3 ms·

People get so upset when confronted with the fact that humans, like all animals, are largely clockwork machines driven by chemistry. Like it or not, you (yes,

People get so upset when confronted with the fact that humans, like all animals, are largely clockwork machines driven by chemistry. Like it or not, you (yes, you) are a slave to your internal chemistry. No amount of willpower or happy thoughts will cause your hormones or neurotransmitter levels into the homeostasis you want. If your chemistry is off, your physical and emotional behavior will be off. You are a sentient pile of molecular machines ticking along because the chemistry happens to work out. There is nothing special about you, you're exactly like every other plant, animal, and fungus on this planet. So yes, plenty of mental, behavioral, and physical disorders arise from chemical imbalances. If you take this fact, consider what happens when you indtroduce foreign and extremely powerful chemicals into such a complex organic system. If you come back with the assertion that addiction is a question of willpower, you didn't understand the assignment.

meroes 2y ago
How do you explain some of the most drastic and lasting changes in many peoples lives coincide with wanting them very deeply? We just happened to want most what we achieve?
- herval 2y ago
  there's many ways the causality might be inversed. We tend to tell stories to justify what happened all the time, so the "strong wish" can always be a self-justification. You can also be tricked by your brain to wishing more of something by "programming" (that's positive reinforcement in practice - our brains aren't that different from other mammals). Lots of people who are successful at, say, going to the gym regularly, only do it because they found a way to create that feedback loop. so it's likely that just "wishing something very deeply" doesn't actually lead to anything, but acting in a way that affects your mental chemistry (be it via creating feedback loops that make your brain crave more of X or simply by taking certain medicine that does it for you) does
  - meroes 2y ago
    If we are that self-deceptive as you are claiming, don’t we need to be extremely careful we aren’t deceiving ourselves into less autonomy? How can we?
    - herval 2y ago
      yes, you need to be careful. Your brain evolved over ages to value certain things that are detrimental in high volumes: calories, rest and addicting substances, for instance. welcome to being human :-)
- SkyPuncher 2y ago
  Chemical responses can change, but those changes are either very slow and/or constantly fighting your body's natural tendencies. The flip side, though, is when you get the chemical responses to change in a way that you want, they become very sticky.
  - meroes 2y ago
    So wanting is a key driver then, since it makes the chemical changes more sticky?
    - herval 2y ago
      “Wanting” is almost entirely a hormonal response (to dopamine and a few other chemicals) - you don’t “want” much of anything if your dopamine levels are low. So “wanting” is an indicator, more than a driver. That said, “willpower” (whatever that is) does impact your hormonal production - plenty of research on that, eg around the effects of meditation on the brain
trentnix 2y ago
Like it or not, you (yes, you) are a slave to your internal chemistry. No amount of willpower or happy thoughts will cause your hormones or neurotransmitter levels into the homeostasis you want. If your chemistry is off, your physical and emotional behavior will be off. Define, "off". Who gets to decide what's normal?
draw_down 2y ago
That’s only hard to accept when it’s about something we’d prefer to take credit for, or what someone else has done that we’d prefer to blame them for. When I do something bad, then it’s time for “hey, I’m just a pile of chemically influenced meat.”
mettamage 2y ago
Not necessarily against your thesis but it promotes a vibe that isn’t solution oriented. For me, I notice that when I meditate that my social media addiction has less of a grip on me because my baseline attention and (seemingly) executive functioning are better. Now, you could argue “yea, behavior can change neurotransmitters and it is in my framework so what is your point?” The point is that your framework can easily be take the wrong way to that we are more or less all doomed, us being mechanistically no free will slaves. At least, that’s the vibe that I feel when reading it. I think I am not alone in that. And while I agree with that, I’d argue that focusing on optimistic interpretations of your framework is much more fruitful. Optimism being characterized as a bias towards positivity while still staying fully grounded in reality. It has only been recently that I started to do some hardcore meditation (2 hours per day). I kickstarted it by making a deal with a friend: for each hour we miss, we pay 100 euros to each other. So far I haven’t missed anything and am on day 4. I am low-key dreaming of solving meditation motivation and spinning that up into a startup as it has been the biggest problem in my life (one could imagine it being my biggest problem since my username is related to metta meditation).
- siamese_puff 2y ago
  2 hours is a long time. I’ve dabbled in meditation and find this impressive just 4 days in. Can you give some tips? Are you using guided meditation? Early morning?
  - mettamage 2y ago
