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Re consciously deciding to do something: once you’ve automatized some behavior, it’s hard to undo it just by virtue of being automatized, not necessarily because of entrenchment.
The trouble with ‘consciously deciding’ to do something in any case is that the conscious parts of your mind may be on board but other parts may not. But that discrepancy itself need not be entrenched.
Re consciously deciding to do something: once you’ve automatized some behavior, it’s hard to undo it just by virtue of being automatized, not necessarily because of entrenchment.
If you feel bad when you force yourself to stop doing something, you might feel bad because of the force, not because of the habit. My guess is they’re thinking more in terms of static memes.
The part about entrenched habits gets pretty close, though it doesn’t say much about the nature of the entrenchment or how to solve it.
I just noticed that the old TCS glossary has an entry on entrenchment and entrenched habits:
Entrenched ideas are ideas that you are unable to abandon even when they fail to survive rational criticism in your mind.
An entrenched habit is something that you can't stop doing even if you consciously decide to, or which makes you feel bad when you consciously force yourself to stop doing it.
I’ve looked at the glossary many times over the years, so maybe the seeds of my ideas about addiction came from it.
I just noticed that the old TCS glossary has an entry on entrenchment and entrenched habits:
Entrenched ideas are ideas that you are unable to abandon even when they fail to survive rational criticism in your mind.
An entrenched habit is something that you can't stop doing even if you consciously decide to, or which makes you feel bad when you consciously force yourself to stop doing it.
This is pretty cool! I think the part about entrenched habits gets pretty close, though it doesn’t say much about the nature of the entrenchment or how to solve it. Also, if you feel bad when you force yourself to stop doing something, you might feel bad because of the force, not because of the habit. My guess is they’re thinking more in terms of static memes.
Re consciously deciding to do something: once you’ve automatized some behavior, it’s hard to undo it just by virtue of being automatized, not necessarily because of entrenchment. The trouble with ‘consciously deciding’ to do something in any case is that the conscious parts of your mind may be on board but other parts may not. But that discrepancy itself need not be entrenched.
All that said, I’ve looked at the glossary many times over the years, so it’s definitely possible the seeds of my ideas about addiction came from it.
Evidence that addiction and procrastination are related: https://www.quora.com/How-do-I-stop-procrastinating-and-addiction-to-the-internet
The person in that link asks, “How do I stop procrastinating and addiction to the internet?”
Here’s a specific example of a working cure for addiction to sugar soda. Apparently, many people struggle with that.
Picture a man who likes the taste of soda but dislikes its fattening effects. (Sugar sodas are high in calories.) And let’s say the conflict between these two preferences is entrenched because his wife doesn’t want him to drink soda (for health reasons, say), and she chastises him, so he hides it from her and can’t talk about it openly, which makes error correction harder. In addition, he was made fun of as a kid for being overweight, so he feels awful whenever he thinks about dieting and can’t deal with the problem effectively. Such conditions are a breeding ground for entrenchment.
The solution in this case is to switch from regular sugar soda to the corresponding diet-soda equivalent. Like switching from Coke to Diet Coke or Coke Zero. It tastes virtually the same and has no calories. So now both parts of him get what they want. :)
This solution is especially interesting because it solves the addiction without having to make any major changes to behavior. A small, piecemeal change – switching from regular Coke to Diet Coke – removes the conflictedness and thus the addiction. More or less the same behavior can continue, showing that addiction is about conflicts between ideas, not about any specific or unilaterally unwanted behavior.
The key is to view even a small change to an idea as an entirely discrete, separate option. The small change can be enough to result in a common preference. The original preferences may get to live on the common preference as an approximation, as Popper might put it.
Here’s a specific example of a working cure for addiction to sugar soda. Apparently, many people struggle with that.
Picture a man who likes the taste of soda but dislikes its fattening effects. (Sugar sodas are high in calories.) And let’s say the conflict between these two preferences is entrenched because his wife doesn’t want him to drink soda (for health reasons, say), and she chastises him, so he hides it from her and can’t talk about it openly, which makes error correction harder. In addition, he was made fun of as a kid for being overweight, so he feels awful whenever he thinks about dieting and can’t deal with the problem effectively. Such conditions are a breeding ground for entrenchment.
