I did not address the issue of actually getting people to take cognitive enhancers in my post. It is a huge can of worms that would take at least a whole post to get into. Let’s concentrate on the hypothetical here: IF we could get people to do this, then it would be a good thing.
I’m still baffled about what you are getting at here. Apparently training people to think better is too hard for you, so I guess you want a pill or something. But there is no evidence that any pill can raise the average person’s IQ by 10 points (which kind of makes sense, if some simple chemical balance adjustment could have such a dramatic effect on fitness it would be quite surprising). Are you researching a sci fi novel or something? What good does wishing for magical pills do?
But there is no evidence that any pill can raise the average person’s IQ by 10 points . Are you researching a sci fi novel or something? What good does wishing for magical pills do?
Well we haven’t looked very hard, and I am trying to advocate that more research is urgently needed in this area, along with people like Nick Bostrom.
(which kind of makes sense, if some simple chemical balance adjustment could have such a dramatic effect on fitness it would be quite surprising)
“a greater level of mental activity might also enable us to apply our brains more effectively to process information and solve problems. The brain, however, requires extra energy when we exert mental effort, reducing the normally tightly regulated blood glucose level by about 5 per cent (0.2 mmol/l) for short (<15 min) efforts and more for longer exertions.¹⁵ Conversely, increasing blood glucose levels has been
shown to improve cognitive performance in demanding tasks.”
If the point of this essay was to advocate pharmaceutical research, it might have been more effective to say so, it would have made the process of digesting it smoother. Given the other responses I think I am not alone in failing to guess that this was pretty much your sole target.
I don’t object to such research; a Bostrom article saying “it might not be impossible to have some effect” is weak support for a 10 IQ point avergage-gain pill, but that’s not a reason to avoid looking for one. Never know what you’ll find. I’m still not clear what the takeaway from this essay is for a lesswrong reader, though, unless it is to suggest that we should experiment ourselves with the available chemicals.
I’ve tried many of the ones that are obtainable. Despite its popularity, I found piracetam to have no noticeable effect even after taking it for extended periods of time. Modafinil is the most noticeable of all; it doesn’t seem to do much for me while I’m well-rested but does remove some of the sluggishness that can come with fatigue, although I think the results on an IQ test would be unnoticeable (maybe a 6 hour test, something to highlight endurance, could show a measurable difference). Picamilone has a subtler effect that I’m not sure how to characterize. I’m thinking of trying Xanthinol NIcotinate, but have not yet done so. Because of the small effects I do not use these things as a component of my general lifestyle, both for money reasons and the general uncertainty of long-term effects (also mild but sometimes unpleasant side effects). The effects of other more common drugs like caffeine and other stimulants are probably stronger than any of the “weird” stuff, and are widely known. Thinking beyond IQ, there are of course many drugs with cognitive effects that could be useful on an occasional-use basis, but that’s beyond the scope of this discussion.
If the point of this essay was to advocate pharmaceutical research, it might have been more effective to say so, it would have made the process of digesting it smoother. Given the other responses I think I am not alone in failing to guess that this was pretty much your sole target.
Well, there may be tactics other than pharmacology: we might have nutritional interventions or perhaps something like transcranial magnetic stimulation, or even something we haven’t thought of yet.
But I should emphasize that the sole criterion for such interventions would be that it would be feasible to get lots of people to use them.
I’m still not clear what the takeaway from this essay is for a lesswrong reader, though,
This article is not a “here’s something you can do to enhance your own life today!” type article, it is a discussion of existential risk reduction via mass IQ increase. I may well write some “how to” articles, too though.
We probably cannot reliably guarantee 10 added points for every subject yet. Quite far from it, in fact. But there are some promising leads.
if some simple chemical balance adjustment could have such a dramatic effect on fitness
Others have made these points before, but I will summarize: fitness in a prehistoric environment is a very different thing from fitness in the world of today; prehistoric resource constraints (let’s pick, for instance, the scarcity of refined sugars) bear no resemblance to those of today; certain refinements may be trivial from the standpoint of modern engineering but inaccessible to biological evolution, or at the very least ended up unreachable from a particular local maximum. Consider, for example, the rarity of evolved wheels.