    I have done some retreats via dhamma.org. I am curious about other retreats too but they do instill some discipline in you. No guided meditation here. The necessity for an early morning meditation becomes abundantly clear, as it is much easier to frame that you only have to meditate one hour every if and only if you meditate for one hour immediately after waking. Feel free to email me if you have more questions.
Swizec 2y ago
> Like it or not, you (yes, you) are a slave to your internal chemistry. No amount of willpower or happy thoughts will cause your hormones or neurotransmitter levels into the homeostasis you want. If your chemistry is off, your physical and emotional behavior will be off. It’s not that simple – there are feedback effects. There is plenty of evidence that thoughts shape chemistry as well. This is why therapy works, for example. edit: This is also why you can “hype yourself up” or “talk yourself down”. Those are thoughts/words leading to measurable physical and chemical effects in the body. You really can raise your cortisol just by thinking the right thoughts
nomadpenguin 2y ago
> No amount of willpower or happy thoughts will cause your hormones or neurotransmitter levels into the homeostasis you want. Behavioral-only therapies are effective, even if they're not as effective as we'd like. We have the ability to modulate our own chemistry.
norir 2y ago
I believe there is some truth to what you are saying, but this interpretation is far too extreme. We do not fully understand how any animal works, let alone humans.
cardanome 2y ago
Yes, deep down it is all chemical processes but complex systems can develop emergent behaviors that can not be explained by looking at the lower levels. A few days ago, this article[0] has been discussed here on hacker news. I shows how the naive theory of chemical imbalances can be harmful for treating Schizophrenia. > In this vision, mental disorders were best understood as brain dysfunctions that could be traced to abnormal genes. Schizophrenia stemmed from an imbalance of the neurotransmitter dopamine. Depression was a serotonin imbalance. Bipolar disorder was a lithium imbalance. ADHD a deficiency of norepinephrine. These conditions, of course, could be triggered by life events, but they were ultimately biological. It was a reincarnation of the ancient Greek humoral theory, which saw the various forms of madness as imbalances in the four humours: blood, phlegm, yellow bile, black bile. I recommend reading the whole thing but I really liked this part of linking it to the Greek humoral theory. In the end of the day, there isn't any scientific evidence that it is "just chemical imbalances". The reality is more complex. Medication has its place and it absolutely can help but it just one tool to help patients. There is a good reason the brain disease narrative is so tempting: It avoids having to look at environmental factors. It avoids having to talk about how society is driving people mad. It is easier to say someone's brain is broken than having to talk about societal issues. It also leaves patients powerless, giving them the idea that their brain is just "broken" and they can't do anything about it instead of giving them the tools to create a better life for themselves and others. In the end of the day we are all a parts of interdependent systems that form society. Mental health issues are more often than not societal issues more than individual issues. [0] https://aeon.co/essays/how-the-psychiatric-narrative-hinders-those-who-hear-voices https://aeon.co/essays/how-the-psychiatric-narrative-hinders...
snovymgodym 2y ago
"Hypocrite that you are, for you trust the chemicals in your brain to tell you that they are chemicals. All Knowledge is ultimately based on that which we cannot prove." - Mickey Mouse
empath75 2y ago
Your internal state is influenced by your environment, and you have the power to control your environment. The idea that you can't control your internal emotional state because it's governed by chemicals is absurd. People do things _all the time_ because it makes them happy.
slothtrop 2y ago
Everything we do impacts brain chemistry. By extension, non-pharmaceutical interventions can change brain chemistry. The mistake is in the notion that said chemistry is invariably statically a-priori "wrong" in every single case people get addicted or depressed (it becomes as such), and acting as though addiction in itself is only relegated to the realm of the abnormal, that "normal" human beings can't be addicted. And yes, notwithstanding that there are cases where people are, owing to genetics, more susceptible to x/y/z, or where interventions can be insufficient. But that's the first line of defense, and should be. There's a lot of anecdotes surrounding this but a popular one is rate of morphine abuse during and after the Vietnam war. The rates plummeted. A really good book on the topic of addiction is the Biology of Desire by Marc Lewis. I would also caution against any conflation of environmental and behavioral intervention as "willpower". These are not the same things (you didn't say they are, but you didn't give any credence to intervention). Willpower may be highly overrated, but ultimately, you can't "force" someone to rehabilitate in any way shape or form. They have to want to, they have to make the choice, and commit. As for therapy/rehab, some of these have been thoroughly studied. Interventions help (and therapy such as CBT or 3rd-wave CBT), considerably.

