LSD worked for Steve Jobs.

Read a lot, and read increasingly challenging things.

Write a lot. Make sure you get feedback on your writing and don't just be defensive about it. It's important to learn how to take constructive criticism. Try to publish writing via traditional avenues, and try to get as much detailed feedback as you can from rejections. You'll receive tons of rejections no matter what you do. Those are good for you. Learn from them.

Talk frequently with other people interested in intellectual and/or academic topics.

If you're interested in fields that require making/producing things, whatever they are--technological stuff, artistic stuff, whatever--make sure that you're regularly creating, too.

Take classes geared towards all of the above, or at least participate in (and start if you need to) meet-up groups geared towards it. There are many affordable way to take classes, by the way.

1. what are the basic things that u need to know in order to become an idea machine? — regel

get better at analogies, take a look at an overview of Synectics, for example, then actually force some friends to try that with you. Read widely, generally. Teach English as a Second Language and ask professionals a billion questions.

2. what is the philosophy behind discovery/invention? — regel

Be curious and fail a lot. Compete with yourself for the most bad ideas in one week. Start askign yourself for bad solutions and solutions based on faulty assumptions.

3. how to compound interest your intellect and make quantum leaps from things you already know? — regel

Break habits, learn a new language, take a hallcunigon (and spell it like that). Try out something you are sure cannot be true, like astrology or seances, but only go to someone who is highly recommended by not famous.

5. how to use 100% of your brain? — regel

Ah, that's happening all the time. The body is extremely parsimonious. It's how you use it not how much of the dang thing.

6. what are the mistakes that makes your mind less
efficient in processing data and learning? how to process data faster?
how to recognize patterns faster?
how to think ? how to make your mind really clear? (methods of
thinking) — regel

Don't worry about this. Trying to prevent is a mistake. Most amazing thinkers did things other thinkers thought were bad patterns.

7. how to build an infrastructure for efficient and fast research? (technology tools that helps learning and research
and other ideas) — regel

The internet. But better yet contact people. Don't think about this. Just connect ot people and ideas. Start now, stop planning. email a genius right now, don't even keep readingme.´ I said stop readingme. Come back later. Go email them now.

8. how to develop photographic memory? — regel

Stop thinking like that. Get out and contact things and people you haven't. And meditate. Far in, far out.

9. what can open my mind and expand my consciousness to gain access to infinite possibilities?
(sharpening the senses and becoming sensitive, how to intentionally connect the two hemispheres of the mind? connecting to other minds maybe?) — regel

Just get out and do stuff, then make sure you can really relax, call it meditation to sound fancy. Shut off the midn, stimulate the mind.

10. how to touch the key to genius and to flowing with the course of nature? (metaphysical secrets) — regel

Find your own nature. Don't think of yourself i the 3rd person. Get out and do shit. Try stuff and fail a lot.

LSD worked for Steve Jobs. — Noah Te Stroete

Unironically I would give that as the most effective answer to all these questions (especially 9-10), or some other psychedelic like psilocybin. Or rather, attempting to answer these questions oneself while under the influence. I think that would work better than attempting to follow guidelines that were summarized into words. Something to try at least.

Unironically I would give that as the most effective answer to all these questions (especially 9-10), or some other psychedelic like psilocybin. Or rather, attempting to answer these questions oneself while under the influence. I think that would work better than attempting to follow guidelines that were summarized into words. Something to try at least. — leo

It was a suggestion, and I was only partly trying to be funny. :wink:

1. what are the basic things that u need to know in order to become an idea machine?
3. how to compound interest your intellect and make quantum leaps from things you already know?
4. what do I need to add to my knowledge so I can compound interest it efficiently and effortlessly, and naturally, what are the basic building blocks to becoming a genius?
6. what are the mistakes that makes your mind less
efficient in processing data and learning? how to process data faster?
how to recognize patterns faster?
how to think ? how to make your mind really clear? (methods of
thinking)
8. how to develop photographic memory?
9. what can open my mind and expand my consciousness to gain access to infinite possibilities?
(sharpening the senses and becoming sensitive, how to intentionally connect the two hemispheres of the mind? connecting to other minds maybe?) — regel

1. The typical human is already an idea machine, but people make only a few "quantum leaps". Most of the time we make little leaps. If you are lucky, your little leaps will add up to a big leap. On the other hand, your little leaps may lead you to fall flat on your face. Hey, that's life for you.

