Carl-Richard

I do it right before I workout at the gym (in the lobby and on my phone), so once every other day (3.5x a week). The InfiniteIQ guy recommends to take breaks, and it makes sense, as you build up fatigue just like with any type of working out. So matching it with my gym regimen makes sense. I also started to do it before the gym because it allows me to recover some of the fatigue during the gym workout, so I can do at least a few productive things afterwards. If you do brain training and then try to do something productive afterwards, you will notice a significant drop in performance. I currently do Dual 6-Back at brainscale.net (it requires payment, but there are other sites). I use standard settings for Dual: audio (sounds of letters) and position (blocks in a 3 x 3 grid). All other settings are also standard, except I do 36 trials each set, which is a bit lower than standard. With 36 trials, you get 6 "strings" of 6 trials, which is mathematically pleasing, but it also meshes well with my strategy (I gave an attempted explanation of it in the other IQ thread). The standard settings also just feel way too long. With 36 trials, each set lasts 108 seconds (1.8 minutes), and I do 10 sets each session, which adds up to 18 minutes (which is around the recommendations by InfiniteIQ). I tend to rest 15 to 30 seconds between sets, which gives a total time each session of around 20-23 minutes. That is also when I feel the most ready to start my gym session anyways (I tend to eat right before going to the gym), so it matches quite nicely with my general schedule. It's definitely worth the investment imo. More working memory can really only be good. Not wanting more working memory is like not wanting more physical strength. Unless you're roided out to the point where you can't breathe because your neck is too thick, more physical strength is virtually always better. People who say being smart is a burden are kidding themselves (they're thinking about psychically imbalanced, immature nerds, not smart people).

Because IQ works at the level of basic cognition (imagery, symbol manipulation, working memory). Awakening is in a sense trans-cognitive. You step out of the basic mind.

Haha. Honestly, it's the strategy and also the way I sit (thanks Sadhguru) and probably also the timing (right before my gym workouts while digesting my dinner). When I sit in a suboptimal posture, my performance drops a lot, like ridiculously a lot. The same happens when I'm low blood sugar. Your brain is like a furnace for glucose. Another interesting possibility is that doing brain training right before weight training could actually enhance your learning, because lifting weights is highly dopaminergic, and dopamine strengthens the synapses of whatever was firing before. I want to say it's highly speculative, but I did a quick search and it seems like these effects have some empirical support.

☺️ I don't think I've seen you do that either.

Haha. This actually kinda goes back to my thread about conflating knowledge with intelligence: I noticed that once I had developed a strategy for how to play, I could suddenly do the higher N-Backs quite easily. I went from 3-Back to 6-Back in maybe a few months, but I think I could've done the switch much sooner if I had been aware of the power of the strategy (hence if you have a coach, you could progress much faster). Thus you have knowledge cosplaying as intelligence. That said, the strategy still involves utilizing your working memory, so it doesn't "hack" the game, but it makes the process more structured and streamlines your progress. After developing the strategy somewhere at 3-Back, It wasn't really before 6-Back that I really noticed my brain having to enter flow in order to successfully memorize a string of trials (which is a part of my strategy), which is a sign that you're running up against a skill cap (which doesn't mean you can't progress past that, but it's a sign you're in the optimal zone for progress). Another thing is that the difference between the higher N-Backs is smaller than the difference between the lower N-Backs. So when you hit say 6-Back, you could probably perform decently at 7-Back as well, while jumping from 2- to 3-Back is quite a jump. So that creates an additional mirage of intelligence. I don't know what takes longer though (progressing through the lower vs. the higher N-Backs), because your skill gains slowly taper off as you progress. In other words, you could possibly progress faster through lower N-Backs because of nooby gains despite the jumps being large. Anyways, that's a lot about N-Back 😂

When I'm saying "IQ", I'm talking about the tests. The test is not equal to the thing measured. And like you say, IQ only measures a narrow form of intelligence. There is some evidence in the literature about N-Back improving working memory. I haven't seen anything on IQ though (it's probably out there). I'm mostly talking from personal experience (based on feeling only; I haven't tested it yet) and also that InfiniteIQ guy on YouTube who said he went from 136 to 149 after a year of N-Back training. He practices at Quad 7-8-Back, the madman. I'm currently practicing at Dual 6-Back . I don't like Quad (I explained why in that other IQ thread).

