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Mentat Wiki: exploring ways to become a better thinker

219 points by icey 6y ago

ztc 6y ago
When I saw Mentat I immediately thought about Fallout.
- eindiran 6y ago
  The Mentats (nootropic drugs) in the Fallout universe (https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Mentats https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Mentats) are a reference to the Mentats (human computers that take a cognitive enhancement drug) of the Dune universe (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organizations_of_the_Dune_universe#Mentats https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organizations_of_the_Dune_univ...).
  - ztc 6y ago
    Oh interesting! Looks like I need to look more into the Dune books/movies as Fallout is probably my fav game series.
    - gommm 6y ago
      Definitely recommend the books (at least the ones written by the father, not the ones written by the son). The lynch movie departs quite a bit from the book, it's not a really bad movie per se but it's frustrating if you've read the books. It has influenced a lot of games, books and movies so it's a classic well worth reading. The first third of the first book is a bit of a slog but it becomes very good after.
    - cgriswald 6y ago
      My standard advice for people reading the books with the movies/mini-series mixed in: Read the first one. It's not for everyone, it's a little dry, POV is all over the place, and it's very political and thoughtful. It can be a slow read, but it's worth it. Watch the Lynch movie. (Lament that this could have been Alejandro Jodorowsky's Dune if so inclined.) Watch the Sci-Fi Channel's Frank Herbert's Dune. (Probably watch the Villeneuve Dune due out in December this year.) If you happened to like it, read Dune Messiah and Children of Dune. You'll probably like these books as well. (If you didn't like Dune, it's okay to stop here.) Watch the Sci-Fi Channel's Children of Dune. If you happened to like those, try God Emperor of Dune. Be warned it is extremely different from the previous books. It's become my favorite book in the series after multiple re-readings of the entire series (previously was Dune Messiah), but it is certainly not for everyone. It's okay to quit here. If you made it through God Emperor, read Heretics of Dune. If you enjoyed it, read Chapterhouse: Dune. (If you didn't enjoy Heretics, don't bother). Lament that it is over. If you must, read Sandworms of Dune which is written by the son, but is supposedly based on the father's notes. It is the least bad of the books I've read by the son. Don't read anything else. Edit: Formatting
arethuza 6y ago
Given the mention of coffee on that page and the title of the site (not to mention other recent events): "It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion. It is by the beans of Java that thoughts acquire speed, the hands acquire shakes, the shakes become a warning. It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion."
- jmt_ 6y ago
  I'm reminded of a quote by a coworker: "Through God, I can do anything. But without coffee, I can do nothing"
- SketchySeaBeast 6y ago
  Is "It is by the beans of Java that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains, the stains become a warning." too on the nose?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- keiferski 6y ago
  "Delightedly he seized hold of the bag containing the sugar and poured sugar into the coffee cup until it was piled up above the rim. Next came the incredibly strong, black coffee, which slowly dissolved the white pyramid." - Joakim Garff on Søren Kierkegaard
  - saeranv 6y ago
    Balzac apparently drank 50(!) cups of coffee per day.
    - space_ghost 6y ago
      The New Yorker did a fantastic reenactment of this. There's a short clip (1) on Youtube but the original is much longer and becomes quite bizarre very quickly. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AuDP99eGo2w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AuDP99eGo2w
    - 6y ago
reedf1 6y ago
Something about this stuff rubs me the wrong way. I'm not sure what. I never thought the mentats of Dune is something anyone would want to be.
- toast0 6y ago
  From a brief look, this is more or less a brain training wiki, but playing up the mentat training angle probably makes the site more engaging and fun. I think there's a lot of people who wish they could remember more things, or math more effectively without tools or etc. Probably not a whole lot who want to go to the depths of the mentats. In universe, the training would have started before the trainee could consent, which makes it hard to make a choice to become a mentat, you can't choose to begin training, only to continue or abandon if you were in training since early childhood.
- codezero 6y ago
  I kind of read it as just taking performance enhancing drugs - a thing that's not too uncommon for peak athletes. Thinking of this like mental athletics, I can imagine folks taking drugs for that too (Adderall? :) )
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- fouc 6y ago
  I always thought Mentats were a reference to (and an extension of) the original Computers - humans that performed calculations in their head. > The term "computer", in use from the early 17th century (the first known written reference dates from 1613),[1] meant "one who computes": a person performing mathematical calculations, before electronic computers became commercially available.
  - Jtsummers 6y ago
    They were. Same with the Guild Navigators. Humans replaced the thinking machines following the Butlerian Jihad, taking back agency for humanity, but sacrificing agency for those individuals who became machines themselves.
