Pinky and the Brain

[SeleucusNicator]

I'm with Perfection. I'll laugh if we start seeing doping scandals in academic competitions now.

There already are some incidents, actually. It is not unheard of for quizbowl players to take speed before games in the hope that it would aid quick memory recall. From what I hear, though, the effects on performance are underwhelming.

 

[Syterion]

This pisses me off. I really would be worried that someone who is richer than me can concentrate much better than me because he takes a pill not because he is actually smarter than me.

 

[carlosMM]

Perfection Prediction

Year 2007:

Little Amy Sue is busted at the national spelling bee and stripped of her national champianship after performance enhancing drugs are found in her possession

carlosMM Prediction:

Year 2008:

Little Sue is rehabilitated by the Supreme Court after her family 'donates' a few hundred thousand bucks.

Year 2018:

Not-so-little anymore Sue is diagnosed with severe schizophrenia and a multiple personality disorder, the first known case of both appearing together.







Seriously, we have hardly any idea how this stuff influences long term memory. We only know that dicking around with that is most probably something that should only be done when necessary, because of the side effects.

 

[Falcon02]

We only know that dicking around with that is most probably something that should only be done when necessary, because of the side effects.

I wouldn't even say we've gone that far with what we "know."

What we know is that more extensive and LONG TERM (In my opinion 10 year minimum) studies need to be conducted before we can even concider introducing these drugs. Because as far as we know the only side effect could be dry mouth, but as pointed out here by Carlos, again as far as we know the side effect of long term use could be mental illness, or cancer. We just do not know anything except for the short term effects of this drug.

Also the point of the brain becoming to cluttered is legitimate from what I've seen. I've seen multiple programs make the claim that if you were walking across a sidewalk in the middle of the city, taking in EVERYTHING, and processing EVERYTHING, you could see and hear, you're brain would reach capacity before you got to the other side of the road.

 

[Erik Mesoy]

Has anyone else read "Totall Recall" by Isaac Asimov? Would be a fairly interesting point to make...

 

[stormbind]

Why do we need to sleep, and what would be the impact of overworking our brains without extra sleep?

 

[Cheetah]

Well, I've heard the brain sorts through your impressions for the day and throws away insignificant data and cathegorises the rest.

So a lot of unsorted data in your mind I guess...

Think how much faster it is to search through a sorted list than an unsorted list, and you could see that becoming a problem very fast.