Ask HN: Are you using computers to augment your intellect? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Are you using computers to augment your intellect?

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Are you using computers to augment your intellect?

For example, do you often write Python programs to make your life easier?

By augmenting the intellect I mean increasing the capability of a man to approach a complex problem situation.

It seems most people are using computers for entertainment and to connect to other people/ideas.

What do you think? Are we using computers to their full potential?

Are you leveraging the power of computers? How? Do you think knowing how to program would be useful to everyone?

I'm very curious.

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The thing is almost everyone is using their computer to augment their intellect as you put it. Even if they don't realize it.

Everyone has used a spell-checker or Excel functions at least once.

1) The mind is an information processing device.

2) Programming enables me to modify information flows.

3) Therefore, I augment my intellect via hacking.

P.S. If the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis for programming languages is true, then my "actual" intellect is also changing.

The simplicity of the end result is why all programmers program.

Should my computer read my brain waves and makes decisions equal to the decision i make in my head. Yes, the user interfaces of the future will be this.

Have i taken the time to develop and implement the fundamentals. Of course not...the demand hasn't reached the point where it would be worth the overall effort involved.

Visionary leadership would be stepping too far in front of the crowd and results in a much higher risk.

I use Amazon.com's book reviews to avoid reading a lot of books and instead absorb the summaries and key points of the reviewers. Would you call that augmenting the intellect?

No, vice versa. Like almost everyone else.

I have an automated day trading program - does that count?

I don't yet think that most of us are using information technologies to their full potential.

That being said, I can clearly mark the differences between how I was taught to perform thought functions growing up and how I do them now. The calculator on this iPhone and the scientific ones I access via hotkeys on my mac and of spring to mind. It is second nature to whir my hands across a keyboard to get a precise answer to a numeric problem than to try to calculate in my mind a best guestimate.

When I read something I want to access later, it goes into a bookmarking service. Or, I know easily the keywords to google it to find it later.

The most remarkable thing has been having my iPhone. Though its a cliché by now, having the internet in my pocket has been remarkable. I have near instant access to all of the world's information anywhere I am.

I definitely fall on the side of wannabe singulitarian, but even disregarding that, I see the increasingly powerful portable computation we carry with us as a positive sign we are increasingly incorporating computation into our sense of self and consciousness.

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