Interesting Article on Albert Hoffman, Steve Jobs, and LSD
I found an interesting article written by Ryan Grim today while browsing my morning internets. A letter written by Albert Hoffman—at the ripe old age of 101, no less— to CEO of Apple, Steve Jobs, asking Jobs if he’d be willing to “fund research being proposed by Swiss psychiatrist Peter Gasser.”
Peter Gasser’s work with MAPS (Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies) can be found here.
The article is incredibly fascinating as it talks about the role psychedelics played in the development of personal computing and the Internet and has some interesting facts and quotes. You also get to see the penmanship of Hoffman, which is pretty good for 101.
Here’s some interesting passages:
That Jobs used LSD and values the contribution it made to his thinking is far from unusual in the world of computer technology. Psychedelic drugs have influenced some of America’s foremost computer scientists.
Psychedelic drugs, Markoff argues, pushed the computer and Internet revolutions forward by showing folks that reality can be profoundly altered through unconventional, highly intuitive thinking. Douglas Engelbart is one example of a psychonaut who did just that: he helped invent the mouse. Apple’s Jobs has said that Microsoft’s Bill Gates, would “be a broader guy if he had dropped acid once.” In a 1994 interview with Playboy, however, Gates coyly didn’t deny having dosed as a young man.
“When I’m on LSD and hearing something that’s pure rhythm, it takes me to another world and into anther brain state where I’ve stopped thinking and started knowing,” Kevin Herbert told Wired magazine at a symposium commemorating Hofmann’s one hundredth birthday. Herbert, an early employee of Cisco Systems who successfully banned drug testing of technologists at the company, reportedly “solved his toughest technical problems while tripping to drum solos by the Grateful Dead.”
“It must be changing something about the internal communication in my brain,” said Herbert. “Whatever my inner process is that lets me solve problems, it works differently, or maybe different parts of my brain are used.”
I find it inspiring to know that the ideas of the Internet, computers, and computer software have been highly influenced by the use of psychedelics. It isn’t really surprising, however, but rather just a concrete confirmation that these things really do have an effect on people and a positive effect at that.
