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Another self-adversarial dynamic from the same link (emphasis mine):
I have the same issue. I’m starting to fail school and I have no hobbies. I downloaded multiple chrome extensions that block sites and [I put] all those extentions [sic] in there too. So I cant [sic] go to the site of the extention to unblock it and if I remove one I’ll still have to remove the others. Of course you can still remove them and I keep on doing that but try it, maybe it helps. Also telling people and asking is [sic] they can help you.
It’s notable that this person has no hobbies. That means there’s a lack of options their conflicting parts might prefer. Creating new options is the most important part of curing addiction. That’s how others can help too, by suggesting ideas for what you could be doing instead. Not by suggesting ideas for how to coerce yourself.
The part about putting the liquor in the top cabinet reminds me a bit of my relationship with salt.
One part of me has been trying to eat less salt, for health reasons. But another part of me likes the taste of salt; it makes many dishes taste better.
I’ve noticed that placing the salt shaker on my dinner table makes it harder to resist putting salt on my food. So I put the salt shaker in my kitchen cabinet. That simple act makes me want salt less because I don’t want to get up to grab it.
I don’t think the conflict is entrenched, and it’s not a huge deal, so this doesn’t rise anywhere near the level required to consider this an addiction. I mention it only to show that my way to deal with the conflict isn’t a solution yet. It’s a self-coercive patch. The part of me that doesn’t want salt runs roughshod over the part that does – for a while, until the roles are reversed and I eat more salt again. That’s not a common preference; it’s arbitrary.
I’ve tried coming up with some solutions, like replacing salt with potassium chloride, but it doesn’t taste good, so then I don’t eat it as much. I just go back to salt instead.
Though I’m an advocate of rationality, I always like to remind people not to see me as a representative of it. This is an example of why. My relationship with salt is clearly irrational. If I had mastered rationality, I would have already found a solution.
Another way to put it is that addiction is an entrenched type of irrationality inside your mind. The cure to irrationality is rationality, aka common-preference finding. How could it be otherwise?
I’ve been developing a new research program toward a unified theory of creation: that of finding parallels between different creative processes such as the economy and the mind in hopes that such parallels may shed light on creation generally.
My own remarks in #4624 about the self-adversarial dynamic of addiction remind me of Ayn Rand’s thoughts on pressure groups in a mixed economy. I’m seeing parallels between a mixed economy and the addict’s mind:
A mixed economy is a mixture of freedom and controls—with no principles, rules, or theories to define either. Since the introduction of controls necessitates and leads to further controls, it is an unstable, explosive mixture which, ultimately, has to repeal the controls or collapse into dictatorship.
Similarly, I oppose the introduction of controls in the addict’s life, such as the various tricks people describe to stay off websites. Note also the parallel to the addict’s life being unstable, and having to either cure the addiction or collapse into self-destruction. Continuing in Rand’s text:
A mixed economy has no principles to define its policies, its goals, its laws—no principles to limit the power of its government. The only principle of a mixed economy—which, necessarily, has to remain unnamed and unacknowledged—is that no one's interests are safe, everyone's interests are on a public auction block, and anything goes for anyone who can get away with it.
Such is the dynamic between the warring preferences in an addict’s mind.
Such a system—or, more precisely, anti-system—breaks up a country into an ever-growing number of enemy camps, into economic groups fighting one another for self preservation in an indeterminate mixture of defense and offense, as the nature of such a jungle demands.
An addict’s mind is just such a jungle.
While, politically, a mixed economy preserves the semblance of an organized society with a semblance of law and order, economically it is the equivalent of the chaos that had ruled China for centuries: a chaos of robber gangs looting—and draining—the productive elements of the country.
Similarly, addicts can appear to have a functioning life while quietly destroying themselves.
A mixed economy is rule by pressure groups. It is an amoral, institutionalized civil war of special interests and lobbies, all fighting to seize a momentary control of the legislative machinery, to extort some special privilege at one another's expense by an act of government—i.e., by force.
This is exactly how I see the dynamic inside an addict’s mind. The conflicting preferences coerce each other repeatedly and fight for momentary control of the self.
In the absence of individual rights, in the absence of any moral or legal principles, a mixed economy's only hope to preserve its precarious semblance of order, to restrain the savage, desperately rapacious groups it itself has created, and to prevent the legalized plunder from running over into plain, unlegalized looting of all by all—is compromise; compromise on everything and in every realm—material, spiritual, intellectual—so that no group would step over the line by demanding too much and topple the whole rotted structure.
