Cognition Enhancer Research 189
oschobero writes to tell us the Economist has a look at pharmaceutical research as it applies to cognition enhancers. While the research is obviously focused on things like Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and schizophrenia, the resulting drugs may also have a benefit to healthy minds. "Provigil and Ritalin really do enhance cognition in healthy people. Provigil, for example, adds the ability to remember an extra digit or so to an individual's working memory (most people can hold seven random digits in their memory, but have difficulty with eight). It also improves people's performance in tests of their ability to plan. Because of such positive effects on normal people, says the report, there is growing use of these drugs to stave off fatigue, help shift-workers, boost exam performance and aid recovery from the effects of long-distance flights."
what has been seen... (Score:5, Funny)
By binding to certain glutamate receptors, D-cycloserine selectively enhances extinction, suppressing the effects of conditioned associations such as anxiety, addiction and phobias. According to Dr Robbins, experiments have shown that if a rat is given a cue that it previously associated with fear at the same time as it receives D-cycloserine, the bad memory can be eliminated. Not only may this help remove unpleasant memories...
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np: Saul Williams - Coded Language (Amethyst Rock Star)
Provigil. (Score:5, Interesting)
On the one hand, It helps endlessly with functioning while sleepy. As a chronic insomniac, I'm never THAT awake, but after two hours of sleep and a provigil, I'm awake enough to drive and take exams. It doesn't even keep you up after it wears off, something every other sleep aid or wake aid I've ever taken does. It avoids the problem of body/mind disconnect, you're AWAKE, not brain awake/body tired or body awake/brain sleepy.
On the other, it has an effect I can only describe as "positional". You can still tell that you're tired, but you only feel it in one part of your head, kinda towards the lower-right-back area. And yes, that's insane.
What's weirder is that if you get a headache while on provigil, you'll feel it in that area too. It's kinda like it's turned off your brain's natural "error reporting" that tells you you're tired/headachey, but it doesn't do it for the whole brain.
I also had some nasty experiences in the bathroom while on it. That's definitely a downside. (Wee, rather than being late for class because I can't wake up I'm late for class because I'm stuck in the bathroom)
I only used it for about two weeks (despite the above praise, it didn't help with my main problem), but I'd definitely use it again if I had the chance. There's enough times where I've not gotten enough sleep for one reason or another but I really have to be at work the next day that it'd be quite handy to have around.
Re:Provigil. (Score:5, Funny)
That's a great first sentence to promote a cognition-enhancing drug.
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Remember, if you love something, set it lose...
Re:What? no soviet russia or overlord jokes? (Score:5, Funny)
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It's pushed that "post lunch drowsy need a nap" feeling back to about 7pm, and by then I'm up and around (not behind the desk)so there's no worries. My focus is better during the day. Haven't gotten any headaches but most people use 200mg a day from what I read. I've also noticed tha
Ever tried sleep? (Score:3, Insightful)
I get roughly 5-6 hours of sleep a night and have had no issues at all. I did notice the "You know you're tired, but you don't think/act like you're tired" thing and yeah it's really odd.
Instead of drugs have you considered getting an extra 1-2 hours of sleep per night? This is cheaper than taking drugs, does not make you feel odd, and 10 years from now will not be shown to cause cancer/depression/heart disease/... If you are feeling tired during the day the message your body is trying to send you is 'sleep more' not 'take drugs'.
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What I'm saying is that your solution, although the better one, is not the most feasible one.
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And yes I've had the full medical battery and exams, aside from needing to lose some weight and having some mild skin allergies I'm 100%
Also I'm taking this mainly as a neuro enhancer than a "pep pill" and so far
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Work/school are choices, food and sleep are basic necessities. Ignore that at your peril.
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I can't vouch for cancer or heart disease (although modafinil has been on the market since '86), but modafinil is being used off label to treat depression related fatigue. While anecdotal, it worked incredibly well for me when I was spending 20+ hours a day sleeping and didn't have any of the rather horrific side effects of most of the antidepressants out there. A little heartburn was the only side effect for me.
That said,
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Ritalin is a great study drug. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Ritalin is a great study drug. (Score:5, Interesting)
I was prescribed Ritalin throughout grade school for ADD by the end of freshman year of college I decided to stop taking it because I had learned to "fake" the cognitive effects. Ritalin takes effect so quickly, that I was able to perceive the difference and use that to learn ways to be almost as effective, but without the drug. 14 years later I still have ADD but can function pretty normally because of what I learned with Ritalin. I have to wonder if the same thing could be done with Provigil, learn the thought patterns that give you the increased cognition, but eventually have the benifit without the drug.