I'm convinced you can increase your IQ by 10 points in just a month with Dual N-Back training (with a coach maybe even faster). High-intensity cardio training, heavy weight training, proper diet and meditation are probably worth 5 points each in isolation, maybe less in total because of the overlap between them; let's say ~ 10 points. Then things like journaling, social interactions, general life satisfaction and meaning also add up.

If I had asked "why are plants less conscious than humans?", you would've given me a specific answer (as you did in your post). Why is that not a "non-question"? I was sincerely asking why you think dogs are conscious. If you have some criteria for distinguishing plant vs. human consciousness, you should have some criteria for dogs as well. Technically, the brain correlates with certain experiences. It doesn't simulate or cause experiences, unless you believe in the metaphysical fairytale of physicalism/materialism. But sure, experience could in principle correlate with some AI physical structure, but it's unclear what that would look like and whether it would be distinguishable from biology.

It's not just that it's bad. It's that it's kind of contradictory. OP started off his thread with specific statements like: "It seems like plants have lower levels of consciousness compared to a human because they do not have a suffistcated nervous system like us". But when I ask him a specific question "why are dogs conscious?" that implicitly requests that type of specific answer, he goes to the most general non-answer there is: "INFINITY!". It's a "non-explanation", because everything can be explained by infinity, and thus nothing can be explained by infinity. Now, I'm not saying "INFINITY!" is a bad thing, but it is a bad thing when you use it to answer very specific questions, especially when you've been giving very specific answers yourself earlier in the same conversation.

(Let me just preface this by saying that I was talking about "current" AI in the previous post, just so we don't get confused. Current AI, e.g. ChatGPT, is nowhere near the level of AI that I'm going to be talking about now, as far as I'm aware). I don't know if I've ever "maintained" it as much as I've been largely sympathetic with it (and I've been acutely conscious of this fact in my own mind, but maybe I haven't shared it as much). It's just that appealing to the incomprehensible complexity of biology resonates a lot with my intuitions and general knowledge. But I'm also aware of Vervaeke's points (if I remember correctly) that you could in principle create machines that emulate biological principles in a deep way (e.g. autopoesis, "caring", emotional drives, general survival drives) without necessarily starting off with biological cells, which would fulfill at least some more of the "similarity requirements" that Bernardo uses, but of course not all of them (the structure is dissimilar). And the structure is a big thing, again because of the complexity involved. And of course, if you're going to shortcut the incomprehensible complexity of biological cells, the question then becomes: how complex will these things be, and how structurally dissimilar will they be from biological cells? If indeed the structure requires a lot of complexity, wouldn't it be easier to just create a new type of biological organism using already existing cellular structures? Those are interesting questions, and like Vervaeke also has talked about, there is work being done in both of these realms (creating life-like machines and synthetic biology). By the way, the work being done in synthetic biology is just mindblowing. For example, Michael Levin and his team managed to take a cell from a human lung and "program" it using various non-genetic influences to become an autonomous "worker amoeba" (like an immune cell), performing various repair and cleaning-up tasks in the body. Like whaaat?

Q.E.D.

I like how this is the only place where you can say something like this unironically and people won't simply laugh at you endlessly. No, that's called a non-explanation.

It's worse than that. It doesn't care, about anything, at all; not understanding, not survival, not being truthful, not being accurate. Has an AI ever come up to you and asked you a question?" @OBEler Bruv, you edited my comment probably on accident. Here is what you wrote if you want to write it in your own comment:

Aella, MrGirl.

Why?