3-4. Read widely; take risks (I'm not talking about sky diving; take intellectual and emotional risks). Try different ideas on for size. Mix with a variety of people-types. Leave your comfort zone every now and then. Allow 'down time' for your mind to roam. Sleep well. The brain consolidates learning at night, while you sleep, more efficiently than when you are awake all night.

6. Habits of life get in the way. People who are sleep deprived, drink and drug too much, are driving themselves crazy; are undisciplined all the time; don't get organized (in the ordinary sense of the word)--all this sort of the thing impedes clear thinking.

7. You either are born with an 'eidetic" or photographic memory or you are not. In any case, walking around with a million photographs in your head that you haven't processed isn't going to help you. Your memory is good enough as it is. But... one can learn how to improve memory.

9. Surprise! Mother Nature, who designed your brain's hemi-spheres, didn't forget to connect the two halves. The hemispheres of your brain are connected by the corpus callosum. What you need is already there.

Want to do a Vulcan mind meld with somebody? sit down and talk to them honestly, listen attentively.

There are amazing things to discover about how the brain works, but that isn't going to help you. By the time you are old enough to write a post on The Philosophy Forum, the Jello of your brain has pretty much set. Yes, there is such a thing as brain plasticity, but that's under the control of your DNA. Keep your brain busy with good work and it will serve you well.

We all have limitations. We might want to think like the young Einstein, but that kind of genius isn't handed out freely. As you move through your life, accept who you are becoming, even as you maintain reasonable aspirations (in other words, don't get carried away with absurd goals). Much of who you are going to be has already been determined. That's true for all of us. We aren't blank slates; we don't get to be whatever we want to be.

Take the difference between the famous New Caledonia Crows and African Grey Parrots. They're both very smart birds. The crows are workaholics. Give them toys and opportunities to "play" and they turn the toys into tools. Parrots, on the other hand, also demonstrate intelligence AND they like to play.

Neither the crow nor the parrot had a choice. In a sense, neither do we. We are at least somewhat programmed by DNA and very early environment and experiences. If you are a crow, make the most of it -- just as if you happen to be a parrot.

what is the philosophy behind discovery/invention? — regel

"The" philosophy may not exist.

The main ingredient in the discovery of new knowledge cannot possibly be knowledge. Otherwise, humanity would not have discovered any knowledge at all, or else, discovered all possible knowledge already.

Since the main ingredient is not knowledge, we cannot "know" it, and therefore, it can most likely not be expressed in language. That could be the reason why "the" philosophy behind discovery/invention does not exist.

Furthermore, that is why the accumulation of databases full of knowledge is highly ineffective for discovering new knowledge. Therefore, advanced degrees attesting to your knowledge, will not turn you into a productive researcher.

In practical terms, it means that the academia are not particularly better positioned for the job of scientific or any other kind of research.

Academics are generally only good at regurgitating existing knowledge, if even, and not at discovering any new knowledge. New knowledge is as likely, and possibly even more, to be discovered by outsiders.

Hence, the Einstein phenomenon (and lots of other, similar cases).

"what is the philosophy behind discovery/invention?"
— regel
Actually, I would say the experimental method fits this bill.

\
1. To stop thinking humans are anything like machines...we're more like dirt than machines.

2. Forget everything you know. Learning a skill or rote memory is complemented by learning to forget. Full use of the mind involves forgetting as well as remembering. Without doing this, everything you learn has to fit into a preconceived notion, or conditioned response.

3. No comment, really. This is where mind manifesting (psychedelic) drugs come in handy.

4. You mostly answered your own question here. Effortlessness. Stop making effort today, yet do more, genius will follow. Wu-wei.

