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Comment by a3voices | Hacker News Reader

Let's say you have a dog, and you want to make it as smart as a person. How would you do that? Giving it drugs won't work. The dog is limited by the brain structures that make it distinct from a human. Regardless of whatever drugs or supplements you give it, the dog will always act like a dog. Maybe it will be slightly smarter, but not in any truly astonishing way. Maybe with the right drug, it could learn 100 words instead of 20. But the dog won't be able to do everything a person can do.

The same goes for people. There's no way you'd be able to make a person meaningfully smarter through supplementation or drugs.

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Essentially you just said:

> Supplementation could hypothetically improve the cognitive ability of dogs. But it could never make them as smart as humans.

> The same goes for humans. Supplementation could never improve their cognitive abilities.

I suppose maybe this shoddy little syllogism would be forgivable if you haven't had your coffee yet this morning.

coffee would help, if supplements can improve cognitive ability.

A little distraction for the Larry David file: It's annoying when you make a joke, and someone points out the joke as if you are unaware you are even making it. It's like they are simultaneously usurping credit for the wittiness, and insulting the intelligence of the originator. Why improve your cognitive ability at all, it's smart to be dumb.

And how about the food they serve on airplanes? Come on am I right?

> I suppose maybe this shoddy little syllogism would be forgivable if you haven't had your coffee yet this morning.

Caffeine may not be improving his intelligence, but removing damage ie. withdrawal. (And so about as surprising as 'lack of sleep deprivation increases intelligence!' or 'lack of iodine deficiency increases intelligence!') This is one of the challenges of studying addictive stimulants: how do you know whether, for experienced tolerant users, the apparent benefits are genuine benefits or just treating withdrawal?

It's a really interesting question. I'm looking askew at the coffee cup in front of me. I suppose it makes the most sense for studies to begin prior to first exposure; to have data on subjects going back perhaps even as long as it takes for them to become tolerant. I suppose factoring out the effect of learning for a long-term study which involves cognitive tests is it's own challenge as well? I'm enjoying http://www.gwern.net/Nootropics#caffeine now :)

I can't help but feel you did not bother to read the linked article, since the whole thing is about wondering why you can't make a person smarter, and with not just one, but a number of arguments all far more sophisticated and grounded in science than what you just tried.

I don't think you can know that. What if the drug turns on genes responsible for building more "brain structures"?

Or what if the human brain is currently artificially limited say to conserve energy and a drug could remove that limitation.

The problem with your logic is that improving a humans intelligence by as much as the difference between a dog and a human is a HUGE leap in intelligence. There are far smaller jumps in intelligence that are still meaningful that fit into the span of dog to human intelligence.

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