Are you serious?

Reddit has probably hundreds of active spiritual forums. I can sense your troll vibes by the way.

There are Yellow pornstars.

This thought actually passed my mind (about King Crimson specifically). I think the reason I didn't bring them up is because their sound was so influential on all other music I listen to today that when I think of "true original", it doesn't actually register. But of course, for their time, King Crimson were definitely true originals. It's just that some bands kept being true originals (at least for me) all up until today, either because they remained obscure enough to not be widely emulated, or their sound was subtle enough to not be emulated without sounding like a carbon copy. King Crimson had many novel ideas or memes that were incredibly innovative but also easily emulated (e.g. odd time signatures and atonal melodies in a rock frame), not that I'm reducing their entire sound to those things, but still, they had some catchy memes. Another example of this phenomena: Meshuggah was incredibly original for their time when they first started doing their trademark sound around 1995 (essentially a stylistic reduction of technical thrash/groove metal, focusing heavily on abstract rhythms and percussive elements; in short, djent d-djent d-djent d-djent). But today, you almost don't go one song in the progressive metal sphere without hearing some elements of Meshuggah. Even bands like Metallica were considered pretty original for their time, but today, their footprint is in all of metal. So to summarize, it's not that bands like King Crimson are not true originals. It's that their sound didn't occur to me as original, mainly because their memes became so successful. This is also partially why making such lists is so futile unless you want to approach it like writing a thesis, because as you know, our minds rely on heuristics. That's a fun song and a good example of some of their catchy memes (especially the atonal stuff). I once tried to learn the guitar stuff from 4:56 to 5:05. Let's just say it's hard. I can play it at like 80% speed without being too sloppy 😅 I haven't heard of him. I'll check him out

Speaking of being a main node in rock music history: arguably the most famous rock song of all time ("Smoke On the Water" by Deep Purple) is literally about a Frank Zappa concert in 1971 where the concert hall caught fire and burned to the ground because of "some stupid with a flare gun" (hence the title "Smoke on the water").

Ah, I remember this thread I gotta say the question has become not necessarily harder but even less clear-cut. We did talk about the problem of defining "best", etc. But I can list a few bands of the top of my head that I really like (and why), and for some reason, I feel like listing bands that I think are "true originals": Cynic. They're truly an original band. I've never heard anything quite like them, and there are aspects of their music where I don't know where it "comes from" (what could have inspired it). You have other bands that come close in terms of style, but there is a Cynic "soul" that is undeniably Cynic. Speaking of coming close in terms of style, Exivious is one example, only in reverse order (Cynic is roughly "technical death metal with jazz fusion influences" while Exivious is "jazz fusion with technical death metal influences"). That said, to reduce Cynic down to just those two genres does not bring their sound any justice. There is like a spiritual essence and authenticity to their style which I don't think is derived from anywhere but their hearts and minds. The Mars Volta. They're similar to Cynic in that they have their own distinct sound, but it's a bit clearer to me exactly where the sound comes from. They grew out of a post-hardcore base and then incorporated various progressive rock and jazz fusion elements, distinctly Frank Zappa at times, but they also make it their own. Gentle Giant. Progressive rock which borrows heavily from classical music themes (e.g. counterpoint). And the rest is just a hilarious combo of wackiness and virtuosity. Most of the band members are brothers, which is interesting. Jethro Tull. There is something about the wild chord changes and medieval LOTR feeling (and Ian Anderson) that is unmistakenly Jethro Tull. Camel. Similarly wild/mystical chord changes and medieval LOTR feelings at times, but it's more chill and tranquil. Some of their songs (e.g. "Fritha") literally sound like RuneScape music when you're walking in and around Lumbridge lol. I tend to listen to their songs while falling asleep; they're that chill. Their song "Nimrodel" is actually about LOTR and it probably contains some of the best examples of the mystical chord changes

Communicate with them telepathically? Duh.

