Addiction as Entrenchment
Showing only ideas leading to #4662.
See full discussion·See most recent related ideasLog in or sign up to participate in this discussion.
With an account, you can revise, criticize, and comment on ideas.Discussions can branch out indefinitely. You may need to scroll sideways.
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.
Criticized2*