Comment · Mon, March 11, 2013 · Ceretropic
The Mastermind Effect: How Placebos Can Boost General Intelligence
What they were answering
hbeingbeing · 1 points
The first point about 'room to improve' is hard to quantify, especially you'd have to reference a specific substance to suggest anything. I've noticed no improvements in memory or intelligence with the popular nootropics I've taken but they are capable substances and I've already described what they do to me personally.
I'm not sure what you're referring to with regards being passive? maybe some people just take these things and sit around waiting for things to happen, unfortunately I do not have such a luxury. I do complex mathematics everyday, for a living and besides the qualities I've described (which are not insignificant), there are no noticeable effects on my intelligence beyond the realms of placebo.
I agree that taking various substances can inform you about your own personal mechanisms, but I can't say whether that would consequently lead to any increase of learning efficacy. I appreciate your opinion on how nootropics have helped you, but these are not relevant to my post or the placebo effect. I also think motivation and mood are prime mediators of the placebo effect.
u/MisterYouAreSoDumb · Ceretropic
The first point about 'room to improve' is hard to quantify, especially you'd have to reference a specific substance to suggest anything.
That was a colloquialism I was using to illustrate my point about individuals with lower basal intelligence benefiting more from nootropics. It's very hard to quantify, but fits well within the anecdotal evidence of diminishing rates of return.
I'm not sure what you're referring to with regards being passive? maybe some people just take these things and sit around waiting for things to happen, unfortunately I do not have such a luxury.
I was not supposing that you were being passive. Please don't take my comment as an affront. I was speaking in generalities. Many people think that nootropics are going to do the job for them. They think simply ingesting a substance is going to increase their cognitive ability. The enhancements that nootropics provide need to be directed properly. Taking some racetams, then going about my day like normal, is not going to provide much of anything. Even if your normal activities are very in depth and at a high level, those are not going to push your brain in the correct manner. You need novel activities to stimulate the kind of improvements that can be quantified. This is what I mean by pushing yourself. It's not increasing your cognition, it's helping you to increase it on your own. So it's really not the substance itself that is leading to the increase, but rather the use of your brain that does.
It just happens that certain nootropics give me motivation to use my brain. It's a night and day difference for me on racetams. When I am on them, all I want to do is learn and research. When I take a break, I am much less likely to spend my time pushing the limits of my ability. Am I more intelligent simply due to the racetams? No. However, the fact that I am more likely to use my brain does lead to lasting improvements in certain aspects of my cognition.
I appreciate your opinion on how nootropics have helped you, but this is not relevant to my post or the placebo effect.
I think it was relevant, given your statements on self improvement and the reasoning for that to arise.