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.
I get the idea and am familiar with it, but I dispute it. There's a whole lot of background assumptions there to take issue with. Specifically, I believe that:
Besides being consistent with past data, a theory must be consistent with future data as well, data that did not go into making the theory.
Besides merely fitting observastions, past and future, a theory must provide a mechanism, a description not merely of what will be observed, but of how the world produces those observations. It must, in short, be a response to clicking the Explain button.
Description length is not a useful criterion for either discovering or judging a theory. Sure, piling up epicycles is bad, but jumping from there to Kolmogorov complexity as the driver is putting the cart before the horse. (Need I add that I do not believe the Hutter Prize will drive any advance in strong AI?)
But having stated my own background assumptions, I shall address your criticisms in terms of yours, to avoid digressing to the meta-level. (I don't mind having that discussion, but I'd prefer it to be separate from the current thread. I am sure there are LW wiki entries or EY postings bearing on the matter, but I don't have an index to them etched on the inside of my forehead either.)
This approach actually simplifies the problem. (It also satisfies my requirements for a theory.)
Here, for example (applet on a web page), is a demo of a control task. I actually wanted to cite another control demo, but I can't find it online. (I am asking around.) This other program fits a control model to the human performance in that task, with only a few parameters. Running the model on the same data presented to the human operator generates a performance correlating very highly with the human performance. It can also tell the difference between different people doing the same task, and the parameters it finds change very little for the same person attempting the task across many years. Just three numbers (or however many it is, it's something like that) closely fits an individual's performance on the task, for as long as they perform it. Is that the sort of thing you are asking for?
Thanks for the detailed reply; I'd like to have the metadiscussion with you, but what exactly would you consider a better place to have it? I've had a reply to you on "why mutual information = model" not yet completed, so I guess I could start another top-level post that addresses these issues.
Anyway:
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