5. Myth. Functions repeat throughout the brain, similar to how a hologram works.

6. The mind doesn't process data...that's what computers do. Computers can't learn because they can't grow. See 1. Slow down as much as possible. Do you feel smarter or more stupid when dreaming? As someone who values creativity as the main aspect of genius, dreaming is pure genius. You can't fall asleep by speeding up the mind. Slow it down and effect a decrease of thought...then pay close attention to knowing. Whatever images are observed in this substrate contain genius hard to access otherwise.

7. Why so concerned with "fast" everything. Relax, let things come to you. Let it flower, then come to know the veridical secrets of bees. If you've done enough inner work you come to know all we can really do is create the conditions for growth...the growth itself can't be forced. Plant the seed, amend the soil, shew away pests, water...repeat... watch and wait. Gardening is a source of wonderful metaphors for increasing intelligence. Actually, literally going for mastery of organic gardening helps understand truth. Dirt.

8. Meditate and memorize what little you can, build from there. Try memorizing your favorite poems or maxims. Unlike the more sage components of mind, which emanate after the pattern of what was said in 6 above, memory is like a muscle, you have to actively memorize content to improve it. I have a lazy memory, though I've lived enough to know this can be rectified simply by making it an intention to memorize something...the more you memorize, the easier it gets. Creative thought, however, is more ex nihilo than ex cathedra. Memory isn't related to truth. I'd recommend not worrying about it. If the concern is to be smarter, work on expunging all authority and mimesis within and without you.

9. The senses are one thing, infinite possibilities another. Infinitude is the arche according to
Anaximander. Infinity lacks any principle itself so it can seed elements with principles. I've always thought something like the extent we can imagine nothingness is correlated to intelligence or imagining infinite possibilities. Comparing one thing to another doesn't help us see a thing for what it really is. Only comparison to no thing can do this.

10. Spend more time in nature off the manmade trails. Get lost, even. When you find yourself lost in an sublime sylvan setting, don't panic, use those feelings to explore the mind, think with them. When you can't find your way out of the wilderness, think over the epigram: not all those who wander are lost.

Interesting post. In addition to the above I suggest the following:

5:

With regard to the mind-brain and learning, I'd do more research in neuromyths and cognitive science that way you're more confident your ways of learning are having positive effects. Here is an introduction to some neuromyths such as, we only use 10% of our brains, some of us are "left-brained"/"right-brained" etc.

I'd also think about what knowledge means and the different types of intelligence you could conceive of. For example, emotional, physical/kinetic development may help yield insights in other "domains" of knowledge, which you'd get from exploring and trying new things, as mentioned above.

6:

Revisiting concepts helps to reinforce their neural pathways in the brain. We can make connections and process more quickly if we have deep focus, which has something to do with the fatty tissue myelin which surrounds nerve cells. I think they fire more quickly and smoothly the more myelin there is.

For more on deep work/focus and deliberate practice I'd really recommend Cal Newport's Deep Work[/i], which also makes use of:
Ericsson, K.A, Krampe, R.T., & Tesch-Römer, C. (1993). The role of deliberate practice in the acquisition of expert performance. Psychological Review, 100(3), 363-406.

7:

data, collaboration and visualisation could be something worthwhile here.

1. If you meditate on my (modest) suggestions, you will become even more than an idea machine! You will become an idea co-creator!
Among other posts I most like those of Bitter Crank, Terrapin Station, and alcontali.
2, 3, 4, 8, 10. Take little steps back, take in what is going on around you, cultivate gratefulness in your heart for all the bright ideas everyone else in the world has ever had, eat and drink wholesomely, rest well.
Rather than the “substances” some responders mentioned, I recommend cheese, pork and a decent pot of tea.
7. Library books, second hand books you can afford, the links given on this board. A laptop that works and some sticks.
Wish for the serendipity principle to manifest itself, which is a cert!
5. More than 10% is very refreshing already.
9. Connecting with other minds healthfully is by reading and discussing.
6, 8. Just see how much seems to “stick” visually. In addition three more things:
- To remember a long phone number one can divide it into a visually recalled portion, an auditorily recalled portion and a logically recalled portion (e.g “the code for that geographical location”)
- Use visual and spatial thinking, e.g map concept on paper or just mentally, as an overview.
- Turn this overview in turn into something recallable with a few auditory key words.
Happy sparkling!