Mentat Wiki: exploring ways to become a better thinker(ludism.org)
ludism.org
Mentat Wiki: exploring ways to become a better thinker
http://www.ludism.org/mentat/
57 comments
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.
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
I used to travel a lot for work and this is how I’d remember my hotel room number.
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.
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."
"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."
I'm reminded of a quote by a coworker: "Through God, I can do anything. But without coffee, I can do nothing"
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?
"It is by the beans of Java that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains, the stains become a warning."
too on the nose?
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"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
- Joakim Garff on Søren Kierkegaard
Balzac apparently drank 50(!) cups of coffee per day.
Likewise, I've read that his addiction was so great that he used to just eat coffee grounds in the morning while waiting for the first brew to finish.
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
"Many people claim coffee inspires them, but, as everybody knows, coffee only makes boring people even more boring."
I think the first cup of coffee in the morning helps give them the necessary focus they need to set in on boring you.
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.
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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.
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.
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? :) )
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.
> 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.
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.
SPOILERS BELOW:
It think this is an oversimplification. Mentats still had agency--both Piter de Vries and Thufir Hawat have their mentat schemes to kill the Baron Harkonnen.
One of the big points of the Dune series is the indeterminacy of the universe. Computers, being deterministic, couldn't think properly to handle the full universe, so humanity's subjugation to computers (i.e., "machine thinking", both as rule by computer and as habits of thought for humans) was a dead end. Dependency on computers also meant people didn't develop human skills.
After the Butlerian Jihad, the Guild, the Mentats, and the Bene Gesserit all became schools of human development. Mentats aren't just human computers who perform calculations quickly. They cultivate almost zen-like mental states that allow them to sift patterns of data into conclusions, among other techniques. The later books go into much more detail, but part of the point is that they're not deterministic thinkers; they're practitioners of very advanced modes of consciousness.
It think this is an oversimplification. Mentats still had agency--both Piter de Vries and Thufir Hawat have their mentat schemes to kill the Baron Harkonnen.
One of the big points of the Dune series is the indeterminacy of the universe. Computers, being deterministic, couldn't think properly to handle the full universe, so humanity's subjugation to computers (i.e., "machine thinking", both as rule by computer and as habits of thought for humans) was a dead end. Dependency on computers also meant people didn't develop human skills.
After the Butlerian Jihad, the Guild, the Mentats, and the Bene Gesserit all became schools of human development. Mentats aren't just human computers who perform calculations quickly. They cultivate almost zen-like mental states that allow them to sift patterns of data into conclusions, among other techniques. The later books go into much more detail, but part of the point is that they're not deterministic thinkers; they're practitioners of very advanced modes of consciousness.
Most people in the Dune universe are literally vassals of feudal lords. By removing advanced machines, they instead have warped, specialised human beings in the machine's functions: mentats, suk doctors, navigators, etc. They are servants, human cogs in the system. It's dystopian.
That's it. I played Dune 2 and watched the movie so much I thought I knew most about the universe. I guess its about time I pick up Herbert's seminal work. Thanks for your analysis here.
IIRC, everything in Dune is supposed to be a horrible example of something taken to its extreme.
It’s like with Nietzsche¹; most fans are not really fans of what the author actually intended.
1. https://existentialcomics.com/comic/360
It’s like with Nietzsche¹; most fans are not really fans of what the author actually intended.
1. https://existentialcomics.com/comic/360
The problem is also that this idea is only expanded on in books 2 and beyond, and most people who just read Dune come off with the impression of it simply being a regular heroic story.
I just re-read Dune, and wouldn't say that is entirely accurate. There are multiple times that Mauddib sees terrible things in the future - jihads, death, loss. There is a terribly dark foreboding sense from these visions, but I get the sense that the terribleness is from Paul's actions/status as well as that of their enemy.
Spoilers inside.
I got the impression that Paul saw many possible futures where there was certainty of a bad outcome, and some possible futures with an unknown outcome, and that the path to the unknown outcomes all involved jihad and death. So, at least in the first novel, Paul felt compelled to pursue jihad in order to provide an uncertain future, as avoiding jihad would be worse.
It's been quite some time since I read beyond the first novel though.
I got the impression that Paul saw many possible futures where there was certainty of a bad outcome, and some possible futures with an unknown outcome, and that the path to the unknown outcomes all involved jihad and death. So, at least in the first novel, Paul felt compelled to pursue jihad in order to provide an uncertain future, as avoiding jihad would be worse.
It's been quite some time since I read beyond the first novel though.
Paul foresaw the Golden Path, but I don't think that was until after the jihad in the second book. That's why he went off to the desert isn't it? He took the path and was trapped by it.
