The actual open letter:
Neuroscientists' Open Letter To DIY Brain Hackers
101–110 of 149 posts
Re: Neuroscientists' Open Letter To DIY Brain Hackers
#102Earlier quoted context omitted.
It would short circuit your normal reward-action feedback loop. We don't live to trigger the reward, we are rewarded to live.
So how does addiction work?
Addiction works like that (what I said above). It's bad because it gives you no reason to do the stuff you'd normally have to do to stay alive or reproduce.
Re: Neuroscientists' Open Letter To DIY Brain Hackers
#103Earlier quoted context omitted.
Larry Niven arguably predicted the existence of wireheads, although his wires ran directly to the brain's pleasure center.
Suppose you can achieve happiness with a wire to the brain. Is there a good argument against doing this?
Dependency. Unless you don't value independence.
Re: Neuroscientists' Open Letter To DIY Brain Hackers
#104RadioLab's 9-Volt Nirvana episode discussed how DARPA uses tCDS to enhance sharp-shooting ability. At the end of the episode, the reporter conveyed a sense of loss when the tCDS system was no longer available to her. She sounded like a drug addict that pines for that feeling of their first high and then risks spending their life in vain trying to recover that feeling. If your life literally depends on a skill and sup…
Typical wirehead.
Re: Neuroscientists' Open Letter To DIY Brain Hackers
#105Neuroscientist here: Just listened to a talk from a reseacher who studied tDCS and tACS in human subjects, and found that IQ scores were actually going down relative to control groups. It's absolutely not clear what the appropriate protocols are, and behavioral outcomes could be incredibly sensitive to factors such as 1) electrode placement, 2) stimulation frequency, 3) amplitude, 4) direct or alternating current, et…
> IQ scores were actually going down By how much? If someone can trade severe anxiety for perhaps 5-10 IQ points, then in most cases they will probably sign up.
Severe anxiety is painful for sure, but doesn't that seem a bit unnecessary? Given there are proven methods for treating anxiety such as medications, meditation, cognitive behavioral therapies, etc without such a high cost.
Re: Neuroscientists' Open Letter To DIY Brain Hackers
#106Given that the human brain is full of electrical impulses it makes sense that external impulses can change our brains. The article mentions some people seeing the opposite results from the same protocol. It seems likely we will need more precise methods of stimulation to see better results given how complex our brains are.
Re: Neuroscientists' Open Letter To DIY Brain Hackers
#107Earlier quoted context omitted.
> IQ scores were actually going down By how much? If someone can trade severe anxiety for perhaps 5-10 IQ points, then in most cases they will probably sign up.
Severe anxiety is painful for sure, but doesn't that seem a bit unnecessary? Given there are proven methods for treating anxiety such as medications, meditation, cognitive behavioral therapies, etc without such a high cost.
They're each "proven" for a relatively small (sometimes overlapping) subset of the population. If anything, psychopharmacology has taught us about the extreme variance in brain chemistries and how difficult the problem is when it comes to treatment. Adding more options is a great thing, as long as there is strong science behind it.
Re: Neuroscientists' Open Letter To DIY Brain Hackers
#108Earlier quoted context omitted.
Severe anxiety is painful for sure, but doesn't that seem a bit unnecessary? Given there are proven methods for treating anxiety such as medications, meditation, cognitive behavioral therapies, etc without such a high cost.
They're each "proven" for a relatively small (sometimes overlapping) subset of the population. If anything, psychopharmacology has taught us about the extreme variance in brain chemistries and how difficult the problem is when it comes to treatment. Adding more options is a great thing, as long as there is strong science behind it.
As long as people recognize the costs. It is painful to watch people try to solve a problem without looking into the costs of side effects. Because of hyperbolic discounting our brains are often prone to take the easier short term relief despite much higher long term costs.
Re: Neuroscientists' Open Letter To DIY Brain Hackers
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ah, interesting. I checked with my friend, and it turns out they had gotten mixed up. They were prescribed benzos, not beta blockers. What made you stop taking them? My friend has been making good progress without them, but still gets some rough days. And what supplements/medicines do you use, apart from phenibut? (To be clear, they've already spoken with a doctor, psychologist, consulted drugs.com listing of side ef…
I stopped taking them for two reasons. 1. I have an absurdly high tolerance to them (and almost all GABAergics, for that matter.) I always have, and also have an absurd alcohol tolerance. So, while clonazepam worked for me, I was taking roughly the maximum dosage designated for severe seizure disorders (I was taking 18mg/day, which if anyone is familiar with clonazepam, they'll know how absurd that is.) 2. I was star…
Interesting that you're able to take phenibut daily. I only take a low dose once per wee, starting two months ago, and I'm already starting to get issues with tolerance and rebound anxiety.
Re: Neuroscientists' Open Letter To DIY Brain Hackers
#110I'm the one they featured in this article..
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v531/n7592_supp/full/53...