[EDIT April 5: I do not currently “have the ball” on this, so to anybody reading this who would go test it themselves if-and-only-if they don’t see somebody else already on it: I am not on it.]
Can you email me ? I’d love to set this up for you. If you’re in the bay I might run a cohort for this, and if you aren’t I can send you detailed instructions (but would love for you to have a control … I am trying to get a standardized protocol so people doing things the same way ~ish would help me)
You would need ~300$ worth of equipment and substances (off amazon), and for the version I’m doing now an EEG but one may go without it I suppose.
Ideally you’d also want to throw money on some helpers along the way, I managed to incorporate most the “wowo” stuff myself but there are many ways to get “wowo” wrong, I’ve come to think, and I was lucky enough to filter out many wowo people in my life and build (what I think is) a pretty good framework for “how wowo applies to me” (in this case wowo standing in for stuff like “how to do Yin yoga with visualizations that enhance the poses & breath holds that help relax specific muscle groups”—but like, 10x such things and to some extent individualized)
Still, I have little doubt that if this replicates in 6 more people it could replicate in a dedicated someone doing this remotely, even with cheap equipment & no on-site help.
I work from the same office as John; and the location also happens to have dozens of LessWrong readers work there on a regular basis. We could probably set up an experiment here with many willing volunteers; and I’m interested in helping to make it happen (if it continues to seem promising after thinking more about it).
I’m in SF right now and 6 friends (3 control, 3 intervention) are doing a self-experiment on a version of this stuff with me.
What I’d say is:
a) Wait until March 13/14th when I will have the data, that way it’s not a waste
b) If you think it’s a success (I can just give you the raw data and you can run your own analysis) and you have 6 or more people that want to part-take (split control/intervention, ideally—the controls can just go after) -- I can come over for a few days and help you set up + lend some of my hardware (I’m currently working on a NIR stimulation system that uses an EEG for feedback) | If you’re not in the bay I might be able to set up a remote version
I’m not making a hard commitment here since this whole experiment started as part of a broader neurotech I’m running (not for increasing IQ, but rather for preventing cognitive decline in young adults, however it’s fun to play with stuff like IQ while I don’t have a full neuroscience lab /w me) -- which is to say my schedule is what you’d expect from doing an early stage startup, minced—but it would be awesome to try.
Feel free to email me (george3d6@gmail.com is what I use nowadays) and cc whoever may be interested, but I’d rather hype things up (or drop them) once I have the extra data.
Because it’s an individualized approach that is a WIP and if I just write it down 99% of people will execute it badly.
If someone is smart enough to do this in a solo fashion they can literally google search for various techs used in various diseases, figure out what’s easy and would fit a healthy person, then do it.
I posted a broad overview of what I did, I can’t actually get it into a format where I could instruct someone to replicate everything well, that’s practically my point… if this was pill-level difficulty I’d be on shelves by now, but it’s not, it’s easy but easy at a level that’s hard to reach in current social structures.
Because it’s an individualized approach that is a WIP and if I just write it down 99% of people will execute it badly.
Why is that a problem? Do you mean this in the sense of “if I do this, it will lead to people making false claims that my experiment doesn’t replicate” or “if I do this, nothing good will come of it so it’s not even worth the effort of writing”.
As someone who runs a lot of self-experiments and occasionally helps others, I’m disappointed in but sympathetic to this approach. People are complicated: the right thing to do probably is try a bunch of stuff and see what sticks. But people really, really want the answer to be simple, and will round down complicated answers until they are simple enough, then declare the original protocol a failure when their simplification doesn’t work.
I think it would be valuable for George to write up the list of interventions they considered, and a case report on how he fine tuned the procedure for himself. Possibly valuable enough to pay for it. But I think he’s doing the right thing by refusing to write out a formal protocol at this stage.
I mean if I write this it will sound very weird and not be followable because it includes things like:
Do this <weird practice> but find areas with low proprioception and do it there using something like <here’s an odd sub technique I did—but you kinda have to asses what works best for you>
I am trying to replicate this with more people right now so I’d rather not dilute the intervention specifically—hence why this post was not about what I did as much as why one ought to expect increasing IQ, in general, works.