Re:Ritalin is a great study drug. (Score:4, Insightful)
I didn't realize all this in a concrete manner until somewhere in my late 20s after trying some of these drugs that made things like mental crises, and the utter inability to turn my brain off to focus or sleep optional. I've since taken them on and off as necessary, but being able to intuitively understand what it means to be able to cause one's actions to align with one's intentions on a regular basis is invaluable. I can say with complete honesty that I really didn't understand how the world worked before.
Re:Corporate Timing Tricks (Score:2)
There's a psychological side to this, separate from the pharma-medical side. It's about managing people's expectations, AND their "feel-good" needs.
Starting from scratch, "sustainable" speed is always less than perfect top-power speed. So, yes at flawless form you might be able to do something in 2 hours, but corporate america forces workers to deal with weird distractions that for some of us seriously break the flow.
So, if your manager one day wanders up and asks "can you do that again in 2 hours", the ans
Re:Ritalin is a great study drug. (Score:4, Insightful)
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I have a somewhat opposite issue. If I stop moving much and don't have to pay close attention to something active, I stand a good chance of falling asleep. I don't have this issue while driving, eating, typing, or reading websites, which tend to change on a rapid basis (switching tabs, browsing to new sites, etc), but reading books or sitting down to watch TV is difficult for me -- I c
Re: Nodding off while reading (Score:3, Interesting)
Try some mini-experiments. You already have your baseline of "getting drowsy for these activities".
My hunch is you run your life on the edge of a small chronic sleep-debt, which is the subtle cumulative effects of shaving off small fractions of each night's sleep.
Pick a weekend and clear your entire schedule. Go to bed with a clock, but the alarm off. (That's so you can glance at the time during the "false-alarm wakeup that you know is too early, and refuse to get up.) Even if you feel guilty/lazy, insist o
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Holy crap, 7 digits? (Score:2)
Seriously, it's an issue with me and older telephones -- I can punch three numbers, then I have to look on the number I'm calling to get the next batch, and by the time I've got it, the phone is already dialing.
Re:Holy crap, 7 digits? (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe you are trying to memorize 7 numbers (symbol + significance in our society) instead of memorizing a 3cm x 1.5cm illustration (the area in a paper where those numbers can be written) or instead of memorizing a 10 second sound (the aprox time in wich those numbers can be pronounced).
The problem might not be your memory, but the way your brain processes and stores the information it receives.
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I find that my multitasking and fast thought processes lower my memory recall. If I take a few days off from work and just relax or go riding or something I can then remember very long strings of info, like multiple phone numbers.
Back when DVDs were being pushed by the likes of Futureshop and Bestbuy, I could memorize 2 or 3 serial numbers from the DVD players(free DVD with n
Re: Multi-thrashing (Score:2)
Absolutely, and this has even been in some high profile studies. Multi-tasking is at the employer's convenience. I think it's a weird form of "prisoner's delimma". It was all the vogue for about a decade for multi-T to be "the new wave of work", until the brutal evidence began mounting.
All I have been able to do is batch similar tasks, and carefully micro-manage minutes of rest in the day.
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It's called chunking [wikipedia.org]
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Most people can retain 7 +/- 2 (5 to 9) semantic "packets" of information. A "packet" can be a part of a larger packet. Most people can reliably recall 5 random numbers or letters in a row. Or 5 groups of 5 numbers or letters. Or 5 random words. Or 5 unrelated phrases.
But don't try to memorize a paragraph worth of random letters and numbers -- that's more than 9 packets so it's almost impossible without a lot of repetition. That's why phone numbers have a da
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http://www.musanim.com/miller1956/ [musanim.com]
A classic 50 yr old paper. Has been a subject of great debate since.
But its trickier than that. It is 5 to 9 "items", not simply numbers. What constitutes an item can change. If you perceive the area code of your phone number as an item, it just counts as 1. So it all depends on how you "chunk" information. That is how experts are said to work better. They chunk at a different level th
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Your problem is the radix that you choose to think in. Simply switch to base 10 million, and then you'll only have one digit to remember, not 7.
Re:Holy crap, (X) digits? (Score:2)
For landline calls, you can usually fudge the area code, but cell phones introduce weird new cell-area codes, and half the time people giving you their number forget to even tell you.
Re: dialing, you can always dial slower, giving yourself those extra seconds to keep looking at the number.
