Addiction as Entrenchment
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With an account, you can revise, criticize, and comment on ideas.My Conjecture
Conjecture: addiction is the result of the entrenchment of a conflict between two or more preferences in a mind.
Picture a smoker who wants to give up smoking but also really enjoys smoking. Those preferences conflict.
If the conflict is entrenched, then both preferences get to live on indefinitely. The entrenchment will not let the smoker give up smoking. He will become a chain smoker.
As I write in #4624, curing addiction involves finding a common preference between the conflicting parts of the addict’s mind: something both parts prefer to their initial positions. In addition, it may involve Randian ideas around introspection and getting one’s reason and emotions in the proper order.
These claims may be too sweeping. I need to be more humble. I don’t know much about addiction to physical substances, so it may be best to limit my claims to addictions of the mind (like addictions to social media, video games, etc) rather than substances like alcohol or cigarettes.