meroes 2y ago

How do you explain some of the most drastic and lasting changes in many peoples lives coincide with wanting them very deeply? We just happened to want most what we achieve?

herval 2y ago
there's many ways the causality might be inversed. We tend to tell stories to justify what happened all the time, so the "strong wish" can always be a self-justification. You can also be tricked by your brain to wishing more of something by "programming" (that's positive reinforcement in practice - our brains aren't that different from other mammals). Lots of people who are successful at, say, going to the gym regularly, only do it because they found a way to create that feedback loop. so it's likely that just "wishing something very deeply" doesn't actually lead to anything, but acting in a way that affects your mental chemistry (be it via creating feedback loops that make your brain crave more of X or simply by taking certain medicine that does it for you) does
- meroes 2y ago
  If we are that self-deceptive as you are claiming, don’t we need to be extremely careful we aren’t deceiving ourselves into less autonomy? How can we?
  - herval 2y ago
    yes, you need to be careful. Your brain evolved over ages to value certain things that are detrimental in high volumes: calories, rest and addicting substances, for instance. welcome to being human :-)
SkyPuncher 2y ago
Chemical responses can change, but those changes are either very slow and/or constantly fighting your body's natural tendencies. The flip side, though, is when you get the chemical responses to change in a way that you want, they become very sticky.
- meroes 2y ago
  So wanting is a key driver then, since it makes the chemical changes more sticky?
  - herval 2y ago
    “Wanting” is almost entirely a hormonal response (to dopamine and a few other chemicals) - you don’t “want” much of anything if your dopamine levels are low. So “wanting” is an indicator, more than a driver. That said, “willpower” (whatever that is) does impact your hormonal production - plenty of research on that, eg around the effects of meditation on the brain

trentnix 2y ago

Like it or not, you (yes, you) are a slave to your internal chemistry. No amount of willpower or happy thoughts will cause your hormones or neurotransmitter levels into the homeostasis you want. If your chemistry is off, your physical and emotional behavior will be off. Define, "off". Who gets to decide what's normal?

draw_down 2y ago

That’s only hard to accept when it’s about something we’d prefer to take credit for, or what someone else has done that we’d prefer to blame them for. When I do something bad, then it’s time for “hey, I’m just a pile of chemically influenced meat.”

mettamage 2y ago

Not necessarily against your thesis but it promotes a vibe that isn’t solution oriented. For me, I notice that when I meditate that my social media addiction has less of a grip on me because my baseline attention and (seemingly) executive functioning are better. Now, you could argue “yea, behavior can change neurotransmitters and it is in my framework so what is your point?” The point is that your framework can easily be take the wrong way to that we are more or less all doomed, us being mechanistically no free will slaves. At least, that’s the vibe that I feel when reading it. I think I am not alone in that. And while I agree with that, I’d argue that focusing on optimistic interpretations of your framework is much more fruitful. Optimism being characterized as a bias towards positivity while still staying fully grounded in reality. It has only been recently that I started to do some hardcore meditation (2 hours per day). I kickstarted it by making a deal with a friend: for each hour we miss, we pay 100 euros to each other. So far I haven’t missed anything and am on day 4. I am low-key dreaming of solving meditation motivation and spinning that up into a startup as it has been the biggest problem in my life (one could imagine it being my biggest problem since my username is related to metta meditation).

siamese_puff 2y ago
2 hours is a long time. I’ve dabbled in meditation and find this impressive just 4 days in. Can you give some tips? Are you using guided meditation? Early morning?
- mettamage 2y ago
  I have done some retreats via dhamma.org. I am curious about other retreats too but they do instill some discipline in you. No guided meditation here. The necessity for an early morning meditation becomes abundantly clear, as it is much easier to frame that you only have to meditate one hour every if and only if you meditate for one hour immediately after waking. Feel free to email me if you have more questions.

