Carl-Richard

I don't see the connection 🤔 Some other terms for what I'm talking about would be the "what", the "how" and the "where". The Cynefin framework and systems theory in general is mainly concerned about the hows; "relations" between the whats; syntax, structure. Concepts (whats), e.g. emotions, can be related to each other (how), e.g. in a complicated relationship, and implemented in a concrete physical substrate (where), e.g. in neurons or physiological responses.

He could've said "syntax vs semantics", "algorithm vs computation", "form vs being", but no, he chose "structure vs content" (🤓) I just realized Sat-Chit-Ananda or the Holy Trinity or Brahman-Shiva-Shakti describes the same thing as Marr's Three Levels (Computation, Algorithm, Implementation), but that is just me being Jordan Peterson and interviewing myself

This topic is a South Park episode.

I would think it's the specific pattern recognition and chunking that doesn't transfer between tasks, but the underlying working memory training that is indicated by the fatigue does transfer. It's like playing basketball and then one day switching to football. Your game performance will drop significantly, but your general physical fitness will stay the same. N-Back training does load your working memory, or else there would be no platform to develop the pattern recognition or chunking abilities on. Your working memory is the general workspace of your mind, kinda like the musculoskeletal system is the general workspace of your body. The question is simply how much N-Back training loads it and whether it's more efficient than simply using your brain in other similar ways (e.g. reading a difficult text). And indeed, I believe N-Back training is more efficient at this, because it follows the same principles of maximizing muscle growth: short and intense periods of work (e.g. 1 minute x 10 sets), short rest periods in-between (e.g. 30 seconds), and longer periods of rest (e.g. two to three rest days a week). So to speak, you can develop your muscles by simply doing manual labor all day, but you won't win the Mr. Olympia. But how much more efficient is it? That's an empirical question, and paraphrasing one of my professors, "the evidence on the benefits of brain training on improving cognitive performance is weak to moderate", and the studies that show positive results generally point to e.g. single digit increases in IQ. However, I believe more clever research designs could show more convincing results. Just like there are better and worse ways of training for example bench press, there are better and worse ways of training N-Back, and I don't believe this is well-controlled for in most studies. The way you structure your training, your focus, your intensity, your consistency, your technique, etc., matters a lot. This is also not to speak about factors like internal motivation, which is unbelievably important for pursuing growth in anything and arguably one of the largest predictors of cognitive performance in itself. You will probably never find a high-quality study like a randomized controlled trial that uses internally motivated participants unless they intentionally selected for it, and that is rare (and almost practically impossible in this case: where would you find people who can't wait to start N-Back training but has not already started it?). As for what I believe is possible, I believe you could increase your IQ by 10 points using a proper N-Back training protocol with internal motivation (and coaching) in one month of training. You could probably increase it another 5 points or so over time, like indicated by the anecdotal report mentioned by OP (although he was also maximizing other factors like diet and exercise). On the surface, this would probably get me laughed at by some scientists, but again, I would ask them for better studies. So to sum up, N-Back is a very intense exercise, and it fits well within a training protocol that maximizes growth.

This might be interesting: https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/human-neuroscience/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2015.00430/full

If you're playing the game and putting in an effort and you develop fatigue, that is a sign you're using your working memory. It's true that your brain develops strategies over time, but that is countered by simply increasing the difficulty of the game in the game settings. So to see progress, just increase the difficulty over time.

@Keryo Koffa 🤨

So we're presumably talking about what is natural for humans specifically? 🧐 You're construing survival as a form of animalistic physical survival; fight or flight. But human survival also involves higher mental functions. That is why they evolved. Creating rules is human survival. Therefore, sports with an extreme amount of rules, like Chess, is a perfectly natural sport for us. As for your thought experiment of placing a lone individual on an island and seeing what they would do; no human being has ever existed alone naturally. That is completely unnatural. We are a social species. Let's instead place a group of people on an island and see what they would do. You could conceive that they would construct a game that could eventually evolve into Chess. That is after all what happened historically. So I would change the title to "animalistic vs human sports" ;D

On Death, Part One, by Max Klinger.

