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This is really insightful, thanks. Makes me want to take another swing at Infinite Jest. With depression, we might take medication to grant us a seat at the ta

This is really insightful, thanks. Makes me want to take another swing at Infinite Jest. With depression, we might take medication to grant us a seat at the table of recovery via a therapist. The hope is to get off of that medication eventually. Perhaps the same holds true with ADD/ADHD? I am not a psychiatrist. I've been wondering about this attention deficit and reading comprehension issue for awhile now. I would love to know how many of us adults actually read books anymore for longer than a thirty minute period? Any kind of book reading. I like to think that I'm a somewhat experienced meditator by now. Having observed the mindfulness hype over the years I wonder if what people are really missing is just some silent focused time in general. If all you want is quieter mind, maybe you don't need a ten day silent retreat but just an hourlong reading session? I know the topic has been beaten to death but it is an important one. This constant context switching between systems and devices who have been engineered to sap your impulse control and short-circuit your core reward system need to be investigated on a personal level. So it isn't just that you aren't doing those hourlong reading sessions in silence but that you're actively practicing a different kind of negative behavior. This is just one uneducated person's opinion. If we're talking about a dysfunctional reward pathway would it not stand to reason that someone's gravitation toward systems who provide thousands of small immediate rewards only reinforce this dysfunction? Think video games, porn, and instagram. Juxtapose this with reading a novel, painting a picture, or finally understanding recursion. I feel kind of gross typing that out because it feels like some sort of appeal to nature but I can't shake it.

FooBarBizBazz 6y ago
> If we're talking about a dysfunctional reward pathway would it not stand to reason that someone's gravitation toward systems who provide thousands of small immediate rewards only reinforce this dysfunction? This makes perfect sense to me. But in the longest term, what actually /is/ the point? What is the reward that people are supposed to be pursuing /instead/ of video games, porn, and Instagram? We cannot pursue long-term goals if we don't have any. Where do they come from, those goals, that purpose? > I feel kind of gross typing that out because it feels like some sort of appeal to nature but I can't shake it. I wonder what you mean by this. The apparent grossness of appeals to nature must stem from the fact that they have been used to justify injustice. But every form of argument is used to justify injustice -- so I don't think we should pre-emptively cut away our mind's ability to think naturalistic thoughts, just to avoid error. Maybe we have ignored Mother Nature for too long. This brings me back to the original question, about purpose. Maybe it comes from Nature. Maybe a failure to enthusiastically perform for society means that the menu of options offered by that society contains nothing compatible with what Nature actually wants for us. Porn is the best example. Why is it bad? What real thing is it simulating? What should you be doing instead? Video games are similar: What real thing is being simulated? You mention the development of competencies as an alternative. I agree that this is better. But what purpose of Nature's is served by the development of skills? The feeling I can't shake is that addiction is the substitution of the simulated for the real, that increasingly everything is simulated, that the thing we are being distracted from is our own biological reality, and that we are, again artificially, trying to hack our own reward systems to be satisfied with goals that our not in our own Natures.

FooBarBizBazz 6y ago

> If we're talking about a dysfunctional reward pathway would it not stand to reason that someone's gravitation toward systems who provide thousands of small immediate rewards only reinforce this dysfunction? This makes perfect sense to me. But in the longest term, what actually /is/ the point? What is the reward that people are supposed to be pursuing /instead/ of video games, porn, and Instagram? We cannot pursue long-term goals if we don't have any. Where do they come from, those goals, that purpose? > I feel kind of gross typing that out because it feels like some sort of appeal to nature but I can't shake it. I wonder what you mean by this. The apparent grossness of appeals to nature must stem from the fact that they have been used to justify injustice. But every form of argument is used to justify injustice -- so I don't think we should pre-emptively cut away our mind's ability to think naturalistic thoughts, just to avoid error. Maybe we have ignored Mother Nature for too long. This brings me back to the original question, about purpose. Maybe it comes from Nature. Maybe a failure to enthusiastically perform for society means that the menu of options offered by that society contains nothing compatible with what Nature actually wants for us. Porn is the best example. Why is it bad? What real thing is it simulating? What should you be doing instead? Video games are similar: What real thing is being simulated? You mention the development of competencies as an alternative. I agree that this is better. But what purpose of Nature's is served by the development of skills? The feeling I can't shake is that addiction is the substitution of the simulated for the real, that increasingly everything is simulated, that the thing we are being distracted from is our own biological reality, and that we are, again artificially, trying to hack our own reward systems to be satisfied with goals that our not in our own Natures.