I don't like drugs (Score:2, Insightful)
We don't know much about how each part the human metabolism affect the others, so it's very difficult to anticipate possible side effects.
It's also widely known that many of the current drugs where discovered by accident while trying to cure something else (like the discovery of viagra, and the heart benefits obtained from aspirin). So, as much as we don't wa
Re:I don't like drugs (Score:4, Insightful)
Bull.
While we don't know everything, we are long past the "Just beginning " phase.
What are you, posting from 1950?
"It's also widely known that many of the current drugs where discovered by accident while trying to cure something else (like the discovery of viagra, and the heart benefits obtained from aspirin)"
discovered through experimentation and observation. You make it sound as if they drop something accidentally and then it cured something.
While they observed unexpected effect during the scientific process, it was the experimentation and testing that brought there discoveries to light.
"So, as much as we don't want see it, our scientist can be wrong."
This is nonsensical.
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"It was initially studied for use in hypertension (high blood pressure) and angina pectoris (a symptom of ischaemic cardiovascular disease). The first clinical trials were conducted in Morriston Hospital in Swansea. Phase I clinical trials under the direction of Ian Osterloh suggested that the drug had little effect on angina, but that it could induce marked penile erections. Pfizer therefore decided to market it for erectile dysfunction, rather than for angina."
Evi
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Oh no! (Score:3, Funny)
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phone number 7bit 8bit digit theory (Score:3, Insightful)
I wonder if there is a connection to how many digit you need to make a local phone call.
In the states I assume you can or could leave out the area code, and then needed to remember xxx-xxxx.
In Denmark as a kid and now, we need to remember 8 digits to make a phone call.
I see a correlation, but.. heck, digits for thoughts.
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The Magic Number Seven, Plus or minus Two
http://www.musanim.com/miller1956/
This is psych 101 guys...
-Anymouse
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In Denmark as a kid and now, we need to remember 8 digits to make a phone call.
In Germany in '82, our phone number was 011-49-6571-20538, or dialed locally, 06571-20538...
I don't have an eidetic memory, so why'm I able to remember every phone number from age 3 on? I'm not saying that Miller was wrong... It might be that we're more number oriented today than in 1950, h'wever. Cell-phones, credit cards, PIN numbers, passwords; none of this was really available at that time. Food f'r thought...
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Re: long sequences... (Score:2)
That's hysterical.
Is this the Lifelock guy's data?
Re:phone numbers (Score:2)
Your own phone number is in a different class - it's stable for a long time (until you move or change cells, etc.)
So that single piece of data gets lots of repetition.
The question at hand was how different people do with fresh new information *with no expectation of remembering it later*. Thus for a study, presented with 10 phone numbers your rate could be much lower. But if you're in an office and need to learn these numbers, then that motivation factor proves to make a difference in the results.
Garden Of Eden Model of Health (Score:2, Insightful)
So you can't get a prescription for viagra because you want to have loads of sex, you can only get it for treating the dreaded disea
Drug tests (Score:5, Interesting)
The Crystal Meth-od (Score:3, Funny)
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One small problem... (Score:5, Insightful)
What is the long-term (or even all of the short-term) effects of this? IIRC, Ritalin comes with a bucketload of side effects.
I guess that drugs specifically made for the mind start (at least for me) creeping deeper and deeper into questions of morality and ethics than one designed to treat any other body part. Just something that makes me a bit wary about them... For instance, is an "enhanced" person more susceptible to suggestion than otherwise? Are they more focused on the task at hand, but not as aware of their surroundings? How does it affect multitasking? Emotions? Attitude and outlook?
Dunno... but caffeine seems to work just fine for me, and I get to keep a clear mind which I retain full control of while I'm at it.
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From a work standpoint, if my employer begins to depend on my ability to stay far ahead of others (maybe competitors, maybe just the tech industry in general), if I stop taking them, is it ethical
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You really can't SKIP entire nights of sleep - long term, all you can do is cut them short.
However, I recommend Nancy Kress "Beggars in Spain" for an entire novel built on this premise. (Note to self - go buy another copy.)
What eventually happened is that "normal" became a ghetto that eventually withered and faded. In the novel, the "sleepless" mutation was "pure" - no drawbacks.
A much more complex scenario is the "Algernon Phenomenon", in which someone trades long term health for short term bursts. THAT qu
Re:One small problem... (Score:4, Insightful)
No doubt you believe you are.
Coffee comes with a "bucketload" of side effects as well.