The solution in this case is to switch from regular sugar soda to the corresponding diet-soda equivalent. Like switching from Coke to Diet Coke or Coke Zero. It tastes virtually the same and has no calories. So now both parts of him get what they want. :)
This solution is especially interesting because it solves the addiction without having to make any major changes to behavior. A small change – switching from regular Coke to Diet Coke – removes the conflictedness and thus the addiction. More or less the same behavior can continue, showing that addiction is about conflicts between ideas, not about any specific behavior.
The key is to view even a small modification to an idea as an entirely discrete, separate option. The small change can be enough to result in a common preference.
Another relevant quote from BoI, chapter 13:
[Conventionally, people think] of decision-making as a process of selecting from existing options according to a fixed formula …
This is like the self-described addicts in #4640 flip-flopping between blocking and unblocking certain websites: they try to select from existing options rather than create new ones. Continuing (bold emphasis mine):
But in fact that is what happens only at the end of decision-making – the phase that does not require creative thought. In terms of Edison’s metaphor, the model refers only to the perspiration phase, without realizing that decision-making is problem-solving, and that without the inspiration phase nothing is ever solved and there is nothing to choose between. At the heart of decision-making is the creation of new options and the abandonment or modification of existing ones.
To choose an option, rationally, is to choose the associated explanation. Therefore, rational decision-making consists not of weighing evidence but of explaining it, in the course of explaining the world. One judges arguments as explanations, not justifications, and one does this creatively, using conjecture, tempered by every kind of criticism. It is in the nature of good explanations – being hard to vary – that there is only one of them. Having created it, one is no longer tempted by the alternatives. They have been not outweighed, but out-argued, refuted and abandoned. During the course of a creative process, one is not struggling to distinguish between countless different explanations of nearly equal merit; typically, one is struggling to create even one good explanation, and, having succeeded, one is glad to be rid of the rest.
I have some quibbles about explanations being hard to vary, but overall I think Deutsch is right in this quote. The addicts from #4640 are certainly tempted by their current options, they struggle to create even one good alternative, and after having created it, they’d be glad to be rid of their current options.
My Conjecture
Conjecture: addiction is the result of the entrenchment of a conflict between two or more preferences in a mind.
Picture someone who wants to give up social media but also really enjoys social media. Those preferences conflict.
If the conflict is entrenched, then both preferences get to live on indefinitely. The entrenchment will not let that person give up social media. He will become addicted.
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.
Limitations
I don’t know whether my explanation applies to physical addictions. For example, I understand severe alcoholics run the risk of death if they quit cold turkey, so for them, it can’t be only about preferences. There’s clearly a physical component as well. So I’m limiting my thoughts on addiction to what we might call ‘addictions of the mind.’ Note, though, that addictions could come in pairs: an alcoholic could have both a physical and a mental addiction to alcohol.
Also, I don’t claim that entrenchment always causes addiction, or that every addiction is the result of entrenchment. I claim that entrenchment is a cause – maybe a common cause – of addiction. I also claim that curing addictions of the mind is an epistemological matter, not a medical/scientific one.
Another cure for procrastination is to address the pending criticism that causes the procrastination.
Say you need a new car. But you have a pending criticism that says it’s not in your budget. So you put off buying a new car. One day, you check your bank account and some of the cars on the market and find that you can actually afford one after all. In other words, you found a way to address the criticism. So then there’s no reason to procrastinate anymore.
Put in Popperian terms, the (conventional) addict asks himself, ‘who should rule (over my mind)? The part of me that wants to use social media, or the part that doesn’t?’ For all the reasons Popper and Deutsch have pointed out, the question ‘who should rule?’ is authoritarian in nature and attracts authoritarian answers. Such answers are a recipe for further entrenchment and unhappiness.
What the addict needs instead is a way to make it as easy as possible to remove bad ideas/preferences without coercion. To cure his addiction, he needs to abandon ‘who should rule over my mind?’ as a criterion for judging preferences.
Put in Popperian terms, the (conventional) addict asks himself, ‘who should rule (over my mind)? The part of me that wants to use social media, or the part that doesn’t?’ For all the reasons Popper and Deutsch have pointed out, the question is authoritarian in nature and attracts authoritarian answers. Such answers are a recipe for further entrenchment and unhappiness.
What the addict needs instead is a way to make it as easy as possible to remove bad ideas/preferences without coercion. To cure his addiction, he needs to abandon ‘who should rule over my mind?’ as a criterion for judging preferences.