Bill Burr has said something like "some people think you're dumb just because you don't share the same interests as them". The concept of conflating knowledge with intelligence has gotten really clear for me the last year or so. There have been many times where someone else didn't seem to understand what I was talking about, and it somehow contributed to them thinking I'm smart. Conversely, I tend to feel the same way when I don't understand somebody else. I think there is a mental heuristic that tells you "if you don't understand something, it must be due to your lack of innate abilities", while in reality, it's probably much more about your lack of experience in a certain area; contextual factors. It has really opened my mind about how I view "smart people" and how much of it probably boils down to experience. You can also observe it on a micro level in single conversations. For example, if you're talking to a group of people and you zone out for a few seconds, you might find yourself not understanding what is being said, and you might feel quite dumb for the rest of the conversation. But the moment you regain immersion in the conversation, you understand it and you no longer feel like a dunce. In this case, the knowledge about that specific conversation was lacking. As for more general knowledge, I have one particular example that sticks out. So I'm currently taking a statistics class, and I attend as many lectures as I can. I'm in a group project with five other people, and it's generally just me and another person who attends the lectures needed to understand the assignments. Not surprisingly, the other people are seemingly amazed that we're able to understand the assignments, thinking we're so much smarter than them and that this is why we're carrying the group. But in reality, the true difference is that we went to the lectures and they didn't. Now, you can argue that we're the one attending the lectures because we have the innate abilities to understand what is being taught in the first place while the others don't. While this could be true, it could also be that they never attended many lectures and therefore never built up the momentum or continuous progression in knowledge. They do admit that attending the lectures helps them understand it at least a little better. And it's not like me and the other person understand everything 100% either. When we're working in the group, we're constantly learning new things, making mistakes, getting stuck, having insights, making adjustments. We feel stupid all the time, but we still work through it. Truly, if you want to point to an innate factor that is maybe significantly different between us, it's conscientiousness, especially the industriousness part (how much work you're willing to put in), which ties into how many lectures you're willing to attend. But even that can be learned to a large extent. I had to consciously learn how to be this conscientious, or at least how to manifest it in my actions to this extent. Regardless, at least in this situation, it suggests that the main deciding factor is how much work you're willing to put in and the experience you gain from that, rather than innate abilities. And according to this mathematician, if you're behind when comparing yourself to another person in your class, it only takes two weeks to catch up. How? Well, you're in the same class, and the class requires a certain level of skill to get into (which is specially true for graduate level classes). You've also all been in the class for a relatively short time. There are probably many other factors as well, but you might start to see that the main factor is how much work you're putting in (and how it could easily be just two weeks). So there is hope for my classmates and anybody else who might be struggling in a class. This is somewhat related to how sophistry works. When you want to determine if somebody is being coherent but you don't understand them, you go by their level of conviction and other superficial markers like fluency and verbal richness. It's like a back-up plan for when you don't understand someone but you need to know if they can be trusted or not, which is actually very often the case. It's also often required for learning new things. You need to trust in what you're learning before you actually learn it, and if you stop at the first sign of incoherence, you won't learn much of anything. So ironically, you need to be somewhat complacent with sophistry in order to actually become knowledgeable and to be able to spot sophistry when it truly happens. Knowledge is a Catch-22. And also ironically, the people in my group who don't attend the lectures, need to become complacent with sophistry when it truly matters (during the lectures), and not just when they're in the group listening to those who have attended the lectures. They very often think we're being coherent when we aren't, so in those moments, we're being sophists waiting to be called out.

Debating veganism is generally like shooting fish in a barrel (see what I did there? ) from the perspective of the vegan. But like you're saying, it's generally best when the person holding the gun is not batshit insane.

Your Cosmic self (your ultimate nature) is not reducible to your personal thoughts. But your personal self is largely reducible to your personal thoughts. But it's not just reducible to your thoughts. It's reducible to most (technically all) things in your life. This should not be taken as a needless burden but as responsibility, not as fear but courage.