When the carb is closed, you suck smoke into the chamber. When the carb is open, you suck the smoke in the chamber into your lungs.

Huh-I was doing it wrong, then. My sister told me some ♥♥♥♥ way to do it that confused the hell out o' me.

This is flawed, you're also pulling smoke into your lungs. With a bong, you fill the piece and clear it. A pipe is more like a smoke straw. The carb really isn't hard to understand. The point of it is to make another entry for air that isn't through burning plant material. The only point of it is to clear the piece of smoke. You can fiddle with it to make your hits a little easier, I believe I explained it somewhere in the thread, do a search. Basically, on off on off on off will make the smoke come through less thick and be easier for your lungs to handle. Funnily enough, though, below a certain point, less smoke is harsher for some reason. You'll pick it up, it's not exactly rocket science.

Here have this:

Top left is carb, top center is bowl, bottom center is mouth piece. When the carb is covered and you pull from the mouth piece, air comes through the burning plant material and creates smoke and etc. When the carb is uncovered, air comes through it instead, as the carb is the path of least resistance, and as there is no burning plant material there, no smoke is produced, thus filling the piece and subsequently your lungs with clear air. By putting your thumb on and off, and controlling interior pressure with your mouth, you can control smoke density quite concisely.

Up here we call it a choke.

Well here's something i like to think about: sometimes, when a religious person sees "visions," they are on drugs. People who dislike drugs then say that because the drugs altered your state of mind the visions were not really there. They have a point.

Yet this cannot be assumed with utter certainty. Our brains have been wired by evolution to perceive things in a certain way. While on drugs, this wiring gets all ♥♥♥♥ up. What if the "visions" that people see are real, and the drugs have simply removed a filter which has been preventing us from seeing clearly?

Uh...what?

Then the world would be one ♥♥♥♥ up place, since the visions I've heard about are quite trippy.
However, one cannot assert whether the vision or the accepted reality is the true reality. Many philosophers have wrestled with the question of the fundamental reality, and all of them thought they found one only to have another philosopher poke holes in their arguments.
The rest of us are left with deciding whether we want to try and live in a world we cannot see, or the one that's accepted by the rest of humanity as the real one.

The reason it's accepted by the rest of humanity as the real world, is because A) it IS the real world and B) if it isn't, then it doesn't affect life as we know it anyway.

pseudorastafari if that were the case then 'visions' would be consistent between two people in the same circumstances

You have given no backing to this.
The generally accepted reality is generally accepted because in a majority of cases it is agreed upon. We have no particular way to be sure it is the 'correct' one though.

Beyond that, you can't even be sure that the way you perceive the world is the same as other people perceive the world. What if your best friend has always seen the color blue as what you would call the color red? Has always seen in upside-down vision? Sees and moves in four physical dimensions?
Quite the fun ♥♥♥♥, reality.

Even if my friend sees blue as pink, it doesn't matter, because to him, blue has always been pink and he's always grown up with it. In fact, I'm pretty certain that people all perceive things differently - they've just grown up with it all their lives, and so yeah, I'd be freaked out if I saw the world through their eyes, but to them, everything's normal.

I don't need any proof that our world is the real one, other than living in it. It isn't really something that I can prove or disprove, I just don't give a ♥♥♥♥. I accept it as the real world, there is no reason to believe it isn't the real world, and if it isn't, it doesn't affect me as far as I'm concerned.

Protip: This theory is both unprovable and does not matter. Arguing about this makes about as much sense as arguing about god. There's going to be a lot of conjecture, a lot of hot air, and not a shred of proof. Move on.

not necessarily. It's all a matter of perception.

Yes i know that it cannot be proven one way or the other. but its fun to think about when you're baked, no?

yes, necessarily. you can't just decide that WHOO I'M SO HIGH EVERYTHING IS PERCEPTION WHY DO THEY CALL THEM FINGERS IF YOU NEVER SEE THEM FING and decide you're some kind of ♥♥♥♥ intellectual/philosopher/whatever

you sound like a ♥♥♥♥ stoner (and you are, and at least you admit it) but christ, stop being so goddamn proud of yourself for entirely the wrong reasons

Okay we are talking about drugs here. We are talking about the brain. Are you a neuro-scientist who knows absolutely everything about the human mind? Can you tell me that if two people do acid in the same room that you know exactly what effects they are going to feel, what ♥♥♥♥ they are going to see?

If some of the ♥♥♥♥ people see when they are hallucinating WAS real (and i don't say for a second it is)...it would be something never measured before, probably something impossible to record using physical means. Rules such as the ones we have attempted to use to explain our universe would not apply. For this reason, these hallucinations would probably not be consistent, and also because it`s the human mind we are dealing with.

Everything is a matter of perception. Please tell me about a moment where a person has observed something and their perception has not come into play.

And don`t get me started into all the reasons I hate myself.