Search Ideas
2392 ideas match your query.:
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
Idea: communities.
Communities group or maybe even replace discussions.
Could live at /v/community-name.
There could be a community around nutrition, another for software engineering, a meta community for Veritula, etc.
@davies could have his own community to build his Wikipedia competitor.
Unintended consequences also apply to minds and economies.
You can’t just outlaw certain kinds of trade and expect nothing bad to happen. You certainly can’t expect people to get wealthier.
Likewise, you can’t just force yourself or others to do something and expect nothing bad to happen.
This cure also works for procrastination. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/NeSnPFlp9dk
How to stop procrastinating: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/NeSnPFlp9dk
Coercion in the economy is when a trade happens even though the price would otherwise be too high for at least one of the parties involved.
But coercion is also when a trade is forced NOT to happen even though it otherwise would have happened. Like outlawing certain types of trade through minimum-wage laws.
Coercion in the economy is when a trade happens even though the price would otherwise be too high for at least one of the parties involved.
If emotions are price signals in the mind, maybe bad emotions signal a high price. Coercing yourself to do something you don’t want to do then means to disregard that high price and do the thing anyway. You pay a high price you wouldn’t otherwise pay. Similar to coercion in the economy.
Is there a universal evil at work in both coercive economies and coercive minds? A kind of socialism of the mind?
Maybe traditional/coercive parenting enables this kind of behavior. It’s like he’s his own strict parent, punishing himself for unwanted behavior.
Maybe traditional/coercive parenting enables this kind of behavior. It’s like he’s his own strict parent, punishing himself.
Addiction, responsibility, and choice
Somebody asked, “Is addiction actually a choice or is that just what people tell themselves?” While my response is awaiting approval, I am pasting it below, lightly edited.
Judging by some of the other answers, most people who claim that addicts have no choice mention genes or neuroscience. In my opinion, your genes and your brain are limited factors in your decision making.
Genes are relatively easy to override (think bungee jumping vs inborn fear of heights, hunger strikes, etc). Culture is far harder to resist (eg peer pressure). But still, even if someone’s alcoholism started because they were pressured into drinking, they still made the choice to cave in. Once someone is addicted, it may be hard to stop, but it was still their choice to start whatever behavior became the addiction. I think that would be different only in cases where somebody physically jammed a heroin needle into your arm against your will, say, and got you hooked that way.
Ultimately, people are moral agents with ideas, preferences, and, most importantly, free will. Those are the important concepts when it comes to addiction. People cannot be reduced to their genes or their brains; they’re not ‘brain machines’ or ‘gene machines’, mindlessly enacting their brains’ or genes’ bidding. You can make a choice that limits your free will down the line, but that’s still your choice. And it’s free will that enables addicts to break the cycle. Taking that away from them by telling them it’s just their brains, they can’t help it, may actually make it harder to solve the addiction.
Your question brings up the issue of responsibility and guilt. Morality and responsibility require choice.
I view addiction as an entrenched conflict between an addict’s preferences. That’s why addicts flip flop between behaviors and become their own adversaries. Reading some of the accounts of addiction here on Quora (eg here), it seems as though addicts end up behaving like split people. They try to curb their addiction by putting up obstacles for themselves; after some time passes, they remove those obstacles and ‘indulge’. Then they go back and try more difficult obstacles, which they later remove anyway, and so on. This constant back and forth frustrates both parts and worsens the addiction over time.
If addiction really is caused by an entrenched conflict between preferences, the addict should be able to solve it by creating what’s known as a common preference. It’s a concept usually reserved to solve conflicts between people, but I think it applies just the same to conflicts within a single person. If the addict can create a new option that both sides of him prefer to their initial position, then his addiction should vanish fairly quickly because neither side has a reason to continue holding its original preference. So the conflict, and with it, the addiction, should just… go away.
For example, an addict from Quora complains about his inability to stay off certain websites. One preference of his is to return to those websites repeatedly, while another is to avoid them (and do something else instead). So he blocks the sites, then unblocks them, and so on. If he can come up with a third option both sides of him prefer, such as reading or writing a book, or analyzing movies, or going hunting, or whatever it may be, then he will solve his addiction. But is has to be something both parts of him prefer. It can’t just be more self-coercion – then it won’t work.
Somebody may make a choice that leads to addiction, realize his mistake, and try to correct it. If he makes a reasonable effort – or, as may be required for severe addictions, a near-exhaustive effort – to correct that mistake by coming up with new options both sides of him may prefer, then I think he is morally in the clear, even if he fails. People are fallible; they make mistakes all the time, even bad ones, but they can learn from their mistakes.
However, if he doesn’t even try, or if he evades the issue and pretends nothing is wrong, then he is morally guilty.
It’s wild and sad how self-abusive some people are:
When I was in my second year of studying for me degree, I got heavily into political debate forums, even more so than I am now, and along with playing a lot of computer games and watching a dozen tv shows, I fell really far behind on my studies.
As I realized that I had a problem, I made myself a solution. At the first meeting of the semester for my fraternity, I announced to my brothers that I needed their help kicking my computer addiction. I told them to be on the lookout for any time they saw me doing anything non-school related on my computer. I told them if they did, they were to tell me to stand up and take off my glasses and then slap me as hard as they could in the face. They were very enthusiastic and motivated to “help” me on this problem.
Force stems from pessimism. These people don’t think their problem is soluble.