Why I Like Self-Experimentation

Self-experimentation, like blogs, Wikipedia, and open-source software (and before them, books) gives outsiders far more power. It took me a long time to figure that out. For years, I liked self-experimentation for five reasons:

1. It worked. It reduced my acne, improved my sleep, and enabled me to lose plenty of weight. This surprised me. I am a professional scientist. My professional experiments, about animal learning, generally worked, but never had practical value.

2. It had unexpected benefits. I discovered accidentally that seeing faces in the morning improved my mood the next day. Better sleep (from self-experimentation) improved my health.

3. It was easy. What I did never involved more than small changes in my life. Even standing 8 hours per day wasn't hard, after a few days.

4. My conclusions fit what others had found -- usually, facts that didn't fit mainstream views. For example, the fact that depression is often worst in the morning and gets better throughout the day doesn't fit the conventional view that depression is a biochemical disorder but does fit my idea that depression is often due to a malfunctioning circadian oscillator. Self-experimentation seemed to be pointing me in correct directions.

5. My conclusions were surprising. That breakfast is bad (for sleep), the effect of faces on mood, and the Shangri-La Diet are examples.

Recently, though, the rise of blogging, Wikipedia, and open-source software, showed me the power of a kind of multiplicative force: (pleasure of hobbies) multiplied by (professional skills). Blogging, for example: (people enjoy writing) multiplied by (professional expertise, which gives them something interesting and unusual to say). In other words, expertise and job skills used in a hobby-like way. My self-experimentation, I realized, was another example: I used my professional (scientific) skills to solve everyday problems. My self-experimentation was like a hobby in that I did it year after year without financial reward or recognition. It was its own reward. The hobby aspect -- persistence, freedom to try anything, no need for recognition or payment -- made it powerful. I could go in depth where professionals couldn't go at all.

But I was still missing something -- something obvious to many others. The power of blogging isn't (hobby) x (job skills). That's just one person. The total power of blogging is (hobby) x (job skills) x (anyone can do it). Which is very powerful.

Finally I saw there was a sixth reason to like self-experimentation:

6. Anyone can do it.

As Aaron Swartz has said, there are a lot more people than scientists. We will make a lot more progress if everyone, not just scientists, can contribute. Mendel and Darwin were amateurs. The amateurs may rise again.