

Unlock Your Inner Rain Man by Electrically Zapping Your Brain - raleec
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/07/unlock-inner-savant/

======
stcredzero
_> Finally, as Young put it, “If everyone could play music brilliantly or be
brilliant artists, it would minimize diversity.”_

I don't get that. Just what specific contribution do non-musical/non-artistic
people bring society? If someone's gifts are in area X, I have a hard time
seeing how such gifts aren't enhanced or left unaffected by musical or
artistic ability.

~~~
mitsche
Indeed. Everyone being brilliant would of course foster diversity, as well as
overall cultural capital. I might be wrong, but it seems obvious to me.

To me the original quote seems to spring from an elitist mindset and akin to
saying there's no diversity in painting anymore because everyone uses
rectangular canvases. It's not the brilliance that makes you diverse, but
rather what springs from it.

~~~
billswift
No matter how brilliant someone is, they still only have limited time.
Increased capabilities increases the options someone has within their
available time. There is incredible diversity in the goals and the specific
capabilities people bring to whatever they are doing, increasing the
capabilities could only increase the diversity.

------
ricardobeat
I just solved that 9 dot problem in a minute with paper and pen. Maybe it was
the chocolate I ate?

Just knowing that it's a hard problem can make you "think outside the box"
(literally in this case). No electrocution needed. Could the results be a
reflex of the participants' state of mind, not a direct effect of brain
stimulation?

~~~
unimpressive
I nearly punched out my monitor when I saw the "solution".

By that metric I count my first solution of "Cut the image up into a straight
line and connect the dots." as valid.

EDIT: I agree about state of mind, the reason I would say nobody could "solve"
that problem was their mental model of the parameters of the problem wildly
diverged from the authors.

~~~
jeff18
I've seen worse. Here it is in 3 lines :)
<http://www.jimloy.com/puzz/9dots1.gif>

~~~
mitsche
There's a variant of this riddle where the solution is using a big brush and
painting over the dots in one stroke.

I think all of these solutions are interesting and creative.

------
nhebb
"Thinking outside the box" has become such a trite phrase, I was surprised to
see it as a puzzle here. Has the phrase become disconnected from its origin?

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thinking_outside_the_box>

------
jaekwon
This fits with the thunderbolt theory of the brain:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4265665>

------
ajays
The thing is: the side effects of such efforts are unknown.

From one of the mailing lists that talks about tDCS, here's a snippet of a
recent email that caused me to take pause:

\-----

 _I have never been able to directly correlate anything i've done, or taken,
to the severe decline in my sleep quality (both falling, staying asleep).
Being diagnosted with sleep apnea has helped, as the machine has been a bit of
a help, but not as much as I would have hoped. I'm wondering if any of the
tDCS I had done on myself (and i did do a pretty significant amount I guess
about 12-18 months ago) might have caused persistent sleep disturbance?_

\-----

If indeed this person is correct, then it is possible that long term heavy use
of tDCS can cause sleep issues. I'd much rather sleep well than play the
piano. :-)

~~~
JumpCrisscross
Really? I find no fascination with going comatose and hallucinating vividly
for hours over more time living.

~~~
Karunamon
It's not so much the lack of time as much as the side effects of that lack of
time.

------
gtani
juicing your brain was all the rage a few months ago

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3557074>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3525744>

\---------------

I'm partial to eating blueberries and playing clarinet and piano,

[http://www.sott.net/articles/show/216086-Mental-muscle-
six-w...](http://www.sott.net/articles/show/216086-Mental-muscle-six-ways-to-
boost-your-brain)

------
SchizoDuckie
I saw the same article with the same professor 6 years ago, claiming that the
helmet would be ready in 3 years.

I so hope that this doesn't become a kickstarter

~~~
femto
Snyder was one of the co-founders of Emotive [1], so he already has a
corporate vehicle for any "thinking cap".

[1] <http://www.emotiv.com/>

------
jiunec
> Imagine a creativity cap.

For the first time I feel I need to say this minor rant...

I had to stop right here and double take on this choice of words. I had to
read twice because I was worried that there was a suggestion of artificially
limiting creativity with a device.

It's so sad because I can imagine such a limitation being brought upon a
populace in my life. At the same time I always imagined that such things as
Gibson's or Bank's neural interfaces might provide more than just a collar.

The optimist in me has a hard time looking forward with this.

------
nessus42
LSD does wonders in helping you to unlock your inner creative mind.
Unfortunately, the flashbacks are a bitch!

~~~
mitsche
As someone who has never taken LSD and is curious about the experience I have
a question:

Have you personally ever taken LSD and actually suffered flashbacks? If yes,
how bad were they?

This is a very personal question, so of course feel free to ignore it.

~~~
nessus42
_> Have you personally ever taken LSD and actually suffered flashbacks? If
yes, how bad were they?_

No, of course not. I am a law-abiding citizen who believes in the rule of law,
and I would never consider breaking it. I did, however, have some ruffian,
rebellious, criminal friends--albeit, the type of criminal who goes to MIT or
who goes on to get a PhD in Math--in college, and they told me what it was
like.

Re flashbacks, they told me that no that didn't happen. They did, however,
perceive textures on real objects (e.g., the kind in carpets or detailed
wallpaper) continue to "breathe" and undulate a bit for the next year or two.
(My guess is that such textures are always undulating a bit, perceptually,
only you train yourself not to notice it.)

It was the actual experience, I am told, that could be very grueling. I.e.,
imagine watching "The Exorcist" alone in a big haunted house, only you can't
turn it off, and you can't stop watching it, because if you close your eyes,
it's now being projected in 3D onto the insides of your eyelids. Only multiply
this by 1,000X. I imagine that this kind of stress could have lingering
effects for those who already have difficulty dealing with it.

Despite the scariness of the experience, the friends who experienced it this
way said the experience was still very worthwhile, and they wouldn't change
anything. They just wouldn't necessarily do it again anytime soon.

Some friends didn't find it scary; they just found it fun.

One acquaintance went crazy shortly thereafter, but he was probably teetering
on the edge to begin with. Friends who did it dozens of times, were invariably
a bit strange ever thereafter, so I wouldn't recommend becoming too much of a
rebel.

