The falsehood of intelligence, willpower, and perseverance.

[Drewbacca]

Originally Posted by Verile

Very few people fail boot camp. Standards are very low. For the marines it's was all about exposing you to so much hardship and ******** that you developed a tolerance for it.

You filter out people with medical conditions.
You filter out those who are unable to work as a team.

What are the standards that you are referring to?

Originally Posted by Verile

Difference between a marine recruit graduate and those guys in the cookie study is that the marine believes he's more disciplined and has greater will power after the ordeal.

You are trying to compare two things that have nothing in common. A marine recruit graduate would be equally impaired when testing for cognitive function after displaying will power to resist eating cookies in the experiment.

[fracturedstory]

I'd totally fail military boot camp. I'd tell the Sergeant my way is better and get kicked out for calling him a fascist, and getting everyone in the group to rebel against him/her.

I was very persuasive in my communist days.

I'll just leave before I get anymore off topic.

[Fortune]

Originally Posted by Sylvie

I get the impression that the problem is that one of you is talking about cognition (you can make a choice) and the other is talking about metaphysics (free will vs determinism).

At first I said it's not that interesting to me, but perhaps I should say "debating metaphysics when it comes to practical concerns, metaphysics is not that interesting to me."

[Verile]

Originally Posted by Fortune

This is reductionist. No one was "genetically designed" to build skyscrapers or lunar landers. No one was genetically designed to write novels or poetry or music. No one was genetically designed to design the microchip. No one was genetically designed, period. Neurologically speaking, we have a huge capacity for learning, for generating new information, for planning and executing those plans. This isn't strictly a matter of genetics, but also environment.

You can't say no one was genetically designed period. You can't disprove a creator. But regardless, your environment is also determined by other human automatons. You simply respond to stimuli and develop accordingly. The Wright brothers were born to fly, they didn't "decide" to perfect aviation.

Originally Posted by Fortune

Executive functions are a part of how humans developed neurologically, but what we do with those functions is not something that is a strict consequence of a purely deterministic biology.

What makes you so certain? What we do with those functions is entirely determined by chemical interactions.

Originally Posted by Fortune

False dichotomy. You do not have to believe in a soul or even deny the fact that everyone is working within cognitive limitations to varying degrees to acknowledge the possibility of choice within those limitations.

All of those traits you list limit some choices and make other choices easier, but they do not eliminate choice entirely.

My point is there's really no such thing as choice without an external control. Your "choices" are all automated by your biology. It doesn't necessarily have to be a soul.

Originally Posted by Fortune

You may find your model comforting, but it's neither particularly logical nor is it something fully supported by current understanding of neurology.

I don't find it anything at all. It's definitely the most logical interpretation though. Your brain and all your neurology is determined by your genetics. The brain isn't a machine, it runs on biology.

Originally Posted by Fortune

In light of this philosophy, your statements about IQ and ADHD are completely nonsensical. Why tell people to use their IQ to function better if nothing they do is a matter of choice or independent will? Why even give advice as everyone's on a strict program to do whatever they were going to do anyway, which they never chose to do in the first place? This is incoherent.

I can't help how I'm screwed up or incoherent. I need better genetics to make more sense or stop messing around on this forum and get to bed. It's not a choice I get to make.

[Assumption]

Originally Posted by Fortune

At first I said it's not that interesting to me, but perhaps I should say "debating metaphysics when it comes to practical concerns, metaphysics is not that interesting to me."

Fair enough, but Verile mentioned "free will" and that set off alarm bells in my head. I get the feeling that you therefore are talking about different things when you talk about "choice".

My personal take on it, FWIW, is that we do make choices all the time, but not in a dualistic, metaphysical kind of sense. And that whatever willpower is, it's probably a function of the prefrontal cortex. The idea of "self-control", however, is a bit incoherent, mainly because the concept of self is pretty flimsy (plenty of neuropsyc research on this - I recommend Robert Kurzban's book: "Why everyone (else) is a hypocrite".

Oh and, you can't "disprove" a creator, I agree. You can't really disprove any claim about reality because we never have 100% certainty the truth value of the premises. You generally some sort of reason to believe in the existence of something, though.

OK, I'm getting a bit sidetracked here. I find it VERY hard to avoid this kind of discussion...

