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Cosmetic Neurology
The New Yorker has a long piece examining the growing trend of healthy people, not diagnosed with any mental condition, taking drugs that enhance mental functioning, including Adderall and Provigil. The profiles include a Harvard student, a professional poker player, a number of brain researchers, and a self-described transhumanist. "Zack [Lynch]... has a book being published this summer, called 'The Neuro Revolution'... In coming years, he said, scientists will understand the brain better, and we'll have improved neuroenhancers that some people will use therapeutically, others because they are 'on the borderline of needing them therapeutically,' and others purely 'for competitive advantage.' ... Even if today's smart drugs aren't as powerful as such drugs may someday be, there are plenty of questions that need to be asked about them. How much do they actually help? Are they potentially harmful or addictive? Then, there's the question of what we mean by 'smarter.' Could enhancing one kind of thinking exact a toll on others? All these questions need proper scientific answers, but for now much of the discussion is taking place furtively, among the increasing number of Americans who are performing daily experiments on their own brains. ... [A cognitive researcher said,] 'Cognitive psychologists have found that there is a trade-off between attentional focus and creativity. And there is some evidence that suggests that individuals who are better able to focus on one thing and filter out distractions tend to be less creative. ... I'm a little concerned that we could be raising a generation of very focused accountants.'"
Bah, I say! I am no more or less creative when I take my prescribed adderall, only more able to apt to finish the task at hand before wondering off into a new creation or idea.
Demented But Determined.
I just finished up undergraduate classes as an electrical engineer, and I would say the majority of people in my department used Adderall to help them study longer. Those people all ended up with better GPA's for it. It's almost the same question with sports and steroids, if I had used that kind of drug to increase my studying capacity, I probably could have gotten enough of an extra boost to enter "free Ph.D." territory.
And alcohol, and caffeine, and all sorts of prescription drugs with adverse side effects.
Society doesn't seem to think drugs need to be banned or even disapproved of just because they can have (extremely) undesirable side effects.
If a nootropic came to exist that made you a whole bunch smarter, and a whole bunch less creative with no other obvious side effects - I think you can kiss creativity goodbye.
In the march to the Singularity, we don't need history majors writing papers or Baseball players hitting homeruns. We need science. A neuroscientist taking a cognitive-enhancing drug is a direct example of recursive, exponential growth to the Singularity. Keep it coming.
What about those of us that are already "focused accountants" what do we get out of this "Neuro Revolution"?
I'd recommend another relatively well known substance that never seems to get enough credit these days - LSD. It's great for creativity and getting yourself out of "single directional thinking". It definitely helped my programming anyway... gave me a chance to reconsider some ideas I'd held as being "true" and instead come up with new ways of doing things. Some worse, but some better. Discard the worse ones, keep the better ones and it's a plus in the end.
Note: I wouldn't recommend it too regularly, but up to 12 times a year (once a month) is generally fine.
Second note: if you consider yourself the kind of person who can't control his/her own thoughts very well, then start with VERY low doses until you're comfortable with it and then increase slowly - a bad trip can be managed if you're strong willed AND know what to expect/look for, but if not, it gets nasty.
My book about LSD and Self-Discovery
Also on facebook as: DroppingAcidDaleBewan
Many people are taking smart drugs now -- solely for advantage, without prescribed a medical need -- but in most fields, I don't think it's to the point that *not* taking them is a disadvantage, yet. I admit to a certain amount of interest in nootropic drugs, especially those that could help me hyperfocus. However, I've limited myself to vitamins, minerals, and herbal products, with a primary goal of maintaining long-term brain health.
I've seen too many retirees and seniors slide away into fuzziness, dementia, or worse. On the other hand, I've seen a few that remained sharp as tacks into their 80s and 90s. There are some pretty clear differences between the lifestyles of these two groups. I've tried to learn something from those differences.
I'm turning 40 this year, which is about when most people say they start to feel age-related decline. I want a healthy, well-functioning brain for now and the future. So, I pay a lot more attention to my nutrition than I used to, have started a regular exercise program, and engage in a few different "brain training" activities on a regular basis. I actually feel many benefits now -- I feel better, I'm happier, and my mind seems a little sharper.
