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gwern comments on When Willpower Attacks - Less Wrong
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I gave it a try one summer. Toward the end, it did sort of work, but my general conclusion was that you were permanently on a lower level of mental functioning (which seems to accord with Stampi's results). The experiences I read online generally either didn't have a good test of mental functioning available, or were focused on creativity - which I figure is something that could well be boosted by the slight delirium/loss of inhibition one sometimes experiences...
Hmm. I wonder how a cost/benefit analysis would work out. On the one hand, you have a lot more time to make up for the mental deficiency, but on the other, small differences in mental performance can add up really quickly. (Anyone who has spent a day chasing a bug that would have taken them five minutes had they just thought a little more clearly will understand this.)
It'd be difficult to estimate. Intelligence is valuable; even the most basic minimum wage job can be done better if you're more intelligent.* And then there's the schedule disruption - more than one polyphasic sleeper has cited that as a reason to go back to monophasic.
So you want to be someone with a flexible schedule & undemanding job. A good method for freelancers, I suppose, or students (eg. GPA correlates higher with 'conscientiousness' than IQ; consider http://medicalhypotheses.blogspot.com/2009/05/do-elite-us-colleges-choose-personality.html ); positions where consistency can be more valuable than peaks.
* claimed in Murray's infamous The Bell Curve; I have no particular reason to disblieve it
One of the arguments for polyphasic sleep is that some inventors, like Edison, did something like it. Were they trading off intelligence for creativity? Also, you get more time immediately after waking up, which is supposed to be a good time to work.
Well, there are issues with anecdotes: http://www.supermemo.com/articles/polyphasic.htm#Thomas%20Alva%20Edison