Search Ideas

If you don’t have any counter-criticisms, how could the criticisms not be decisive?

To arrive at that conclusion, you’d first need some counter-criticism anyway.

Just how ‘tiny’ is a criticism then? By reference to what principle or measure?

To incorporate some notion of decisiveness or severity, we need to be prepared to program that into our decision-making tool. I’m not aware that anyone knows how to programmatically determine the severity or decisiveness of a criticism, and I suspect outsourcing it to the user would result in the same unintended behavior we saw with the sliders for hard to vary.

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 all involved 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.

Yes, but they’ll need to be aware of the conflict, at which point both conflicting ideas/preferences exist in both minds. So that scenario reduces to a conflict of preferences inside a single mind.

Yes, but they’ll need to be aware of the conflict, at which point both conflicting ideas/preferences exist in both minds.

Idea: does the entrenchment not even strictly need to be between preferences that are both inside the same mind?

Could entrenchment between preferences across minds also cause addiction for at least one or both of them?

Be sure to mention the title of your book so others can look it up :)

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.

What Makes a Professional Epistemologist?
https://libertythroughreason.com/what-makes-a-professional-epistemologist/

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.