Synaptic Streching and Helpful Hive Minds

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Synaptic Streching and Helpful Hive Minds

• Anders Sandberg
• Future of Humanity Institute
• Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics

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Cognition enhancing drugs

• Classic
• Alcohol
• Amphetamine
• Beta blockers
• Caffeine
• Choline
• Glucose
• Modafinil
• Piracetam
• Ritalin

• New
• Ampakines
• BDNF
• Cholinergic drugs
• Dopaminergic drugs
• Hormones
• Noradrenergic drugs
• Cycloserine
• Pipeline
• Apamine
• NMDA agonists
• GABAB blockers
• CREB modulators

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Tomas Grim, A possible role of social activity to
explain differences in publication output among
ecologists, Oikos 2008
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Paul Erdös

• A mathematician is a machine for turning coffee
  into theorems - Alfréd Rényi
• Like all of Erdöss friends, Graham was
  concerned about his drug-taking. In 1979, Graham
  bet Erdös 500 that he couldnt stop taking
  amphetamines for a month. Erdös accepted the
  challenge, and went cold turkey for thirty days.
  After Graham paid up and wrote the 500 off as
  a business expense Erdös said, Youve showed
  me Im not an addict. But I didnt get any work
  done. Id get up in the morning and stare at a
  blank piece of paper. Id have no ideas, just
  like an ordinary person. Youve set mathematics
  back a month. He promptly resumed taking pills,
  and mathematics was the better for it.- Paul
  Hoffman, The Man Who Loved Only Numbers (1998)

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CESAR fax, October 16, 2006Vol. 15, Issue 41
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Molly Young, Kickstart my Heart, n1

• Adderall Me and Ideal Me were nearly the same
  person, and I saw no reason not to dabble in my
  best self.
• More than anything, Adderall simulated the
  enthusiasm that a good teacher naturally stokes.
  For three years my brain, normally so
  recalcitrant, became my wills devoted vehicle.
  But theres a downside to a drug that makes
  everything interesting. By the end of junior
  year, I still had no idea what I liked or was
  good at.

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Martin Rudolf Heland, Kaffebeslaget, 1800
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Cholinergic Enhancement and Increased Selectivity
of Perceptual Processing During Working
Memory Maura L. Furey, Pietro Pietrini, James V.
Haxby Science vol 290 22 December 2000
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Brainbow Mouse, 2007
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Charles H. Hillman, Kirk I. Erickson and Arthur
F. Kramer, Be smart, exercise your heart
exercise effects on brain and Cognition, Nature
Reviews Neuroscience 58, 2008
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Dominic Wilcox, Switch
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Mechanical Turks
Karl Gottlieb von Windisch, Briefe über den
Schachspieler des Hrn. von Kempelen, nebst drei
Kupferstichen die diese berühmte Maschine
vorstellen. 1783
Freiherr Joseph Friedrich zu Racknitz, Ueber den
Schachspieler des Herrn von Kempelen, Leipzig und
Dresden 1789.
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ReCAPTCHA
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Whatever the best is, I'll learn it, and learn it
in days not years. And when that best is suddenly
obsolete, I'll learn whatever new thing gets
thrown at me -Vernor Vinge, Fast Times at
Fairmont High
The school's motto was "Trying hard not to become
obsolete"--and the kids figured that applied to
the faculty more than anyone else. -Vernor Vinge,
Fast Times at Fairmont High
Ian Kim, Charging
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What Enhancements?
Data from table 1 from (Riis, Simmons et al.
2007), sorted by fundamentalness to the self.
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