My Conjecture
Conjecture: addiction is the result of the entrenchment of a conflict between two or more preferences in a mind.
Picture someone who wants to give up social media but also really enjoys social media. Those preferences conflict.
If the conflict is entrenched, then both preferences get to live on indefinitely. The entrenchment will not let that person give up social media. He will become addicted.
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.
I don’t know whether my explanation applies to physical addictions. For example, I understand severe alcoholics run the risk of death if they quit cold turkey, so for them, it can’t be only about preferences. There’s clearly a physical component as well. So I’m limiting my thoughts on addiction to what we might call ‘addictions of the mind.’ Note, though, that addictions could come in pairs: an alcoholic could have both a physical and a mental addiction to alcohol.
Also, I don’t claim that entrenchment always causes addiction, or that every addiction is the result of entrenchment. I claim that entrenchment is a cause – maybe a common cause – of addiction.
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.
It’s only an addiction if the presumed addict agrees that it’s an addiction (if he’s being honest).
Children are often unfairly accused of being addicted to video games or electronic devices, but they’re not conflicted about it at all. It’s the opposite: they’re learning, they’re having fun, they’re unconflicted playing video games. Parents’ worries or disagreement don’t make that behavior an addiction.
However, if the parents threaten punishment, and the child has to hide his preferences from them; or if the school schedule gets in the way and threatens to override the child’s preferences, then there’s a real risk of not just conflicting preferences, but of entrenchment, and he may indeed become addicted. So it can be a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Another relevant quote from BoI, chapter 13 (bold emphasis mine):
[Conventionally, people think] of decision-making as a process of selecting from existing options according to a fixed formula …
This is like the self-described addicts in #4640 flip-flopping between blocking and unblocking certain websites: they try to select from existing options rather than create new ones. Continuing:
But in fact that is what happens only at the end of decision-making – the phase that does not require creative thought. In terms of Edison’s metaphor, the model refers only to the perspiration phase, without realizing that decision-making is problem-solving, and that without the inspiration phase nothing is ever solved and there is nothing to choose between. At the heart of decision-making is the creation of new options and the abandonment or modification of existing ones.
To choose an option, rationally, is to choose the associated explanation. Therefore, rational decision-making consists not of weighing evidence but of explaining it, in the course of explaining the world. One judges arguments as explanations, not justifications, and one does this creatively, using conjecture, tempered by every kind of criticism. It is in the nature of good explanations – being hard to vary – that there is only one of them. Having created it, one is no longer tempted by the alternatives. They have been not outweighed, but out-argued, refuted and abandoned. During the course of a creative process, one is not struggling to distinguish between countless different explanations of nearly equal merit; typically, one is struggling to create even one good explanation, and, having succeeded, one is glad to be rid of the rest.
I have some quibbles about explanations being hard to vary, but overall I think Deutsch is right in this quote. The addicts from #4640 are certainly tempted by their current options, they struggle to create even one good alternative, and after having created it, they’d be glad to be rid of their current options.
Rand explains that each government control necessitates another, intensifying the war between pressure groups.
I think the same is true for addicts. They try to implement some control/restriction but it just makes things worse because the other part of them retaliates. So then they try to implement even stricter controls. All the while, the war between the pressure groups of the addict’s mind intensifies.
Rather than default to adding more controls, the addict should ask whether his life was already subject to too many controls at the beginning of his addiction, and whether that caused the addiction in the first place. He should consider removing controls to lessen the entrenchment.
Many problems related to addiction and procrastination stem from people’s overoptimism about their willpower, their simultaneous pessimism about the solubility of problems, and their ignorance as to the unintended consequences of self-coercion.
More evidence that addiction is about conflicting preferences:
Like the simple food addiction. Fat people don’t like being fat, but they like food
@moritz-wallawitsch In our space just now, you asked what entrenchment means. The idea above (#760) has some examples.
Recording of a space on X about addiction and procrastination with @dirk-meulenbelt, @moritz-wallawitsch, @zelalem-mekonnen, and others: https://x.com/dchackethal/status/2034440126915346625
This cure also works for procrastination. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/NeSnPFlp9dk
Maybe traditional/coercive parenting enables this kind of behavior. It’s like he’s his own strict parent, punishing himself for unwanted behavior.