3 ms·

I think of ADD as Amphetamine Deficit Disorder. In a practical sense, "ADD" is the disorder that afflicts people who function better when given amphetamines. Pe

I think of ADD as Amphetamine Deficit Disorder. In a practical sense, "ADD" is the disorder that afflicts people who function better when given amphetamines. Personally, I feel that anyone who wants to take amphetamines should be allowed to. I think that inability to concentrate is a common pathway for essentially all diseases that afflict man. Anything a disease does to draw your attention to itself is affecting concentration, because you are not able to concentrate on whatever you want to concentrate on. In some cases, this is insidious and you are not aware of the disease as such; it affects your concentration and you don't understand why. In some cases, you might only know that you can't concentrate. Amphetamines will tend to help, because they allow you to concentrate harder on what you want to concentrate on, regardless of the actual etiology of whatever is distracting you.

falcolas 9y ago
Small informational bit - ADD is not only "I have problems concentrating on boring things". It's also "I can't automatically connect today's actions with tomorrow's consequences" and "I can't stop focusing on this one thing even though I need to focus on something else". Note the "can't" in those; it's not a preference or a weakness, it's a straight up inability.
- mtdewcmu 9y ago
  I don't think it's ever a binary question of can versus can't. I think that the disease manifests as a source of internal distractions that are hard to ignore. Think of pain. Imagine trying to take a test while someone was jamming a knife into your foot. I'm conjecturing that other distractions work in a similar way to pain. It has been noted that amphetamines are capable of relieving pain. That makes sense if you conceive of pain as a distraction that forces you to pay attention to it. Amphetamines allow you to concentrate harder on something else. There are most likely different forms of ADD or "ADD," and perhaps there is a form of ADD that acts directly on the brain's attention mechanism. We don't know anything about how the brain's attention mechanism works, so the idea that it can be broken is pure speculation.

falcolas 9y ago

Small informational bit - ADD is not only "I have problems concentrating on boring things". It's also "I can't automatically connect today's actions with tomorrow's consequences" and "I can't stop focusing on this one thing even though I need to focus on something else". Note the "can't" in those; it's not a preference or a weakness, it's a straight up inability.

mtdewcmu 9y ago
I don't think it's ever a binary question of can versus can't. I think that the disease manifests as a source of internal distractions that are hard to ignore. Think of pain. Imagine trying to take a test while someone was jamming a knife into your foot. I'm conjecturing that other distractions work in a similar way to pain. It has been noted that amphetamines are capable of relieving pain. That makes sense if you conceive of pain as a distraction that forces you to pay attention to it. Amphetamines allow you to concentrate harder on something else. There are most likely different forms of ADD or "ADD," and perhaps there is a form of ADD that acts directly on the brain's attention mechanism. We don't know anything about how the brain's attention mechanism works, so the idea that it can be broken is pure speculation.