James Bond, represented by author Ian Fleming in Moonraker, 1955, as an MI6 undercover operative during the Cold War, was tasked by his boss, M, to play in a high-stakes poker game at M's club. M suspected a cheat.
At dinner together before the cards, a server approached with a small packet for Bond. While M observed with interest, Bond “took a silver fruit knife off the table and dipped the tip of the blade into the packet so that about half its contents were transferred to the knife. He reached for his glass of champagne and tipped the powder into it. ‘Benzedrine,’ said James Bond. ‘It is what I shall need if I’m going to keep my wits about me tonight. It’s apt to make one a bit overconfident, but that’ll help too.’
Twenty years later, I sat at a truck-stop stool next to a professional driver himself on friendly terms with benzedrine, who told me, "Benny's saved more lives than he's killed."
By contrast, astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson won't use mind-altering substances. "Our brain barely works," he says, pointing out the delicate and fragile balance our brains have to maintain to keep us in present awareness. And you've no doubt noticed we have to go pretty much unconscious for about a third of every day to preserve that unsteady consciousness the rest of the time.
Even for those periods of more and less conscious awareness,"just think about it." Tyson adds, "how wrong we often are about some life experience. That's not how it happened. Now you want to stir chemicals into it, so that -- what? -- it works even less?"
While I push back against people identifying as disordered or disabled when their range of present awareness is different than others' range of present awareness, I'm open to people's use of certain types and dosages of mind-altering substances in the same way I wouldn't discourage someone from using binoculars to enhance their visual experience.
Nonetheless, the caution is the same. One may permanently damage one's vision by using binoculars to look into the sun. Incorrect use of mind-altering substances may cause permanent damage to our brains, and the overconfidence encouraged by Benny has ended not a few lives. When M took in Bond's plan for Benzedrine-enhanced awareness, he shrugged, "It's your funeral."
Then, for enhancement to be of any use, there has to be something to enhance. Binoculars only help one recognize an American Redstart from a Yellow Warbler unless one already knows quite a bit about warblers. Bond went to the tables with a lot of poker skill. If one goes into the Math SAT without pre-existing math competence, most students stop answering questions correctly before time is called. Adderall commonly assists students in answering more questions incorrectly than they would have without it.
Next week: Best practices for a healthy brain.
Warm regards,
Francis Sopper