Transhumanists have high hopes for enhancing human cognitive abilities in the future. But what realistic steps can we take to enhance them now? On the one hand Flynn effect suggests IQ (which is a major factor in human cognition) can be increased a lot with current technology, on the other hand review of existing drugs seems rather pessimistic - they seem to have minor positive effect on low performers, and very little effect on high performers, what means they're mostly of therapeutic not enhancing use.
So, fellow rationalists, how can we enhance our cognition now? Solid research especially welcome, but consistent anecdotal evidence is also welcome.
After taking a few days to read up on PCT and MOL, here's my summation:
PCT is the Deep Theory behind mindhacking, hypnosis, and all other forms of self-help or therapy that actually work. It explains monoidealism and ideomotor responses, it explains backsliding, it provides a better conceptual basis for Ainslie's model of "interests", and it does an amazing job of explaining and connecting dozens of previously-isolated principles and techniques I've taught, and that I learned by hard experience, rather than deriving from a model. It explains the conflict-resolution model I've been posting about in the Applied Picoeconomics thread. And just grasping it almost instantly boosted my ability to self-apply many of my own techniques.
Most of the techniques and methods I've taught in the past have been effectively on the level of cutting the "wires" between different control systems, treating the actual control systems as fixed invariants. Now, I also see how to also connect wires, change the "settings", and even assemble new control systems.
PCT explains the Work of Byron Katie, the Law of Attraction, a sizable chunk of Tony Robbins, T. Harv Eker, and Michael Hall's work, and even Robert Fritz's "structural consulting" model.
I have never seen anything that connects so much, using so little. And every time I think of another previously-isolated model that I teach, like say, how self-conscious awareness is an error correction mechanism, I find how PCT ties that into the overall model, too.
Hell, PCT even explains many phenomena Richard Bandler describes as part of NLP, such as non-linear and paradoxical responses to submodality change, and his saying that "brains go in directions" (seek to establish ongoing constant levels of a value or experience, rather than achieving an external goal and then stopping).
All I can say is, why haven't you posted MORE about this? Your post about control systems seemed to mainly be an argument against brains having models, but PCT doesn't demand a lack of models, and in any case it's obvious that brains do model, and they model predictively as well as reflecting current states. And you didn't mention any of the things that make PCT actually interesting as a behavioral description in human beings. PCT pretty much explains everything that I would've wanted to cover in my post sequence on what akrasia really is and how it works, only from a different angle and a better conceptual connection beween the pieces.
Whew.
(Oh, and I almost forgot to mention: by contrast to PCT, MOL barely seems worth the electrons it's printed with. Many others have described essentially the same thing, with better practical information about how to do it, in more precise, more repeatable ways. The only thing novel is its direct link to PCT, but given that, one can make the same theory link to the other modalities and techniques.)
Glad you like it. :-)
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