mistermann 6y ago
The Critical Thinking section starts off with: "Thinking logically is something we all can do. We find ourselves so often taken in by fallacious arguments, though. How can we identify them in others' arguments and our own thought?" Well, I'd start with "Thinking logically is something we all can do." If considered as a low-dimensional binary, it's true: we all can think logically, in that each individual can probably get at least one answer correct on a logic test. However, stating that fact as "Thinking logically is something we all can do" seems like it might run the risk of people not taking the time to consider the importance (or existence) of the variable: [the degree to which we can consistently think logically], which I think should include the ability to detect when the premises one is working on top of have potential imperfections contained within (such as in this example). Might theories like this offer some explanation for why the rationalist approach seems to not produce the outcomes that one would "logically" expect, or why it's not much harder to find incorrect assertions in rationalist communities than it is in less intellectually rigorous communities? It seems to me that sayings like "It Ain’t What You Don’t Know That Gets You Into Trouble. It’s What You Know for Sure That Just Ain’t So." are not just clever, but they also contain a lot of wisdom.
- mistermann 6y ago
  It's also interesting how unpopular these sorts of ideas seem to be, even among relatively skilled critical thinkers.
EForEndeavour 6y ago
This page led me to rediscover the name of the digit-to-consonant mnemonic system I absorbed from the 2000-vintage internet (probably Everything2): the Major System [1]. Fittingly, I'd forgotten the name of this technique, though I still sometimes absentmindedly perform it on phone numbers and other digit strings in my environment when I'm walking around or whatever. Basically, you map the digits 0 through 9 to specific consonants, then come up with vowels to build out phrases that are more memorable than a bunch of boring numbers. I think I stopped practicing the system around the time I started storing phone numbers in cellphones, but reading this has reminded me to pick it back up and see if I can find any practical uses. [1] http://www.ludism.org/mentat/MajorSystem http://www.ludism.org/mentat/MajorSystem
- bangonkeyboard 6y ago
  I extended the Major system to include A-F so I could memorize hex cryptographic keys. Unfortunately, at the same time I also reordered some of the consonants, so I now have two competing mental phonemic mappings and basically ruined the system for myself.
- jedimastert 6y ago
  I believe this is Arthur Benjamin is using at the end of this demonstration. Super fun https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4vqr3_ROIk&vl=en https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4vqr3_ROIk&vl=en
- _alex_ 6y ago
  I used to travel a lot for work and this is how I’d remember my hotel room number.
  - EForEndeavour 6y ago
    I'll have to use this next time I stay in a hotel! Here's hoping I get Room 756 so I can tell myself I'm crashing at the club tonight.
eindiran 6y ago
I visited the page on nootropics (http://www.ludism.org/mentat/SmartDrug http://www.ludism.org/mentat/SmartDrug), and it seems pretty weak (for example, the basically empty table on mechanisms and effects of the major racetam drugs or the 'key resources' being populated by websites that are completely blocked by my adblocker). Is there a good resource that collates the research on nootropics in one place? I haven't looked in a long time, but the last time I looked everything seemed quite bullshitty. You can find articles like eg https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2854355/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2854355/ or https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2690149/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2690149/ or https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20166767/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20166767/ but ideally I would like to have a resource that has done a literature review and describes the evidence (with any caveats like "this only has been demonstrated in rats that were adrenalectomized + have chemically-induced dementia" or "this has never been reproduced") in a way that doesn't seem like it is an advertisement for some shitty piracetam company. This hypothetical resource probably doesn't exist, but I figured I'd ask anyway.
- vslira 6y ago
  Have you checked examine.com? You can search for specific compounds and I think they have a (paid) supplement on nootropics
  - eindiran 6y ago
    This is definitely better than anything else I've seen: https://examine.com/supplements/piracetam/ https://examine.com/supplements/piracetam/ And it has a list of citations, which is super useful: https://examine.com/supplements/piracetam/research/#citations https://examine.com/supplements/piracetam/research/#citation... Thank you for the pointer!
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- TeMPOraL 6y ago
  https://www.gwern.net/Nootropics https://www.gwern.net/Nootropics is the best I know. Gwern does a lot of n=1 science on himself, but his articles also feature stellar collection of citations.
dang 6y ago
If curious see also 2015 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10684327 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10684327
jbaber 6y ago
Flash anzan practitioners are mentats: https://youtu.be/j0ihbORhTCw https://youtu.be/j0ihbORhTCw