Interesting picture that resonated with me. The scenery awoke some memories of similar sceneries.

The point is that you don't exit the illusion. The illusion is still there, but you just see it for what it is. Illusion, dream, whatever. The dream metaphor is just more visual. In a dream, things seem like reality, but it's really not, but you don't know until you wake up (and it's possible to wake up inside the dream, i.e. lucid dream). Another reason why the dream metaphor works is because you wake up to something that is beyond the dream or physical reality (emptiness, formlessness), but somehow, you carry that realization into the dream. In other words, you still live as a physical being while having your experience dipped in formlessness.

It doesn't feel like a lucid dream in the sense that things are vague or ephemeral like in a nightly dream. It's a lucid dream in that things actually become clearer. You go from a murky and fuzzy dreamland to a clear and pristine lucid dreamland — reality.

You can still do that, but you won't feel like a person doing it. It will be a movie about hot chicks walking by and your body moving after them. You "transcend" the ego, the body, the self, but the self is still there, doing its thing. That is why this is my favorite quote (paraphrasing @Moksha): "Enlightenment is becoming lucid in the dream". You don't wake up and the dream ends. You wake up and the dream continues.

You're speaking to death himself, my guy ;D

Overwhelmed as in "oweee poor mee's, I dunno what to dooo, who am I in this chaos, what is going on..."? Basically, yes. Overwhelmed as in "I have such a strong desire to fulfill this goal, I'm overwhelmed by drive and purpose, I'm drowning in ecstatic bliss, rapture and the wonder of life"? No. You can have those things when enlightened, but if they're not virtually constant, they will be very streamlined and fleeting. Rarely will you approach a problem and feel stuck. Neuroscientifically speaking, enlightenment puts you in a constant doing-mode. There is very little room for hesitation, at least moment to moment. You can "hesitate" or withhold making a decision; you can be wise and wait things out; but indecision due to personal calamities and generally unstable behavior is rather out of the picture definitionally. You could imagine someone regressing in their state due to severe environmental stress or illness, but other than that, no, they're pretty much beyond that. If you look at sincerely enlightened people; the way they act, the way they move, speak, emote; it's like a flowing stream. They have let go of something big, partially the desire to control, partially the desire to be something, to have something, to let something be other than it is. And of course the paradox is that on the outside, it looks almost nothing like it. They are doing so many things, they are making so many apparent decisions, have such strong desires and values. To discern enlightenment, requires dealing with subtle clues.

What troubles do you have with survival?

There is no "you" having to do anything in a "complete" state of awakening (enlightenment). If you fear being unable to function, then that is a fear you have to let go. You have to trust yourself. It takes infinite trust. If you don't want to let go of that fear, then don't. Maybe the reason you don't want to let go is that you want to keep doing things as a seemingly separate individual that feels like they're in control. Maybe you are insecure about something, or you have some unfulfilled desire. Identify those things and pursue them. Then come back to awakening later.

He is a little on the spectrum I would say. It's a meme in the comment sections that when you go on JP's podcast, it's not him interviewing you, it's him having a "conversation" with you. That's an euphemism, by the way, just like "assertive and rude" is an euphemism for narcissistic tendencies. That said, I also include people like Barack Obama in that. Trump is just a blatant narcissist, so I'm not comparing JP to him. But it's funny and peculiar that he would use the same traits to describe Trump to describe himself.

Behold the phenomena of transmission. Keep going, if you dare.

What if I do that and have 160 IQ and six fingers on each hand and six middle fingers and three arms? 6 6 6 (don't get lost in the joke, it was a sincere point 🙂).

I bet OP did not have this in mind but rather thought about one or a few features of themselves that they consider out of the norm and wondered how it would be to not have those things. If it was not so painfully personal, I would ask what those things are.

Ooh. But don't you know "spiritual" around here means "knows about non-duality and watches every one of Leo's videos immediately when they come out"? 😉

Ok let me try: average is anybody who isn't "spiritual".

Nooooooo 🙈 I'm genuinely curious 😩

But what is the definition? 🤔