CasioTheSane comments on Value of Information: 8 examples - Less Wrong

48 Post author: gwern 18 May 2012 11:45PM

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Comment author: gwern 28 May 2012 12:06:28AM 0 points [-]

Interesting procedure. I'd agree it's probably much more work than some simple physical procedure. (I'd also point out that 14 pairs won't give you much significance - my above power analysis suggested that for awakenings, anyway, you'd want more like 140 pairs. But I should be happy you're actually doing the experiment.)

Comment author: CasioTheSane 28 May 2012 12:13:20AM 0 points [-]

I plan to do much more than 14, but it was very tedious to set up so I started with that. I need to streamline the procedure.

Comment author: gwern 26 May 2013 09:14:57PM 0 points [-]

How has the experiment been going?

Comment author: CasioTheSane 05 June 2013 06:50:33AM *  0 points [-]

Hey gwern, as you predicted I didn't have enough data to learn anything... and I didn't have time to do it longer. I considered repeating it, but now I'm scared off melatonin until I learn more about how it works. Dr. Ray Peat theorizes that it might have some negative health effects by inhibiting oxidative metabolism:

http://www.google.com/cse?cx=005233684413389937395%3Ad5qfhqsz7oo&ie=UTF-8&q=melatonin#gsc.tab=0&gsc.q=melatonin&gsc.page=1

Also, anecdotally I don't really see a huge benefit to melatonin. Even small doses (0.75mg) seem to make me slightly groggy when I wake 7.5 hours later. I may have unusually slow melatonin metabolism, as I have the "slow caffeine metabolizer" P450 CYP1A2 variant, the same enzyme responsible for clearing melatonin.