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Comment by tw1010 | Hacker News Reader

I've never heard someone persuasively and eloquently express to me, in a non-dopey way, just how (small amounts of) acid can act as cognitive enchantment. Anyone care to take a stab at it?

For instance, is the effect only temporary, in the sense that it unlocks some region of not normally traversed mental state space? (E.g. allowing you to write paragraphs you wouldn't otherwise be able to.) Or is the effect more permanent, in the sense of teaching you something, providing you with a new muscle which can be used later even in a sober state of mind (teaching you to ride a type of brain bike, which then can't be unlearned), or by showing you connections between disparate ideas you hadn't previously had the ability to see next to each other?

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As somebody who has microdosed, I'd attribute most "enhancement" to perceived improvement in mood, and an improvement in my ability to look at problems from "outside" the box.

I'm currently leetcoding in preparation for tech interviews, and find it much easier to work out the "trick" to solve problems while microdosing LSD

This is a perfect example of nootropic dystopia: paying for a small advantage in a mostly meaningless unproductive task with possibly maladaptive permanent changes to the brain.

Of course this is not new. Ritalin has been used as a study drug for meaningless academic tests for decades.

But it really goes beyond drugs. The experiences created by media and games today, even social app feedback loops, are far more powerful than any real-world experience. Go to bed every night with a show or a game or a social app, and you will lose your edge very quickly. (I’m currently embroiled in a muted partner dispute of several years over this.)

And yet I have considered exactly the same, because the last few years has filled my head with so much crap that I never wanted to think about; perhaps microdosing would allow a more intentional reset, and leetcode may be the closest thing normal folks have to productive mental engagement. Certainly not most jobs, even in tech, which is sad.

I mean, I'm doing cocaine to beat the Advent of Code leaderboard currently.

This comment is awesome whether it is true or not.

Speculating:

Children are more receptive to novel ways of thinking because you need to invest in that kind of thing for a while to achieve effective cognition. Once you're closer to death, it's more productive to use what you've got than to invest in further creative problem-solving skills.

Recently, life expectancies have increased radically. Evolution optimized us to mature into cognitive equilibrium fast enough to reproduce. Evolution has yet to adapt to these new conditions, in which it's optimal to keep shaking up your brain for longer than it used to be.

> I've never heard someone persuasively and eloquently express to me, in a non-dopey way, just how (small amounts of) acid can act as cognitive enchantment. Anyone care to take a stab at it?

I feel highly certain that outcomes are ~all derived from the effect of psychedelics on the default mode network of the brain, and the corresponding downstream effects of those changes on thinking, perception, emotions, etc.

Google: "microdose" "default mode network" and you will get tons of reading material - I would recommend reading a mixture of clinical studies and anecdotal narratives. Take everything with a grain of salt of course, but also keep an open mind. This is new territory, we know very little about it.

> For instance, is the effect only temporary, in the sense that it unlocks some region of not normally traversed mental state space? (E.g. allowing you to write paragraphs you wouldn't otherwise be able to.) Or is the effect more permanent, in the sense of teaching you something, providing you with a new muscle which can be used later even in a sober state of mind (teaching you to ride a type of brain bike, which then can't be unlearned), or by showing you connections between disparate ideas you hadn't previously had the ability to see next to each other?

I would say, speculatively: all of the above, potentially, depending on the person. The "correct" answer to such questions is currently not known, but this seems very difficult for many to realize, which is quite ironic.

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