From: Nick Bostrom (bostrom@ndirect.co.uk)
Date: Sun Mar 21 1999 - 06:26:07 MST
proclus <proclus@iname.com> wrote:
> My mother, once prolific, has not written a word since she quit
> smoking. It is a well know anecdote among writers, that if you quit
> smoking, you are out of work. Sadly, it appears to be some kind of
> mental block, probably based on brain recptors. Similarly, I believe
> that there were some jazz players who couldn't improvise without a
> cigarette in the mouth.
I would recommend that your mother tries nicotine chewing gum. In
contrast to the "suicide pins", chewing gum is extremely safe while
having a similar neurological effect.
There is some evidence that nicotine improves performance on complex
cognitive tasks (also in non-smokers). I decided to give the chewing
gum a try a few months back. Judging from the pharmacist's reaction
it is somewhat unusual that people who have never smoked a
cigarette buy this product. I use 2mg gums, seldom more than two per
day, and I have not noticed any addiction. I think it has some
nootropic effects: it seems to make it somewhat easier to concentrate
and to get into "the flow". The first few times, the actual chewing
created a distraction that approximately cancelled this effect, but
as the chewing becomes habitual this distraction disappears.
Anybody else who has experimented with nicotine as a smart drug?
Nick Bostrom
http://www.hedweb.com/nickb n.bostrom@lse.ac.uk
Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method
London School of Economics
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