4 replies to this topic

[Kahnetic]

Thought I would share this video, it's an incredible demonstration of what can be achieved through rigorous training of mental capabilities. Simply amazing. Reading about the fellow as a child was a major influence on my current interest in cognition augmentation, hence my name. Forgive the 'you only use 10% of your brain' myth that he cites, he is a performer not a neuroscientist.

http://www.britishpa...m_id/playlist/1

Has anyone here tried the Multiple Mentality course? It can be found here: http://www.rexresear...kahne/kahne.htm, for free. I'm thinking of giving it a go, can anyone provide a review?

[Cerebro]

You made my day!

[dasheenster]

Why would I want to read, talk, and write backwards, from behind the board? It's cool, and impressive as hell, but does it help other mental faculties, like cognition, memory, or language? Does it reduce the chance of developing brain diseases later in life? Multitasking might only be as valuable as the tasks you can perform. If the science proves that it does both, enhancing the brain and preventing disease, then I'll be persuaded...until then, I'm a tad bit skeptical.

[Kahnetic]

Well, learning any new skill is beneficial to the brain and I'm sure such mind intensive training would benefit brain health which may indirectly improve cognition, even if the skills trained aren't particularly practical themselves. Maybe it does result in a generalized improvement in multitasking and language use? As you said, we can't be certain until research has been conducted. I'm sceptical myself, that's why I was hoping to get some reviews from the community.

Practicality aside, it's still an incredible talent and it's inspiring to know that it can be achieved by almost anyone through training.

[dasheenster]

Multitasking is important in its own right, but I honestly think your average hard-working person learns how to multitask well enough without practicing the art of writing backwards while simultaneously reading and speaking. You can tell he was not speaking at his 100% maximum ability until he stopped focusing on writing. He clearly engages the audience more deeply, and says more profound things after he's finished writing and reading.

A while back I came across a study (or a review/meta-analysis) which concluded that doing crossword puzzles (or a similarly demanding task) would basically only enhance a few mental faculties, particularly those involved with words, strings, syllables/phonetics, and language recall. They went on to speculate that engaging in mentally demanding tasks will, sadly, only "enhance" a few specific faculties...unsurprisingly, they thought the faculties most involved. So, according to these researchers, if you have a hard heart, you can tell your grandma that she's not really doing much to keep her mind sharp by doing crosswords in her spare time. These researchers believed that the brain only learns to specialize in a few faculties, and that it's virtually impossible to enhance them all. By the time you did crosswords, you'd want to move onto maths problems, then Sudoku, then chess, then philosophical inquires, so that by the time you cycled through all your faculties and your tasks of choice, the one's for crosswords and maths problems would already have returned to baselines, whereas you'd have a modest improvement in chess abilities, and a still lingering, powerful increase in the faculties involved in philosophical inquiry. After you did crosswords for a week, so they maintained, you'd start to lose your philosophical edge. It's really depressing to think that our brain has such limits/quotas imposed upon it, but maybe it's true. Of course, you could doubt this research, but I remember it being very convincing. We could always hope for magical nootropics which radically enhance the brain, but at the risk of being labeled as Hitler 2.0, I'd like to suggest that the only feasible way to overcome such innate limits is to radically alter the genes which code for brain faculties and the nature of neurons.

I can't remember exactly where I saw it, but if anyone is interested, I'll try to find the studies so you can check it out first-hand.

Edit: http://www.time.com/...1983306,00.html

Edited by dasheenster, 31 July 2012 - 12:49 AM.