From: Ammond Shadowcraft Area: Base of Set To: All 22 Jun 92 22:30:00 Subject: Hyper Learning (1 of 2) UpdReq Date: Mon Jun 22, 1992 8:44 pm MDT From: Extropians EMS: INTERNET / MCI ID: 376-5414 MBX: Extropians@gnu.ai.mit.edu TO: Extropians EMS: INTERNET / MCI ID: 376-5414 MBX: Extropians@gnu.ai.mit.edu Subject: Re: Questions from a new Extropian: `Mental' Extropy Max More requests information (for the group) on: || II. Increasing human intelligence: || A. Anybody else out there familiar with the work of Dr. Win || Wenger (eg, his book "How to Increase Your Intelligence")? || How about other approaches to boosting one's intelligence, || such as working through Marilyn vos Savant's book? ||Not with these particular books. Please let us have more information. ||| E. Has there been interest in and ideas about potential speed- || learning and super-learning techniques, such as those || expounded by Lozanov and by the Society for Accelerated || Learning and Teaching? ||Definitely. References and more information would be welcomed. I am |familiar with Ostrander's "Superlearning" which is partly based on |Lozanov's techniques. I've also found some excellent techniques in |Lorayne and Lucas's "The Memory Book." Here is a partial list of works that I'm aware of. Note that I haven't yet read the majority of them, or put them into practice. Most of them would be considered "pop" level ... but some are more pop than others ... II.A. -- Intelligence Increase: Wenger and Savant vos Savant, Marilyn -- "Brain Building: Exercising Yourself Smarter" ('91?) Her claim to fame is her status as having the world's highest IQ (200+ I believe) and her weekly brain-teaser column in _Parade_ magazine. She lays out a 12-week (part-time) program of mostly cognitive exercises, which she believes will train a person to become more intelligent. I haven't yet gone through her program, mainly because I haven't gotten around to purchasing an Encyclopedia set. Wenger, Win -- "How to Increase Your Intelligence" ('75) Wenger lays out a 3-week (full-time) "brain-building marathon" which basically starts at the bottom of your neurology and works on up ... which process seems intuitively extropian. His material (based largely on findings by psychologists such as Piaget, Bruner, Doman and Delacato) starts with exercises for the medulla, then for the pons, then midbrain, and then for the cortex, but his methods are primarily physiological and functional, as opposed to "cognitive". One summer break in '83, a friend and I went through the program, although we rushed into it and consequently didn't plan / prepare very well. My main (unexpected) experiential perceptions during the process were "odd and interesting", and I wasn't quite sure what to make of them, but in retrospect, they do seem obvious ... how is it supposed to feel when you boost the power of your brain and consciousness?! The main perceived effects of the marathon lasted for about 6 months afterword; I felt "clearer", more alert, and my "interest" was a tangible force which demanded satisfaction ... hence I started reading _alot_. I also seemed more able to experience a subtle psycho-logical "ecstacy" when engaging in `mental' activities. I took the Mensa entrance exam, and noticed an increase of 8 points IQ since I last took such an intelligence test (in elementary school). I don't know if that's significant. Someday I hope to try this program again, but first I'll prepare and schedule more carefully, and will add in a few enhancements. [two other notable works by Wenger]: "Towards a Taxonomy of Methods for Improving Teaching and Learning, and for Building Human Intelligence" -- an attempt to categorize 350 methods/systems to improve education, and 150 methods/ systems to increase intelligence. Although his classification is interesting, I was disappointed that he didn't list all of the methods. Perhaps in a later edition ... "A Theory of Civilizations and Other Living Systems" ('73) -- an elaboration on Spengler's "organic analogy" of human society. It was in this work that I first learned about entropy reversal. At the risk of copyright violation, I'll include an excerpt from the 2nd edition: "One guiding principle affecting the designs wrought by systems engineers is that a control mechanism should consume a bare minimum of the energies of the system it is controlling. It is precisely this principle whose violation, committed with such shocking gusto by advanced civilizations including our own, in Toynbee's Model taxed such societies into Yang-Yin oscillation and decline. Antithesis to this violation is the laissez-faire system of Adam Smith: each participant is guided by his own selfish interests to serve ... Life would be easier if I had the source code ... 718499927771849992777184999277718499927771849992777184999277718 From: Ammond Shadowcraft Area: Base of Set To: All 22 Jun 92 22:30:00 Subject: Hyper Learning (2 of 2) UpdReq others' wants - since such service is what pays him. Smith's free market was a gigantic, sophis- ticated computer reflecting changing problems and opportunities in changing prices which always was to bid people and scarce resources from less productive uses toward more productive uses. Essentially, this computer was to run itself without much further control exerted or needed. Unfortunately, laissez-faire economists did not know of, or account for, an important output from the system; (external dis-economies, cost externalities, such as pollution whose costs fall mainly on other people and don't enter into the profit-loss figures of the doer); an important input into the system; (external economies, benefit externalities such as basic, as contrasted to applied, research: so much of the benefit may go to others that the doer, feeling all the costs, may not feel it worth his while to perform it); and an important feedback loop (advertising). Instead