While up in Portland, I had a fun little discussion with Mike, Josh, and Erik on the brain, perception, and transhumanism. Before it turned into an (intractable) debate on “nature” vs. “nurture”, the topic of coffee came up. Mike said, “Coffee makes me smarter. Why can’t we come up with some way to be like that all the time?” I responded with a complaint about information overload, and how shepherds and pretty much everyone who lived prior to 1950 had to deal with a lot of boredom and probably wouldn’t have wanted to be “on” all the time.

Anyway, as it turns out, coffee doesn’t make you smarter. Or rather, it only makes you smarter if you’re an addict, according to this study, which looked at performance and mood enhancement due to caffeine intake. If the subjects had been deprived of caffeine their performance and mood improved, whereas subsequent coffee intake had no further effect. Furthermore, people who only rarely drank coffee experienced no improvement. There’s some brain imaging results that are consistent with this finding that I saw in National Geographic, of all places.

Back when Andro and I quit drinking coffee for 40 days I noticed that after a week or so (of terrible headaches and crabbiness) that I was just as alert when I woke up as I was before the purge, but only after drinking coffee. Of course, I’m back on the juice. I love the stuff. I just like the taste. And I can quit any time I want to!

Actually, I am going to quit. But slowly, working my way down to green tea and then mint. That headache was seriously the most mind-obliterating headache I’ve ever had.