A place to discuss potentially promising methods of intelligence amplification in the broad sense of general methods, tools, diets, regimens, or substances that boost cognition (memory, creativity, focus, etc.): anything from SuperMemo to Piracetam to regular exercise to eating lots of animal fat to binaural beats, whether it works or not. Where's the highest expected value? What's easiest to make part of your daily routine? Hopefully discussion here will lead to concise top level posts describing what works for a more self-improvement-savvy Less Wrong.
Lists of potential interventions are great, but even better would be a thorough analysis of a single intervention: costs, benefits, ease, et cetera. This way the comment threads will be more structured and organized. Less Wrong is pretty confused about IA, so even if you're not an expert, a quick analysis or link to a metastudy about e.g. exercise could be very helpful.
Added: Adam Atlas is now hosting an IA wiki: BetterBrains! Bookmark it, add to it, make it awesome.
Psychedelics can have cognitive benefits. It's not what you'd chose if you need to concentrate on something, but if the problem requires a creative solution and you're stuck, it might be the way to go.
"What if I had not taken LSD ever; would I have still invented PCR? I don't know. I doubt it. I seriously doubt it." -Kary Mullis
I have a friend who came to a pretty big personal revelation about reductionism/human behavior when under the influence of DMT.
Another friend took a threshold dose of LSD and said something along the lines of "I've always known intellectually that aging is bad, but it finally hit me- at an emotional level. These [old] people are everywhere. They're falling apart right in front of us and we act as if its normal and okay! This is not okay!!!"
The interesting thing about this is that a full "tripping" dose is not necessary. The latter friend was on a dose low enough that neither he nor anyone else could notice the effects- other than the slightly changed thought processes, of course.
I've spent months in my mind (chemical coma), the knowledge I've gained there I can compare to no other. Years later I am still working through the massive amount of data and introspective knowledge I gained. I was happy Inception was created because suddenly the vox pop can grasp some part of what it means when I say I've known many lifetimes, many courses of the universe, the ebb and flow of time. This thought thread is a book onto itself, getting into it now is like licking an iceberg worrying about getting my tongue stuck.
Looking at the connections to ... (read more)