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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.
Any explanation of human behavior involving brains and their chemistry can at best be parochial. Since our computers are universal, we know that they could run any algorithm the brain runs. A computer can, in principle – although we don’t yet know how to program it to – run whatever algorithms make a person, including an addict. A computer made of metal and silicon has neither a brain nor hormones nor any other allegedly relevant chemistry, yet it could still simulate an addict. (Here, ‘simulate’ does not mean ‘fake’ or ‘mimic’ – it basically means ‘give rise to’, ‘instantiate’. A computer running such a program would literally contain a person.)
So the prevailing explanation violates computational universality.
The prevailing explanation is immoral because it views people as mindless machines executing commands based on their brain chemistry or reward and punishment. That’s dehumanizing. It’s what animals do, but not people.
The prevailing explanation is immoral because it views people as mindless machines executing commands based on their brain chemistry. That’s dehumanizing. It’s what animals do, but not people.
Prevailing theories
The prevailing theories around addiction (physical and mental) are phrased in terms of physical things. Consider these quotes from a medically reviewed article by the Cleveland Clinic:
[A]ddiction is a disease — it’s a chronic condition. The American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM) defines addiction as a chronic brain disorder. Addiction doesn’t happen from having a lack of willpower or as a result of making bad decisions. Your brain chemistry changes with addiction.
And:
Behavioral addictions can occur with any activity that’s capable of stimulating your brain’s reward system.
And:
A significant part of how addiction develops is through changes in your brain chemistry.
Substances and certain activities affect your brain, especially the reward center of your brain.
Humans are biologically motivated to seek rewards. […] When you spend time with a loved one or eat a delicious meal, your body releases a chemical called dopamine, which makes you feel pleasure. It becomes a cycle: You seek out these experiences because they reward you with good feelings.
And:
Over time, the substances or activities change your brain chemistry, and you become desensitized to their effects. You then need more to produce the same effect.
In other words, the core of this ‘explanation’ is desensitization: your brain gets used to certain chemicals that feel good, so then you do more of whatever gets your brain those chemicals. A higher dose is required for the same effect.
We will update you on news, events, and do longer form write-ups […]
‘longer-form’
[…] on the projects discussed in the talks, […]
You mentioned the talks in the previous sentence. Remove “discussed in the talks” and instead say ‘discussed projects’ or ‘projects that were discussed’.
as we now have many more news sources we didn’t yet know about.
Don’t explain yourself to your readers. Remove this part.
Not a lawyer but reproducing the entire letter from Próspera Zede is presumably a violation of their copyright.
Your subconscious is like a computer […]
She says “like” so the sentence is technically correct, but it would have been more correct if she had said the subconscious is a program (or an amalgamation of programs). What she’s presumably getting at here is that the subconscious is automatic like a computer and unlike the conscious, which can stop and reflect and criticize and so on.
Your subconscious is like a computer […]
She says “like” so the sentence is technically correct, but it would have been clearer if she had said the subconscious is a program (or an amalgamation of programs). What she’s presumably getting at here is that the subconscious is automatic like a computer and unlike the conscious, which can stop and reflect and criticize and so on.
Ayn Rand writes:
Your subconscious is like a computer—more complex a computer than men can build—and its main function is the integration of your ideas. Who programs it? Your conscious mind. If you default, if you don’t reach any firm convictions, your subconscious is programmed by chance—and you deliver yourself into the power of ideas you do not know you have accepted.
Your subconscious is like a computer […]
She says “like” so the sentence is technically correct, but it would have been clearer if she had said it’s a program (or an amalgamation of programs). What she’s presumably getting at here is that the subconscious is automatic like a computer and unlike the conscious, which can stop and reflect and criticize and so on.
Ayn Rand writes:
Your subconscious is like a computer—more complex a computer than men can build—and its main function is the integration of your ideas. Who programs it? Your conscious mind. If you default, if you don’t reach any firm convictions, your subconscious is programmed by chance—and you deliver yourself into the power of ideas you do not know you have accepted.
Since your child has never done chemistry, he hasn’t yet been coerced about chemistry, so he should be fully rational about it and “easily” find a solution.
The implication here is that Deutsch thinks children are “fully rational” and could help even with the most difficult problems, which isn’t realistic, as is then stated explicitly.
The key to problem solving is not lack of coercion damage. Rationality and problem solving are positive skills to be developed.
The article says that solving problems is generally difficult and “could take centuries”; “[...] you might not make a major scientific discovery in your lifetime.”
It then says that having the child solve a problem that the parent is unable to solve, as the referenced article suggests, is unrealistic because you wouldn’t expect a child to be able to help with a hard chemistry problem either.
Looking at it in a Popperian way, I think problem solving is a lot like doing science.
Parents need to take primarily responsibility for problem solving instead of delegating that job to their children.
Just having the child take the lead on problem solving, on the assumption that he’s more rational, is not a reliable way to quickly get a great solution.
If you don’t think your child can ”easily” use his creativity to solve any family problem, [...].
Yes, and I can accept that the brain is a computer.
But, we might make a number of subsequent moves.
The mind is a computer. An individual person is a computer.
And yes, "not the kind of computer people traditionally think of when they hear the term, like a laptop or desktop," as Dennis states in #498.
But, the term 'computer' implies deterministic connotations.
David Deutsch and others talk about the 'creative program' each human possesses. This also implies determinism.
I know that David Deutsch and Karl Popper strongly side with free will in the free will / determinism debate.
But how do we articulate and explain a computer and creative program with freedom, free will, choice, agency, and autonomy?
The mind is a computer.
No, the mind is a program. A computer is a physical object; the mind is not.
You mean to the question of existence, or in general? Cuz in general I’d think of it as a criticism.
(Logan Chipkin)
Good point - philosophy, then.
(Logan Chipkin)