219 points by icey 6y ago

ztc 6y ago

When I saw Mentat I immediately thought about Fallout.

eindiran 6y ago
The Mentats (nootropic drugs) in the Fallout universe (https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Mentats https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Mentats) are a reference to the Mentats (human computers that take a cognitive enhancement drug) of the Dune universe (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organizations_of_the_Dune_universe#Mentats https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organizations_of_the_Dune_univ...).
- ztc 6y ago
  Oh interesting! Looks like I need to look more into the Dune books/movies as Fallout is probably my fav game series.
  - gommm 6y ago
    Definitely recommend the books (at least the ones written by the father, not the ones written by the son). The lynch movie departs quite a bit from the book, it's not a really bad movie per se but it's frustrating if you've read the books. It has influenced a lot of games, books and movies so it's a classic well worth reading. The first third of the first book is a bit of a slog but it becomes very good after.
  - cgriswald 6y ago
    My standard advice for people reading the books with the movies/mini-series mixed in: Read the first one. It's not for everyone, it's a little dry, POV is all over the place, and it's very political and thoughtful. It can be a slow read, but it's worth it. Watch the Lynch movie. (Lament that this could have been Alejandro Jodorowsky's Dune if so inclined.) Watch the Sci-Fi Channel's Frank Herbert's Dune. (Probably watch the Villeneuve Dune due out in December this year.) If you happened to like it, read Dune Messiah and Children of Dune. You'll probably like these books as well. (If you didn't like Dune, it's okay to stop here.) Watch the Sci-Fi Channel's Children of Dune. If you happened to like those, try God Emperor of Dune. Be warned it is extremely different from the previous books. It's become my favorite book in the series after multiple re-readings of the entire series (previously was Dune Messiah), but it is certainly not for everyone. It's okay to quit here. If you made it through God Emperor, read Heretics of Dune. If you enjoyed it, read Chapterhouse: Dune. (If you didn't enjoy Heretics, don't bother). Lament that it is over. If you must, read Sandworms of Dune which is written by the son, but is supposedly based on the father's notes. It is the least bad of the books I've read by the son. Don't read anything else. Edit: Formatting

arethuza 6y ago

Given the mention of coffee on that page and the title of the site (not to mention other recent events): "It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion. It is by the beans of Java that thoughts acquire speed, the hands acquire shakes, the shakes become a warning. It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion."

jmt_ 6y ago
I'm reminded of a quote by a coworker: "Through God, I can do anything. But without coffee, I can do nothing"
SketchySeaBeast 6y ago
Is "It is by the beans of Java that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains, the stains become a warning." too on the nose?
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
keiferski 6y ago
"Delightedly he seized hold of the bag containing the sugar and poured sugar into the coffee cup until it was piled up above the rim. Next came the incredibly strong, black coffee, which slowly dissolved the white pyramid." - Joakim Garff on Søren Kierkegaard
- saeranv 6y ago
  Balzac apparently drank 50(!) cups of coffee per day.
  - space_ghost 6y ago
    The New Yorker did a fantastic reenactment of this. There's a short clip (1) on Youtube but the original is much longer and becomes quite bizarre very quickly. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AuDP99eGo2w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AuDP99eGo2w
  - 6y ago

reedf1 6y ago

Something about this stuff rubs me the wrong way. I'm not sure what. I never thought the mentats of Dune is something anyone would want to be.

toast0 6y ago
From a brief look, this is more or less a brain training wiki, but playing up the mentat training angle probably makes the site more engaging and fun. I think there's a lot of people who wish they could remember more things, or math more effectively without tools or etc. Probably not a whole lot who want to go to the depths of the mentats. In universe, the training would have started before the trainee could consent, which makes it hard to make a choice to become a mentat, you can't choose to begin training, only to continue or abandon if you were in training since early childhood.
codezero 6y ago
I kind of read it as just taking performance enhancing drugs - a thing that's not too uncommon for peak athletes. Thinking of this like mental athletics, I can imagine folks taking drugs for that too (Adderall? :) )
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
fouc 6y ago
I always thought Mentats were a reference to (and an extension of) the original Computers - humans that performed calculations in their head. > The term "computer", in use from the early 17th century (the first known written reference dates from 1613),[1] meant "one who computes": a person performing mathematical calculations, before electronic computers became commercially available.
- Jtsummers 6y ago
  They were. Same with the Guild Navigators. Humans replaced the thinking machines following the Butlerian Jihad, taking back agency for humanity, but sacrificing agency for those individuals who became machines themselves.

