3 ms·

As far as I can tell, nothing is said in the article or in the paper about causality. The researchers suggest that lonely people's thoughts are directed inward

by wackro 6y ago

As far as I can tell, nothing is said in the article or in the paper about causality. The researchers suggest that lonely people's thoughts are directed inwards due to a lack of social experiences, and this is what alters the brain. But I wonder how many people just have brains like this, and feel lonely as a consequence?

umvi 6y ago
Yes, I would have liked to see data on the subject's marital/relationship status, for example. Completely anecdotally, but all of the people I know in real life who I consider to be lonely based on social cues and interactions are either widows, widowers, maids or bachelors, and I could tell all of them longed for regular meaningful interaction with a partner... There might be a few cases where loneliness is "caused" by a problem in the brain, but I would wager the vast majority of cases are caused by what I described above - lack of regular meaningful interaction with a partner over an extended period.
- bonoboTP 6y ago
  I can attest that I am wittier and verbally "quicker" when in a relationship or have more friends. In those cases even when I happen to be alone, I notice things to comment on, and can always find something to say. It's like... how will I remember all these interesting things I've seen or have happened to me and will want to tell my friends or girlfriend. When I'm single and without many friends around, I rather just slide past life. I don't latch onto interesting stuff as much. I have my thought processes and goals and since nobody asks how my day was, there's no point in remembering minor inconsequential stuff. But as you don't need to remember them, you don't even notice them. Like even a mundane task of taking a package to the post will be more of an emotional adventurous roller coaster when I have people in my life and rather a goal-directed straightforward thing when not.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - strogonoff 6y ago
    I am a proponent of the theory that our self-perception and consciousness necessarily require others to exist. (More or less, a result of map-building recursion: my brain constructs a map/model of you, which includes my model of your model of me, which includes my model of your model of my model… and eventually a detailed enough concept of “I” emerges.) In other words, assuming that holds, there can’t be “I” if there’s no one else. With that theory in mind, when I experience this “sliding past life” (quite an apt analogy), I actually see it as evidence of myself in some ways becoming less conscious, or at least less self-aware. It’d seem that some don’t experience such a contrast between being social and being alone; I suspect it could be because these maps their minds build have more “inertia” and are used in absence of the “territory” for longer. In a way that must be a nice feature, though on the other hand this might imply that such models aren’t as tightly coupled to reality.
- Privacy846 6y ago
  [deleted]
  - umvi 6y ago
    Have you ever talked to a lonely person and they talk a lot and do subtle things to try to get you to stay a bit longer (like offering you snacks and drinks and whatnot)? Those are the social cues I'm talking about.

by wackro 6y ago

umvi 6y ago

Yes, I would have liked to see data on the subject's marital/relationship status, for example. Completely anecdotally, but all of the people I know in real life who I consider to be lonely based on social cues and interactions are either widows, widowers, maids or bachelors, and I could tell all of them longed for regular meaningful interaction with a partner... There might be a few cases where loneliness is "caused" by a problem in the brain, but I would wager the vast majority of cases are caused by what I described above - lack of regular meaningful interaction with a partner over an extended period.

bonoboTP 6y ago
I can attest that I am wittier and verbally "quicker" when in a relationship or have more friends. In those cases even when I happen to be alone, I notice things to comment on, and can always find something to say. It's like... how will I remember all these interesting things I've seen or have happened to me and will want to tell my friends or girlfriend. When I'm single and without many friends around, I rather just slide past life. I don't latch onto interesting stuff as much. I have my thought processes and goals and since nobody asks how my day was, there's no point in remembering minor inconsequential stuff. But as you don't need to remember them, you don't even notice them. Like even a mundane task of taking a package to the post will be more of an emotional adventurous roller coaster when I have people in my life and rather a goal-directed straightforward thing when not.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- strogonoff 6y ago
  I am a proponent of the theory that our self-perception and consciousness necessarily require others to exist. (More or less, a result of map-building recursion: my brain constructs a map/model of you, which includes my model of your model of me, which includes my model of your model of my model… and eventually a detailed enough concept of “I” emerges.) In other words, assuming that holds, there can’t be “I” if there’s no one else. With that theory in mind, when I experience this “sliding past life” (quite an apt analogy), I actually see it as evidence of myself in some ways becoming less conscious, or at least less self-aware. It’d seem that some don’t experience such a contrast between being social and being alone; I suspect it could be because these maps their minds build have more “inertia” and are used in absence of the “territory” for longer. In a way that must be a nice feature, though on the other hand this might imply that such models aren’t as tightly coupled to reality.
Privacy846 6y ago
[deleted]
- umvi 6y ago
  Have you ever talked to a lonely person and they talk a lot and do subtle things to try to get you to stay a bit longer (like offering you snacks and drinks and whatnot)? Those are the social cues I'm talking about.