Swizec 2y ago

> Like it or not, you (yes, you) are a slave to your internal chemistry. No amount of willpower or happy thoughts will cause your hormones or neurotransmitter levels into the homeostasis you want. If your chemistry is off, your physical and emotional behavior will be off. It’s not that simple – there are feedback effects. There is plenty of evidence that thoughts shape chemistry as well. This is why therapy works, for example. edit: This is also why you can “hype yourself up” or “talk yourself down”. Those are thoughts/words leading to measurable physical and chemical effects in the body. You really can raise your cortisol just by thinking the right thoughts

nomadpenguin 2y ago

> No amount of willpower or happy thoughts will cause your hormones or neurotransmitter levels into the homeostasis you want. Behavioral-only therapies are effective, even if they're not as effective as we'd like. We have the ability to modulate our own chemistry.

norir 2y ago

I believe there is some truth to what you are saying, but this interpretation is far too extreme. We do not fully understand how any animal works, let alone humans.

cardanome 2y ago

Yes, deep down it is all chemical processes but complex systems can develop emergent behaviors that can not be explained by looking at the lower levels. A few days ago, this article[0] has been discussed here on hacker news. I shows how the naive theory of chemical imbalances can be harmful for treating Schizophrenia. > In this vision, mental disorders were best understood as brain dysfunctions that could be traced to abnormal genes. Schizophrenia stemmed from an imbalance of the neurotransmitter dopamine. Depression was a serotonin imbalance. Bipolar disorder was a lithium imbalance. ADHD a deficiency of norepinephrine. These conditions, of course, could be triggered by life events, but they were ultimately biological. It was a reincarnation of the ancient Greek humoral theory, which saw the various forms of madness as imbalances in the four humours: blood, phlegm, yellow bile, black bile. I recommend reading the whole thing but I really liked this part of linking it to the Greek humoral theory. In the end of the day, there isn't any scientific evidence that it is "just chemical imbalances". The reality is more complex. Medication has its place and it absolutely can help but it just one tool to help patients. There is a good reason the brain disease narrative is so tempting: It avoids having to look at environmental factors. It avoids having to talk about how society is driving people mad. It is easier to say someone's brain is broken than having to talk about societal issues. It also leaves patients powerless, giving them the idea that their brain is just "broken" and they can't do anything about it instead of giving them the tools to create a better life for themselves and others. In the end of the day we are all a parts of interdependent systems that form society. Mental health issues are more often than not societal issues more than individual issues. [0] https://aeon.co/essays/how-the-psychiatric-narrative-hinders-those-who-hear-voices https://aeon.co/essays/how-the-psychiatric-narrative-hinders...

snovymgodym 2y ago

"Hypocrite that you are, for you trust the chemicals in your brain to tell you that they are chemicals. All Knowledge is ultimately based on that which we cannot prove." - Mickey Mouse

empath75 2y ago

Your internal state is influenced by your environment, and you have the power to control your environment. The idea that you can't control your internal emotional state because it's governed by chemicals is absurd. People do things _all the time_ because it makes them happy.

slothtrop 2y ago

Everything we do impacts brain chemistry. By extension, non-pharmaceutical interventions can change brain chemistry. The mistake is in the notion that said chemistry is invariably statically a-priori "wrong" in every single case people get addicted or depressed (it becomes as such), and acting as though addiction in itself is only relegated to the realm of the abnormal, that "normal" human beings can't be addicted. And yes, notwithstanding that there are cases where people are, owing to genetics, more susceptible to x/y/z, or where interventions can be insufficient. But that's the first line of defense, and should be. There's a lot of anecdotes surrounding this but a popular one is rate of morphine abuse during and after the Vietnam war. The rates plummeted. A really good book on the topic of addiction is the Biology of Desire by Marc Lewis. I would also caution against any conflation of environmental and behavioral intervention as "willpower". These are not the same things (you didn't say they are, but you didn't give any credence to intervention). Willpower may be highly overrated, but ultimately, you can't "force" someone to rehabilitate in any way shape or form. They have to want to, they have to make the choice, and commit. As for therapy/rehab, some of these have been thoroughly studied. Interventions help (and therapy such as CBT or 3rd-wave CBT), considerably.