of rigging incentives to correct for these extra inputs and outputs, governments in our society, as in our predecessors' opted instead to try to provide and/or regulate immense externality-ridden sectors of public economy - and this is basis for much, perhaps most, of our organizational hypertrophy. Should we switch to incentives in place of more direct controls, we could reduce much hypertropy and return some distance toward the conditions Toynbee described as characteristic of civilizations at their most viable. With our control mechanisms consuming less of the energy resources of the system they govern, our civilization would look sounder from the standpoint of systems-design." II.A. -- Intelligence Increase: others Albrecht, Karl -- "Brain Power: Learn to Improve Your Thinking Skills" ('80) seems like a decent general guide for the man-in-the-street to better himself, and to become a "sharp cookie". Includes: fact-finding, thinking on your feet, problem-solving, decision-making, idea production, and "becoming an innovator." Briggs, John -- "Fire in the Crucible: The Self-Creation of Creativity and Genius" ('90) I couldn't resist purchasing this book, but I haven't yet read it. The theme seems very extropian: emergence of higher `mental' order. Briggs uses the analogy of alchemical purification/transformation, but I don't know what he does with it, nor do I know if he gives a practical guide to use in bootstrapping ourselves to higher mentality. Winter, Arthur, M.D. -- "Build Your Brain Power: The Latest Techniques to Preserve, Restore, and Improve Your Brain's Potential" ('86) Yet another book I haven't read ... this one looked good, and was written by an honest-to-god doctor, so I assumed he would base his methods on his medical knowledge. Witt, Scott -- "How to be Twice as Smart: Boosting Your Brain Power and Unleashing the Miracles of Your Mind" ('83) more pop-oriented than most of the other books, but he does seems to have alot of clever little tricks. He definitely appeals to self-interest, gaining leverage, competitive advantage, etc. Yepsen, Roger -- "How to Boost Your Brain Power" ('87) He seems to take a strongly physiological approach ... foods, drugs to avoid, allergies, ions, sound and light inputs, etc. I found his approach interesting, but it's not what I would consider "scholarly". Roughly pop-level. II.E. -- Learning-ability Increase: Bandler, Richard -- "Using Your Brain - for a Change" ('85) -- goes into some techniques from "Neuro-Linguistic Programming" for "running your own brain". I include it in this list because he applies NLP to the task of "learning how to learn" and to the abatement of confusion. I read the book several years ago, played with some of the techniques, considered them to have potential, and then shelved the book until now ... Buzan, Tony -- "Brain User's Guide: A Handbook for Sorting Out Your Life" ('83), "Make the Most of Your Mind" ('84), and "Use Both Sides of Your Brain" ('83) I've skimmed these books, and played with several of his methods, which seem primarily geared for students. He's probably most famous for his "mind maps" which are simple linked-key-word visual notations. He also incorporates eye & reading exercises, task-chunking, and schedules for reinforced learning, among other things. Rose, Colin -- "Accelerated Learning" ('85) Draws on methods from Buzan and Lozanov ... another book I haven't yet read! mcpherso@macvax.ucsd.edu CalSpace Institute, UCSD (619)534-4717 "Things are only impossible until they're not." Captain Jean-Luc Piccard hardcore signature virus: "As a juror in a Trial by Jury, you have the right, power and duty to acquit the defendant if you judge the law itself to be unjust." ... Sit down, you're stocking the moat! 718499927771849992777184999277718499927771849992777184999277718 From: The Conqueror Area: Base of Set To: All 24 Jun 92 01:40:00 Subject: SATAN???? UpdReq Satan is a loser, and anybody who follows it, is going to lose also. Why don't you stop TRYING to be a rebel for a dumb cause , and start thinking what you are doing. If you enjoy pain and agony then you are going to the right place --- STRAIGHT TO HELL. Have Fun !!!!! 718499927771849992777184999277718499927771849992777184999277718 From: Diane Vera Area: Base of Set To: Succubus 24 Jun 92 21:41:16 Subject: Greetings Sent UpdReq On June 22, you wrote to All in a message titled "Greetings": . Su > Greetings all! Just wanted to say "howdy" and introduce myself. I've been involved in Satanism for about 10 years now, and am currently a member of the Ordo Templi Satanis (III'). Seems like a nice cozy echo you've got here! .Hi. What other groups have you been involved in besides the Ordo Templi Satanis, and what did you think of them? .As for me, I acknowledged my attraction to Satanism about a year and a half ago, but am not a member of any group. .I've come to like and respect a lot of the Temple of Set folks on this echo; and I like ToS's emphasis on magic rather than politics. And, insofar as Michael Aquino does get involved in politics, I like his choice of political causes, i.e. civil rights for minority religions. (He and his wife Lilith are active in the Alliance of Magical and Earth Religions.) But I have some major disagreements with the ToS philosophy. (Most notably, the dichotomy between "Nature-worshipping religions" and "Psyche-worshipping religions", with Christianity somehow classified as a "Nature-worshipping religion", does not make sense to me.) .On the other hand, most of the other Satanic groups (including both CoS and the OTS, judging by _The_Black_Flame_ and what I've seen of the OTS literature) have a basic occult philosophy that I have no problem with, but emphasize politics rather than magic(k), and are pushing an extreme right-wing political agenda that I strongly disagree with. 718499927771849992777184999277718499927771849992777184999277718