The brain is a part of the body just like your heart, or hands, or belly button.
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The key term is "moderation" - if I were to suck down a case of Bawls in the morning (or even one bottle), then yes, the term 'clear mind' would not be perfectly accurate - just as taking any stimulant in large doses (or in the case of, say, Ampehtamines, in any but the smallest doses) would affect mental clarity.
One cannot say the same for synthetic ch
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Which is why military pilots who need to stay alert on long missions take (under Flight Surgeon supervision) mild amphetamines instead.
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Oh, they do, they do. Because in various forms, IQ is the Holy Grail.
This is THE question of the 21st century.
it's getting them that's the problem... (Score:2, Insightful)
Caffeine is one of these substances; probably the most widely available, too. Personally I can think faster, clearer, and longer with about 300mg of caffeine in me. Unfortunately, I'm getting tolerant to
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Anything less than a gram isn't worth talking about.
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I can take about 1g hit in the morning and not need any for the rest of the day. I just mix it with cold distilled H2O.And, it feels nice... Not as nice as the percocet I was taking for my shoulder though
Not that ethically clear (Score:2)
These drugs would be immensely beneficial to the human race. And what sane person wouldn't want to be smarter?
If the decision were that simple there would not be a problem. The question you should be asking is "What person would want to be smarter given the risk of unknown side effects from long term use?". These things are messing with your brain chemistry so side effects could be subtle: suppose they suppress happiness (not cause depression mind you)? Would you want to take them then?
If there are long term effects, say like early dementia, is it fair for the rest of us to pay for the required health care? T
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"The question you should be asking is "What person would want to be smarter given the risk of unknown side effects from long term use?""
Lots.
IQ has a crushing "Threshold" problem. Either you can perform some function in your enhanced state alone, or not at all. Thus if you ideally bank it properly, you stand to make much more money, and we all know how much fun it is to be poor in this world.
It's made worse by the entire culture (at least in the US) of valuing short term gains - if our national leaders can'
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And the religions have one weapon that no corporation or political figure can wield. If they can convince someone that doing something will bring someone eternal ecstasy or eternal damnation, they can make that person do anything. Most of the most horrific wars and killings in history have been brought about by religions telling their fol
A wager? (Score:2)
A musical interlude... (Score:3, Interesting)
Withdrawal and Other Downsides? (Score:3, Insightful)
What's the withdrawal like?
I suspect that maybe the many kids given Ritalin while growing up learn to depend on it for their baseline. When they outgrow their "hyperactivity" (AKA "childhood"), they quit the drugs, and sink into an unfamiliar dullness in which they can't think at their previous baseline without the artificial stimulation. And how much do they just get burned out from the steady drugging?
Something's got to explain the evident steady decay in average intellect as the years wear on [imdb.com], despite these synthetic boosts.
Re:Withdrawal and Other Downsides? (Score:5, Informative)
Tolerance is rarely an issue with the low doses given to treat ADHD. A couple of back-of-the-envelope calculations suggest that an average dose of Adderall (20mg) is about 1/10 an average "first hit" of meth or cocaine. Prescription medications are also designed to metabolize much more slowly than recreational drugs.
Tolerance mainly results from neurons being overexcited and altering receptor sites in response. (This is in fact how caffeine tolerance develops.) People who take these medications under a doctor's care are generally not overstimulated. In fact, with ADHD, because medication corrects understimulation it's usually not an issue at all.
I would be more worried about tolerance if the general population started on them, though.
Usually a little mentally fuzzier than before medication and maybe a bit crankier. It lasts about half an hour to an hour. People report that Ritalin and Dexedrine have "rougher edges" than Adderall, which makes sense since Adderall is a mixture of amphetamine salts that metabolize at different rates.
If they don't outgrow ADHD and they need medication to function, they shouldn't stop.
However, often the medication does have a lasting effect, though not one that people with "OMG DRUGGIES!!!" in mind would predict. It can train your mind to mimic the patterns it gets used to while on medication. People will often lower their dosage over time, and some quit altogether. I'm not aware of anyone needing more until they're a prescription crack-head. Both anecdotal evidence and the literature (peer-reviewed studies) support this.
It also tends to train behavior. While on medication, functional behavior is much easier, and people who learn to function effectively while on medication have an easier time off of it than they did before medication.
Again, I wouldn't apply this to the general population, just to people who use medication to treat neurological problems.
They only do if the dose is too high. The beautiful thing about stimulants at these dosages is that their cognitive effects don't last into the next day, except for the gradual effects I mentioned.