Likewise, it is compromise, not common-preference finding, that dominates the addict’s life: he spends some of his time indulging in his addiction, and some of his time abstaining, being conflicted during both.
If the game is to continue, nothing can be permitted to remain firm, solid, absolute, untouchable; everything (and everyone) has to be fluid, flexible, indeterminate, approximate. By what standard are anyone's actions to be guided? By the expediency of any immediate moment.
Likewise, the addicts’ actions are less guided by principle and more by the expediency of the immediate moment. As his addiction worsens, the harder it is for him to live his life long-range. If the conflicting preferences are part good and part bad, then the bad will drive out the good (see Rand’s essay ‘The Anatomy of Compromise’). This dynamic, along with the entrenchment of error, explains why addiction worsens automatically when left unaddressed.
The only danger, to a mixed economy, is any not-to-be-compromised value, virtue, or idea. The only threat is any uncompromising person, group, or movement. The only enemy is integrity.
Integrity describes a mind that is unconflicted.
As long as the conflict between an addict’s preferences remains, they act as pressure groups inside his mind. Just as the government of a mixed economy, the role of the addict’s self is reduced to that of arbiter between these pressure groups inside his mind. These pressure groups can at best temporarily get what they want, at the cost of the other, which will then clamor even louder to get what it wants, and so on, until the entrenchment is so severe, and error correction so hopeless, that this self-adversarial dynamic ends, as is the case for severe drug addictions, in prison or even death.
As Rand explain in ‘The Anatomy of Compromise’, this spiral can only be stopped by a reversal of basic principles: not compromising between conflicting preferences, or trying to live with that compromise, but instead viewing those preferences as individual actors with rights, who will (and should) only cooperate when they can get what they truly want.
Can you say more about what you mean by “relative”? I agree about the flipbook example, but the term “relative” is throwing me off a bit here.
Ration … has pretty indirect relation with the common sense.
That’s fine. Common sense is often found to be wrong upon closer inspection. It’s rationality that helps us seek truth. Common sense says the sun rotates around the earth; rationality helped us understand why that isn’t the case.
How rationality will help you to stand the right up, and do the thing?
If you’re asking how rationality will help you figure out the right course of action: using the process outlined in #4471.
Not sure this is a good idea. You say you wouldn’t mind horizontal scrolling, but users generally dislike horizontal scroll.
Need rate limiting for new users to prevent excessive posting.
I see no perspective in communication with ones who found it discomfortable to retrospect frames of own perspective.
That isn’t what’s happening here. There are dozens of examples on V of me being self-critical.
You’re being passive aggressive, which further sabotages debate. You also ignored my request to take a break for a day or two, and to be less spammy (I just opened V to 16 new notifications from you after a short amount of time), contrary to your own statement that you see no point in discussing with me – which makes no sense.
I’m locking your account for a week. You may return in 7 days. If you then continue disregarding the forum rules, I will ban you permanently. Review them here: #4460
If rationality and peace required unlimited resources and time, you’d be at war all the time, because resources and time are always limited. But you’re not at war all the time. So rationality and peace can’t require unlimited resources and time.
They require things like openness to debate, creativity, freedom of association, etc.
No. You’re polluting Veritula with incoherent ramblings. Veritula is meant for serious philosophical work, not navel-gazing.
We have a rule (#4460) against behavior that sabotages debate and progress. Your ramblings are derailing debate. The amount of posts in such a short amount of time is also borderline spammy.
Take a break for a day or two. Be selective about what you respond to. Keep your posts short. And stop rambling.
There's nothing bad in death. But that's an existential disaster -- to not live.
Do you not see the blatant contradictions in your own writing?
[T]here's 4B years of pretty reliable statistics.
This is induction, see Popper.
Is prejudgment and conformism any good?
I’m not advocating conformism.
What you describe sounds more like Kuhn’s stance, not Popper’s.
Even if that were true, that doesn’t mean we need to endure unhappiness or stasis until then.
“truenesslessnessless”, “beingnesslessnessless”, “thisnesslessnesslesssness”
What? You’re rambling.
Not better, nor worse, then anyone's else.
This stance is known as relativism. It’s bad. Popper, Deutsch, and several others philosophers have already refuted it. You’re advocating an outdated idea.
There’s an objective way to form a rational preference for one idea over another. Veritula explains that in the idea you criticize.
What's bad in being irrational?
Irrationality leads to stasis, unhappiness, and ultimately death.