mistermann 6y ago

The Critical Thinking section starts off with: "Thinking logically is something we all can do. We find ourselves so often taken in by fallacious arguments, though. How can we identify them in others' arguments and our own thought?" Well, I'd start with "Thinking logically is something we all can do." If considered as a low-dimensional binary, it's true: we all can think logically, in that each individual can probably get at least one answer correct on a logic test. However, stating that fact as "Thinking logically is something we all can do" seems like it might run the risk of people not taking the time to consider the importance (or existence) of the variable: [the degree to which we can consistently think logically], which I think should include the ability to detect when the premises one is working on top of have potential imperfections contained within (such as in this example). Might theories like this offer some explanation for why the rationalist approach seems to not produce the outcomes that one would "logically" expect, or why it's not much harder to find incorrect assertions in rationalist communities than it is in less intellectually rigorous communities? It seems to me that sayings like "It Ain’t What You Don’t Know That Gets You Into Trouble. It’s What You Know for Sure That Just Ain’t So." are not just clever, but they also contain a lot of wisdom.

mistermann 6y ago
It's also interesting how unpopular these sorts of ideas seem to be, even among relatively skilled critical thinkers.

EForEndeavour 6y ago

This page led me to rediscover the name of the digit-to-consonant mnemonic system I absorbed from the 2000-vintage internet (probably Everything2): the Major System [1]. Fittingly, I'd forgotten the name of this technique, though I still sometimes absentmindedly perform it on phone numbers and other digit strings in my environment when I'm walking around or whatever. Basically, you map the digits 0 through 9 to specific consonants, then come up with vowels to build out phrases that are more memorable than a bunch of boring numbers. I think I stopped practicing the system around the time I started storing phone numbers in cellphones, but reading this has reminded me to pick it back up and see if I can find any practical uses. [1] http://www.ludism.org/mentat/MajorSystem http://www.ludism.org/mentat/MajorSystem

bangonkeyboard 6y ago
I extended the Major system to include A-F so I could memorize hex cryptographic keys. Unfortunately, at the same time I also reordered some of the consonants, so I now have two competing mental phonemic mappings and basically ruined the system for myself.
jedimastert 6y ago
I believe this is Arthur Benjamin is using at the end of this demonstration. Super fun https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4vqr3_ROIk&vl=en https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4vqr3_ROIk&vl=en
_alex_ 6y ago
I used to travel a lot for work and this is how I’d remember my hotel room number.
- EForEndeavour 6y ago
  I'll have to use this next time I stay in a hotel! Here's hoping I get Room 756 so I can tell myself I'm crashing at the club tonight.

eindiran 6y ago

I visited the page on nootropics (http://www.ludism.org/mentat/SmartDrug http://www.ludism.org/mentat/SmartDrug), and it seems pretty weak (for example, the basically empty table on mechanisms and effects of the major racetam drugs or the 'key resources' being populated by websites that are completely blocked by my adblocker). Is there a good resource that collates the research on nootropics in one place? I haven't looked in a long time, but the last time I looked everything seemed quite bullshitty. You can find articles like eg https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2854355/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2854355/ or https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2690149/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2690149/ or https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20166767/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20166767/ but ideally I would like to have a resource that has done a literature review and describes the evidence (with any caveats like "this only has been demonstrated in rats that were adrenalectomized + have chemically-induced dementia" or "this has never been reproduced") in a way that doesn't seem like it is an advertisement for some shitty piracetam company. This hypothetical resource probably doesn't exist, but I figured I'd ask anyway.

vslira 6y ago
Have you checked examine.com? You can search for specific compounds and I think they have a (paid) supplement on nootropics
- eindiran 6y ago
  This is definitely better than anything else I've seen: https://examine.com/supplements/piracetam/ https://examine.com/supplements/piracetam/ And it has a list of citations, which is super useful: https://examine.com/supplements/piracetam/research/#citations https://examine.com/supplements/piracetam/research/#citation... Thank you for the pointer!
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
TeMPOraL 6y ago
https://www.gwern.net/Nootropics https://www.gwern.net/Nootropics is the best I know. Gwern does a lot of n=1 science on himself, but his articles also feature stellar collection of citations.

dang 6y ago

If curious see also 2015 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10684327 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10684327

jbaber 6y ago

Flash anzan practitioners are mentats: https://youtu.be/j0ihbORhTCw https://youtu.be/j0ihbORhTCw