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Digits and Nootropics (Score:5, Informative)
Yet once again an article on cognition enhancement fails to note its origins and long standing history. The first nootropic, hydergine http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydergine [wikipedia.org] , was developed by Albert Hoffmann of Sandoz. While he is best known for LSD, his "problem child", he considered hydergine to be his most important discovery. He credited his longentivity (he died recently at age 102) to using hydergine regularly.
legalize it (Score:5, Interesting)
Unfortunately, possession without a prescription can get you a year in jail. Strangly, it's chemical predecessor, Adrafinil is perfectly legal to buy over the counter (at about a tenth of the cost as well). It actually turns into modafinil in your stomach, but it takes longer to take effect, and the chemical byproducts cause stomach pains and liver problems.
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Those aren't the only options... (Score:5, Interesting)
The best of these (and arguable one of the safest), in my non-medical opinion, is Piracetam. It is a cyclic derivative of the neurotransmitter GABA, and has been used extensively since the 1960s in clinical studies, for treatment of Alzheimer's (and more), and off-label as a "supplement." Many studies suggest it increases blood flow (and hence oxygenation) to the brain, and protects the brain against damage from alcohol poisoning. It has no known LD-50, and has been clinically tested in daily doses exceeding 50 grams!
I personally use Piracetam to help study, and through my (obviously non-blinded and partially-biased) self-tests, I found that it really does help me learn things faster. After a cramming/studying session, I'll usually look back and realize how much material I've been able to learn in such a short time. All friends I've recommended it to have come to the same conclusion. My dosages vary from 1 gram up to 5 grams at a time, repeating every 3-4 hours.
Unfortunately, the reason why Nootropics aren't used much is because they don't have the intense effects that *stimulants* such as Ritalin do. The effects of Piracetam are very subtle (though the first time is more noticable)--enough so that its easy to get discouraged. However, when you take Ritalin, the stimulation effect is VERY noticeable (and fun, for many people).
The big problems with stimulants are that they aren't great for your body, they can encourage bad sleep habits, they are fun to use (possibly leading to irresponsible use), and they can lead to distraction for those not used to the effects at the used dosage. Additionally, they have terrible come-downs. A responsible stimulant user must recognize these aspects and make efforts to control them, otherwise they will not get any work done, or worse harm themselves!
Disclaimer: I'm not licensed to give medical advice. These are my opinions and are for informational purposes only. Using the mentioned stimulants without a prescription is stupidly illegal (but illegal nonetheless). I won't get into how prohibition is stupid and doesn't work (I think free-use regulation and accurate dispersion of information is the way to go). More importantly though, using these drugs improperly can be unsafe. Make sure you thoroughly research any drugs you use, including over-the-counter drugs, and consult a medical professional when unsure about possible interactions with other drugs or your health conditions.
Wikipedia on Piracetam: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piracetam [wikipedia.org]
Erowid on Nootropics: http://www.erowid.org/smarts/ [erowid.org]
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If you are sensitive to dopamine, which you most certainly are, then you should be sensitive to methylphenidate. Perception is complex; perhaps you fail to notice ritalin's effects or feel motivated to deny them.
Normal People (Score:2)
Cognition improvement for MS (Score:3, Interesting)
most people can hold seven random digits (Score:3, Informative)
not only that, but people become accustomed to structuring that memory in different manners. is it 2-2-3, or 3-2-2. or 3-4. people remember strings of digits in the patterns that they learned as a child.
i learned an 11-digit number on first go last weekend, its a swiss telephone number dialed from overseas; 414354#####. what is this bullshit about adding an *extra* digit to one's memory?
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what is this bullshit about adding an *extra* digit to one's memory?
Wow, chill out. First of all, the statistic about working memory span being 7+/-2 is simply the average amount that people can recall when given an unstructured list of numbers. Nowhere is anybody saying that one can't remember more than this: a) it's an average and b) it is divorced of context so the subjects may have a harder time chunking the numbers in order to store them hierarchically.
Second of all, what does it mean to "add an extra digit"? It simply means that *on average* subjects were able to
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For the most part, it's called "chunking." You might remember the first three digits of a number as a single part, like an area code. Maybe through repetition or some kind of pattern, those numbers become a single encoded, sometimes even rhythmic, symbol.
The number you gave was "414354#####". That 414 is a palindrome, so maybe that ge
Beta-blockers also work in this way... (Score:4, Interesting)
Also, it seemed to improve my ability to work with logic problems, making programming a far simpler task... especially when it came to tracing/debugging my own code.
off-label use of provigil (Score:4, Interesting)
As do the mice who will choose provigil over food when given a choice.
