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Ways to maximize your cognitive potential

blogs.scientificamerican.com

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Re: Ways to maximize your cognitive potential

#71

Post by grandalf »

whenwillitstop wrote: post #61
CuriouslyC wrote: post #9

One of the most consistent ways research has demonstrated to increase connectivity in the brain is to learn new physical skills. Controlling the body in space appears to be particularly good at stimulating the growth of new synapses (and possibly new neurons as well, though the research is not conclusive here outside the hippocampus). Yoga is a good start. Modern dance, breakdancing, capoeira and gymnastics are all e…

Why arent athletes the most intelligent then? Generally in society there is considered a negative correletion between people that exercise/play a ton of sports and intelligence. Whether this is true or not is up to debate, but stereotypes exist for a reason...

I think most professional athletes are highly intelligent, but some never learned to apply it to anything other than sport.

Watch Kobe or LeBron on the court. There is an incredible awareness of the shifting context of the game and the available moves. In the greatest athletes it is faster and more fluid than in most athletes.

It's a constantly shifting analytical mode that leans heavily on training and instinct, but is full of novelty. Consider that opponents spend weeks watching tape in hopes of understanding how to anticipate what Kobe will do.

In terms of physical metrics (size, speed, etc.) professional athletes are pretty close to average. I think it is a combination of intellect and general desire to win that makes some people become great athletes.

Because of what I like to call Cartesian Blindness (viewing the world through the mind/body duality) we assume it's simply a matter of great athletes having superior muscle fibers, etc.

Re: Ways to maximize your cognitive potential

#72

Post by icey »

cylinder wrote: post #56
jasonellis wrote: post #36

Here is my Cliff's Notes version of the article's list: 5 Ways to Increase Your Cognitive Potential: 1) Seek Novelty. Openness to new activities correlates with IQ, because those individuals are constantly seeking new information, new activities to engage in, new things to learn, and new experiences. 2) Challenge Yourself. Brain games like Sudoku don't work to increase cognitive potential if you keep playing them. Yo…

I already do all these things and can report that none of them are compatible with most corporate jobs. Creative critical thinking and novelty seeking especially disturb management.

Perhaps maximized cognitive potential isn't compatible with most corporate jobs.

Re: Ways to maximize your cognitive potential

#74

Post by klue07 »

whenwillitstop wrote: post #61
CuriouslyC wrote: post #9

One of the most consistent ways research has demonstrated to increase connectivity in the brain is to learn new physical skills. Controlling the body in space appears to be particularly good at stimulating the growth of new synapses (and possibly new neurons as well, though the research is not conclusive here outside the hippocampus). Yoga is a good start. Modern dance, breakdancing, capoeira and gymnastics are all e…

Why arent athletes the most intelligent then? Generally in society there is considered a negative correletion between people that exercise/play a ton of sports and intelligence. Whether this is true or not is up to debate, but stereotypes exist for a reason...

While I don't think athletes are the most intelligent, I think the stereotypes of dumb jocks is simply a type of bias. If you were an athlete with potential, you would put more focus on your sport instead of academics. If you were bad at sports you would typically spend less time doing them which would then allow you to focus your time on other things like academia. In America, when all you need to do to get As in like highschool is to put effort, the ones who weren't great in sports tend to get higher grades which is perceived as having a higher intelligence. Thinking that athleticism is negatively correlated to intelligence is just ignorant.

Re: Ways to maximize your cognitive potential

#75

Post by jventura »

singham wrote: post #44
ideonexus wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The more literature I read about this, the more compelling I find this. In mammals, the larger the body the larger the brain. That's because you need all those neurons to control all those muscles. I recently read some papers that hypothesize the muscle atrophy we experience as we get older is partially the result of the neurons controlling those muscle-fibers dying [1]. As infants, our brains grow into our bodies by…

Is an elephant really more intelligent than a human then?

I think he's not talking about intelligence, but about muscle control which kind of makes sense..

Re: Ways to maximize your cognitive potential

#76

Post by CaptSpify »

atemerev wrote: post #11

I can relate to that. I am not super-intelligent, I have ADD, and generally consider myself to be lazy and distraction-prone. However, for some reasons unknown, I have excellent working memory, which allows me to perform feats. Multi-choice exams? Can prepare for anything in few hours. Learn Scala (and another 5-6 programming languages) in a few months? Easy! I don't use password managers, as I remember all my long p…

funny

> I am not super-intelligent, I have ADD, and generally consider myself to be lazy and distraction-prone.

I'd say that about myself

> However, for some reasons unknown, I have excellent working memory, which allows me to perform feats. Multi-choice exams? Can prepare for anything in few hours. Learn Scala (and another 5-6 programming languages) in a few months? Easy! I don't use password managers, as I remember all my long passwords. And credit card numbers. And phone numbers. This multiplies my intelligence quite significantly.

And I'd say I'm the opposite here. My memory is terrible. Sure, I can study short term for a subject, but it goes away pretty quickly. And I have to study. If I want to "just remember" something in day-to-day life, I have to write it down and reference it later, or I'll forget.

Re: Ways to maximize your cognitive potential

#78

Post by TheCoelacanth »

whenwillitstop wrote: post #61
CuriouslyC wrote: post #9

One of the most consistent ways research has demonstrated to increase connectivity in the brain is to learn new physical skills. Controlling the body in space appears to be particularly good at stimulating the growth of new synapses (and possibly new neurons as well, though the research is not conclusive here outside the hippocampus). Yoga is a good start. Modern dance, breakdancing, capoeira and gymnastics are all e…

Why arent athletes the most intelligent then? Generally in society there is considered a negative correletion between people that exercise/play a ton of sports and intelligence. Whether this is true or not is up to debate, but stereotypes exist for a reason...

Athletes aren't exactly a random sample. They are people who have self-selected to spend time on athletics.

I also don't think the stereotype is accurate. We tend to confuse interest in pursuits that are perceived as intellectual with actual intelligence.

Re: Ways to maximize your cognitive potential

#79

Post by azakai »

robbiep wrote: post #5

I thought dual n-back had been discredited as a method of increasing cognitive performance. I know there must be some experts on here - would you care to comment?

Aside from that, the article is full of plenty of dubious claims. For example,

> In order to [generate novel ideas], you need both right and left hemispheres working in conjunction with each other.

The simplistic idea of the hemispheres being different types of thinking, or that originality requires them "working together", is not supported.

In fact very interesting things happen when the two hemispheres are separated, but it isn't something to do with the topic of the article.

> Efficiency is not your friend when it comes to cognitive growth. In order to keep your brain making new connections and keeping them active, you need to keep moving on to another challenging activity

Of course efficiency is not your friend if your goal is apparent growth and increased activity in the brain. But that's not the goal. The goal is to be effective. An effective brain is using less resources because it needs less. A chess master can consider fewer moves than a novice, for example.

Unless we had evidence that any brain growth is good for general intelligence in some way. We don't. Taxi drivers have growth in areas responsible for mapping and spatial location, for example, but no evidence suggests that makes them better at anything else.

In any case, the advice provided is badly justified, but still valid. The 5 principles are just common sense - which is why the author can find people like Einstein suggesting them many decades ago.

Re: Ways to maximize your cognitive potential

#80

Post by tremon »

wepple wrote: post #62
cylinder wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I already do all these things and can report that none of them are compatible with most corporate jobs. Creative critical thinking and novelty seeking especially disturb management.

who said any of this has anything to do with a corporate job? do it in the morning, the weekend; then use the benefits of increased cognitive potential at work?

The phrase "maximize potential" reeks of corporate performance, not personal growth. At least to me it does.
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