How Level is the 'Cognitive Playing Field'?

Psychedelics may help treat mental health conditions by changing how people think about themselves, but the context in which they are taken plays a crucial role. A commentary on Chris Letheby's 'Philosophy of Psychedelics' argues that a person's mindset and physical surroundings during a psychedelic experience shape which new self-conceptions they discover. This aligns with the REBUS model, where relaxing strong prior beliefs makes the brain more sensitive to incoming sensory information. A supportive environment and positive state of mind make beneficial changes in self-understanding and long-term well-being more likely. This view largely agrees with Letheby but questions his idea that psychedelics create a 'level cognitive playing field' where all self-related hypotheses are equally probable.

Study at a glance

Abstract

In Philosophy of Psychedelics, Letheby provides a convincing basis for the idea that psychedelics primarily derive their therapeutic potential through mediating favourable changes to self-related belief systems. In this commentary, we take a closer look at the role that contextual factors (‘set’ and ‘setting’) play in Letheby’s two-factor account of psychedelic therapy. While Letheby acknowledges that psychedelic effects are highly context-dependent, the exact role that context plays in self-modelling during the acute experience is not entirely clear. We argue that context plays an essential role in shaping the ‘discovery’ of alternate self-conceptions during the acute experience. Specifically, users are more likely to experience alterations in self-conception that are consistent with context-dependent features, such as one’s prior mindset (‘set’) and aspects of the external environment (‘setting’). This is consistent with a REBUS model of psychedelic effects, where a corollary effect of relaxing high-level prior beliefs is that the system becomes increasingly sensitised to bottom-up information (‘prediction errors’) from lower-level intrinsic sources and the sensory periphery. Furthermore, it may explain why a positive well-intentioned state of mind and a supportive therapeutic environment are more likely to result in positive acute experiences and long-term improvements in mental wellbeing. We see this position as being largely compatible with Letheby’s proposal, but may shift some aspects of its emphasis and framing. In particular, it may conflict with Letheby’s notion that psychedelics lead to a ‘level cognitive playing field’, where self-related hypotheses are thought to be assigned more or less equal probability.