[Fortune]

Originally Posted by Sylvie

My personal take on it, FWIW, is that we do make choices all the time, but not in a dualistic, metaphysical kind of sense. And that whatever willpower is, it's probably a function of the prefrontal cortex. The idea of "self-control", however, is a bit incoherent, mainly because the concept of self is pretty flimsy (plenty of neuropsyc research on this - I recommend Robert Kurzban's book: "Why everyone (else) is a hypocrite".

OK, I'm getting a bit sidetracked here. I find it VERY hard to avoid this kind of discussion...

I don't think self-control is sidetracking here at all. It's one of those things people expect us to just learn, and is something that is, as you said, incoherent and flimsy.

[Drewbacca]

Originally Posted by Sylvie

And that whatever willpower is, it's probably a function of the prefrontal cortex.

It would be interesting to repeat the cookie experiment with an ADHD group and see if depletion of willpower is observed in the post-cookie-tempation test and how it compares to the original test.

[Assumption]

Originally Posted by Drewbacca

It would be interesting to repeat the cookie experiment with an ADHD group and see if depletion of willpower is observed in the post-cookie-tempation test and how it compares to the original test.

Are you anticipating some sort of floor effect, whereby they can't get any worse?

Or perhaps the opposite? They run out willpower much faster?

[Drewbacca]

Originally Posted by Sylvie

Are you anticipating some sort of floor effect, whereby they can't get any worse?

Or perhaps the opposite? They run out willpower much faster?

I suspect that less cognitive energy would be expended in the room with the cookies... we'd probably just end up cutting faces into the radishes or something. I believe that we would show less impairment comparing the initial test to the post-cookie test than the non-adhd control group.

[Fortune]

Originally Posted by Drewbacca

I suspect that less cognitive energy would be expended in the room with the cookies... we'd probably just end up cutting faces into the radishes or something. I believe that we would show less impairment comparing the initial test to the post-cookie test than the non-adhd control group.

I suspect some would just eat the cookies despite being told not to.

[Amtram]

Do NOT tell me not to eat the cookies!

[Assumption]

Do not think of a purple chicken.

[ToneTone]

One way to use our brains/intelligence to work around ADHD is to be totally and brutally honest with ourselves.

I'm a teacher, and I get students who ask me to write recommendations for them. I know how horrible I am about deadlines coming up ...

So being brutally ADHD honest, I tell them (without mentioning ADHD):

1. I need multiple OBNOXIOUS REMINDERS IN the subject lines of emails.

2. I need reminders a few days ahead of the deadline and on the day before and day of ...

3. I tell them that if they are not willing to send me really LOUD OBNOXIOUS EMAIL REMINDERS ... that I won't agree to do it ..

I've yet to have a student turn away from me because of my requirements.

The last time I wrote a recommendation, I wasn't on email very much, so I gave the student my cell # and required her to text me reminders. She did ... And I got the rec done about an hour before it was due!


Tone

[Assumption]

Originally Posted by Fortune

Forum posting is my most frequent form of stimulation-seeking. After that it's research. Even though one of my biggest interests and hobbies ever is gaming, games actually take third place because I usually get caught up more in reading and posting about them than actually playing them.

Oh yeah, I totally get this. I have a tendency to get addicted to nerdy pursuits - in particular, computer games (WoW's been the worst so far), Dungeons and Dragons, and Warhammer 40000. And with each of them, I've often spent hours upon hours thinking about the systems inherent in them rather than actually playing them (though I definitely did that too). With WoW it was talent specs, choosing gems, etc. With dungeons and dragons I spent hours writing up probability trees and then made a huge excel spreadsheet to calculate expected damage dealt per round with a character 'build' I was working on. With Warhammer I've done similar (not to mention the number of painting videos I've watched on youtube over the past few months - and I haven't even USED my airbrush yet, nor have I finished painting a single miniature!).

[mctavish23]

Try this on for size (couldn't resist) :

Check out Zametkin's original (1990) brain scan pic's on Diminished Metabolic

Capacity.

The ADHD adults who'd never been on med's scans, became DARKER with

increased effort.

Oh, and before someone jumps up and down to tell me Zametkin couldn't

replicate the data in 1991, save yourself some time and look at the 1993

data with adolescent females, which he did.

That's my good deed for the day.

u r welcome