Yup.
[EDIT April 5: I do not currently “have the ball” on this, so to anybody reading this who would go test it themselves if-and-only-if they don’t see somebody else already on it: I am not on it.]
Can you email me ? I’d love to set this up for you. If you’re in the bay I might run a cohort for this, and if you aren’t I can send you detailed instructions (but would love for you to have a control … I am trying to get a standardized protocol so people doing things the same way ~ish would help me)
You would need ~300$ worth of equipment and substances (off amazon), and for the version I’m doing now an EEG but one may go without it I suppose.
Ideally you’d also want to throw money on some helpers along the way, I managed to incorporate most the “wowo” stuff myself but there are many ways to get “wowo” wrong, I’ve come to think, and I was lucky enough to filter out many wowo people in my life and build (what I think is) a pretty good framework for “how wowo applies to me” (in this case wowo standing in for stuff like “how to do Yin yoga with visualizations that enhance the poses & breath holds that help relax specific muscle groups”—but like, 10x such things and to some extent individualized)
Still, I have little doubt that if this replicates in 6 more people it could replicate in a dedicated someone doing this remotely, even with cheap equipment & no on-site help.
Can you CC me too?
I work from the same office as John; and the location also happens to have dozens of LessWrong readers work there on a regular basis. We could probably set up an experiment here with many willing volunteers; and I’m interested in helping to make it happen (if it continues to seem promising after thinking more about it).
Is this in the bay?
I’m in SF right now and 6 friends (3 control, 3 intervention) are doing a self-experiment on a version of this stuff with me.
What I’d say is:
a) Wait until March 13/14th when I will have the data, that way it’s not a waste
b) If you think it’s a success (I can just give you the raw data and you can run your own analysis) and you have 6 or more people that want to part-take (split control/intervention, ideally—the controls can just go after) -- I can come over for a few days and help you set up + lend some of my hardware (I’m currently working on a NIR stimulation system that uses an EEG for feedback) | If you’re not in the bay I might be able to set up a remote version
I’m not making a hard commitment here since this whole experiment started as part of a broader neurotech I’m running (not for increasing IQ, but rather for preventing cognitive decline in young adults, however it’s fun to play with stuff like IQ while I don’t have a full neuroscience lab /w me) -- which is to say my schedule is what you’d expect from doing an early stage startup, minced—but it would be awesome to try.
Feel free to email me (george3d6@gmail.com is what I use nowadays) and cc whoever may be interested, but I’d rather hype things up (or drop them) once I have the extra data.
Is there some reason why you don’t want to post the procedure here, on Less Wrong?
Because it’s an individualized approach that is a WIP and if I just write it down 99% of people will execute it badly.
If someone is smart enough to do this in a solo fashion they can literally google search for various techs used in various diseases, figure out what’s easy and would fit a healthy person, then do it.
I posted a broad overview of what I did, I can’t actually get it into a format where I could instruct someone to replicate everything well, that’s practically my point… if this was pill-level difficulty I’d be on shelves by now, but it’s not, it’s easy but easy at a level that’s hard to reach in current social structures.
Why is that a problem? Do you mean this in the sense of “if I do this, it will lead to people making false claims that my experiment doesn’t replicate” or “if I do this, nothing good will come of it so it’s not even worth the effort of writing”.
As someone who runs a lot of self-experiments and occasionally helps others, I’m disappointed in but sympathetic to this approach. People are complicated: the right thing to do probably is try a bunch of stuff and see what sticks. But people really, really want the answer to be simple, and will round down complicated answers until they are simple enough, then declare the original protocol a failure when their simplification doesn’t work.
I think it would be valuable for George to write up the list of interventions they considered, and a case report on how he fine tuned the procedure for himself. Possibly valuable enough to pay for it. But I think he’s doing the right thing by refusing to write out a formal protocol at this stage.
I mean if I write this it will sound very weird and not be followable because it includes things like:
I am trying to replicate this with more people right now so I’d rather not dilute the intervention specifically—hence why this post was not about what I did as much as why one ought to expect increasing IQ, in general, works.