes. However, scientifically speaking, it is fairly obvious that one is not doing any of these things and that one's basic beliefs determine what one experiences here. Therefore we say that the ordinary perception spaces, the ordinary projection spaces, are now filled with cognition and conation processes. This seems to be a more reasonable point of view to take than the oceanic feeling, the at oneness with the universe as fusing with Universal Mind as reported in the literature by others for these phenomena. These states (or direct perceptions of reality as they have been called) are one's thought and feeling expanding into the circuitry in one's computer usually occupied by perception of external reality in each and every mode, including vision, audition, proprioception, etc.
I once theorized that lethal doses of psychedelics that aren't due to accidents in the external world come from the subjective experience itself, the white noise and hallucinations becoming so intense that the subject loses control or allows themselves to dissociate to such a degree that they end up forgetting everything, even how to breathe. Even on smaller doses, one could reprogram some of the vital programs required to survive, leading to immediate or gradual death. Or they could simply abandon their body and die. It would be difficult to prove or disprove this without risking considerable psychological damage but it's interesting to see the same idea introduced in this book, which states that when the white noise becomes too intense it could lead to unconsciousness or even death at high levels.
The problem with scientists studying psychedelics in general in that they aren't willing to admit that there's such a thing as free will, and that through the use of free will people can make changes within themselves. The reason why results are so varied and unpredictable is because there's no formula to people's choices. Observing from the outside a living being as if they're a piece of stone, scientists get frustrated and confused by the fact that humans don't operate like inorganic matter. I blame this on the way they're taught in industrial-age universities, with years of research in the lab or in school memorizing theorems and playing with corpses. Suddenly introduced to the real world they're often unwilling to face the new complexities of having to deal with other egos doing their own thing independently of the data collected and patterns observed by statisticians who desperately wish to reduce humans into algorithms. Because of this limitation in the scientific method, they're compelled to deny the subjective experiences of others, and even themselves, preventing them from understanding anything beyond the superficial view of an outsider voyeuristically projecting their own observations onto all of humanity, just like how paranoiacs might hear conversations in TV static just because it occurs to them to listen for it.
Anyone interesting in psychedelics or human consciousness should read this. The only real problem is that it seems like it's just an introduction to the ideas presented, and it needs to be expanded and elaborated upon in a much larger book.
May 15, 2013
The subject is the exploration of human behaviours in solitude with the effect of LSD25 (a recreational drug ) and interpreting the results from a software/programming point of view.It took me a lot of time to just digest the facts, almost 40 hours! It helped me to understand an organizational view of our brain with software and hardware parts and a methodical instruction for self analysis. I read this book as a preface to J C LILLY's "the centre of the cyclone". Since that book is about his personal views about solitude and subject, I thought of getting to know what were the actual theory and experiments, i wouldn't know how much successful I am until i read that book too.I hope i may check for the later advancement of the theory of experiments, of which i am sure there would have been so much improvements after 1960's. I would not recommend this book for those who are not familiar with psychology and its writing language or who doesn't have that much keen interest in behavioural workings of the mind and brain.Otherwise u are bound to end up like me(I am a little puzzled by the language not with the content).Still it is a great chewing gum for natural thinkers.3 star hoping it will be an aid in understanding " the centre me cyclone" impartially.
February 7, 2017
This is an important, influential and historic text. A landmark in research on the scientific and therapeutic uses of LSD. That doesn't make it fun to read. I don't doubt it's significance but beyond its opening remarks on the nature of human consciousness I got very little from it. It's just too dense — or I am. I got much more from listening to Robert Anton Wilson wax lyrical about this book than I did from the book itself.
January 9, 2008
The most honest and comprehensive attempt to date at the empirical examination of the psychedelic experience. This is a technical treatise, and may be somewhat inaccessible to readers without much scientific background.
March 31, 2021
I read this book YEARS ago and I read all of the works of John C Lilly who was widely repudiated and far ahead of his peers. When I was taking Marine Biology at GMU John Lilly did some cutting edge research on Dolphin Human communication which was fascinating. He is a brilliant man. This book is part of his personal journey and the book, which I still own. yes I kept all of his books.. is not what one thinks this about.. I would recommend it for a person who is seeking to understand the Human mind and how we interact with God. (please see his other books, along with the one co written with his Wife)..
December 21, 2022
I read every book by John Lilly in the 60's. Started with "Man and Dolphin" thru "The Center of the Cyclone." I was fascinated by his isolation tank experiments (for humans). In the 70's I was too busy to keep up with his books but in the late 70's or perhaps early 90's I did read "The Dyadic Cyclone: The Autobiography of a Couple."
The description of subjective experiences in his later books, judging by the book jackets, doesn't call to me as much as scientific or rigorous philosophical discussion.
The description of subjective experiences in his later books, judging by the book jackets, doesn't call to me as much as scientific or rigorous philosophical discussion.
August 4, 2023
An interesting read into the mind of the scientist studying LSD25, Isolation tanks and dolphins... Yes, they even made movies about this guy like Altered States... and Mad Magazine spun-off a comic called Altered Statesman (Richard Milhouse)... so what could possibly go wrong using this as a primer to reprogram you brain (laughing). OK, this book would/could have been better if the author was far less clinical and didn't write like he likely talks... like Robby the RObot. but otherwise it was a good read.
February 9, 2024
John Lilly is perhaps my favorite mad scientist. This book is totally off the wall, wholly unique, and anyone who reads it will rightfully scratch their head. But it is also mind-expanding and genius in a “I have delved perhaps too deeply into the secrets of the universe” sort of way. I remember this book twenty years after reading it the first time (discovered when I was in a period of really loving sensory deprivation tanks) quite fondly.
November 28, 2018
Not the easiest book to read, but still great. "The Center of the Cyclone: An Autobiography of Inner Space" is a better place to start reading Lilly.
May 29, 2019
A fascinating, groundbreaking book.
June 10, 2021
Astounding! Not everyone's cup of tea, but for those mostly capable of following along, you have everything to gain, at your own peril of course.
May 16, 2022
there are some interesting practical exercises here, even sober.
December 23, 2022
Seems to all involve LSD
Want to read
February 28, 2007VERY MUCH to-read
January 7, 2008
something
October 3, 2008
had it..then lost it, most fun you can have with LSD and your brain.
July 17, 2019
Literally mind blowing. The very idea that the brain could be programmed just like a computer was extremely radical when it was published...
Currently reading
August 17, 2012Interesting so far. Mildly dry, but very clear. Not sure if I fully agree with all his hypotheses, but he certainly makes the point that that's exactly what they are "hypotheses"...
March 26, 2015
Seminal systems approach to consciously altering mental patterns.
August 2, 2020
If you want to know how the mind works this is the primer.
June 26, 2017
This book comes from the era of cybernetics and associated movements which were humanity's first forays into the study of intelligence phenomena in nature and otherwise. The author studies the human brain and its most common thought patterns from a biochemical and conceptual level by training his subjects to understand the effects of LSD25 and thereafter studies the emergent patterns in the brain. He divides up the brains functions into self programming meta programs, which by today's standards can be thought of as analogous to various processing areas of the brain that have been extensively mapped in primates and humans by neuroscientists. The way he describes the effects of psychedelic substances on the meta programs of the brain is very extensive as he covers standard operations to delusions and beliefs in extraterrestrial beings and Godlike phenomena. The book was quite ahead of its peers when t was published and to this day most of its concepts, be it neurological or computer scientific, have stood the test of time
Displaying 1 - 27 of 27 reviews