Do we need drugs to make our lives "better"? Why not? Our society is no longer based solely on fulfilling basic needs. We work in fabric covered boxes performing tasks that have no direct connection to survival, other than earning money to buy food. If a drug helps us do that then, given the facts about it, we can make an informed decision.
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If the mice would rather take a drug than eat, and you think that earning money to buy food is an irrelevance, then I would quit the drug now.
Re:Oh, great..... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Oh, great..... (Score:5, Insightful)
If I had to take non-theraputic medications to perform my job I'd get a different job.
Re:Oh, great..... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Oh, great..... (Score:4, Informative)
What suggests best whether something is safe or unsafe is its track record. Period. That's why, you are often better off with a drug older than yourself rather than anything that big Pharma is currently advertising on TV. Initial marketing of a drug is the 'Phase 4' of safety testing. Once something has been out there for a decade, enough people have taken it that we know what it does, how it does it, and what the risks are. At that point, you can better decide whether the risks for you outweigh the benefits.
Also during post marketing surveillance, if the FDA finds that a drug is unsafe, they yank it. That same safety measure is significantly more difficult with 'natural supplements'. In fact, despite considerable evidence of danger the FDA is unable to stop the sale of aristolochia an herb conclusively linked to kidney failure and cancer, yohimbe a sexual stimulant linked to heart and respiratory problems, bitter orange whose ingredients have effects similar to the banned weight-loss supplement ephedra, chaparral, comfrey, germander, and kava who are all known or likely causes of liver failure.
So don't make the logical error of assuming that just because something is natural, its safe. Hell, small pox is 'natural'.
Re:Oh, great..... (Score:4, Informative)
A molocule is a molocule; why would a plant (or other "natural" source as opposed to a synthetic process) make a molocule better compatible with human physiology? Wouldn't the plant make molocules better suited to it's OWN physiology? The fact that naturally derived substances have any desirable pharmacologic effects on humans is entirely accidental. You get the same problems with undesirable by-products regardless of source. How do you know the plant doesn't produce OTHER substances that are pure poison to humans? Or what if the "poison" has desirable pharmocologic properties? Do you eat the plant in blind faith that all the contents are "natural" and therefore "safer" or do you attempt to isolate the desired molocule. Will you truly isolate it or will you have quantities of other undesirable substances. How do you remove the undesirable substances? What about stereochemistry? Often one enantiomer will have desirable properties while the other will not. Do plants magically produce the correct one for our use and edification? These are the same issues raised when producing a molocule synthetically.
And what's this about optimized concentration? What the hell does this mean? Do you know what a DOSE is? None of this makes sense. And this nonsense about quantum structure - could you please cite some reputable sources for this claim, or at least explain what it's supposed to MEAN? Have you ever taken even an undergraduate-level chemistry course? All of the issues you raise are already accounted for in current medical practice, backed up by controlled studies. Just because something is found in a plant doesn't mean it's magically better.
To quote Fat Freddy from the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers: "I don't trust anything that doesn't come in a nice, clean gelatin capsule"!
Re:Oh, great..... (Score:4, Interesting)
The line has never been real anyway. Like many arbitrary social lines, it's an artificial constraint imposed by moralists.
Re:Oh, great..... (Score:4, Interesting)
Okay, I'm going to push you on this one. If the drug makes you smarter with no unpleasant short or long-term side-effects, why on earth would it be a bad idea? Any time we can get a benefit that outweighs its cost, we should do it. Very little in our lives resembles "nature" in the true pre-technology sense, and that's a good thing. If there's a particular reason why it "just seems to be a bad idea" to take medication regularly, by all means, spit it out so we can critique it. Otherwise, it sounds like you're basically being a luddite.
Besides, when you get right down to it, increasing your intelligence IS therapeutic in the sense that it helps you to avoid a surprising number of potential ailments [wikipedia.org].
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Maybe people could be smarter about how they vote, consume, invent, live with one another?
You're saying that's a bad thing? Because it comes in pill form?
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I'm sure a properly designed study at least tries to deal with the Placebo question. Notice the cautious conclusion "a digit or so"... meaning the effect is greater than zero, but complicated.
However, if you go beyond the "placebo" concept into active training methods, you can add a capacity to remember MANY more digits.
The medical study tried to figure out how much was a chemical enhancement alone without "training effects".