Still spoilers.
My interpretation is that Paul didn’t take the golden path. He felt trapped into taking it, but when twins were born, he was freed of that obligation because it opened up a future he hadn’t foreseen.
My interpretation is that Paul didn’t take the golden path. He felt trapped into taking it, but when twins were born, he was freed of that obligation because it opened up a future he hadn’t foreseen.
I think you're right, he knew there was one but didn't peer into it for fear of being trapped by it. Seeing the future makes it absolute in Dune, hence Leto's bloodline development program with Siona.
I understand the terribleness of Paul's status derives from perfect future knowledge destroying his hope.
Imagine looking into your child's face and knowing the exact time and nature of his/her death. I think this is a big reason childhood diseases have the status of especially evil.
Imagine looking into your child's face and knowing the exact time and nature of his/her death. I think this is a big reason childhood diseases have the status of especially evil.
Nietzsche inspired Camus, Hesse, Jung, Mann, Heidegger, Wittgenstein, Foucault, Kafka, Freud, Rilke, Strauss, Picasso and many others.
So he clearly had some interesting ideas to share. But yes it's a comic, so I don't expect it to do anything other than straw-man his views.
So he clearly had some interesting ideas to share. But yes it's a comic, so I don't expect it to do anything other than straw-man his views.
You completely misunderstand both me and the comic. The point is, as rainonmoon correctly points out, that most followers of Nietzsche are not really actually following Nietzsche.
Point of clarification: it's not straw-manning his views, but illustrating the ways his philosophy is commonly misunderstood because of the ways those ideas have been diluted in dissemination.
That's obviously not true, otherwise, all of the hero characters wouldn't be Mentats by CH:D, to the point where you can just assume a main character is a Mentat (among everything else). Heck, even Paul Atreides starts out as almost a Mentat.
The flaw of Mentats is that, early on, they are only Mentats, much as the flaw of Ginaz swordmasters was that they were only swordmasters or Reverend Mothers were only Reverend Mothers, etc. As humans grow and improve through the Dune saga, they gain more capabilities. Herbert was all about the Renaissance Man rugged individualist idea, and that was the goal of the Bene Gesserit: "Grow up, humans!...That's their [the BG's] dream. Start acting like adults and not like angry children in a schoolyard."
The flaw of Mentats is that, early on, they are only Mentats, much as the flaw of Ginaz swordmasters was that they were only swordmasters or Reverend Mothers were only Reverend Mothers, etc. As humans grow and improve through the Dune saga, they gain more capabilities. Herbert was all about the Renaissance Man rugged individualist idea, and that was the goal of the Bene Gesserit: "Grow up, humans!...That's their [the BG's] dream. Start acting like adults and not like angry children in a schoolyard."
I think you're both right in that the whole hero arc is breaking the stagnation of society split into play-it-safe extremes which are in themselves rather undesirable.
Why not? Perhaps not the ones we followed in the stories, but being a mentat in a factory or research laboratory could be a good job in that universe.
I haven’t read Dune, so when I saw “mentat,” I immediately thought of mentats from Fallout (a chem to boost intelligence stats for a brief period).
Which I believe is a reference to Dune :)
You wouldn't want to have superhuman cognitive abilities? I mean sure...living in the Dune universe would be less than great, but I thought Mentats were pretty cool. They can do all kinds of things in their heads that 99.999% of humans would need a computer with CAS to do. It would be really nice to not have to spend so much time writing code and computer models if I could just think it up.
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.
"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.
It's also interesting how unpopular these sorts of ideas seem to be, even among relatively skilled critical thinkers.
When I saw Mentat I immediately thought about Fallout.
The Mentats (nootropic drugs) in the Fallout universe (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_univ...).
Oh interesting! Looks like I need to look more into the Dune books/movies as Fallout is probably my fav game series.
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
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
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.
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.
I visited the page on nootropics (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/ or https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2690149/ or 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.
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/ or https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2690149/ or 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.
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.
This is very cool, thank you for the link to that. I will spend some time checking this out.
Have you checked examine.com? You can search for specific compounds and I think they have a (paid) supplement on nootropics
This is definitely better than anything else I've seen:
https://examine.com/supplements/piracetam/
And it has a list of citations, which is super useful: https://examine.com/supplements/piracetam/research/#citation...
Thank you for the pointer!
And it has a list of citations, which is super useful: https://examine.com/supplements/piracetam/research/#citation...
Thank you for the pointer!
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Just don't go to /r/nootopics. A better name for that sub would be /r/placebo.
If curious see also
2015 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10684327
2015 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10684327
Flash anzan practitioners are mentats: https://youtu.be/j0ihbORhTCw
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