2000 - Pesce - Psychedelics and the Creation of Virtual Reality.pdf - Transhumanism - WMatrixie

m a p s • v o l u m e X n u m b e r 3 • c r e a t i v i t y 2 0 0 0

Psychedelics and the Creation of Virtual Reality

Excerpted from an interview with Mark Pesce at the 1999 AllChemical Arts conference

MAPS: How have psychedelics affected your creative

process?

MAPS: Do you ever use psychedelics for problem-solving

tasks? Where you have a specific question in mind, and

then you take psychedelics in search of an answer?

Mark Pesce: IÕm not sure that IÕd be doing any of the work

that IÕm doing now. I donÕt know. I think IÕd probably be

some silly software engineer

working in New England,

unenlightened and bored

with life, without

psychedelics. I can almost

guarantee that. My use of

psychedelics and my

intellectual career essen-

tially began synonymously

somewhere in the first or

second year of college. And

so there was an opening up

that came from the psyche-

delic experience, which

resulted in my becoming

attracted to certain types of

ideasÉcertain types of

research. ItÕs not that it

established the agenda, but

it gave me a magnetic

centerÑthatÕs what the

Gurdjieffians would call it.

But a sense of self that is

very particular. And from

that, what I had to do was

just follow where that center would take me, and listen to

it. And the times in my life when IÕve gotten fucked up are

the times when I havenÕt done that. By the time I got a

little bit older, I was into what Joseph Campbell would call

Òfollowing your bliss.Ó Well, my bliss was revealed through

the psychedelic experience. It wasnÕt achieved through the

psychedelic experience, but it was revealed through the

psychedelic experience. Now, I wonÕt make any attribu-

tions to what the divine is, but if psychedelics reveal the

divine, or allow you to eminentize it, to see it physically,

or this sort of thing, wouldnÕt it make sense for that

moment to be synonymous with the moment of revealing

of what your bliss is? I mean it would be sort of silly for a

divine being to show itself, and to not show you what you

are. That would only be a half revelation, because behold-

ing the divine also means beholding the divine in yourself,

and thatÕs part of what you areÑwhat youÕre doing, why

youÕre there.

Mark: TheyÕve certainly been facilitators or catalysts for

that. The most striking

example is all the

cyberspace protocols that

came to me. I mean

Òwham,Ó it came to me like

that, and I just saw them. I

got the big picture, but the

big picture said, ÒOkay,

well you know roughly

how to make it work. Now

you have to go in and do

the detail, right?Ó I spent

three years doing that

detail work, and out of that

detail work came VMRL,

and some stuff which

youÕll probably still see in a

couple of years. So in that

case it was very directÉ

IÕve done a bunch of

research work on the

ethics and the effects of

virtual environments. And

that also was catalyzed

specifically in a psyche-

delic experience. You know, it was like Òsnap.Ó ItÕs a

moment of clarity. Not like the same AA moment of

clarity, right? But itÕs a moment of clarity, you see it. Just

because you see it, doesnÕt mean that youÕre immediately

able to talk about it. I spent six months with that, and

managed to sort of piece it together, and say, ÒOkay, well

IÕve got this great tapestry up there. All right, I think I see

a relationship within the elements, let me spend some

time with it and get it codified into something thatÕs

visibly solid in feel.Ó

MAPS: It seems to me that one of the things that you are

getting at is the idea of working with the inspirations. I

know that there are a lot of people who take psychedelics

and have inspiring thoughts, or get into an inspiring

realm, and then come out of that and then theyÕre just

looking for their next trip, where they enter into that

inspiring place again. But they donÕt actually ever do

m a p s • v o l u m e X n u m b e r 3 • c r e a t i v i t y 2 0 0 0 5

anything with it. So how do you bring it back?

What is it? Is it just so inspiring that it causes

youÑwhen you are straightÑto think, ÒYeah,

I gotta get to work on this!Ó

tripping. And this is a case of specific usage.

IÕd go back into the space and take a look at

specific parts of it again. And, the funny thing

is IÕd be very methodical and rationalÑ

which is not my normal mode of experience.

Normally IÕm just Òexperiential.Ó But in

these cases I was very methodical.

Mark: I know that there are people who just go

right back to that space, but I think that if you

go right back to that space youÕre just going to

be in the same space again. But with the same

question. And whereÕs that going to get you?

In the cases that IÕm talking about, the vision

doesnÕt fade for a second, right. ItÕs still there.

ItÕs still as tangible as it was the moment it

came. ItÕs not psychedelic. ItÕs not possessed

with that same eminence, but itÕs still as

present. I could ignore it, I suppose, although

IÕve never done that and I wouldnÕt really

want to know how it felt, because I think that

I would feel enormously frustrated insideÑ

that IÕd gotten this thing and I wasnÕt doing

anything with it.

MAPS: While you were tripping?

Mark: Yes! And I had to go back to the person

I was working with, who was my partner in

the endeavor when we were doing it. He

understood that, and came right into the space

with me, and we were methodical. We were

giggly and all that stuff, but we were methodi-

cal about it. And so we were able to really say,

ÒOkay, well hereÕs this block right here. Okay,

letÕs take that block and go from one side of

the block to the other side of the block.Ó And

we did. We did this on a number of occasions

over about a month period. And managed to

take everything that I had gotten and really

get it out.

In particular with all this stuff thatÕs become

VRML, and all that. I didnÕt get all the details.

I got the chunks. And part of that is, you know,

I get the chunks, and itÕs software. Well, IÕll

just go work on it. You know. And IÕll turn it

up. And IÕll sit and IÕll think on it, and think

on it, and think on it, talk it out with other

people. I mean after I did that, I actually talked

it out with other people while we were

MAPS: What particular compounds were

you working with?

Mark: That was LSD, I think entirely. There

were some mushrooms at the beginning, but

I think that at that time it was entirely LSD. ¥

“I’m not sure that I’d be doing any of the work that I’m doing now. I don’t know.

I think I’d probably be some silly software engineer working in New England,

unenlightened and bored with life. Without psychedelics,

I can almost guarantee that.”

Mark Pesce (www.hyperreal.org/~mpesce) co-invented Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML) in 1994. He is the author of a new

book, The Playful World: How Technology Transforms our Imagination [Random House].

2000 - Pesce - Psychedelics and the Creation of Virtual Reality.pdf

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