Participants in the Singularity Summit 2011 workshops held on October 17-18 brainstormed a list of cognitive enhancement methods they would like to see tested — some of them for the first time, many of them more thoroughly than has been done so far. Here is that list:
- rationality instruction
- potassium and nutrients/micronutrients in general
- modafinil and its class
- racetam class, adderall, riatlin
- paleo and other popular diets
- multigenerational embryo selection
- particular TMS interventions
- doing math or logic problems every day
- amount of sleep
- neurofeedback; EEG, etc.
- physical health, specific types of exercise, yoga
- more red blood cells
- certain types of electrical stimulation
- spaced repetition
- practicing visualization
- practicing chess and Go
- dual n-back training
- prolonged sensory deprivation
- experience manipulating physical objects (craftsmanship and engineering)
- listening to music actively (and engaging with other art forms actively)
- using specific visual languages for specific tasks
- happiness in general (gratitude, etc.)
- changing the oxygen content of what you're breathing
- gene expression levels
- operant conditioning
- irradiation or administration of other toxins
- lucid dreaming
- GHB
- intermittent fasting
- creatine
- nicotine, caffeine
- arterial glucose drip to get more sugar to the brain
- Ekman training
- steroids
That's fair. Do you happen to know if one can do difficult math in this state. Is it exactly like being awake except that you're, y'know, not? You can't write things down (lastingly) obviously, so I think that would limit the usefulness of lucid dreaming in those cases, and you can't learn new things. I'm might be discounting it because most "cognitive enhancement" I've done so far has been through assimilated already known knowledge rather than by new-to-the-world insights, in which case it would make sense for people who ARE coming up with new valuable ideas but probably less so for me.
The mere fact that you aren't deriving earth-shatteringly new heretofore unknown insights does not make the usefulness of contemplation null-and-void.
Of course, lucid dreaming still suffers (for me anyhow) from the problem of it being difficult to actually recall what occurs in said dreams long after the fact. But still; being given more time to 'muddle through' personal troubles would give one more ability to derive answers than otherwise... (read more)