I did not address the issue of actually getting people to take cognitive enhancers in my post. It is a huge can of worms that would take at least a whole post to get into. Let’s concentrate on the hypothetical here: IF we could get people to do this, then it would be a good thing.
I’m still baffled about what you are getting at here. Apparently training people to think better is too hard for you, so I guess you want a pill or something. But there is no evidence that any pill can raise the average person’s IQ by 10 points (which kind of makes sense, if some simple chemical balance adjustment could have such a dramatic effect on fitness it would be quite surprising). Are you researching a sci fi novel or something? What good does wishing for magical pills do?
Well we haven’t looked very hard, and I am trying to advocate that more research is urgently needed in this area, along with people like Nick Bostrom.
See The Wisdom of Nature: An Evolutionary Heuristic for Human Enhancement
“a greater level of mental activity might also enable us to apply our brains more effectively to process information and solve problems. The brain, however, requires extra energy when we exert mental effort, reducing the normally tightly regulated blood glucose level by about 5 per cent (0.2 mmol/l) for short (<15 min) efforts and more for longer exertions.¹⁵ Conversely, increasing blood glucose levels has been shown to improve cognitive performance in demanding tasks.”
If the point of this essay was to advocate pharmaceutical research, it might have been more effective to say so, it would have made the process of digesting it smoother. Given the other responses I think I am not alone in failing to guess that this was pretty much your sole target.
I don’t object to such research; a Bostrom article saying “it might not be impossible to have some effect” is weak support for a 10 IQ point avergage-gain pill, but that’s not a reason to avoid looking for one. Never know what you’ll find. I’m still not clear what the takeaway from this essay is for a lesswrong reader, though, unless it is to suggest that we should experiment ourselves with the available chemicals.
I’ve tried many of the ones that are obtainable. Despite its popularity, I found piracetam to have no noticeable effect even after taking it for extended periods of time. Modafinil is the most noticeable of all; it doesn’t seem to do much for me while I’m well-rested but does remove some of the sluggishness that can come with fatigue, although I think the results on an IQ test would be unnoticeable (maybe a 6 hour test, something to highlight endurance, could show a measurable difference). Picamilone has a subtler effect that I’m not sure how to characterize. I’m thinking of trying Xanthinol NIcotinate, but have not yet done so. Because of the small effects I do not use these things as a component of my general lifestyle, both for money reasons and the general uncertainty of long-term effects (also mild but sometimes unpleasant side effects). The effects of other more common drugs like caffeine and other stimulants are probably stronger than any of the “weird” stuff, and are widely known. Thinking beyond IQ, there are of course many drugs with cognitive effects that could be useful on an occasional-use basis, but that’s beyond the scope of this discussion.
Well, there may be tactics other than pharmacology: we might have nutritional interventions or perhaps something like transcranial magnetic stimulation, or even something we haven’t thought of yet.
But I should emphasize that the sole criterion for such interventions would be that it would be feasible to get lots of people to use them.
This article is not a “here’s something you can do to enhance your own life today!” type article, it is a discussion of existential risk reduction via mass IQ increase. I may well write some “how to” articles, too though.
Please read this short review of the state of the art of chemical intelligence enhancement.
We probably cannot reliably guarantee 10 added points for every subject yet. Quite far from it, in fact. But there are some promising leads.
Others have made these points before, but I will summarize: fitness in a prehistoric environment is a very different thing from fitness in the world of today; prehistoric resource constraints (let’s pick, for instance, the scarcity of refined sugars) bear no resemblance to those of today; certain refinements may be trivial from the standpoint of modern engineering but inaccessible to biological evolution, or at the very least ended up unreachable from a particular local maximum. Consider, for example, the rarity of evolved wheels.