Posted by zmg on December 3, 2006, at 14:37:56
In reply to Re: The Skinny on Smart Pills, posted by linkadge on December 2, 2006, at 12:52:05
I'd say intelligence, like most things in life, is hard to categorize. Lots of grey areas.
So saying its structural is probably only partially true.
I'd say on the surface, things like depression, anxiety, lethargy all can create a veneer between your mind and thought processes. If you've read about smart drugs you'd see a lot of them (those that aren't intended to improve existing biochemical functions or limit damage of toxicity or stress) treat emotional symptoms (even if the literature isn't always so explicit).
Personally I go back an forth regarding intelligence. Since your interested in structural I recently saw an interesting documentary on (I think the discovery channel) about savants. It seems likely that they have problems filtering information and tend to be exposed to more and tend to have problems with the 'garbage disposal', retaining more then the average person.
So smart pills are interesting to me. But I'm not sure what some of the results will be in clumsily tipping the balance (but I've got nothing against taking an antioxidant!).
poster:zmg
thread:708941
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20061129/msgs/709982.html