In addition to the above, I take a prepared "stack" that includes a variety of nutrients and compounds for both mild cognitive enhancement and neuroprotection. I did a lot of research before I picked AOR's Ortho-Mind, which seems pretty well-balanced and reasonably priced. I also take an Omega-3 supplement daily, along with a good multi-vitamin and a "green" drink with a lot of antioxidants and phytonutrients. My monthly investment, dollar-wise, is less than $100. I have friends that spend that amount each month on coffee.
The big thing here is to be careful in what you choose to take. I chose to focus first on overall brain health, and I'm happy with results so far. Only then did I start adding some mild cognitive enhancers, but even then, I made sure my chosen stack included agents specifically chosen for their neuroprotective properties. If I ever become convinced that any of the various smart drugs make sense from that perspective, then maybe I'll change my strategy... but right now, I think a little conservatism is a good thing.
Getting tired of Slashdot... moving to Usenet comp.misc for a while.
The toothbrush has only been in widespread use for the last few hundered years, so evolution has already had it's chance to do what it could with humans who didn't brush.
You can't "evolve" past the basic fact that your mouth is a breeding ground for bacteria, and that as that bacteria piles up and dies it's going to create unsightly, disgusting plaque. Well, maybe if humans grew stainless steel teeth -- but that'd be quite the stretch in evolution, since we'd need some kind of organ to act as a smelting and refining and we'd need to digest lots of raw ore ...
Humans have done quite well without the toothbrush in terms of dentistry. Weston Price's work well documented that primitive people's had very low incidences of tooth decay and other dental problems when subsiting on a native diet, and how members of those same cultures who had transitioned to a western diet had much, much higher incidences of tooth decay.
Acid is not a toy.
...
If any brand of crazy or a high degree of creativity runs in your family, you are well advised to avoid recreational usage of lysergic acid, mescaline, psylocybin, MDMA, and all other psychotropic/psychoactive substances.
Absolutely correct, which is why I didn't recommend it as a "way to have some fun" - I recommended it as a way to cure being a "focused accountant" type.
The music industry is littered with high-profile examples of people who ended up with permanently damaged psyches;
Citation needed. While I won't deny that there are people that have taken LSD that have gone off the deep end, can you really say it was the LSD that caused it and not other factors in their lifestyles (including a combination of stress and not being entirely mentally stable to begin with)? You've listed 3 examples of such people, but it wouldn't be hard to come up with a much longer list of musicians that HAVE taken it a lot and were/are absolutely fine (the Beatles spring to mind, but there are many other examples also)
Under the influence of repeated dosages, Kurt developed the idea that his mother was a robot and gutted her with a kitchen knife.
I have a VERY hard time believing this was caused by LSD - only severe mental instability could lead someone to do something like that (quite possibly exacerbated by LSD, but not caused by it... as I already said in my original post, if you're not the kind of person who can control his/her thoughts so well, be damn careful). Under even very large dosages, I've always been able to say to myself - "hey wow, that's cool, but I know it isn't real". Also, "believing ones mother to be a robot" just doesn't sound like an LSD experience to me. The "weirdest" I've had was noticing that some houses looked rather like faces, assigning genders and emotional states to them based on characteristics of the houses, and then pretending to have a conversation with them. This was under a very large dose and at no time did I believe the houses actually were alive or capable of conversation. Note that this isn't just my own experience either, but also my experience with others - I often introduce people to the substance, and have taken it with a very large number of different people, none of whom have ever had the slightest problem from it beyond some (rare) scary bad trips.
There are tens of thousands of people in mental hospitals because of the permanent psychological damage it can cause in certain individuals, most notably those who already walk the fine line between creative genius and insanity.
While another replier already pointed out that a citation really is needed for this (as in, "I don't believe you either"), again you're missing that I was absolutely NOT targeting "those who already walk the fine line between creative genius and insanity" - my post was quite clearly targeted at those who lack creativity (the "focused accountant" types).
My book about LSD and Self-Discovery
Also on facebook as: DroppingAcidDaleBewan