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Actually a much stronger argument. Anyone who has been taking drugs for that long is going to have serious withdrawal issues. This is analogous to a heavy cof
by usaar333 16y ago
Actually a much stronger argument. Anyone who has been taking drugs for that long is going to have serious withdrawal issues. This is analogous to a heavy coffee drinker complaining he is exhausted and has a headache because he missed his daily dose of caffeine; it isn't so much that people can't operate sans caffeine, it is that his brain has become wired to expect the daily stimulant.
- dkersten 16y agoExactly. If he had been off the drugs for, say, a year, instead of just a month, then his argument would be a lot more convincing.
- eru 16y agoIndeed. But, alas, Erdős only wanted to win the bet, not run a scientific experiment. By the way, I remember that Erdős reported that he felt better after a month off drugs. It was just that mathematics suffered.
- dkersten 16y agoI would wager that his creativity would come back after a few months. If he felt better, but mathematics suffered, then I imagine that it really was just a post-drug drop in creativity and motivation and that normally passes.
- eru 16y agoI don't know. I don't even know, if it was a lack of creativity that held him back, or not being able to focus, or maybe something else.
- dkersten 16y agolack of creativity, lack of motivation, lack of focus - all of these things are to be expected after giving up drugs, I didn't specifically just mean creativity. The longer you are dependent on the drugs, the longer the comedown will be. I have experimented in the past, and I say this from personal experiences. Having said that, it could well have been something else entirely that prevented him from producing as many or as good results and I'm not saying that the drugs didn't really improve his ability - I am saying that we don't have enough information to know for sure and that a month may not have been long enough to be conclusive.